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106 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
nature stamp for Ezra so that he could sign his letters in an
Eastern mode.
Although the winter of 1915-16 was the last in which Pound
fulfilled the role of secretary for Yeats, he was soon involved
in another project. Yeats wrote to his father on March 5, 1916,
"I am handing the letters over to Ezra Pound, who is to
make a small volume of selections for Lollie's press. I thought
he would make the selection better than I should. I am almost
too familiar with the thought, and also that his approval representing
as he does the most aggressive contemporary school of
the young would be of greater value than my approval, which
would seem perhaps but family feeling. It will also enable me
to have a new book for Lollie sooner than if I did the work
myself, as I should be busy writing something else and my sight
makes my work slow." 9
The handsome little volume, Passages from the Letters of John
Butler Yeats to William Butler Yeats, Selected by Ezra Pound,
appeared under the Cuala Press imprint in 1917. A "collector's
item", it is printed "on paper made in Ireland", in an edition
of four hundred copies. Although a complete edition of the John
Butler Yeats letters appeared a few years later, Pound selected
so well that this smaller book contains the gist of his outlook.
There are many such gems as the following:
"Nov. 1914. The war will last until the money gives out, and
poetry and art will never cease while life lasts. 10
"Aug. 27, 1915. Democracy devours its poets and artists . . .
Religion is only a vehicle, a splendid or impressive machinery
where a man can stage his thoughts. 11
"Dec. 26, 1912. I see Americans as impulsive as schoolgirls
and as changeable as an April sky, always attractive for that
reason, yet constantly disappointing because without principle.
. . . The Puritans made the momentous discovery that human
nature was in itself bad and for its sins condemned to eternal
death; after that came commerce. The merchant who did not
adopt this dogma and believe all men bad would end in bankruptcy.
12
"Jan. 6, 1916. In America they make war on solitude." 13