Instigations Part 28

CRITIQUE

"Le Latin Mystique."

"Le Livre des Masques" (Ier. et IIeme.) "La Culture des Idees."

"Le Chemin de Velours."

"Le Probleme du Style."

"Physique de l'Amour."

"Epilogues."

"Esthetique de la Langue Francaise."

"Promenades Litteraires."

"Promenades Philosophiques."

"Dialogue des Amateurs sur les Choses du Temps."

"Nouveaux Dialogues des Amateurs sur les Choses du Temps."

"Dante, Beatrice et la Poesie Amoureuse."

"Pendant l'Orage."

De Gourmont's readiness to cooperate in my first plans for establishing some sort of periodical to maintain communications between New York, London and Paris, was graciously shown in the following (post-mark June 13, '15):

_Dimanche._

_Cher Monsieur:_

J'ai lu avec plaisir votre longue lettre, qui m'expose si clairement la necessite d'une revue unissant les efforts des Americains, des Anglais, et des Francais. Pour cela, je vous servirai autant qu'il sera en mon pouvoir. Je ne crois pas que je puisse beaucoup. J'ai une mauvaise sante et je suis extremement fatigue; je ne pourrai vous donner que des choses tres courtes, des indications d'idees plutot que des pages accomplies, mais je ferai de mon mieux. J'espere que vous reussirez a mettre debout cette pet.i.te affaire litteraire et que vous trouverez parmi nous des concours utiles. Evidemment si nous pourions amener les Americains a mieux sentir la vraie litterature francaise et surtout a ne pas la confondre avec tant d'uvres courantes si mediocres, cela serait un resultat tres heureux. Sont-ils capables d'a.s.sez de liberte d'esprit pour lire, sans etre choques, mes livres par example, elle est bien douteux et il faudrait pour cela un long travail de preparation. Mais pourquoi ne pas l'entreprendre? En tous les pays, il y a un noyau de bons esprits, d'esprits libres, il faut leur donner quelque chose qui les change de la fadeur des magazines, quelque chose qui leur donne confiance en eux-memes et leur soit un point d'appui. Comme vous le dites, il faudra pour commencer les amener a respecter l'individualisme francais, le sens de la liberte que quelques uns d'entre nous possedent a un si haut point. Ils comprennent cela en theologie. Pourquoi ne le comprendraient-ils pas en art, en poesie, en litterature, en philosophie. Il faut leur faire voir--s'ils ne le voient pas deja--que l'individualisme francais peut, quand il le faut, se plier aux plus dures disciplines.

Conquerir l'Americain n'est pas sans doute votre seul but.

Le but du _Mercure_ a ete de permettre a ceux qui en valent la peine d'ecrire franchement ce qu'il pense--seul plaisir d'un ecrivain. Cela doit aussi etre le votre.

Votre bien devoue, _Remy de Gourmont._

"The aim of the _Mercure_ has been to permit any man, who is worth it, to write down his thought frankly--this is a writer's sole pleasure. And this aim should be yours."

"Are they capable of enough mental liberty to read my books, for example, without being horrified? I think this very doubtful, and it will need long preparation. But why not try it? There are in all countries knots of intelligent people, open-minded; one must give something to relieve them from the staleness of magazines, something which will give them confidence in themselves and serve as a rallying point. As you say, one must begin by getting them to respect French individualism; the sense of liberty which some of us have in so great degree. They understand this in theology, why should they not understand it in art, poetry, literature?"

If only my great correspondent could have seen letters I received about this time from English alleged intellectuals! The incredible stupidity, the ingrained refusal of thought!!!!! Of which more anon, if I can bring myself to it. Or let it pa.s.s? Let us say simply that De Gourmont's words form an interesting contrast with the methods employed by the British literary episcopacy to keep one from writing what one thinks, or to punish one (financially) for having done so.

Perhaps as a warning to young writers who can not afford the loss, one would be justified in printing the following:

50_a. Albermarle Street, London W._

_22 October, '14:_

Dear Mr. Pound:

Many thanks for your letter of the other day. I am afraid I must say frankly that I do not think I can open the columns of the _Q.R._--at any rate, at present--to any one a.s.sociated publicly with such a publication as _Blast._ It stamps a man too disadvantageously.

Yours truly, G.W. Prothero.

Of course, having accepted your paper on the _Noh_, I could not refrain from publishing it. But other things would be in a different category.

I need scarcely say that _The Quarterly Review_ is one of the most profitable periodicals in England, and one of one's best "connections,"

or sources of income. It has, of course, a tradition.

"It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody)"--

write their Gifford of Keats' "Endymion." My only comment is that the _Quarterly_ has done it again. Their Mr. A. Waugh is a lineal descendant of Gifford, by way of mentality. A century has not taught them manners.

In the eighteen forties they were still defending the review of Keats.

And more recently Waugh has lifted up his senile s...o...b..r against Mr.

Eliot. It is indeed time that the functions of both English and American literature were taken over by younger and better men.

As for their laying the birch on my pocket. I compute that my support of Lewis and Brzeska has cost me at the lowest estimate about 20 per year, from one source alone since that regrettable occurrence, since I dared to discern a great sculptor and a great painter in the midst of England's artistic desolation. ("European and Asiatic papers please copy.")

Young men, desirous of finding before all things smooth berths and elderly consolations, are cautioned to behave more circ.u.mspectly.

The generation that preceded us does not care much whether we understand French individualism, or the difference between the good and bad in French literature. Nor is it conceivable that any of them would write to a foreigner: "indications of ideas, rather than work accomplished, but I will send you my best."

De Gourmont's next communication to me was an inquiry about Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture.

[1] "A German study," Hobson; "A German study," Tarr.

[2] Quoted in _L.R._, February, 1918.

[3] Each of the senses has its own particular eunuchs.

IV

IN THE VORTEX[1]

Eliot Joyce Lewis An historical essayist The new poetry Breviora

T.S. ELIOT

_Il n'y a de livres que ceux ou un ecrivain s'est raconte lui-meme en racontant les murs de ses contemporains--leurs reves, leurs vanites, leurs amours, et leurs folies_.-- Remy de Gourmont.

De Gourmont uses this sentence in writing of the incontestable superiority of "Madame Bovary," "L'education Sentimentale" and "Bouvard et Pecuchet" to "Salammbo" and "La Tentation de St. Antoine." A casual thought convinces one that it is true for all prose. Is it true also for poetry? One may give lat.i.tude to the interpretation of _reves_; the gross public would have the poet write little else, but De Gourmont keeps a proportion. The vision should have its place in due setting if we are to believe its reality.

The few poems which Mr. Eliot has given us maintain this proportion, as they maintain other proportions of art. After much contemporary work that is merely fact.i.tious, much that is good in intention but impotently unfinished and incomplete; much whose flaws are due to sheer ignorance which a year's study or thought might have remedied, it is a comfort to come upon complete art, nave despite its intellectual subtlety, lacking all pretense.