It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific.

He was robust in his criticism of the decline of the Mandarin and perhaps too effusive in his welcome of the New Vernacular. At Eton Connolly was involved in romantic intrigues and school politics which he described in Enemies of Promise. Although Connolly admired Huxley the two men failed to establish a rapport and the wives fell out.

He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon (1940–1949) and wrote Enemies of Promise (1938) which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of fiction that he had aspired to be in his youth. Cyril Vernon Connolly (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English intellectual literary critic and writer.