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EZRA POUND 213
in history, seeing it pretty clearly, foreseeing what would happen
in his time, but not seeing beyond that. He knew that an age-old
faith, or ages of faith, had existed, but he did not foresee the next
one. Living, as you might say, in his own phase, foreseeing the
downflop of England, that is, of the Empire; noting symptoms of
England's decline, which the English remained deaf and blind to,
but not foreseeing the Italian rise. Not foreseeing the change of
phase, from material to volitional. I will repeat that, not foreseeing
the Italian rise, not foreseeing the change from material to
volitional.
"Reading again John Quincy Adams' 'Judea: Home of
Religion' I forget where he notes that, maybe in his preface to his
book on New England. Anyhow, Brooks tried to figure out where
John Quincy Adams, whom he greatly admired, had gone off the
rail, not getting back to his great granddaddy, John Adams, the
father of his country and inventor to some extent of General
Washington.
"Well, I can't get it all into one discourse, but if there is still
some campus . . . not wholly squashed under the dung floes of
Wall Street and Washington, I suggest you start taking notes and
figures. Figure out this affair of the ruin of language, the falsification
of all reports in the well-paid magazines, the falsification of
newsprint, and also the attack on historical knowledge. . . . Note
when American history went out of fashion, when the kids in
the lower grades heard of Lenin [Levin, according to transcriber]
and Marx and Trotsky and not so much of Lincoln and Washington.
Watch the gradual creep-up of obscurantism, the neglect
from the start of John Adams, Van Buren and Johnson.
"Now there ought to be 700 students and 30 professors digging
into these questions. Some day you will need to know, need to
know more than you do at present, and Lord knows what will
come to you fast. Old Ezra speaking. Pound speaking."
April 20, 1942. Aberrations:
"An Italian said to me yesterday, 'But so many people in
England have no representation.' You could have a party of
one million people in England and yet it might not have even one
member in Parliament. . . . What congressional representation