SOURCE: Dimbleby, Jonathan. “Intellectual in Search of Salvation: Malcom Muggeridge, A Profile of the Maverick at 70.” The Critic 32, no. 4 (March-April 1974): 38-44.

In the following essay, Dimbleby emphasizes the influence of Muggeridge's jocular yet cynical personality on his written work.

No man is easier to caricature than Malcolm Muggeridge. Walking through the steep narrow streets of the mountain village of Aspremont, bestowing beneficent smiles on old brown Provencal faces or stopping to pat the head or kiss the cheek of a pretty child, St. Mug has the benign air of a visiting emissary from the Kingdom above. In the village shop, speaking in immaculate Old English French (where words matter more than accent) he engages in appropriate pleasantries. In the church for the celebration of Mass his unmistakable voice intones the litany in French, and, unmindful of its effect upon the listening ear, booms stentorian and tuneless through the...