SOURCE: "Brief Cases," in The Spectator, May 13, 1972, pp. 733-34.

Waugh is an English novelist, journalist, and nonfiction writer. In the following laudatory assessment of The Ballroom of Romance, he examines the characters in Trevor's short stories, asserting that characters "who in ordinary life would merely be depressing suddenly become objects of compassion, and as such afford keen enjoyment. "

All Mr Trevor's characters are people whom any sane man would wish to avoid. The English have an admirable convention that we never talk to strangers—in railway carriages, bars or anywhere else—unless to request or convey precise information. The reason for this is the fear that we will find strangers boring or unsympathetic in some other way, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred we are surely right. People who are shy, or lonely, or have some secret sorrow are, generally speaking, best left alone unless one...