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108 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
had not been in order. She was penniless. After selling her furniture,
she continued to live in the bare apartment. Nevertheless,
she was able to bring out the magazine on a more or less regular
basis.
She moved to San Francisco, and in September, 1916, produced
an issue with many blank pages, because she found nothing
worth printing. This set an excellent example for her contemporaries,
but none of them were moved to emulate it. The
blank pages, she said, comprised a "want ad" to let able contributors
know that she was in need of material. Such a gesture
could not escape Pound's eagle eye, and in 1917, he became the
Review's unsalaried foreign editor, having once again parted company
with Miss Monroe. He suggested a new motto, which was
immediately adopted—"The magazine that is read by those who
write the others." 16
With this new vehicle, which was now being published in New
York, Pound got into print several projects that he had been
planning for years. Among them was a special Henry James
number, in homage to the master. He also brought out a French
number, presenting the latest French poets in the original.
One of his first pieces appeared in the May, 1917 number,
a parting salvo to an old alliance. "Poetry (magazine)," he
wrote, "has shown an unflagging courtesy to a lot of old fools
and fogies whom I should have told to go to hell tout pleinement
and bonnement. . . . There is no misanthropy in a thorough
contempt for the mob. There is no respect for mankind save in
detached individuals."
This last sentence is especially important, inasmuch as the
terrible accusation has been levelled against Ezra that he has
been a practitioner of group prejudice. Yet here he is stating
definitely that he accepts people only as individuals, not as members
of a group, a flat rejection of stereotyped racial attitudes.
One of Pound's best short pieces, "Advice to a Young Poet",
also appeared in The Little Review. He said, in part, "Mastering
an art does not consist in trying to bluff people. Work shows;
there is no substitute for it; holding one theory or another doesn't
in the least get a man over the difficulty." 17