O thorny, glowing, twisted heart, that walked the London streets a while … So wrote a friend of the great John Donne—priest, poet, amorist—whose lifetime (1572 to 1631) bridged that uncomfortably lively period between the Tudor and the Stuart monarchies. The same fine flourish fits George Orwell pretty well, in his equally interesting period (1903 to 1950) beneath the shadows of two world wars. I “met” George Orwell during the Second World War, in my tiny thatched camp, deeply concealed in the New Guinea jungles, behind the Japanese lines. (A detailed account of this experience appeared in Quadrant of May,…