Penguin Modern Classics: A Little Learning

'Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.'
Waugh begins his story with heredity, writing of the energetic, literary and sometimes eccentric men and women who, unknown to themselves, contributed to his genius. Save for a few pale shadows, his childhood was warm, bright and serene.
The Hampstead and Lancing schooldays which followed were sometimes agreeable, but often not. His life at Oxford - which he evokes in Brideshead Revisited - was essentially a catalogue of friendship. His cool recollection of those hedonistic days is a portrait of the generation of Harold Acton, Cyril Connolly and Anthony Powell. That exclusive world he recalls with elegant wit and precision.
He closes with his experiences as aQuote We stand with the proud people of Iran because it is right.

Eight-and-a-half years ago, Americans watched the people of Iran rise up to claim their birthright of freedom. In the “Green Revolution,” millions of courageous young men and women filled the streets of Tehran and Tabriz, Qazvin and Karaj, and what seemed like every city and village in between. They denounced a fraudulent election, and as the days went on, they began to demand that the unelected ayatollahs end their decades of repression and release their iron-fisted grip on Iran and her people.

Those brave protesters looked to the leader of the free world for support. But as I saw first hand as a member of Congress, the president of the United States stayed silent.

In the wake of