Waugh was taalkundig-literêr en akademies baie sterker as Mitford en het dikwels vooraf haar publikasies gelees en kritiese kommentaar gelewer. “I am glad you are coming to England to polish up your English” (p 315). “The charm of your writing depends on your refusal to recognize a distinction between girlish chatter & literary language” (p 381). In ’n profiel wat hy in 1951 oor haar geskryf het, staan daar: “Nancy received no education at all except in horsemanship and French. Liverish critics may sometimes detect traces of this defect in her work. But she wrote and read continually and has in the end achieved a patchy but bright culture and a way of writing so light and personal that it can almost be called a 'style'” (p 235). Maar ’n Franse kritikus het aan Mitford gesê: “It's a very good thing for a novelist not to be able to read” (p 280). Waugh het ook van haar boeke geresenseer. Mitford het op haar beurt Waugh gehelp wanneer hy dialoog in Frans in sy skryfwerk wou insluit.
Waugh: “The first person singular is a most treacherous form of narration” (p 17). “It is the difference (one of 1000 differences) between a real writer & a journalist that she cares to go on improving after the reviews are out & her friends have read it & there is nothing whatever to be gained by the extra work” (p 20). “The only way modern books are readable is by reading them between the lines” (p 169). Oor Stephen Spender (1909-1995): “To see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sèvres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee” (p 228). “G[raham] Greene [1904-1991] and Mrs Walston have just left. They are queer fishes. I do not know what the connection is between them. I would not swear carnal, though GG plainly likes it to be thought so. Mrs W … is not really house trained” (p 179). Roy Campbell (1901-1957), wat in Suid-Afrika gebore is, noem hy “a great boastful simple sweet natured savage” (p 272).
Oor religie het Waugh geskryf: “Well that is all I am interested in really” (p 106). Mitford was nie-godsdienstig en het fyn gespot met Waugh se Rooms-Katolieke verering van die Moeder Maria: “Happy Mother's Day or whatever it is they call Xmas over there” (p 113). Sy merk op “the French go off to Church at 7” en vra dan: “But why is God such an early bird?” (p 125). Soms het Waugh ergerlik gereageer: “If you know nothing of the nature of the Church you cannot understand any feature of French History & that it is a sad state for a lady who sets herself up as the mediating logos between France & England” (p 239). Mitford: “I specially treasure your nasty letters, posterity will love them so” p 292). “I think French people lose their faith more easily than others because of their special character, but they mind terribly … because of it making life so dull” (p 248).
Die politiek-konserwatiewe Waugh het hom soms skerp uitgespreek. Oor Amerika: “It is very degrading to be constantly in the company of people you have to 'make allowances for'” (p 121). Oor New York City: “It is a great health resort and so cosmopolitan that you can he happy & busy & never meet an American” (p 204). In Jamaika: “An outstandingly common woman in a place where common women abounded” (p 122). “The world is full of radiantly happy blind men” (p 153).
Mitford: “She is like a wonderful classic statue that has been dripped on for hundreds of years” (p 89). “How can anybody be so idiotic as to sell their library to a bookseller?” (p 101). “You know of all the heavenly things to collect books really are the only possible ones if you're not rich” (p 166). “I do love translating it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing” (p 119). Later verander haar deuntjie: “I see that translating is one of the most difficult of all literary exercises” (p 160). “The difficulty of translating a classic seems to me that it's one's duty to give the full meaning, with all the nuances of every sentence. Then it becomes unreadable. Then one fidgets about to make it so. Never will I take on such a thing again” (p 182). “How difficult it is to write & in the end what is the aim? I wish I knew. (I think it is very largely the physical pleasure of pen on paper.)” (p 136). “When you are in the middle do you sometimes ask yourself what novels are for?” (p 206).
Ander uitdrukkings van Mitford: “He is like a pregnant lady” (p 194). “He does more harm than a bomb” (p 199). “Gladwyn looks like a great cathedral” (p 205). “They are the most English French people I know, but their food isn't” (p 346). “The English daughter in law is behaving exactly like a French person in an English novel” (p 348). “The hotel is like staying in a millionaire's house with the host away” (p 394). “Esther was a large sandy person like a bedroom cupboard packed full of information, much of it useless, all of it accurate” (p 469). Van Eugénie Sellers (1860-1943) is gesê: “She was obliged to lecture from behind a screen because her beauty was so sublime that it distracted the students” (p 206).
Van Waugh se sêgoed: ’n “absolutely unknown man such as say the librarian” (p 288). “He had a noble look ... like an ancient fisherman in a French film” (p 291). “My cure for obesity (plain starvation) is very effective” (p 319). “All Art is the art of pleasing” (p 340). “It is indeed hard to think of novel plots for novels” (p 349). “This house is full of fine furniture falling to pieces” (p 401).
Sy was opreg lief vir Parys. “How can people live in the country?” (p 270). Op besoek aan Engeland skryf sy: “I shall never leave France again if I can help it I am too miserable here” (p 198). Terug in Parys: “The heaven of being back” (p 271). “Oh my happy life. It came over me in waves, when I was away, how lucky I am, & when I woke up & realized I was back in my own bed an enormous smile spread over my face” (p 339). Waugh daarenteen: “Once one pulls up roots & lives abroad there is no particular reason for living anywhere” (p 272). “Oh the pleasure of leaving France with its disgusting liberties, equalities & fraternities” (p 406).
Mitford in 1951: “I've never minded being any of the terrible ages that have overtaken me” (p 214). “The receipt for being missed is to live in a small society of which one is the life & soul & not to die too old” (p 453). Mitford in 1962: “We are all old now” (p 467). “Oh dear, life is very short & unsatisfactory” (p 491). “I've left ?4000 for a tomb with angels & things” (p 479). In werklikheid het sy ’n eenvoudige grafsteen gekry met die Mitford-embleem, ’n mol, daarop (p 481). Hierdie mol het ook op haar skryfpapier gepryk: “undermining like mad” (p 502). Waugh het dikwels oordryf en geterg dat haar sosialisme eintlik kommunisme is.
Johannes Comestor