Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

From Dispatch book blog:

On the surface, George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh don't appear to have much in common. Orwell was an atheist and a socialist who lived much of his adult life on the fringes of poverty; Waugh was a devout Catholic (a convert to Rome) and a conservative who lived his adult life amongst Lords and Ladies.

Yet nonfiction writer David Lebedoff (Cleaning Up, The Uncivil War) claims in his new work of literary criticism that the duo -- titans of early 20th century literature both -- were nearly The Same Man:

"They saw in modern life a terrible enemy. It was not only totalitarianism that they loathed but virtually everything that would come even if totalitarianism was defeated. They say an end to common sense and common purpose. They saw the futility of life without roots or faith. They saw the emptiness of an existence whose only point was material consumption. And in the great work of their lives, which was to warn us of what was to come, they came to be, improbably enough, in many ways the same man."