Evelyn Waugh’s British Diplomat in Peking From Black Mischief

Back in 2019 I blogged on why Evelyn Waugh never got round to visiting China – long story short, he got invited to Abyssinia for the coronation of Haile Selasse in 1930. Abyssinia then became the basis for his satirical novel Black Mischief (1932) set in the fictional African country of Azania. Later he wrote a short story, Incident in Azania, which was based on a (then) famous kidnapping in China Waugh became obsessed with. I’ve written about that here. And so, eventually, I got around to reading Black Mischief (which I might have done years ago but have completely forgotten) and he has a small comic anecdote regarding China when discussing a list of people who entered the diplomatic service of their country despite being completely unsuited to the task (and not, it has to be said, untypical of many British diplomats still parceled off to Beijing)…It is a paragraph worthy of Acton’s Peonies and Ponies…

‘His Britannic Majesty’s minister (to Azania), Sir Samson Courteney, was a man of singular personal charm and wide culture whose comparative ill-success in diplomatic life was attributable rather to inattention than to incapacity. As a very young man he had great things predicted of him. He had passed his examinations with a series of papers of outstanding brilliance; he had powerful family connections in the Foreign Office; but almost from the outset of his career it became apparent that he would disappoint expectations. As third secretary at Peking he devoted himself, to the exclusion of all other interests, to the construction of a cardboard model of the Summer Palace…’