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[1934]
E. Pound Rapallo
Via Marsala 12-5
22 oct /XII
Dear John Buchan
I never heard of Harkness, and hope Butler will be dead by the time you get to N/Y. To entrust that foetid carcass with a million's worth of anything is a crime/ tho I doubt not it is committed with godly intentions.
//
If you do not find the spiritual foetor of Doc/Nicholas such as to deprive you of all power of speech in his presence &
If the slithery old bounder is capable of inspiring the faintest trace of sympathy in yr/ hnrd/ booZUMM.
You might warn him:
A. That I am perfectly implacable. B. That right or wrong my OPINION is being registered in rather durable material
(exegi monumentum aere etc.)
C. That editors of reputable journals (such as the Morning Post, if there be other such) are increasingly susceptible to my persuasions, and often agree with me in silence when they are not at liberty to print my unflagging language.
Entre nous, at least one man on the Post seems to share my opionion of Nic..
If he (N. But.) were a younger man I cd/ be sure of breaking him wide open. As it is he will probably die before I get the job done.
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2.
E. Pound Rapallo Via Marsala 12-5
Whatever the filth of Zaharoff/DeWendel/Skoda/Mitsui/ czeco/slav war noise, inspired from Paris, and french collusion with the series of murders/
the biped who uses his position to smother INVESTIGATION is of a filth composed more vile, and of a paste more slimy that Basil Z/ in person/ though not more greasy than the London journal, which when smoked out, does a front Page ; on how Zaharoff loves flowers/
oh nest of shiting birds, (for of singing birds, thou, England, skylarkishly art not).
If you think I wrong the old louse, by even a hairbreadth, then warn him. Advise him to turn to righteousness, while yet he has a chance of cheating the assessors.
///
I think you and I agree about "opinion" / and I don't think I have ever demanded that anyone accept mine.
Natural human weakness that I shd/ incline toward those who do/ but I don't ever mean to attempt imposing it/
"authority comes from right reason".
And all my cursing and blasting is against ONLY those who refuse to look facts in the eye.
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3.
E. Pound Rapallo Via Marsala 12-5
It is science's job to accept facts and to set them in order/
Myopic idiocy to think one can stick the corpse under a sofa and that it will stay there for years without affecting the atmosphere.
It is the IGNORANCE (the often voluntary, motivated by mere personaaly conceit) of economics that I attack.
I find it difficult to believe that some ignorani are honest.
I am wating for an editor who will state
"Every man in high office in England is a thieves' accomplice, and most of 'em too ignorant to know what I mean by this statement."
"Fortune" devoted its elephantine July issue to Italy/admitting a good deal/ but concealing a mass of asssets/
The tirade balance of superstition in England and France/ is largely a wheeze for which private companies wd/ be prosecuted and individuals jailed/ (concealment of assets).
I hope you like the preface of Make it New (the general thesis is given in Routledge" ABC of Reading", which is the real preface to the literary section of the Faber Vol/
The last pages of M.I.N. may reconcile you to others that you in all probability will NOT like.
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4.
E. Pound Rapallo Via Marsala 12-5
Sorry there wasn't room for my note on Binyon's translation of Dante/
I forget whether I mentioned it to you. Binyon has done a good job/ (Inferno) and we ought to keep him encouraged to go on with Translating the rest of the Commedia.
He hasn't had too may boquets, during the past 40 years.
My note been printed in "Criterion" but reprint will have to wait for Vol. II if Faber survives the first lot/
It will take three such vols to catch up with my arrears. let alone give me space for daily outbreaks/ blessed are the pore in sperit.
Cantos 31/41 are out in New York/ and ought to blister the devil's ear. Faber is doing them later.
The live men in New York (and you might EDUCATE Colimbia beanery by asking to meet them) are
W.C. Williams, 9 Ridge Rd. Rutherford. N.Y. (a suburb of N.Y.) the best prose write and poet IN America.
W.E. Woodward, 340 East 57th St. New York historian, and on various Roosevelt committees.
Paul de Kruif, probably in Michigan, address The Shack Wake Robbin, Holland, Mich.
I don't know whether its yr/ first venture into the country/ but for the honour of the fatherland, I wd/ like you to meet a few DECENT Americans.
E.P.
