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EZRA POUND 297
been for years in the daily exercise of more power than any President
habitually enjoys." 2
This was Dorothy Pound's only visit to the haut monde of
America. I believe that her stay in the United States was a liberal
education for her. She was puzzled by the strange types who came
to visit Pound, not only the early beatniks, anarchists, and cranks
of one kind or another, who were attracted by his legend, but also
by the vagaries of the "average American", who is an unnecessarily
complicated individual. She was glad that I was often on hand to
see her home in the afternoons, not only because I was a cousin
of sorts but a Virginian as well.
She never quite knew what to make of America. Of our cities,
she saw only Washington and Philadelphia, which should only be
visited on safari. Despite their great history, these cities today are
but vast slums, and one meets in the halls of Congress persons
who should be seen only by social workers.
Like most persons from the British isles, Dorothy Pound believed
that the area west of the Appalachians was still unsubdued,
which was true, after a fashion, and she marveled whenever she
met anyone who had dared to travel there. Our movies have done
little to offset the widely-held belief in Europe that America consists
of some Eastern seaboard colonies whose inhabitants occasionally
journey upriver to trade for furs or to dig for gold.
Consequently, Europeans were not surprised to learn that the
poet Ezra Pound was a captive in America. Most of them supposed
that he was being held for ransom by Indians, or by Al Capone.
They did not understand that the United States government was
the villain in this case. Although some editors tried to explain the
situation to their readers, they were unable to figure it out for
themselves.
For Dorothy Pound, America was a primitive wilderness which
surrounded a madhouse. Perhaps Pound may be forgiven his comment
that "The insane asylum is the only place I could bear to
live in, in this country." Seen in context, his statement means that
he could not stand to participate in the mass insanity of modern
America, and that he preferred the relative quiet of the madhouse.
I am proud to say that I was able to bestow an additional
privilege upon Ezra Pound while he was at the hospital—that is,