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EZRA POUND 351
Hired Man; the author was Frost. Pound read it to the last
syllable with every mark of admiration." 4
In August of 1915, Pound wrote to the editor of the Boston
Transcript, "I don't know that it is worth my while to call any one
of your reviewers a liar, but the case has its technical aspects
and the twistings of malice are, to me at least, entertaining. I
note in 'Current Opinion' for June a quote from your paper to
the effect that my friend Robert Frost has done what no other poet
has done in this generation, 'and that is, unheralded, unintroduced,
untrumpeted, he won the acceptance of an English publisher on
his terms etc.' Now seriously, what about me? Your (negro?)
reviewer might acquaint himself with that touching little scene in
Elkin Mathews' shop some years since.
'MATHEWS: Ah, eh, ah, would you, now, be prepared to assist
in the publication?
'POUND: I've a shilling in my clothes, if that's any use to you.
'MATHEWS: Oh well, I want to publish 'em. Anyhow.'
"And he did. No sir, Frost was a bloated capitalist when he
struck the islands, in comparison to yours truly, and you can
put that in your editorial pipe though I don't give a damn whether
you print the fact.
"You might note en passant that I've done as much to boom
Frost as the next man. He came to my room before his first book
A Boy's Will was published. I reviewed that book in two places
and drew it (to) other reviewers' attention by personal letters.
I hammered his stuff into Poetry, where I have recently reviewed
his second book, with perhaps a discretion that will do him more
good than pretending that he is greater than Whitman. . . . Of
course, from the beginning, I have known that he would ultimately
be boomed in America by fifty energetic young men who would
use any club to beat me; that was well in my calculation when I
prophesied his success with the American public, and especially
with the American reviewers, and I rejoice to see that it has caught
on. But your critic's statement is caddish." 5
This is one of the few references that Pound has ever made
to the fact that he helped other writers. He was goaded to it by
the unpardonable ignorance of the Boston Transcript reviewer
regarding his own career, or perhaps to the malice that led the