4pQonT

68 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
few years ago seven generals in her family all living at once and all
with the same name—Johnson, relations of Lionel Johnson." 20
Pound could never be a silent partner, and throughout their
association, he was pressing Yeats to sponsor persons and causes of
which the Irishman was wary. One such instance was Pound's
successful maneuver to get Yeats to recommend James Joyce for a
grant from the Royal Literary Fund. Another was an event which
bewildered everybody except the instigator, Pound.
There was living on a secluded country estate in Sussex a gentleman
who had long been known as the "gadfly of the British
Empire", Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Retired from revolutionary activities
at that time, Blunt composed sedate Victorian lyrics, hardly the
type of poetry that would excite Pound's enthusiasm. But because
of his background (Blunt had been jailed for speaking on behalf of
Irish Home Rule, had been banned from Egypt because of his role
in promoting Egyptian nationalism, and had agitated on behalf of
Hindu revolutionaries), Pound decided to give him an award for
his poetry.
He rounded up a committee, consisting of himself, Yeats, T.
Sturge Moore, John Masefield, Victor Plarr, F. S. Flint, and
Richard Aldington. The committee commissioned Gaudier-Brzeska
to carve an alabaster box, in which the poets would place presentation
copies of their poems in homage to Blunt.
Blunt was then invited to a dinner party in his honor, to be given
in London. He declined, perhaps suspecting a police trap, and suggested
instead that the committee journey down to his charming
Jacobean estate, Newbuildings Place, and take dinner with him
there. The offer was accepted, and the poets came to Blunt. Pound
has described the occasion in The Pisan Cantos:
But to have done instead of not doing
this is not vanity
To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered, 21 [.]