Cronica de Agosto 25 - O charme das mulheres cultas e inteligentes: Nancy Mitford

Numa biografia de Evelyn Waugh, lê-se sobre Nancy Mitford:
"Like Albertine, the accomplished mistress in her novel, The Blessing, Nancy knew exactly how to magic her material, however unexceptional in its original form, into glorious entertainment; like Albertine, «[she] always had something to recount. Not plain slices of life served up on a thick white plate, but wonderful confections embellished with the aromatic and exotic fruits of her own sugary imagination… she had endless tales to spin around their mutual friends»".
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Falando-se da invulgar cumplicidade de Nancy Mitford com Evelyn Waugh, e referindo-se o momento em que Nancy vai viver para Paris para estar próxima do seu amante Gaston Palewski (imortalizado por Nancy na figura de Fabrice, Duc de Sauveterre, em The Pursuit of Love):
"But the friendship, far from fading, became consolidated by letter. Both were at their best on paper; knew the same people, liked the same jokes, read the same books; shared a highly evolved and idiomatic language; both were brilliant performers, hilariously witty, sometimes cruel, frequently childish; they both drew on deep wells of anger and disappointment; they were both prejudiced, provocative, arrogant and essentially kind-hearted. They quarrelled of course, chiefly on account of Nancy's (in Evelyn's eyes) culpable refusal to treat the spiritual side of his life seriously. But Nancy had all the qualities he looked for in his worldly woman friends: she was smart, sophisticated, funny, and above all brave. Not only was he unable to cow her with his bullying tactics, but it was Nancy with her unerring eye for psychological truth who saw through what she called his Iron Mask to the bonhomous figure beneath; she saw past the ugly image of irascible old buffer, and forgave him willingly his frequently appalling behaviour. There was no question with Nancy of any romantic attachment, as there had been with Diana Cooper. Nancy lacked Diana's famous loveliness; but she lacked, too, Diana's impenetrable carapace of self-regard, the thin, petulant whine of self-pity that so irritated Evelyn. Even when sad or unhappy, Nancy was a firm believer in what she called «keeping up the shop front»".
[Hastings, Selina (1994), Evelyn Waugh. A Biography, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, pp. 523-524]