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96 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
Poodle temper
Bad Music
Sentimental Gallic Gush
The Manifesto was signed by "R. Aldington, Arbuthnot, L.
Atkinson, Gaudier-Brzeska, J. Dismore, C. Hamilton, E. Pound,
W. Robers, H. Sanders, E. Wadsworth, and W. Lewis." Point
No. 6 declared,
We are primitive mercenaries in the modern world.
Let us once more wear the ermine of the North.
Another declaration stated that "The human form still runs,
like a wave, thru the texture or body of existence, and therefore
of art. But just as the old form of egotism is no longer fit for such
conditions as now prevail, so the isolated Figure of most ancient
Art is an anachronism. Dehumanization is the chief diagnostic of
the modern world."
Pound was represented in Blast by several poems, including
one, "Fratres Minores", that shocked most of the purchasers, as
well as his friends. Library copies now have the first line and
the last two lines delicately marked out, but diligent researchers
can decipher them. At any rate, the poem is reprinted unmarked
in Pound's later edition of Personae:
With minds still hovering at their testicles
Certain poets here and in France
Still sigh over established and natural fact
Long since fully discussed by Ovid.
They howl. They complain in delicate and
exhausted metres
That the twitching of three abdominal nerves
Is incapable of producing a lasting Nirvana. 14
In commenting upon this poem, in The Egoist of July 15,
1914, Richard Aldington wrote, "As the uncleanness of his
language increases to an almost laughable point the moral sentiment
of his writing becomes more and more marked. I understand
that some people are objecting strongly to certain words in