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84 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
article by Mr. Smith and then printing a leetle note at the end of
the number saying 'The article by Mr. Smith is really written by
the distinguished Sheik-tamer and Tiger-baiter etc. who for reasons
of modesty has concealed himself 'neath the ridiculous name
of Smith-Yapper.'"
Amy Lowell got out two more volumes in her series of Some
Imagist Poets, before she gave up. She offered Margaret Anderson
one hundred and fifty dollars a month toward the expenses of
The Little Review on the condition that she be allowed to take over
the poetry department. Although Miss Anderson was, as usual, in
need of funds, she refused the offer. She knew only too well that
Miss Lowell's offer was but the first step toward a seizure of power.
Miss Lowell now contented herself with contributing two hundred
dollars a month to Harriet Monroe's magazine, Poetry. She and Miss
Monroe had much the same tastes, so that it was not necessary to
dictate to her. On July 7, 1919, Miss Lowell wrote to Miss Monroe,
"I see by the current number (of Poetry) that Ezra has left
the Little Review also. I think the truth is that the world has
left Ezra. . . . Poor Ezra, he had a future once, but he has
played his cards so badly that I think he barely has a past now." 21
Miss Lowell was not the first to bury Ezra prematurely. His
critics have been doing that for a half-century. Conrad Aiken
attacked Pound in a romantic diatribe in the Boston Transcript
that was reprinted in the New York Sun, May 9, 1915, of which
the following lines are typical:
Pound, though your henchmen now agree
To hail the Prince in the Anarchist,
Where in a score of years will you be,
And the pale pink, dream blown mouths you kissed?
A score of years later, Pound was in Rapallo, working on his
Cantos, and there too he was to be found more than two score
years after Aiken's prediction. And Aiken? He is right where
he was in 1915.
Aiken's reference to Pound's "henchmen" illustrates the theory,
always popular among his critics, that he is usually surrounded
by a gang of tough supporters, who protect the literary "dictator"