'Enliven This Vale of Tears With a Little Fantasy'

I defy you to identify the writer being described: “[A]ll he really wanted to do in company was to make jokes, to turn the world upside down and laugh at it, to enrich and enliven this vale of tears with a little fantasy. The important questions of man’s relationship to God and man’s responsibility for the material and spiritual welfare of his fellow men could be left to private contemplation. The main purpose of human association was to share enjoyment of the world's absurdity.” What an admirable testimonial. No, it’s not Mark Twain or P.G. Wodehouse. I’ll give you another clue: This is a son, also a writer, describing his father, and the son was himself a rather funny fellow. Both, but especially the father, were gifted writers of prose, the father one of the finest of the last century. One more sample: “[He] was a small man--scarcely five foot six in his socks--and only a writer, after all, but I have seen generals and chancellors of the exchequer, six foot six and exuding…