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EZRA POUND 107
John Butler Yeats made an interesting comment on Pound in
a letter to "Willie", May 31, 1921: "Love striking back can be
as fierce as the moralists—in fact having few friends and its
situation desperate it will strike murderously—and be venomous
and obscene—forgetting all prudence, be more anxious to find
enemies than friends—and be in fact love in a temper and write
like Ezra Pound and his friends, very shocking to their wellwishers,
myself, for instance, who am old and timid." 14
The friendship between Yeats and Pound continued until the
older man's death in 1939. In 1917, Pound was best man at
Yeats' wedding, just as Yeats had served him three years before.
In the last chapter of his long passion for Maud Gonne, Yeats
had pursued her to Paris. Rebuffed once more, he fell in love with
her beautiful adopted niece, Iseult. Iseult was taken with Yeats,
and considered accepting his proposal, but at last she refused him.
When Yeats returned to London, he was much in the company
of the Pounds and their friend, Miss Georgie Hyde-Lees. He had
known her since 1911, and she shared many of his interests,
including his enthusiasm for spiritualism. He proposed and was
accepted. He was fifty-two; his bride was twenty-six.
Dorothy Pound went with her friend to post the banns in
London; she recalls that the usually poised young lady was extraordinarily
nervous that day. During his honeymoon, Yeats
wrote his occult work, The Vision (1925).
On August 1, 1921, Yeats wrote to Olivia Shakespear, "Have
you been reading me in the Mercury? I am afraid Ezra will not
forgive me for publishing there: he had recommended the English
Review but I have just as fierce a quarrel with that periodical
as he has with the Mercury, so what could I do?" 15
At this time, Pound fell heir to a new publication in which he
could air his more pronounced likes and dislikes. This was The
Little Review, which had first appeared in Chicago in March,
1914. It was financed and edited by Margaret Anderson. The
Review's motto was "A magazine of the arts, making no compromise
with the public taste." Assisting Miss Anderson was Jane
Heap.
When her father died, Miss Anderson found that his affairs