4pQonT

112 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
but the western European with his conning-tower, or his top-layer,
or his upper-story, or his control-board removed. As neither the
governed French, nor Englishman (undermined by sentimentality,
but still sailing on ballast), nor the automatic American,
barge about in this rudderless fashion, one makes comparisons
with the Russian 'elan,' Russian 'vigour,' etc.
"Civilized man, any civilized man who has a normal lining to
his stomach, may become Russian for the price of a little mixed
alcohol, or of, perhaps, a good deal of mixed alcohol, but it is
a matter of shillings, not a matter of dynamic attainment.
"Once, and perhaps only once, have I been drunk enough to
feel like a Russian. Try it, my dear young lady, try it. Try it
and clear the mind, free your life from this obsession of Russia
(if Lenin & Co. have not freed you). . . . I have fathomed
the Russians." 21
"No. VIII. My dear Imogene [On Baudelaire]
The stuff looks more vigorous than it is. . . . As indeed bad
graphic art often looks more skillful than it is. . . . Passions
. . ." 22
An excellent example of this is the work of Dylan Thomas,
who used his bellows lungs to pump up miniatures of sun and
wheat and sky until they seemed quite impressive. His name
came up once, and only once in our conversations, and Ezra
dismissed him as "a good third-rater".
As Pound began to exercise a dominant voice in The Little
Review, the same criers of doom who had pursued him on Poetry
took up his scent once more. By 1918, the letters of complaint
were flowing in. One, who concealed herself behind the signature
of "An old Reader", said, in part,
". . . . The Ezras know too much. Their minds are black,
scarcely smoldering logs. They are yogis. . . . But it is Ezra who
sprawls all over the Little Review and bedecks it with gargoyles." 23
Now Jane Heap, no mean ally, took up the cudgels in Ezra's
defense. She wrote, "Judging from reverberations a great many
people suffer loudly and continually over Mr. Pound. Harriet
Monroe isn't the first to tell us that the Little Review is under