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EZRA POUND 325
generous friend. And since Wallace Stevens spoke of Eliot as one
of his masters, he must be counted among the many who profited
indirectly from Pound's teachings. Indeed, there is no poet writing
in English, and few writing in the other Western languages, who
has not learned from this craftsman. There are, of course, also
those who show the strength of his influence by rebelling against it.
". . . There have been earlier teachers: among them, Horace,
Lu Chi, Coleridge, who gave similar good advice. It remained for
Ezra Pound to give it in the language of our time to the poets of
our time, so that, if civilization survives the militant madness now
rampant, readers in later centuries will rejoice."
To this generous tribute from Miss Deutsch, one is obliged to
add that the influence of Pound upon Wallace Stevens was not only
indirect through Eliot; it was also direct through the impact that
Pound's lyrics had upon Stevens' work.
Eliot himself commented in his essay, "Isolated Superiority",
"I cannot think of anyone writing verse, of our generation or
the next, whose verse (if any good) has not been improved by
a study of Pound. His poetry is an inexhaustible reference book
of verse form. There is, in fact, no one else to study." 4
As Eliot points out, most of what Pound has to offer young
writers can now be found in his work, and he is the only one
whom beginning poets and prose writers can study with profit. It
is possible to read Hemingway and then write a more sparse prose,
while sacrificing richness of language; it is possible to read Eliot
and improve one's knowledge of the uses of poetry, but the result
is usually unfortunate. The difference may be that Pound first gives
the correct example, and then inspires one to think for oneself. To
expose the student's undisciplined mind to the undisciplined mind
of a Crane or a Faulkner is not only folly—it is criminal.
In 1951, Ezra scribbled a note on the back of an envelope. We
had been discussing moral guides, and he hastily scrawled for me
the Four Tuan of Confucius:
love 1
duty 2
propriety 3
wisdom 4