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EZRA POUND 27
Both of ancient times and our own; books, arms,
And of men of unusual genius,
Both of ancient times and our own, in short the usual subjects
Of conversation between intelligent men." 7
As the press of visitors grew each year, I seldom knew whom I
might encounter there. Dorothy Pound was always present, with the
exception of two brief "vacations", when she visited relatives in
Philadelphia and Virginia. She was related to the St. George
Tuckers, and to Randolph of Roanoke as well, so we were cousins
many times removed. Ezra was quite pleased to learn that I was
one of "them Randolphs", and he included some fiery passages about
Randolph's battle against the Bank of the United States in his Cantos.
I often encountered Dorothy Pound in the administration building
in the early afternoon, and we would go up to the "Chestnut"
ward together. During at least seven months of the year, we sat
with Ezra in that peculiar hell. It is difficult to convey in words the
sordid horror of the situation in which Pound spent a considerable
portion of his life—the rank, dead odor, the atmosphere of futility
as the blank-faced old men paced up and down the hall, the sense
of utter hopelessness.
Archibald MacLeish described the scene in a review that appeared
in the New York Times, December 16, 1956:
". . . Not everyone has seen Pound in the long dim corridor
inhabited by the ghosts of men who cannot be still, or who can be
still too long. . . . When a conscious mind capable of the most
complete human awareness is incarcerated among minds which are
not conscious and cannot be aware, the enforced association produces
a horror which is not relieved either by the intelligence of
doctors or by the tact of administrators or even by the patience and
kindliness of the man who suffers for it. You carry the horror away
with you like the smell of the ward in your clothes, and whenever
afterward you think of Pound or read his lines, a stale sorrow
afflicts you."
The winter months that confined Ezra to the gloomy hole were
most depressing for him. After greeting his daily visitors, he sometimes
leaned back in dejection. Perhaps he was thinking, "When
will this end?" Usually he carried the conversation, but on some of