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56 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL lation entitled The Unwobbling Pivot and the Great Digest of Confucius (1952), he writes, as follows: "Dear Chak "When you gave me the hope that these two books of Confucius might be issued in India, I sat down and translated the Analects. Is there anything more I can say that belongs with an edition of them? "The memory of Rabindranath singing his poems in London nearly four decades ago belongs to our two biographies not as prefatory matter to a living classic, though it was at Sarojini Naidu's that I met Fenollosa's widow through whom came my first contact with the great poetry of Japan and China, and among Fenollosa's papers she gave me the first text of the 'Pivot' I had seen. " 'All flows, and the pattern is intricate.' Gitanjali, or the first poems from it, went from London to America at that time, and if you succeed in printing the 'Pivot' in Bengal, it will have come via Italy. Ezra Pound Washington, D.C." Pound mentions in a memorial to Harold Monro, which he included in his Polite Essays, that Monro had missed the fun of Hulme's dinner at the Tour Eiffel in 1909, and he does not remember him at Mrs. Kibblewhite's evenings at the old Venetian Embassy. 1 In effect, he is calling attention to the fact that Monro was not a member of the London Bohemia at that time. Later, through his Poetry Bookshop and his publications, Monro did assume a prominent role in the literary world of London. By that time, Pound had gone on to Paris. The Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, was a familiar guest at many of these club meetings. He was an active member of the Ghosts' Club, which met monthly at Pagani's Restaurant on Great Portland Street. He attended the Thursday luncheons of his friend Edward Garnett, which were given at the Mont Blanc Restaurant on Gerrard Street. And he had founded one of the most exclusive writers' clubs in London, the Rhymers' Club, in the 1890s. Private and little-publicized, its members met almost nightly in an upper room of the Cheshire Cheese, an ancient eating-place in
EZRA POUND 57 the Strand. In this bare room with sanded floors, Yeats and his friends were wont to drink black coffee and smoke hashish until dawn. The group included Ernest Rhys, Lionel Johnson, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Francis Thompson, and the Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges. Yeats was the grandson and namesake of the Reverend William Butler Yeats, the late Rector of Tullylish, County Down. He was the eldest of four children of the painter, John Butler Yeats. The family was consecrated to the arts. Yeats was a poet, his brother Jack was a painter, his sister Lily taught the country girls fine handicrafts, such as embroidery, in the ancient Gaelic tradition, and his youngest sister, Elizabeth, affectionately known as "Lolly", enlisted the local maidens in the craft of book publishing. They made their own paper from rags and pulp, set type, printed and bound beautiful little books, which were issued under the imprint of the Cuala Press. The editions, which were sold in series by private subscription, appeared in lots of from one hundred to five hundred copies. The Cuala Press brought out some of Yeats' best work, such as his enchanting essay, A Packet for Ezra Pound (1929). "Lolly" also published Pound's edition of the Selected Letters of John Butler Yeats (1917). Yeats had recently come through a harrowing experience with the self-professed master of black magic, Alistair Crowley. The two men, both interested in psychic phenomena, had founded a Society for Psychical Research. They set up a "temple" in order to perform their works, but Yeats soon discovered that he, a practitioner of beneficial "white magic", had been lured into an association with a practitioner of evil, or "black magic". To counteract Crowley's baneful activities, Yeats moved into "the Temple". A titanic struggle for the soul of one of the members ended in a draw between the master of white magic and the lord of black magic. Tiring of the contest, Crowley decided to move to the Continent. He insisted on selling all of the furnishings of "the Temple" before he left, with the proceeds to be divided between the two founders. Yeats refused to let him enter "the Temple", and Crowley, finding his black magic insufficient for the purpose, resorted to the courts. The lawsuit was grist for Crowley's mill, but Yeats found the court battle very upsetting.
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56 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL<br />
lation entitled The Unwobbling Pivot and the Great Digest of Confucius<br />
(1952), he writes, as follows:<br />
"Dear Chak<br />
"When you gave me the hope that these two books of Confucius<br />
might be issued in India, I sat down and translated the Analects. Is<br />
there anything more I can say that belongs with an edition of them?<br />
"The memory of Rabindranath singing his poems in London<br />
nearly four decades ago belongs to our two biographies not as<br />
prefatory matter to a living classic, though it was at Sarojini Naidu's<br />
that I met Fenollosa's widow through whom came my first contact<br />
with the great poetry of Japan and China, and among Fenollosa's<br />
papers she gave me the first text of the 'Pivot' I had seen.<br />
" 'All flows, and the pattern is intricate.' Gitanjali, or the first<br />
poems from it, went from London to America at that time, and if you<br />
succeed in printing the 'Pivot' in Bengal, it will have come via Italy.<br />
Ezra Pound<br />
Washington, D.C."<br />
Pound mentions in a memorial to Harold Monro, which he included<br />
in his Polite Essays, that Monro had missed the fun of<br />
Hulme's dinner at the Tour Eiffel in 1909, and he does not remember<br />
him at Mrs. Kibblewhite's evenings at the old Venetian Embassy.<br />
1<br />
In effect, he is calling attention to the fact that Monro was<br />
not a member of the London Bohemia at that time. Later, through<br />
his Poetry Bookshop and his publications, Monro did assume a<br />
prominent role in the literary world of London. By that time, Pound<br />
had gone on to Paris.<br />
The Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, was a familiar guest at<br />
many of these club meetings. He was an active member of the<br />
Ghosts' Club, which met monthly at Pagani's Restaurant on Great<br />
Portland Street. He attended the Thursday luncheons of his friend<br />
Edward Garnett, which were given at the Mont Blanc Restaurant<br />
on Gerrard Street. And he had founded one of the most exclusive<br />
writers' clubs in London, the Rhymers' Club, in the 1890s.<br />
Private and little-publicized, its members met almost nightly in<br />
an upper room of the Cheshire Cheese, an ancient eating-place in
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