#david king dunaway

Friends saw a different Huxley than critics did. To Sybille Bedford, Aldous was a man transformed; he had developed a godlike assurance, a serenity. He gave a sense of peace and a natural sweetness mixed with an Olympian calm: a saint without the unctuousness. Huxley’s evolution from an agitated pacifist to a calm, clear-minded mystic—[D.H.] Lawrence would have enjoyed this—was noticed by others. When Cyril Connolly interviewed Huxley for Picture Post, he remarked, “What is much more remarkable … is the radiance of serenity and loving-kindness on his features; one no longer feels ‘what a clever man’ but ‘what a good man,’ a man at peace with himself.”

David King Dunaway, Huxley in Hollywood (Bloomsbury, 1989)