Copies of letters from Ezra Pound, summer 1957. (Aug. 23)

First letter, 9 July 57

To Professor Maverick

Deep gratitude for excellent edtn. the Kuan-Tzu.

I notice you mention the Swann book ("Food etc.") one of
the vilest messes as arrangement that has ever been perpetrated (sic)
in the waste of means of production.

ideogramic text at the end/ two pages side ways up. how THE
hell is one to locate the terminology. Decent method to help
pore bloody autodidact (and most intelligent students HAVE
to find it for themselves ...; Yale teaching 'em newspapers
and NOT the classics, with great splurge of typography etc.)

Decent model given by N. Directions and Scheiwiller italian-chinese
edtn/ the Pivot, so that one can FIND the ideogram translated
at given spot.

Pardon intrusion. but with offset process and Hawley's readi-
ness to help, you

COULD put gold (metal, the much abused but
very helpful Mathews no ? 1057, rad 167

in the margin.

p. 48/ value/ but better? price as you have in parenthesis.

p. 49 also the basic terms p. 54

and earn still more gratitude from ignorant but serious per-
sons who dont want to trust to mere guess work.

I did a little spade work in my paleographic Cavalcanti
(Genova edtn.)

I mean, no need to run to cost of complete bilingual edtn.
but easily possible to tell the reader which terms are used
at crucial points,

and that at very little cost for your 2nd edition.

MAGnificent job/ and the three glorious points/ not tax houses
not tax animals/ and keep level of volume of money in relation
available goods.

(written in -- not fully legible)

Knocks London School Econ. Soddy sd Banditing
(or of Banditing) Rettiquam (??? LM)

Has S.Illinois noticed Horton's sane selection of books
necessary for college curricula?

respectfully yours
(signed) E. Pound
St. Elizabeths "hospital"

D.C.

(postmarked July 12; addressed to
Carbondale)

p. 70 line 1.

doesn't the one tenth imply that every soldier needs two men
to keep him going/

thus 10% in army, really withdraws 3/10s from production for
consumption? normal peace time consumption/

// Rouvere on Medici Bank/ failed when accepted more deposits
tan could be invested in normal commerce, and started making
more loans to princes/

dambastids keeping up armies.

yrs.

(typed) E.P.

p. 70 parag/2/ ? would be dragnets, or nets to stretch all
the way across a stream?

St. Elizabeths Hospital
Washington D.C.

19 July 57

Dear L.M.

Permanent sick leave bad/ age?? (mine 71, last Oct.)
Need an autodidakts' league.

will take some time to answer yr/ letter/ hoping Chao can get
me Chinese text.

Chief rage at Swann was the FOUL arrangement, text not where
you can see from translation/ aggravated by being side ways
up, ETC.

Naturally ready to decree execution by 40 cuts for Harvard
delay with my seal text of the Odes.

When I commended Overholser for his History of Money in the
U.S. I was told: Oh, he is only a little country lawyer.
He hasn't been trained in RESEARCH." i.e. as to what to keep
out of print.

I introduced Keynes to C.H. Douglas and Keynes opined that
the H(igh) C(ost) of L(iving) was due to lack of LAAHYbour.
verbatim with 2 million out of work in London.
Bunting thought him crook rather than idiot.

Banker in Geneva re/ reprint of my "Lavoro ed Usura"; Destroy
it and cause it to disappear from the circulation.

letter of July 19, continued.

Calif/ a large state but you should see W.M. Hawley's
collection 8200 Gould Ave. Hollywood 46.

AND I shd/ think get some very good conversation/

Carsun Chang. hist/ neo-Confucianism
2295 Hanover St. Palo Alto
has read too much inferior european (highly RESPECTED)
philosophy.

very high human value John Theobald, 1390 Merrit Drive, El Cajon
(for correlation with E. Indian thought, not specifically econ).
(somewhere near San Diego)

U.S. going to ruin because men of good will do NOT talk to each other.

I should be delighted to see Miss Blue, BUT State Dept does
NOT favour percolation of knowledge. bureaucratic terror reigning

The Goullart will enliven a few evenings for you (vide
enc/) if you are meaning to enjoy retirement.

Now may be I better shut up and get on with my home work.

Cordially yours

(signed) E. Pound

20 Lug P.S.

If no review copy of Kuan was sent to Banca Nazionale
di Lavoro Quarterly, B.N. di Lavoro, Roma, Italy (it's printed
in English) a copy should go to Armando Sapori at that address.

He reviewed the Rouvere book on Medici Bank in Oct '49, and
had an article of Italian Companies in England in Oct. 50,
13th and 14th centuries, which wd/ show that he is a serious
character

Better to Sapori personally than to the Quarterly.

yrs

(typed and signed) E.P. E.P.

written at bottom:

No idea how you spend yr time. or if B.N.F †ly reaches
Calif. or anywhere. -- if not I can lend you
(here illegible: ?those on hand? more or tde?)

3

Letters from Pound

The three that were waiting on
my return from Mexico, August 21.

(30 July) 30 Lug

yrs to hand / this merely to state Edge No 6 (copy by air
mail) with Neame's trans / Cocteau "Leoun" / also 4 pages

Chao's selections from Kuan and
remark: "The four vols of Maverick's series presumably con-
stitute the most vital contribution to Sinology made in our time."

Whether this will get you suppressed or not / ne quasaris.

it will take me a month to digest yr / last enclosures.

A Prof. from N/western AMazed that S. Ill. can have evidently
some emulation or gran disio or zummat between them 2 beaneries.

ad interim

(signed) E.P.

probably July 31, as postmark is Aug.1: several enclosures:

LM. 31 Lug/ with carbon on which to check assent or dissent.
(margin has numeral 1 to distinguish from shorter
letter in same envelope)

1. It wd/ be useful to have a list of men with enough sense of responsibility to think straight on vital subjects, such as issue of money, taxes, tariff.

(this means exclusion of practically all men with any
literary reputation. I can think of one exception, on grounds
that he just can't.)

2. Order in which points CAN be most usefully presented.

Issue of money (I don't suppose LM has seen my
ABC of Econ, Hickok of Brooklyn Eagle: "Hell this can't
be economics, I can understand this?")

Genevan banker re: Lavoro ed Usura : Destroy and
cause to disappear from circulation.

3. Stamp scrip: ONLY way a gov't.can increase its MONETARY income by simple act of spending money.

Naturally the s.o.b. will or would try to divert govt.
spending to rackets and AWAY from anything useful.

BUT that love of racket is THERE and lack of stamp scrip
dont prevent it.

4. The greatest (7) one very great fraud is the issue of all new money as INTEREST-BEARING debt. ( C.H. D. - Douglas - lost a lot of time by omission of the adjective.)

Orage spent a lot of time getting Doug/ to learn to write.
AND there is no doubt that CHD did write a number of clear
sentences, BUT he knew so much more that any of us in N.Age
office, that he never, or seldom for brief moments, realized
that Kitson and other buzzards had known ANYthing whatsover,
which naturally irritated his elders.

Aug. 23) July 31, continued

p. 2

items in the questionnaire (only one remains)

5. Only prof/ I bothered to see in U.S. in '39 was Irving Fisher. Yesterday I heard Upton Close's address is (scribbled) 3052 Lake Hollywood Drive office 2024 N. Highland, Hollywood 28.

I THINK he is the bloke I had lunch with/ he then saying that if FDR wanted to see him again he cd/ send for him.

W.E.Woodward also quit some advisory board in DISgust. (his? this? scribbled in margin. LM) Enquiry due to fact I have forgotten the name of jew who was present at lunch (3 of us only), and if it was Mandel, now reported spilling the beans. Even Lothrop Stoddard thought WHOEVER it was, was pure idealist. Bloke SAID he wd/ bring out my ABC in cheap edtn/ had a method for bypassing usual "outlets", to country drug stores etc.

BUT TOTAL silence ensued.
I heard the buzzard was dead, and the name Mandel by NO means unusual or unfamiliar.

LM ever hear of any of 'em?

Arbeitswert paper is being issued at Xtn Univ. Formosa.
But I don't know that one shd/ mention it, a might lead to reprisals. I know the sister of Tseng, head of that univ. letter missed her while doing something at UN in N.Y.

(end of questionnaire - letter)

In same envelope, marked with ink "2" in margin:

I left the U.S. in 1908 / all adult acquaintances dead by time I was brought back in captivity, or demised promptly thereafter, apart from old Tink/ who was too old to be pestered. AND was reported to have thought he just couldn't etc.

Immediate problem: HOW to educate

A. individuals

B. improve curricula

I enclose Horton latest. A blind alley (not in connection D.H.) can almost always get publicity. If a man in the news utters sense it is NOT quoted in Meyerblatt. Birmingham Post was bought for $18½ million presumably to keep news OUT of Alabama, and T.Herald, D.C. 8½ million indicativie of Pegler's nuisance value.

PEN YEH, and haow kin yu keep UM daown o' deh farrm?
Yes, PROductivity, etc., Horton chewing on yr/ note.

Simply, Stamp scrip SIMPLEST remedy to ONE gt/ disease/ and don't need Soc. Credit burocracy and complication. Issue of money one of FEW things the treasure or govt. CAN do, and payment for a service rendered is better ethic than paying 'em for what they can't and/or don't.

7

Aug. 23)

July 31, continued

p. 3

(continuing the second letter of this date)

ad interim, still chewing on Kuan's panurgia.

p. 192/ baint thet a place to decapitate printer.
line nine ?? ((LM: "The people who paid interest amounted to 30,000."))

?? shd/ read ARE paid interest
((LM: maybe he is right; if so, I shd/ be decapitated too))

I have had misprints go thru 3 edtns. AND see corrected proofe
which were NOT used in production. I mean the right text
actually in print in the proofs.

benedictions

(signed) E.P.

Two enclosures:

a sheet on the Girard decision: "There has been a reassuring
public reaction against the Girard case ruling of the Supreme
Court," etc. praise for Van Buren. considers the Sup.Ct.
justices impeachable. ref. to Blackstone.

second enclosure: an excerpt from a report prepared by
Martin Van Buren, 1833. relating to the constitution. 2 pages.

Third letter:

L.M. 1 Ag/ to save time and find basic points of agreement,
before discussion of details etc.

1. As Del Mar not very well known, and until Dave's reprints
rather inaccessible save his one poor vol/ not up to the
rest of his work/

Great example: heavy and light/ the gold vs/ silver racket/
XAM/21/Kc/7//Xarach/6c/6t/7/Kc/d16/
Gold under Pontifex Max/ Rome 12 to 1 / Karachi 6 1/ or 7 to one.
usurped by J. Caesar (spelled Ceasar)

(LM interpolation: same discrepancy in relations silver to
gold existed in 16th and 17th centuries; therefore only silver
went from Europe to Far East. But gold did not come back in
exchange; for Far East was superior to Europe in production
of many commodities; so commodities came back; and the silver
flow to Far East did not result in changing the ratio there,
for much of the silver went into hoards.) return to EP

Arab revolt/ Abt el Melik. Coined gold
Otherwise monopoly lasted in Byzantium till 1204 or '5.

Aug. 23)

July 31, continued

p. 4

so-called third letter, concluded:

2/ durability and rate % legal Byzantium 12%

Manchu 36% and exhortations to peasants not to
borrow at 7 or 8% per month. (8%)

1200 years Byz Empire/ 300 for Manchu dynasty

3. even New Deal had some decency/ Pop Warren's commodity dollar (Loeb)

Bookings (LM: Brookings?)/chart of Plenty (surv.
industrial capacity)

Any honesty after Warren's death ???

hand out/ was NOT visible in Europe How the slob got
his hold, I spose AND Mus' efforts worth attention.

Maybe the above two lines should read:

(the honesty previously referred to) was NOT visible in
Europe How the slob got his hold, (I spose hand out/)
xxx and Mus' efforts worth attention.

4. Alexander pd/ debts of soldiers and died young, no inquest.

Rate under Antoninus Pius said to have got down to 4% and history of his reign obliterated, they yatter about his eggheaded son Marc Aurele,

LM: the following is in response to my letter about
Chang Kia-NGan - Chang the surname:

Not yet spotted Ngan in Huang comment/ they keep calling
everybody by different alphabetics.

Kung/ Jeff/ (LM: this means Confucius and Jefferson) best
govt. which governs least.

tariff a local issue/ only clean thing the republican party has.

Italian farming ruin'd by import of cheap grain from Egypt,
Roman Emp. but old Serao and an ex-governor of Eritrea, 1943
had learned NOTHING, still stuck in Manchester 1843.
(LM: still adhered to free trade)

and DAMN 'em they have bumpedoff C. ArMAS. (LM: Guatemala)

Del Mar leaves a lot unprotected, no barrier vs/ tyranny.
But greatest U.S. historian to date. Naturally we want Van
Buren, J. Adams, Benton IN the high school and univ. curricula.

(in duplicate; carbon for check and return if convenient)

August 29. 2 more letters from Pound.

Ag. 21.

Dear L.M. Did I neglect to thank you for state of french
awareness pre Pauthier and co? which arrived pronto.

Chao (Tze-Chiang) has, thank Gawd landed a job.
Acad. Asiatic Studies, grad. school. College of Pacific.
S. Francisco.

sends 5 pages notes on Li K'eui ((should be Kuei)) and Shang Yang

If of any interest to you, I will forward 'em.
Harry Moore writes me from Rom that he is going to Carbondale.
Does this indicate that S. Ill. is in action? I am not very
definite re/ Moore.

Mild wonder whether Yale knows they are distributing
Kuan Tzu (or its contents).

Greussen is out of a job/ which was last week O.R.O.
Of course if you are in Calif/ you wont be bothering re/ quality
of conversation in Carbondale . . .

(signed) yrs. B.P.

26 Ag 57

Dear Maverick

two items in morning mail

General JFC Fuller: "Kuan Tzu", I recd it from yr/ country 3
years back and class it topx of all books I have read on
economics. then he quotes the "When grain is cheap" to
"profit to the state.

with comment. Yet daily people are asking what is the
answer to inflation.

Other note is from Theobald that he can't find yr/ book listed
in Cumulative Index, latest supplements.

Great blessing to get specific comment on Analects (or indeed
on ANYthing/

in contrast to three hundred pages, recd/ alzo
this a.m. from em/t con/f carefully skirting the surface of
accepted opinion

I dont think I have been unconscious of use of "man" for
prince, but useful to emphasize in footnote

have used, I think, "evil king" by his imposts, good by his
spending etc., at other point

Couldn't stock print yr/ notes in Edge, to keep up interest
in the text.

either as they stand, or with anything you cared
to add in view of publication/

simple economic difficulty, cost
of alterations etc. will prevent my doing anything about
possible modifications of Sq $/ text

for gorNoze how long.
If you and the virtuous Hawlet cd/ build a fire under the
Haavud Mule I spose it wd/ only move forward enough to
burn up deh wagon.

alzo, somewhere it is printed: "can't understand text
because they dont know enough about life to know what the
buzzard was driving at."

Young Chatel mentioned the Kuan in letter to Meyerblatt,
which got past the copy desk.

ad interim

(signed) B.P.

Ag. 21.

Chao (Tze-Chiang) has, thank you, landed a job.

S. Francisco.

sends 5 pages notes on Li K'uui ((should be Kuei)) and Shang Yang

If of any interest to you, I will forward them.

Of course if you are in Calif/ you won't be bothering re/ quality
of conversation in Carbondale . . .

(signed) yrs. E.P.

26 Ag 57

Dear Maverick

two items in morning mail

General JFC Fuller: "Kuan Tzu", I recd it from yr/ country 3
years back and class it topx of all books I have read on
economics, then he quotes the "When grain is cheap" to
"profit to the state.

Great blessing to get specific comment on Analects (or indeed
on ANYthing/.

in contrast to three hundred pages, recd/ alzo
this a.m. from em't con/f carefully skirting the surface of
accepted opinion

for gorNoze how long.

also, somewhere it is printed: "can't understand text
because they don't know enough about life to know what the
buzzard was driving at."

ad interim

(signed) E.P.

29 Ag 57

Dear Maverick

Thank GOD for a man who will face a clear sentence
and give a straight answer.

I think I can eliminate ALL yr/ objections.

1/ Econ/ thought as of now dates from my third meeting with
Rossoni, a serious character, then minister of Agriculture.
The first 2 meetings were a mere 5 minutes and a passing in
corridor.

AT THAT TIME I had got to:

we need a medium of exchange AND a medium for saving
there is no need that they be the SAME medium.

The Satellites had, I think, already and unbeknownst to me,
got a solution.

Banks to accept stampscript (1% Monthly and hell take
all apes who try a higher rate than that.

it cd/ ultimately be got down possibly lower).

Banks to accept it at 2% discount. And hold the 98% level
in depositer's checking account.

This protects bank from loss if deposit made on
29th day of the month.

***

Bug wash that people wont accept it/ they DID in vorgl.

the sanity of our 600 days in the Republic/ no debt
left because banks issued drafts/

teller Chisvari: Everybody knows there is NOTHING
back of this money.

///

people constantly accept depreciating paper/
which has NOT the virtue of stamp scrip.

BUT which enabled Germany 1920 on to eliminate INTERNAL
debt, but without diminution of available goods.
Hard on some folks. BUT/....

//

I don't know if Loeb classics is from vice, malignancy or
sheeriturce.

XREIA/ means demand NOT value. Money is a measure of PRICE,
which is from DEMAND

unless you interpose damn near armed force.

2. absolutely necessary to DISTINGUISH production from WANT
   nature overproduces (vid my ABC)

economics enter ONLY with WANT, demand, whether from
necessity or fantasy.

advertising racket all there to prove Aristotle knew
his stuff.

Rossoni the first man to see stamp scrip as : cosi lo stato
fa il suo affare.

i.e. as a useful tax. vid. Jeff to Crawford.
(written in margin: C.H.D. annoyed @ 10½ Alberta folly --
offensive tax -- or maybe the word is oppressive)

a special kind of tax, fulfilling Jeff's perception
that paper is as useful as metal (metal related to barter

the XREIA functioning BEYOND regions controlled by
law, custom, or power.

////

letter of 29 Ag

my page 2 (his 2 1/3)

any ticket is O.K. when issued against WANTED goods that are deliverable. NOT good against land (Mississippi bubble) land ONLY good as element in credit. i.e. when PLUS labour and deliverability of product.

Monte dei Pashi / credit for the interest payments against grazing rights, NOT against a product subject to chance (good or bad crop).

Marx and Mill make same error/ re/ chystalization of LABOUR. Labour in vacuo can't chystalize.

both god damnd abstractionists.

///
as to acceptability, the 12% is a guarantee against irregular and manipulated depreciations.

hell/ money, i.e. the unit, $ or whatso has DEPRECIATED since gornoze/ milreis/ postage stamps for 500,000 marks, etc.

Lire from 20¢ in 1900 (and wop paper once at premium above gold) to 1/5th of a cent.

19 to the $ on MUS's MERE : god damn that's all we will give you.

12% AFTER Rossoni's perception, NOT a depreciation, a TAX making possible elimination of other taxes/ Which are mostly sheer IMSECILITY and sabotage.

due both the malevolence, greed and IGGURUNCE.

//*
NO, NO and again NO/ warehouse receipt NO good unless goods ((LM: here to his page 2a))

NO NO and again NO, warehouse receipt no good unless wares are WANTED.

Rossoni: that the fisc could NOT but the corporazioni COULD.
BUT the state job (vid Kuan TZU) to balance and estimate the XREIA for DIFFERENT products.

one of the damn few things the govt/ CAN and the individ cannot or wont do

and ergo a way for the govt. bugocracy to EARN its keep and get paid for a service, not for a sabotage.

(I hear Randolph Burgess is fer going back to GOLD !!! )
i.e. either total foulness, or more probably sheer squalor of ignorance).

Soddy arrived late/ never wholly clear in his own mind.
Hal Bird clearer in quote in my ABC.

Gesell left things unfinished/ saw as a merchant/ and the land part of his stuff undigested

C.R.D. liberty: right to choose ONE thing at a time.
In ALL econ/ discussion/ authorship of very little importance/ it is the IDEAS one at a time.

Yr/ p.2. OKE hay/ hence the Roman wisdom of having GOLD under pontifex, silver (senate wangle and racket) bronze under municipalities.

i.e. LOCAL control of a proper proportion (variable probably) of the power of issue.

AS Baffico, his tickets for small change, when there was a small change famine. he being the newspaper vendor/ annoyed that other shops started taking HIS tickets and he had to print more.//

13

letter of 29 Ag

my page 3 (bottom his page 2a)

Gesell, stamp IS a retirement of one sort. better than no retirement.

VOLITIONIST econ/ get the men, govt. will spring up as reeds in riverbed.

((new page, not numbered; item 3))

3/ rackets will never cease/ and a perfect system will be bitched by the s.o.b.

nowt but directio voluntatis and honesty, but the
MORE people understand

the less crass theft will occur.
I mean the less they will put up with.

Buller on Ike, wd/ comfort yr/ wandering heart.

Did you hear KERR on TV?

GOVT. should ADVISE, not put bugrocrats onto preventing farmers doing what they like.

the LESS govt. the better.

Gesell requires less than the

Soc. Crediters.

NO one food or medicine will cure all diseases.

Metalism to hell/ jade is inedible.

((first a true copy, then an attempted interpretation:))

light and heavy / Byzantium /
gold in occident 12 in orient 6½, 7%

to of silver/

((In the days of Byzantium, and regarding Byzantium as the west, the gold/silver ratio was 12 to one, whereas in the orient -- India -- it was 6¼ to 7 to one. Consequently silver flowed from the occident to the orient.))

light and heavy for 1200 years.

DAMN little harrassment of upper CLASS in woptaly / ONLY harrassment was of particular crooks. and in decay of entrepreneurs.

snobism, howls

///

Population / Confucianly. HERE and NOW.

got to think here and NOW before worrying whether
catholics will openly accept birth control in 2187 a.D./
Dumbunny

Gertie Stein, simplified it all to Malthus/ and thank gawd she DIDN'T breed.

Mandarin somewhere in China/ refused to bother with cholera or zummat, knowing danger of overcrowding.

The Ripper at Pisa/ re/ causes of war: Too many people, when their git to be tew many people yu gotter kill some of 'em off.

(admitted he wdn't have been bootlegger

if there had been no tax on liquor)

4. O damn, I spodse the Centro Gentiliano ((this seems to mean the Harvard University Press)) will someday reprint my

Il problema delle tasse.

am NOT going to worry about number of rabbits in a.D. 4381.

as to Brit. Debt, etc. Benton "prefer to pass it on to posterity". etc.

letter of 29 Ag

my p. 5

I think Jeff meant earth don't belong to the DEAD.
The living OUGHT to own it, and be trained to respect
their oppspring.

"Ahj, phwat's posterity done fer ME ???! )

I leave those banks to Benton/ who was printed, and vanBuren
who wrut autoblog in 1864 approx, and didn't get
printed till 1919.

Eppes meant control, I spose, but the loose use of language
didn't start with him or end there.

CHD. re/ primitive leather/ the guy who issued the ticket had
the goods.

Whatever Eppes meant, the value of a nation's money will depend
on what it SPENDS its money FOR.
publicly and privately.

my page 118, must refer to some particular lot of issued bills/
even the printer can't have meant me to say NO paper
ever depreciated.

Whenever Jef/ disagreed with anything of J.Adams, I have yet
seen Jeff was wrong. but gornoze what Ch.F. Ad/
omitted from old Johnnie's papers.

Alot of control over stock exchange IS possible, but we aint
likely to see much in our time.

ad interim

my page 2, his 2 1/6,

2 Sep

17

(did I send you that dissociation ? )

re/ Chink Kantos/ Fang has prepared the proper names in
ideogram to go in margin to identify persons mentioned.

we wait a munificent printer/ cost of electros/
which WHEN corrected get mislaid etc. and KOrections charged
to author. etc.

Fight with Fang/ as I refuse to accept ANY alphabetic display
as final/ AND the Sagetrieb/ ((Is this German? or sage tribe?))

different spellings used to indicate the stream
wherethru and whereby our legend came/

latin, portagoose, french.

Epos is NOT cold history/

got to have emotion and that from fanatical

Kung-ismo //

Chancon de Roland : "The Francs are right the Mohammedans
are WRONG".

the historian can add footnotes/ in fact the philologers
are busy already.

Not there, the poem ain't, to explain the history but to
arouse curiosity.

The godDAMNED idiocy of univ/s etc. give me sunpathein for
the guy that got damn well fed up and wanted to amputate/
mild

Even Mencius has a/line on not swallowing ALL of it.

There are no literati with any reputation at this moment, who
will LOOK at ANY serious formulation of ANY idea having to do
with either life or government.

You and Theobald have only appeared on horizon, about simult
within the last few weeks.

After 8 years in jug a she-painter drifted onto this campus/
first conversation at european level.

there are a few puliks, and now some texan amen ity.
worse on my wife than on me. Yes Scheiwiller's printer is
kraut. and testardo. Sure, wd. like to see Williamson,
preferably with yr/ comments. benedictions.

((typed and signed)) E.P EP

6 Sept.

Dear L.M

I can't switch out of Kallimachus onto Kung at the moment. doing a different job/ AND no possibility of any immediate use of my revising Pivot/ the delighted if you and Stock want to print comment.

Stock's next job probably a memorial number for Wyndham Lewis? voilà l'estat divers.

Your antithesis of knife and chisel very tempting/ BUT no change in ideogram tse 2-5 shell-knife/ currently weakened to "pattern". I forget which text you have?? Italian with stone tablets reprod. Wouldn't whoever wrote it have used a different sign if there had been

that VERY NICE contrast

in materials cut??

But the question damn well worth asking.

Thanks.

Wd/ take me some time to find (not having Morrison Eng-Chink at hand) ideogram I would have used if I had been making the wood to jade antithesis.

and I forget and FORGET and forget, especially when up to nekk in etc. etc.

Did you by good fortune hear Kerr on TV. ?

Any hook up either with him or with Alfalfa Bill ??

the latter now alas out of office.

ad interim

signed EP

P.S. NEXday/ 7th

The academic trap is sprung when a man stops looking for the ANSWER, and starts worrying re/ whether some one else SAID it. What matters is the right answer, whether Kung or L.M.

retrospect catches 'em.

got to take responsibility for one's own perceptions.

not shove 'em off on Kuan or Kung or anyUVum.

((his next page))

2/ 7th/ continuing. Even in Kung's day, jade must have been cut with a wheel.

Have just done clumsy pp/ for Edg/ on acad/trap theme.

Hope Stock can improve it.

Next Canto shd/ be better than Rock-Drill, no time to lower the tone. Dant' as bogie is what W.L.'s wd/ have called "a fair buggah."

9 Sep. 57 . Bghsz.

Dear L.M.

I do not believe we differ "fundamentally" about interest etc.

As I believe nothing that you can *show* me to be an error. "Kulch" was published before the war/ and I haven't any clear notion how much of it I still believe.

I know that WHATEVER I now believe is based on 18 years more work/

I had NOT at that time made a decent definition of usury. i.e. a charge for use of money levied without regard to production,

often without regard even to the possibilities of production.

I had not then read any Del Mar or any Benton.

DelMar. @ Y.M.H.A. in S.Frisco about 1870 stated that INTEREST

is due teleologically to the increase in domestic animals and plants.

Your page 1. letter of 5th inst. is the clearest statement re/ damnum cessans and a lot of other stuff burried in unobtainable latin of Salmasius (De Modo Usurarum, which isn't or wasn't even mentioned in the Encyc.Brit. list of Salmasius' work). He did 3 vols/ only two of which I have been able to get hold of. re usura

ANYHOW Stock shd/ be glad to print your lucidity IF he is able to go on printing.

My definition should be AMPLIFIED.

to - productivity OR to the deterioration of perishable goods.

AND the church councils bumbled for 1500 years messing up distinction between usury and interest.

Cairoli "Prezzo Giusto nel Medioevo"/ from the decent canonist concept of just price, there is natural sequence to just rent or charge.

Incidentally

Fuller has just given me permission to quote ANYTHING in his letter, So his endorsement of the Kuan T is releasable. He is doing a book on Alexander. and mentions A. putting bullion into circulation.

All I had had to this a.m. was Alex paying his soldiers debts and leaving Babylon shortly after for disembodied existence (if any). no inquest was held.

Yr/ last lines p. 1. all thru Salmasius, as far as I made out there was a bit of confusion in greek world, between usury and marine insurance.

NONE of which seems to me to invalidate the idea that TICKETS shd/ keep pace with deterioration of goods/

the rate of monthly stamp on scrip/ a rough equivalent of the balance between perishables and durables and quasi indestructables.

((to his second page))

2. at any rate no reason to tolerate the immense disease of issuing all new money as INTEREST-BEARING debt for the benefit of a few swine and bleeders.

And not invalidation to justice of government being paid for a real service

i.e. the computation, the issue, the assay instead of living on carion.

and punishing useful activity

9 Sept.

my page 2

his page 2 1/8

piling up expenses of tax collection, chances of injustice
in assessment, making crime of innocuous non-criminal acts.

Have you any exact ref/ for rumours that Antoninus Pius got
the rate down to 4/.

We are up against immense cowardice, ignorance and lack of
communication between ourselves.

I was just beginning to make contact with the official world
in 1939.

Lets look for agreements. and improve definitions. vide enc.
Ac. Bul. (( enclosed Academia Bulletin, no. 2 ))

does the emendation cover yr/. objection

At any rate I have never suggested that you cd/ do without
the equivalent of ASSAY. Dad was in the Mint on that job
from the time I was 4/

and NO ticket can dispense with the equivalent activity.

The banker has a right to be paid for his skill in estimate.

Not being experienced in either commerce or production all
I can start from is concept of justice and direction of the
will theretoward.

TOKEN invalid unless the government is honest.

((LM: and keeps amount of tokens under control.))

Metal money spells barter. necessary where the King's writ
or something equiv/ doth not run. ((means in foreign trade))
and as impotent to buy an egg on a raft in mid-ocean, where
no egg is, as a paper ticket would be.

And all roman law bitched and tangled because slavery taken
as part of system.

O.K. gawd bless the entrepreneur. Preferring Mus/ to
Dexter+Roosevelt-Javitts and co.

C.H.D. Freedom to choose ONE thing at a time.

LM/ **EP ONE definition at a time.

Landing in Europe (Gib) with 80 bucks (1908) I have prac-
tically NEVER been able to get near an entrepreneur apart
from old Fowler, who arranged to get them tractors to Menelik.

the LACK of communications between different categories.

J. Adams: "To trade on borrowed money is very UNMERCANTILE".

U.S. tradition 1895: A dollar is worth $1.06 to any
intelligent man.

B.P. 1940: rather come out of war naked than in debt.

You ain' nvr heerd me crab the ENTREPRENEUR, which dont say
I admire the magots who eat him.

(end of his page 2)

3/ country banks, Pa. colony loans to farmers/ where the
ASSAYER, the estimator of liklihood that the borrower _will_
pay, has close-up knowledge of the _borrower_/

Basis of credit in Siena 1623. potential of nature AND the
responsibility of the whole people.

Buoni di Lavoro, Italy, 1926 (approx) were acceptable as taxes.

***

9 Sept. his page 3 1/6

my page 3

21

lets keep THREE distinct words

MONEY (immediate)

Credit (future of money) expectation
of ability to liquidate

Purchasing power, inclusive of both.

On power to issue money not now given to all banks in
Baruchistan. ((the U.S.? Baruch))

irresponsible power

???

responsible power

I cant speak for "reformers"/ but don't want to be held as
saying more than:

It is desirable that some component of honesty be
present in government.

Nor for holiness of labour unions. The Corporate state
was trying to git round to making 'em responsible

components

in a system.

I think the first wop-tempt toward Labour bank showed
desirability of some further educations and skills.

There was the story of the afro-american depositor
in a Ga, afro-american bank, wanting his $10.

and being told: Wha boye, doan yu know de interest
done ake up dat money long ago?

Mohammeds against INREAKST, no perception of difference
between just rent and usury.

3 impostors/ do any other alledgedly religious sects
make religion a casus belli?

The Crusades/ Normandy hocked to Rufus. Rufus ups charges
in rent 5 to 40

Bertrand de Born: "Pawn you castles, Lords !"
centre of literary thought shifted to N.Y. in 1917/ yanks
sat on rumps, London took it back about 1930/ BUT
life of the MIND went out of both London and Paris.

out of the arts into statal thought, Roma.

J.F.C. Fuller's address.

do write to him

West Poundgate Manor, Crowborough, Sussex, England

(end his page 3)

Biog/ of pubk/ men. 2 fat vols on Cavour/ 3/4 of a page
altogether re/ finance.

Simon on Thiers/ about ONE real pp/ in the damLot/ re/
Thiers getting money from bank at 3%, then 1% and when he
wanted to git rid of public DEBT, the various political etc/
etc/ royalists, orleanist, bunnypukst etc. etc. got him OUT.

Centre of literary excitements, or at least the outlet.

Mr Stock in Melbourne.

so far as in know all other editorial offices
exclude certain facts from discussion. Not always the same facts.

O.K. Kulch/ 191. make it read Leihkapital/ I thought I
Had put in W. Lewis qt/ from Adolph, LSIHKapital.

4

Received Sept. 13:

Covering sheet:

Broadcast from Toronto CBC. on 14 Ag/

L.M. might forward to John Theobald

1390 Merritt Drive, El Cajon, Calif.

and/or to Rex Lampman 6685 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood.

i.e. ask Theob/ to send it along to Rex /
who might show it to Hawley.

The enclosure is a 12-page single-space interview of
Narrator and Pound. On reading it through, Pound took no
direct part; portions of letters were read, presumably by
some second party, not the Narrator. But it reads a good
deal like an interview.

Letters excerpted from are those to

Harriet Monroe, 1915, 1913

William Carlos Williams, 1908

Marianne Moore

Dr. Rouse E. E. Cummings, (W. H. D.)

William Rose Benet

Dr. Schelling

H. L. Mencken 1937

On pages 10 and 11, he turns to economics:

Narrator: Ezra Pound has been accused, rightly or wrongly, of many intellectual crimes: of advocating so-called crackpot economic schemes associated with Social Credit; of anti-semitism, of fascism. It would be impossible here, and with only his letters for evidence, to clarify the position of this irascible man on these subjects. With more time, this could be done, and a sympathetic reading of his ideas could be encouraged. Not that one would want to whitewash him, but that an understanding of such a mind as Ezra Pound's is more useful than condemnation. At any rate, a single letter which he wrote on January 1937 to the late H.L. Mencken may direct us toward this understanding a little way. ("Douglas schemes" in this letter refers to the specific plans of Major Douglas, the theorist of Social Credit; "Ez" is, of course, Ezra Pound.)

Pound: "My dearly known beeluvved Hank: Wot you say is mostly so, but why try to bluff your venerable friend that you have READ any serious work of mine for a decade?

Who the hell cares about Douglas schemes? The job of a serious writer is to dissociate the meaning of one word from that of some other which the poor boobs think means the same thing.

Broadcast

14 Ag.

page 2 (his p. 10)

quotation from Pound letter, continued:

"Obviously until blokes can DEFINE the word "money"
and ten or a dozen more words occurring with equal frequency
in economic writing, their writing will be tosh and their
readers remain in same stew they were in to start with.

What you go on doing is thumping an unreal effigy and
callin' it Ez."

on page 11: Narrator winds up a speech: he wrote to a young
woman from Rapallo, Italy:

"We have got to clean up the economic mess; and your
generation has got to understand how much of life can be
cured by a very simple application of economic sense to
reality (reality today being ABUNDANCE of material wealth),
poverty being an anachronism, and ALL the god damn capitalist
psychology being a disease that has eaten in thru every
interstice of the mind. No one now writing can do anything
of real interest unless they perform a few acts of mental
hygiene. Mostly as simple as brushing one's teeth or using
iodine on a cut."

Narrator: Pound's economic criticism of our society turns
on the power of money values -- Usura -- in corrupting culture
and the arts. The poet, he believes, should make this evil
clear by presenting examples. How Pound sees such economics
related to poetry is suggested in a fine short letter written
in 1936:

Pound: The poet's job is to DEFINE and yet again define
till the detail of surface is in accord with the root in
justice. ROT to submit to the transient. But poetry does
not consist of the cowardice which refuses to analyze the
transient, which refuses to see it.

Teh specialized thinking has to be done, or literature
dies and stinks. Choice of the field where that specialized
analysis is made has a percentage of relevance. In no case
can constipation of thought, even in the detail, make for
good writing. LUCIDITY.

A letter to Laurence Binyon in 1938.

Narrator concludes:

But today, incarcerated in a hospital for the insane,
as a result of some radio broadcasts he made from Italy
during World War II -- broadcasts dealing largely with
poetry, Confucius, the Greek classics, and the other subjects
of his great poem The Cantos -- Ezra Pound is the tragic
case in our time of the genius misunderstood and persecuted
by his contemporaries. How unjust his fate has been, and
how unforgivable on the part of living men, only the future
will demonstrate to the full. Today, the few who have read
him closely and have admired his gift of enlightening intel-
ligence and expression, the tragedy of his present life at
St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, where he still writes
poetry, translates from many languages, communicates with
scholars and poets -- yet is classified as "insane -- is a
terrible paradox that probably exists only because the general
public knows little of poetry, of Ezra Pound, and of the real
nature of his work and ideas.

11 Sep 57

25

L.M.
preHHHgo siGGnore.

if we are ti be intelligible to each other/ let us
stick to text and chronology/
thought AS IT GROWS (vid. first
ideog/ in dear ole Hawley's seal / a destra.

UNTIL Rossoni's "cosi lo stato fa is suo affare"/ Gesellite
thought was in groove of Merchant (Gesell) wanting quick
turnover.

Rossoni's "but the corporazioni could", was his first
reaction to a new idea BEFORE MAXIM he had thought it out
or over.
(cf/ Delcroix, blind head of wop veterans, who has also lost
both forearms.

He beat his head with his wooden little hands, said: "Che
MACnifica idea." Grabbed phone: "Hey, Bottai, come over
here, I got a man I want you to meet."

BY just leaving office to get train for Naples, I met
only later and on other business.)

The Corporazioni ought NOT to issue money/ all they could
properly issue wd/ be tickets against their OWN products,
up to quantity wanted or needed. XREIA.

The state's job shd/ be the correlation of the various
XREIA with the production.

AND that VERY important job is what the state, the FISC
acting for the sovreign (monarch or people) has a right to
be paid for.

It is a job bankers perform/ and the infinite utility of
banks, the gratitude TO banks, is why humanity has putt up
with the dambastids & their tyranny, their injustice.

Coin, seals etc. prerogatives (once royal) absolute.
NO, it was not Hitler dragging in Mus/. From the death of
Alex, Gt/ the Hen VIII divorce, onward.

WHEN Mus/ said the $ will buy 19.60 (or was it 19,30)
lire, DAMN yr London JewPork eyes. and NO more.

all hell and the dung hill were out against him.
The foul Robert (Mond) bro/ of the foul Alfred (Imperial
Chemicals who bitched Ford's English Review and ENDED life
of the mind in England) sitting on the Eugenia Strong's
sofa (in the room where I had it from ole ma Strong).

"Napoleon wath a good man, it took uth 20 years to
cwuth him. It will not take uth 20 years to cwuth Mussolini,
and the economic war has begun."

This during the Abyssinian affair/ and NO question of happening.
old Eugenia merely wondering WHO, having been present had
told Mus.

AND only then did pore Benito WAKE to international
kikery Mus/ with all the jews in the risorgimento/ all
the jews in the fascio/

finance ministers to Thaon de Revel/ Rocco who made
the law code, etc.

Benito having a decent instincts NEVER got round to a concept

page 2

11 sep 57

my p. 2

his p. 2 1/8

of such filth as Roosevelt and Churchill/ any more than he
learned that the golf scandal wasn't "dieci otto buchi" etc.

Colin Saunderson leaving Foreign Office/ in DISgust at
booby boozy Randolph selling his sowfaced father the idea of
betraying Michaelovitch.
Mus/ ready for anything "trannè nella casa del Re."

I don't know whether Eliot has yet got round to the substance
of my Cantos XIV and XV/ the state of soul of London in 1919.
Calvin-Chanism etc.

But for Monsieur Theobald, not individual jews, but the
PRINCIPLE of degradation/
primal right is to choose one's associates.

vs/

ac veluti te
Iudaei cogemus in hanc concedere turbam

The ASSAY of metal in mint/ the ESTIMATE of xrea and
production capacity, probability, etc.

the state correlation/ moneta the middle term of exchange/
IF false
is no equity.

The Gesell TAX falls ONLY on someone who does NOT need the
money AT THAT MOMENT/ never falls save on someone who has
IN MONEY 100 times the amount of the tax AT that moment, the
tax being prescrittibile IN MONEY.

As to the cost of collection vid. my Jef/ canto on
France/ as to equity in assessment/ as to cost of bugocracy
to levy and assess.

jeHEEBloodyZUSSZ !!!!!

Also I think you (in former note) merely want to use the
word "CAPITAL" to cover (and confuse) what in ABC I give as
the two elements

the monetary carrier
and the PLANT

and damBit, I think it is clearer to consider 'em as more
different than homogenius.

Hickok of Brooklyn Eagle . re ABC: "This CAN'T be economics.
Hell I can understand this."

3/ all I (egometipsum) can do is to CHING MING or however
you transliterate, change me.

try to get a clear terminology.

It aint assured than our present paper $ ticket LASTS more
than six months/

THAT is real angle on the practicality of 1% monthly.
it does NOT invalidate the idea that Gesell was not a piker.
His land part inchoate, etc.

All I am hammering is Jef/ to Crawford, 1816. Gesell a
special case fulfilling Jeff's formula.

and that you need NOT issue all money as interest-bearing
debt.

and that NO other tax is as simple and less subject to
the avarice of the insurers,

who are NOT the people getting JUST or trying to get
JUST return on investment.

page 3

letter of Sept. 11 my page 3

his page 3 2/5

17

Alzo, in my talk with Rossoni, I still thought of the stamp scrip as AUXILLIARY currency/ not having heard of the 2% discount at bank window

which gets over THAT hurdle.

It worked in Wörgl/ OBviously in ideal conditions/ the land, the labour at hand, merely the strozzoni impeding the tickets.

***
AND Mrs. Unterg/ UNDERSTOOD money as I have rarely found others to do.
have restrained impulse to air mail you a EDG/ as it wd/ be $.48 and you probably have one from Melbourne by now/ spare copy goes to you for less than price of young novelist's lunch.

Tung Hai University was issuing tickets to enable students to eat in return for services. Miss Tseng (epigon Kung and Kung's Tseng) in date of Sept. 1st.

"My brother resigned his post as president of Tung Hai partly because he had a slight heart attack; partly because his educational ideals are different from those of the Mission Board, so he feels his usefulness cannot be offered to the fullest extent. It is therefore better for someone else to take the reins. . .

"we are so pleased that Mr. Pound is interested in Kuan Tzu. My brother tried to get a good edition of Kuan Tzu for you, but the printing is so small we must try to get another.

Kuan was even praised by Confucius and we consider Kuan the earliest Chinese practical economist."

stamped
in

margin

I take it she is still on the council. Calvin, Cohen/

(in red)

((LM: I guess the seal is the signature.))

Another sheet:

THE VALUE OF A NATION'S (or government's) MONEY WILL, IN THE LONG RUN, DEPEND ON WHAT IT SPENDS ITS MONEY FOR.

red
seal

P.S. next day, the 12 Sep.

on rereading L.M. of the 5th inst

good GAWD !!

You don't mean you think that I think you can run govt. on interest 12% or whatso

on actual amount (volume) of money in existence (and/or circulation) in that country.

You should pay ALL govt. bills in new STAMP SCRIP/ Pa. colony loans to farmers, Guernsey Market house model. beginning now by paying interest on national debt in stamp scrip. which is the only way a govt. can increase it MONEY income by passing out money.

28

the postscript of 12 Sept. my p. 2, his p. 1 1/3

sure Ari/ distinguished goods from tickets /

wot I am talking about is TICKETS.

which can be valid ONLY inside a governed and orderly area
or in partibus infedelium where there is belief in stability
of the said govt. and its honesty.

Brits/ counterfeiting Maria Theresa $ silver 1933
for Abyssinia etc. where the faith was in Maria T/ as well
as in the silver/

and the habit of using 'em.

My grandad 1878 trying to keep some of the NON-INTEREST-bearing
national debt in circulation as currency.

nomina consequentia rerum / moneta advice re/ available goods.

food poisoning, colourings, etc. constant vigilance /
insecticides vs/ weevils, etc.

all that is in matter.

even old Geo. Santayana: "must be wrong, all this invisible
wealth."

most, if not all, my job, is to get a clear TERMINOLOGY.

to stop yatter re/ "capital in the form of transportation."

Plant / mano d'opera, abundance of nature,
means of transport, monetary carrier, that is ticket or
stimulus.

and the DIRECTIO voluntatis.

wherewith as Kung-ite I begin.

vid also Dante: directio voluntatis.

red
seal
as
signature

typed in margin: tell Theobald I aint got TIME to sit
down and despair, or wait for a lotus.

2027 S. Bentley Ave.,
Los Angeles 25, Calif.,
July 16, 1957.

Dear Mr. Pound:

I am very happy to receive your letter of July 9, and
to have your generous statements about my *Kuan-tzu* book.
I am sorry that I am not qualified properly in the field.
I do not read Chinese. But, as I stated in my introduction,
I have had a lot of inquisitiveness and energy; so I drove
the research through to completion. It was in large part
for my own education, as I wanted to know what the early
Chinese had to say about economics and related matters.
It is very important to the history of economic thought to
find this remarkable book, practically a contemporary of
Aristotle, with whom our conventional "history of economic
thought" usually begins.

About Mrs. Swann: I enclose a book review. (By the
way, Miss Blue, mentioned in the review, is with the State
Department in Washington, and I feel sure would be happy to
call on you, should you wish.) I wrote rather extensively
to Mrs. Swann -- so much so that I fear I offended her --
and sent her my copy of her book, all marked up with
questions as to fact, as to interpretation, and even as to
grammar. I bought another copy, but am sorry to say I did
not transcribe all those comments to my new copy. To keep
based on running notes
the comments/out of the direct body of this letter, I enclose
them separately.

S

4

2027 S. Bentley Ave.,
mettet on fin Los Angeles 25, Calif.,
July 19, 1957.

Dear Mr. Pound:

Thanks for your further note of July 12.

In connection with page 70, line 1, let me discuss this
whole topic, item 4, from top p. 69 to bottom p. 70. I had
one of my struggles with the translator at this point. He
would not yield; but I still feel that I may have been right.
See my notes 2 and 3, at the end of the chapter, which are
too short to tell my troubles clearly.
Beginning line 9 from bottom of p. 69, my note 2, top page
74, would give a meaning that makes muchmore sense (I think).
that would possibly read into the *kuan-tzu* too high an appre-
ciation of the great value of transportation. I think I
yet

The point that you raise would reconcile the apparent
conflict between the one-tenth and the three tenths. Thank
you very much for clearing it up. Number XIII is a most
valuable essay; I wish you would publish a full new trans-
lation of it.

Page 70, middle the second paragraph. Another place where
I had a struggle with the translator. "Fishing boats and nets
cannot be made with a small sum of money." There was a similar
passage -- in Mencius, I think -- to the effect that nets
should not be allowed with small mesh -- obviously to prevent
the taking of fish that had not grown sufficiently -- like our
modern minimum sizes on sundry fish, clams, etc. I wanted the
same interpretation here. I cannot answer your question as
to whether the prohibition should be against nets the full

July 27

2027 S. Bentley Ave., Los Angeles 25.
Saturday, July 27.

Dear Mr. Pound:

As we are still in the pleasant process of getting
influences in Europe in the eighteenth century -- especially
acquainted, this will be a somewhat rambling letter, telling
on the Physiocrats. Thank you for the advice.
of myself, answering what you have kindly written, and ask-
also learn whether the UCLA library takes the place of mine
ing about some things you said in Culture and in other
diary quarterly, and shall report to you. They likely
works.

I am 66 years old, had some weakness of the heart
and was sent out to pasture. Had earlier served for many
years at UCLA, and all three of our children live in Los
Angeles (2 of them married, several grandchildren). So
managed money of one sort, the various maturities or managed
facing retirement, we came here to rejoin the children.
Entered the field of economics rather late. Persisted in
all learning that changed money (though it may be properly
the interest in China, though I found practically no
managed for a time, according to one or another formula)
economists interested in that line. The China interest
almost sets up an esoteric fraternity: Jesuit priests,
had hopes that money could be used PRODUCTIVELY, not since
instructors in sundry foreign languages, philosophers,
adopted the policy of full employment at full costs -
poets, career diplomats, etc. I have many relations in
especially set forth in the Employment Act - and love
San Antonio, Texas, and we considered retiring to that
vowed that there must be no depressions, the relation of
area, but preferred our own children, and the area where
we had previously lived for many years -- Los Angeles,
I don't know why a man living in a resort area like this,
demands, nothing but actual failure, actual損失, expenditure
with no duties, should go somewhere else for a vacation;
but we shall spend the first half of August in nearby
Mexico -- at Ensenada, 70 miles below San Diego. We shall
probably push another hundred miles south into Baja California.

July 27 page 2.

Your two notes of July 20:

I am sending two books to Armando Sapori in Rome: the one on Kuan tzu, and the earlier one on Chinese influences in Europe in the eighteenth century -- especially on the Physiocrats. Thank you for the advice. I shall also learn whether the UCLA library takes the Banca Nazionale di Lavoro Quarterly, and shall report to you. They likely have it.

I am interested that you introduced Keynes to Douglas. I did not mean to blame the London School of Economics on Soddy. I merely meant that Keynes was much in favor of managed money of one sort. The various sectaries of managed money I was loosely grouping together. I am afraid we are all learning that managed money (though it may be properly managed for a time, according to one or another formula) necessarily degenerates into mismanaged money. I once had hopes that money could be well managed; but since we adopted the policy of full employment at all costs -- as especially set forth in the Employment Act -- and have vowed that there must be no depressions, the nation is doomed to steady inflation. No one can persuade wither the labor unions or the sellers of goods to be moderate in their demands; nothing but *actual* failure, *actual* hunger, *actual* deaths can cause them to recede from their demands. And, of course, what starts as "steady" inflation, will unexpectedly run away some day.

July 27

page 3

7

I had held it against Soddy and others, that their money plans would result in continued inflation. But the joke is on me; we get the continuous inflation anyhow. (And I realize the shortcomings of a hard gold money too.) The merciless manipulations of money within Russia have been shocking, haven't they? The peasant seems to have been the chief sufferer, each time; just as the peasant has been steadily more cruelly underpaid there than has even the city industrial worker. Talk about expropriating the surplus value!

I have a soft heart for economics, and would not agree that it is all banditry. The central figure in my thinking is the enterpriser; he hires land, labor and capital. I am sending you an article published, and one ready (in draft form which has since been substantially modified; but I haven't spare copy of the revision) for publication. You will see that I am following in the footsteps of Kung Fu-tzu, Flaubert, and Pound, in a desperate effort to rectify one important term, "productivity". I should like to have your copy of the original note of McNair Wilson on Soddy calling economics "banditry"... or as you suggest, what he found was not economics but banditry.

Have been reading and making some notes on your *Culture*. Note that you do not speak of Xenophon's essay on the revenues of Athens. It is interesting in that it contains the first statement of the quantity theory of money. Xenophon is completely wrong; he gets the principle perverted, because, as it happened, while Athens was increasing her output of silver and therefore of coins, her commerce

August 15, 1957.

Notes on reading _the Analects_, as translated by
Ezra Pound. Square Dollar Series, Box 6964, Washington 20, D.C.
Copyright 1957 by the _Hudson Review_ (to whom thanks for
permission to reprint) 1951, 98 pages.

It is refreshing to see someone with imagination, look
at the interior of the Chinese ideograph. This is a bit
like passing from the field of macro-physics to atomic
physics.

On calligraphy: I have wondered about calligraphy,
which the Chinese love so much. It is a major field of their
art. My wonder has been whether, in calligraphy, stress
can be placed on _one or another shade of meaning_.

So far as I know, only Ezra Pound achieves this
appreciation of the component elements.

To be sure, I have profited by the book giving instruc-
tion in the Chinese language: H.G. Creel, Chang Tsung-chien,
and R.C. Rudolph, _Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method_,
Volume I, The Hsiao Ching, revised and enlarged edition,
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1938, and 1948. It has a splendid
glossary, with discussion of the origin and components of
the characters. But it does not achieve the poetic insight
of Ezra Pound. I enjoyed the labor of translating _the Hsiao
Ching_, by Creel's method and guidance. Of course, my work
is that of an elementary pupil.

In my opinion, even a contemporary of the writers of
*the Analects*, about 350 B.C., would have had to ponder long
over the precise meaning (or meanings, if a pun was intended)
of many passages. The written language was not then pro-
vided with many characters. Indeed, only recently had it
had enough characters to permit writers to express even
elementary concepts in philosophy. Each character had to
serve a wide range of meanings (not a close analogy to
basic English).

Everyone who reads a translation of a Chinese classic
(or, I suppose, who reads the original Chinese), must face
the question: What did the sage mean? It will not do to
dismiss the matter with the statement that the sage originally
was a fool, or that copyists have mangled the text. One must
continue to ask: What did the sage mean? Once in a while,
that problem is solved when one discovers that no meaning is
needed for a particular group of characters; for they rep-
resent the phonetic transcription or representation of a
proper name of some sort: personal, geographic, a book,
or other.

And there are changing idioms, that lie in folklore
or slang. For example, today tung-hsi, east-west, means
"a thing". Pound refers to a mystic south-east, which may
have some such irrelevant meaning.

Aug. 15

2

comments on Analects

Superposed on the problem of interpreting the original, is the need of detecting and removing or at least allowing for the many errors of copyists, from 350 B.C. to 1250 A.D., a period of 1600 years, involving maybe ten copyings.

So the reader is entitled to -- compelled to -- a fluid, bold interpretation. He simply *must* interpret (or call it tamper with, if you prefer) what previous commentators have read into the classic.

The worst presentation in the English language, of a Chinese classic, is that of Duyvendak, *The Book of Lord Shang* (published before he married an English-speaking wife, who edited his later publications in that language).

Even the admirable presentation by Ezra Pound cannot be immune to the caviling comment of later readers. So I present the following comments and questions:

page 5, Book I, Chapter II. Spell checking, not checking. sentence 2: after root, a semicolon. After brotherliness, comma, which are the root of manhood, increase.

Chapter IV, line 2: for two matters: to get to a meeting of minds when negotiating with men; to keep faith with them. Lest I teach and not practice.

Chapter V, line 2: chariots: "the man" (the prince) respect what he does and keep his word . . .

page 6, chapter VIII, line 2: his style of behaviour sentence 2. First: get to a meeting of the minds . . . sentence 3. Seek friendships with equals.

Chapt. X, line 2, he wishes to learn about its government. Does he ask for the information, or is it just given?

2 lines lower, semicolon after polite.

Chapt. XII, line 3, for source, feature. sentence 2, line 2, and is, but fails to follow the details of the ceremony, . . .

page 7, line 1, When keeping one's word conforms to justice, one should keep it;

last word in Chapter XIV, can be said to love men.

Chapter XV, sentence 3 might be better in the present tense: give him the beginning and he knows . . .

Book II is grand.

page 8, Chapter IV, sentence 5, At sixty, listened to them. sentence 7, last word *should* be square (not t-square).

Maybe *line* would be better?

Chap.V, sentence 3, proprieties (semicolon) when they die, busy them according to the rites; and make the offerings according to the rites.

Chapter VII, line 2, *consists* only in feeding . . .

line 3, horse (period) But unless there is reverence, what filial piety is there?

Aug. 15

3

comments on Analects

p. 9, Chap. XI is a classic. I would put "yet" after and.
Chap.XVII To know is shown by acting wisely, and ...

p. 10, Chap. XVIII see that you really mean what you say
about others, ... be careful what you do with ( or to)
the others, ... and you will have few reasons for remorse.
Salary (permanent employment) is found in a temperate course,
where there are few harsh words, and few acts ...

Chap. XX. be respectful and deferential to everyone ...
and teach those who learn with difficulty.

Chap. XXI, sentence 2. simply filiality (or filial piety)
and the relation between elder ... semicolon after gov't.
a pleasant note in French.

Chap. XXII. If men don't keep their word, ...

without a wagon-tongue, a small cart and no shafts (? single-tree?) to hitch the traces.

p. 11, Chap. XXIII, any knowledge that would stand good for
ten generations.

sentence 2: one can know this. Chou, because there was good
in the rites of Yin, took over some and added; and one can
know that. Someone will thread along after Chou, be it to
an hundred generations; one can know that.

Book III, Chapter I: Dancing women, eight rows deep in the
Prince of Chen Chi's courtyard.

Chap. II. The three families recited the Yung Ode ...
in the sunlight." Does this apply ...

Chap. III. A man without manhood, is this proper?

Chapter IV, sentence 3, comma after festivities. Omit the
square bracket section.

p. 12, Chap.V: He said: Though the eastern and northern
tribes have princes, they are not like those in the middle
(civilized) states.

Chap. VII, Line 2: omit *it is*; Line 3, change contending to
competing.

Chap. VIII, sentence 4: Shang understands. I can discuss
poetry with him.

Chap. X: for Source, how about Founder?

p. 13. Chap. XIII, last line, the bracket: No means of
getting guidance through the seasons.

Chap. XIV: revised the two earlier dynasties; how full and
precise is its culture! I follow Chou.

Chap XVII, line 1: wanted to spare the sheep in the sacrifice

p. 14. Chap. XVIII, line 2: through all the details...

Chap. XXI. Why use the word chthonian, even if it is in the
dictionary? the altars to the earth.

Sentence 2: Perfect acts do not require explanation; ancient
customs are not to be condemned, ...

Chap. XXII strikes at my own study. (1) Kwan Chung was a
small person, and how! Was Kwan Chung stingy?

sentence 5: had a small table. If Kwan knew ...

Aug. 15

4

comments on Analects

p. 15. Chap. XXIV: The Border Warden at "I" asked to see him, saying: When ... you two three gentlemen; how you must regret Chap. XXVI, Why should I bother bout such men? Book IV, Chap. II, for pleasures maybe temptations?

p. 16, Chap V: Line 1: But if not obtained. . .
L 3 But they are only to be . . .
sentence 3: A proper man dare not lay off . . .
Line 2: He must have it to follow through; he must have it . .
Chap. VI. My first comment is probably wrong, but consider it: I have not seen any man so wrong who loves whole-humanity and who hates un-whole manhood. If he loves this whole-humanity, he will not rise above it. If he hates the un-whole manhood, he will go to work on his own manhood. He would not try to keep others incomplete to heighten his character.
Chap. VII. There may very well be across-reference to page 84, where I havenoted an agreement with Adam Smith, against Plato. A man's errors (faults), every one of 'em, are blamable upon his environment ( no change in parenthesis); watch his faults and you can judge the general atmosphere of humanity.
Chap. IX. A scholar who claims that his will is on learning the tao, the process, but who is ashamed of poor clothes . . .

page 17. From Chapter X on, there is frequently an implica-
tion that "the man", or"the one man" is the prince. This
thread might well be followed through the entire work, earlier
as well as later.
Chap. XI, conscience -- justice (not legality).
Chap. XIII, For one who can with ceremony and . . .
Chap. XIV, about doing something worthy. (not knowable)
Chap XV, Use the term "tao" repeatedly; it is a grand
word, and is already widely used in Jewish and Christian
teachings, as "the way", etc. Shan, the tao, my "process", . . .
last line, a semicolon and sympathy; that's all.
Chap. XVI. The proper man acts on justice (or equity) . . .

p. 19, Chap. IV, sentence 2. third person: it would get him undying hate from them;
Chap. V, in the bracket: I, (this or thus), is not, can . .
Chap. VI, line 2, float to sea. next page, line 3, omit "the".

p. 20. chap VIII, sentence 3: Unequal, I agree . . .
Chap.IX, last word, precaution

p. 21, Chap. XII, one can manage to learn about that; but
the big man's words about inborn nature and the process of
heaven are more difficult. (One must ponder them.)
Chap. XIII, heard of anything worrisome that he could not
correct, he was only worried about the waste of his time
having heard it.

Chap. XIV. and was not ashamed to learn from his inferiors,
therefore is described as "the accomplished".
CHGO. XV. the last word, subordinates.

Memo: I previously ran into these quite different meanings
of the same Chinese word: the people, and the minor officers,

Aug. 16

5

comments on Analects

13

p. 22, lines 3,4: I don't know that he can be called a
whole man.

sentence 2, line 1, period after prince;

line 2, and fled abroad (period)

line 3, quotation: Here they are like

end of paragraph: Chang said: a whole man?

last two words: a whole man

p. 23, bottom line: if a man's nature is reverent
or if a man, by nature, is reverent

p. 24, line 2: possible. But if his basic nature is take
it easy, and he ...

sentence 2, line 3: But unfortunately a short life. He
died and the pattern is lost. (period)

Chap. III. sentence 2, line 3: not that they toady to riches

sentence 4: Don't; they could be distributed to ...

Chap. IV, be red with a crooked horn, though men don't
want it, will ...

bottom line on page: Hui, now, has a mind ...

p. 25, Chap. VII The Prince of Chi

line 3, delete *up*

Chap. X, line 3: Isn't this a rather famous, much-quoted
passage? If a man isn't strong enough he faints along the
way; you ...

p. 26, line 2: in a mean, detached way.

Chap. XIV hard to get along in this generation

Chap XVI, line 3: side by side and blending their

foliage (or intermingling), this is the proper man.

Chap. XVIII needs a weaker word than *love*; how about *favor*?

p. 27, chap XX, line 2, put your energy into achieving
human justice (or equity) ... italicize *humanitas*?

XXI, line 3, omit the before pleasure

XXII: If Ch'i could make a few changes, ...

if Lu could achieve a few changes ...

XXIII. A square dish without ... sort of a square dish ...

XXIV, line 4: he can't (be expected to) leap in; he can
be fooled, but not entrapped.

XXV: extends his study to accomplishment, he brings it
into close discipline for the rites, *xxx* that he may keep from ...

p. 28, XXVIII, line 4, why call that mere manhood? He ...

sentence 3: To know enough to use simple figures for his
analogies (or parables), that may be called the initial
step of humanitas, ...

p. 29, III, To see into one's mind, but not fit one's acts
to it; to study but not analyse ... to hear the law (or
equity) but not have the ... to be wrong but unable to change ...

p. 30, X, sentence 3, line 2: or die without regret.

Aug. 17

6

comments on Analects

p. 31, XVII, instead of observance of rites, Book of Rites. (I had trouble with this in my Kuan-tzu; the translators referred vaguely to "poetry", when clearly the Book of Poetry was intended.

XIX I have loved antiquity, actively investigating.

--- or more likely, he wishes his customary pair, the ancient lore and the new: I have loved antiquity and study of current matters.

XX. For "disorder", some word like *miracles* -- and try to avoid mere duplication of *marvels*, the first of the series.

XXI is another widely quoted item: usually one of them can teach me. If one does well, I can follow him; if one does badly, I do different.

p. 32, XXIII, mid line 2: I don't go my separate way (aloof) and not give it you, that's me.

XXVII. There are men who start off without knowledge, but I don't. I listen a lot and determine what is reasonable, pay attention both to what is done and to the tones of the words, and so manage to acquire some knowledge.

XXVIII, sentence 2. I receive those who approach, as I cannot receive those who go away. Why be exclusive? If a man wash and approach, I receive him as clean; I don't hold to his past.

p. 33. something afar off? If one wants to be humane, to humanity he gets.

XXX, line 1, for Crimes, Justice

XXXI he would ask him to repeat (or to continue), and would sing ...

XXXII, semicolon after education

XXXV not a pattern that brings grandsons. Though parsimony is a pattern of obstinacy, better be obstinate than ...

p. 34, Book VIII, Chap. I, line 3: empire (semicolon) the people could not sufficiently praise the act.

XXXVIII 35, III. This passage occurs in the *Hsiao Ching*.

V Able, yet willing to ask of those ...

line 3: having, but as though he had not (naught), full, but acting as if empty, not squabbling when offended. I once had a friend who qualified under that description.

VII An officer cannot grow slack in his courage (boldness of bow-arm); he must carry that weight on his long journey.

second line on p. 36: death at the end

IX again a famous passage. line 2: they cannot be brought (made) to understand.

37, XIX How great was Yao! His activity ...

only the heavens' working is so great, ...

the people could not sufficiently praise it.

p. 38, line 3: Though two thirds of the empire was in the service (in the uniform) of Yin, the conscientiousness of Chou attained the conquest when put to the test of action.

XXI, line 3, instead of badly, simply dressed

Book IX, chap. I, and total (ideal) manhood.

III, sentence 1, The ancient ceremonial cap has been displaced
sentence 2, line 2: now bow (only) when they

Aug. 17

7

Analects

page 39, Chap. VIII: The divination bird had not been consulted, the river gives forth no augury (...)

p. 40. X. Sentence 1 is still an enigma. If it has any connection with sentence 2, then maybe it refers to going into the forest to collect wood for the rites -- or a bewildered student facing great questions.

I looked up, and the trees filled the heavens. I chopped at them, but they were thick and hard. So I stood back and admired their firm root-hold. -- or 0-

I look toward heaven, my questions are piled high. I seize some of them, they defy my efforts. I stand back baffled, they are rooted so deep. ?????

p. 41, XVI: he said: life (time) passes like that ... not stopping, day or night.

XVII, line 2, comma after there.

XVIII may stand for the mountain; the grave-mound alternative may be omitted. A mountain is not made (completed) by one ... the in line 4, the parenthesis (toward the mountain)

p. 42, XXII You can respect some soon after birth (despite the ritualistic requirement that the young should respect the aged), even though you cannot know that they will realize their present promise. Whereas, if, at forty or fifty (quite an advanced age in those days), men have not heard of them, mere age is not enough to command respect. XXIII a puzzle. Maybe it refers to the prince. If the one man approves sound principles in his talk, but fails to enact into law; if he expresses approval of gentle speech, yet himself speaks intemperately. To approve but not enact, to assent but not conform. I just don't respect that sort.

XXIV. for "first getting", try "learning"

p. 43. XXVII a-cold, we have a tore of pine and cypress, you can carve them.

XXX. plum tree

Book Ten, I, sentence 2: speaking with easy flow

p. 44, III, sentence 2: He saluted (the guest), left and ... sentence 3: Swiftly advanced (before the guest, toward the prince) as if winged.

sentence 4. The visitor gone, he completed his duty, reporting: the guest no longer looks back.

IV, sentence 4. he subdued his breath, as if not breathing.

VI, 3: In hot weather an unlined dress (robe, garment) of linen or grass cloth should be worn.

4. organize the pairs: black silk robe and lambskin; white robe and fawnskin; yellow robe and foxfur (facings? lapels?)

6. Should have night gown (dubious -- maybe the sleeves on an evening robe) half again ...

9. Lower (under?) garments

11. add a parenthesis (the first of the month was the date of the new moon, a regular court function)

Aug. 17

8

Analects

p. 45, VII, 2: For fasting, he adhered to the prescribed diet, sat in the appointed place.

p. 48, Book XI, Chap. I, developed in rural or primitive China -- developed in the sophisticated Middle Kingdom IV, filial, never disagrees ... omit parenthesis.

p. 50, XVI, line 1: The prince of Chi

p. 51, XX, end of line 2: just simulated gravity? footnote for the same: Sterne: a pompous carriage XXII, fourth word: danger

52, XXIV, sentence 3: there are altars to the earth, and altars to the grain spirits
XXV, sentence 3. period after unknown

53, line 7 on the page. Paragraph Chieh said, line 3: with the wind ripples and the rain dancing over it, sing and go home.
sentence 8, line 2, these three men's desires?
sentence 12: How about Ch'ih
Book XII, chapter I, sentence 1, below the italics:
Here is a case where the reference is to the prince.
If "the man" can be adequate

54, II, line 2, greet men
line 5, take your place in the home
III, sentence 2, line 3: Difficult to achieve one's verbal engagements in one's actions unless the ...
IV, 3, On introspection, finds nothing wrong (omit the parenthesis) ...
V, 4, line 3, within the four seas are his elder ...

55, VI He whom slow soaking slander and sudden accusations have no effect on ( ...)
VIII, 2, Regard the great philosopher's words, he is the superior man; four horses cannot overtake his tongue.
3. The finish is as important as the substance; the solid part, the substance, needs the polish; tiger-skin ...
IX, 3: When is better than if, in both clauses.

p. 56, X, 2, hate and you wish him to die; but if you ...
XI, 3, line 3: although there is grain, will all manage to eat?
XIII, period after another.
XV, Extensive study for great accomplishments; restraint by the rites. By short-cuts ...
XVII, line 2: If the man (the prince) weren't covetous ...
XIX, second paragraph, line 2: will be good; "the man" (the prince), acting according to his conscience, is the wind, ...
XX, 6, end of line 1, *but* (not and)

p. 58, bottom 3 lines on page: minister of the prince of Chi ...
line 2 in that paragraph: first select your assistants

p. 57

Aug. 17

9

comments on Analects

17

p. 59, ¶90 III, sentence 3: you're divagating. Why put
in time on them?

sentence 5, for "Followed out", try obeyed.

IV, sentence 3 refers again to the prince: If the man above
loves the rites, no ...

next line: If the man above loves justice, none ...

" " : if the man above loves veracity, none of the people
will want to lie. When the Great One is like this, the
people of all four directions will come to him with their
children on their backs; what ...

p. 60, X: If any prince had put me in office for twelve ... in three years to have completed something.

XI. If honest princes govern a country ...

XII it would need but a generation

XIII If "the man" correct himself, what ...

government. If he cannot ...

62, XIX, first line after the italics: sincerity in how you
treat men, ...

XX, sentence 3: When he speaks, he will stick to his word;
acts will be consequent, water dripping on stone, water
dripping on stone (persistent); ...

XXI. Not being able to teach only men who ...

line 3: the forward will hurry ahead and seize hold; ...

63, XXIII, line 2: The small man is conforming but not ...

XXIV, second paragraph, line 2: Neither is up to the man ...

65, xxxii V, lines 2 and 4: for needn't, substitute doesn't.

66, X, sentence 2, last line: to indicate tone of voice.

Query: also or what will you?!

sentence 3, line 2: man who snatched from the prince of Po,
Pien, ...

XIII, sentence 1, second paragraph, line 1: omit word as.

67, XV, for flowing, try marching.

XVII: Duke Hwan killed the heir apparent (the ducal son,
his brother) Chiu;

sentence 2: gathered the princes (organized a league of the
central or civilized states), not with ...

XVIII, line 4: and (Kwan Chung) didn't commit suicide but ...
with Hwan or Prince Hwan (as prime minister).

sentence 2: reciprocated

line 2: as prime minister, ruling the princes ...

or the hegemon of the princes.

line 4. Chinese did not use buttons, so:

loose and fastening our coats to the left. (like barbarians).

p. 68, XX, 2, line 3 and regiments. With men like ...

p. 69, XXVII He said: (If you are) not in a particular ...

XXXII, that others don't know of me. ...

Aug 18

10

Analects

p. 70, XXXV, line 1: not because of mere strength
XXXVI, sentence 3, italicize the first two words.
XXXVII, sentence 1, to which people misunderstand me
sentence 2 Why do you conclude that people misunderstand you?
(or maybe the sense of your parenthesis is better throughout:
that people do not know of me)

p. 71, XXXVIII, line 5, intentions misrepresented
period after Liao. I feel angry enough
In the bracket, and in several other passages in other
chapters: the term *ta fu* should not be literally translated.
ministers to the feudal prince would be better. The term
had that specific meaning. "Great officer" is too vague, and
the reader might mistakenly apply it to an imperial officer.

XXXIX: are rejected by
2: Some near (that solidity) retire from the particular locality.
3: The next grade withdraw from dazzle (from the court?).

XLI, 1, Tze-lu would pass the night at Stone Gate; the ...
end of XLI: (continues to ask the stereotyped questions)

XLII, 1: on the musical stones in Wei. A man with ...
What a mind he's got, getting music from those stones,

72, first line: water dripping on stone, water dripping ...
Into the deep with your clothes on, (let others) pick 'em ...
-commit suicide).

XLIII, In the Book of History,
XLVI: Young and not deferential (as to his elder brothers);
come to manhood and making no contribution; old and not
dying with dignity. A burglarious ...
(or possibly: approaching death without dignity)

Book XV, p. 73: I, 1, line 2: I have studied a bit about
(civilian matters) sacrificial ...
sentence 3, line 3: A gentleman develops plans --is resourceful --
when in need;

II, 1: you think I overemphasize studies and committing things ...
last line of II: one totality flows through ...

IV, the parenthesis: (the sovereign sat formally on the throne,
looking south)

p. 74, line 2: at those two powers (sincerity and reverence)
VI, 2: is rotten, he rolls up (withdraws to private life) ...

75, XIV: the solid from himself, and (being satisfied with)
little from others ...
XV, Line 2: "I don't (bother to) compare things for him, and
that's that ( )."

76, XXI: he is for wide interchange (cosmopolitanism)

77, XXV: Even I reach back to the time (of honesty), when ...
XXVI semicolon after inwit, remove comma after things.
XXXII needs the word "but" in 1 and 2, as it is in 3

78, XXXIII, line 1: after the word know a parenthesis
(measure, gauge)
XXXV, line 1: one's own, not attributable to -- blamable on --
the teacher.

Aug. 18

12

Analects

page 95: line 1: the proper man does not look the same from all angles: from a distance, stern (dignified); from near, gentle; his words sharp, (firm, precise) as a grindstone (as if whetted on a grindstone)

XII, 1, end of line 3: period after branches.

2, line 5: behaviour fail to bring occasional undesired results?

Only the sage ... (traditions?)

95, XXII, 2, line 4: in the memories/of common men, no one ... a semicolon after method;

the big man help discerning it, though he found no formal teacher?

96, Book XX, Chapter I, end of first paragraph: will come to definitive end.

On page 97, as usual, I have too much to say:

line 1: period after Overspreading. But dare not ...

line 3: period after overgrown.

Next paragraph: The name will be ours if the emperor's person (Is hex really dealing with the emperor, and not one of the princes? Most unexpected!) be at fault. It may not be blamed on the myriad regions if the myriad regions have fault; it takes root from our inferior person.

4. Chao invited a general counseling; honest counselors would be rewarded. He received the Chao invitation. The prince said: Not a matter of someone else's manhood; if the hundred clans err, it is rooted in me, the prince (the one man).

sentence 6. He reformed the weights and measures, and the statutes and regulations; he eliminated the useless officials, and the government within his four boundaries moved ahead.

7, line 2: recalled men who had retired, and the people of the state (not empire) returned to good sense (lost their panic and corruption).

8. What he put emphasis on, was feeding the people, funerals and mourning rites, and making the sacrificial offerings.

9. By this gentle magnanimity, he reached everyone ... got a lot of work done by attention to detail ...

II, 1, line 6: The prince should be considerate without ...

should desire without greed, be honourable without ...

sentence 2: the parenthesis: (their harvest of grain) ...

2 lines lower: they will work

p. 98, line 1: If, whether he is dealing ...

line 2: great, the prince will not be curly ...

line 3: haughty? If the prince adjusts ...

sentence 3, line 2: Not to teach people, but then ...

line 3: not to warn people, but then ...

Below first 4-line body of italics: Or, in giving to others ...

I feel that the carping criticisms above, if taken as questions, may be of some help. Maybe as many as a fourth of them will be found to contain a suggestion that will clarify the meaning.

Lewis Maverick

21

2027 S. Bentley Ave., L.A. 25,
Wednesday, Aug. 21, 1957.

Dear Mr. Pound:

On returning from Mexico, I found three letters from you, for which my thanks. Since then a parcel has arrived with two books: *Jefferson and/or Mussolini*, and *Cantos LII* to LXXI. Again thank you. It will take me some time, reading and contemplating, to answer them properly. I shall probably answer in installments, and, I hope, grow a little from installment to installment.

Just now, I am fresh from reading the *Analects*, and have gone back to Legge for a few comparisons. So I write about the *Analects*.

It is refreshing to see someone with imagination attack the interior of the Chinese ideograph. I had an introduction to the anatomy of the Chinese character in the critical glossary of the book of instruction in the Chinese language by H.G. Creel, Chang Tsung-chien, and R.C. Rudolph, *Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method*, Univ. of Chicago Press. My volume is Vol. I, The Hsiao Ching. With the aid of this splendid glossary, I sweated through several months, and actually translated the Hsiao Ching, and learned a little of the difficulty of handling a language with so few word-signs as Chinese had in the early days. But praise Creel as I may, he has not the poetic imagination, in dissecting a character, that you have.

Aug. 21

2

In reading your Analects, I did as I always do in reading
a translation from the classical Chinese -- I constantly tried
to discover what the ancient Chinese writer intended. The
copyists have mangled the classic many times, in their recopying;
and even since the first printed edition, probably a few changes
have been perpetrated. Taking for granted that the original
writer was a man of brains, what could he have meant by some
apparently confused or irrelevant statement? Can I see directly
through those opaque copyists? Can I guess a way around them?

In a few places, I think I have discerned a little more
of the original meaning than even you did; this is a cooper-
ative enterprise. In a couple of places, I thought Legge had
the drop on us both. One general point that I found in previous
studies is that often when "the man" or even so vaguely as
"a man" is discussed, the reference is to *the prince*. This
will explain some of my suggestions. Once in a while, I
applaud Legge for getting the idea that the prince is being
referred to. Now for the running comment:

Book I, Chapter V. Legge comes nearer to suggesting
that *the prince* is being discussed.

I, VIII, 1. He said: A gentleman with no weight will
not be much respected. His behaviour lacks vigor.
2. Først, get to a meeting of the minds; then stick to your
word.

I particularly like this meeting of the minds.
It is another sort of mid-point, a bit different
from your unwobbling pivot.

II, XXIII. Your version is distinctly better than that of
Legge. I think punctuation can clarify yours a little:
paragraph or sentence 2:

Yin, because there was wisdom in the rites of Hsia,
took over some and added, and one can know this. Chou,
because there was good in the rites of Yin, took some and
added, and one can know this. Someone will thread along after
Chou, be it to an hundred generations, and one can know that.

III, V: I should modify yours:
He said: Though the eastern and northern tribes have princes,
they are not like those in the middle (civilized) states.

Aug. 21

3

Book III, continued: In chaps. XII, XXI, XXVII (26), Pound is better than Legge (but why use the word chthonian? altars to the earth is more easily understood)

IV, Chap. II. Neither is very good. Are we hearing that virtue is its own reward?

IV, VI, maybe re-word a bit: I have not seen anyone go wrong who loves whole-humanity and who hates un-whole humanity. (manhood?) If he love this un-whole manhood (humanity), he will not rise above it; if he hate the un-whole manhood, he will go to work on his own manhood. He will not try to keep others incomplete to heighten his own character.

IV, VII. You have the advantage of Legge. Cross ref. to your page 84, Book XVII, Chap. II. Kung agreed with Adam Smith, and disagreed with Plato. Men are equal at birth; environment or experience makes them differ.

IV, X. Both Legge and Pound need my correction, pointing this passage to the prince:
He said: The prince should not be a partisan; he should be just.

IV, XVI. I am willing to leave the prince out, here. He said: The proper man acts on justice, the small man on profits. But it may refer to the prince after all.

Book V, Chap. IV. Legge has the advantage. Sentence 2: Resist men with glibness, it would gain him only their hatred. How would he use clever talk.

V, XII, one can manage to learn about that; but the big man's words about inborn-nature and the process of heaven (tao), to hear is not enough (one must ponder them).

V, XIII, had heard of anything worrisome that he couldn't correct, he was only worried about (the waste of his time) having heard it.

V, XV. Here is another point from my earlier reading: the character that reports the common people, is also used to report the lesser officers, the fonctionnaires. So the last word of this passage should not be "them", but "subordinates".

V, XVIII, sentence 2: Here again the meaning of a particular pair of characters. Ta fu should not be handled on the basis of the two characters. Both Legge and Pound are at fault. The ta fu were a particular type of officer. They were the ministers of the feudal princes. So: Wan . . . abandoned them and fled abroad. Coming to another state he said, "Here they are like the minister (ta fu) Ch'ui", and departed from that first state to a second. There he again said, "They are like the minister Ch'ui", and departed.

Aug. 21

4

Book VI, I, 3. If a man's nature is reverent, he can be easy-going and thereby come near the people; that's possible. But if his basic nature is take-it-easy, and he carries ...

VI, III, sentence 2: wearing light for fur. I have heard
aid the distressed, not that they toady to riches.

VI, IV: be red with a crooked horn, though men won't want
it (for the sacrifices?), will the mountains and rivers
reject it? (Will their spirits reject it at the rites?)

VI, VII: the prince? Legge writes merely of the head of
a family. But he is appointing a governor.

VI, X, a famous passage: If a man isn't strong enough,
he falls (or faints) along the way; you held yourself
back.

VI, XVI. He said: More substance than finish, you have the
rustic; more finish than substance, the clerk (or city slicker);
finish and substance are as two trees growing side by side,
and blending their foliage; this is the proper man.

VI, XVIII: for the intermediate term, a weaker word than
love would be better; how about favor?

VI, XXIII: A squared dish without corners; what sort of a
squared dish is that?

VI, XXVIII, line 4: Why call that mere manhood, he would ...
Section 3: To be able to make use of the simple for analogies
or parables, that may be called an initial step toward
humanitas. Indeed yes.

Book VII, section or chapter III. Here the prince, again?
To see into one's mind, but not fit one's acts to it, to
study, but not come to precise conclusions, to appreciate
justice but not have the gumption to enforce it, when wrong
to be unable to change, that's what worries me.

VII, XIX. He said: I wasn't born wise. I have loved
antiquity, yet have actively investigated (the present).

VII, XXI, a famous passage: He said: When three of us are
walking along, surely one can teach me. If one does something
well, I follow. If one errs, I do differently.

VII, XXVII: none of us very good. Though there are men who
set out without knowledge, I try not to. I listen a lot, and
try to pick out what is reasonable. I watch a lot, and compare
with the words, and so manage to know something.

VII, XXVIII, none of us very good. Section 2:
He said: I receive those who approach; how could I receive
those who go away? Why be exclusive? If a man wash and
approach, I receive him as clean. I don't hold entirely to
his past.

Aug 21

6

IX, XXIII a puzzle. Maybe it refers to the prince. Also the
term south-east may have some utterly unrelated meaning, as
east-west has today (meaning "a thing").

If the one man approves sound principles in his talk,
but fails to enact into law; if he approves the idea of gentle
speech, yet himself speaks intemperately; if this is his
nature, to approve but not enact, I just don't respect that sort.

Book X, Chap. I, sentence 2: speaking with easy flow;
X, III: sentence 2: he saluted the visitor, left and right
hand holding his robe properly. 3. Swiftly advanced before
him, ushering him to the prince. 4. The visitor finally gone,
he completed his duty, reporting that the guest no longer
looked back.

X, IV, sentence 4: he subdued (or muffled) his breath

X, VI, Is this subjunctive or indicative? (should?)

sentence 3: In hot weather, an unlined robe of linen or
grass cloth may be worn. 4. organize the pairs: black silk
robe and lambskin; white robe and fawnskin; yellow robe and
fox fur (facings? lapels?). 5. For informal dress, a fur
robe with long or short sleeves. 6. The night gown may be
half or full length. 9? 11. The reason for this dress
at the beginning of the month, is that that is the time of the
new moon, and a ceremony was always held at time of full moon.
Some high officer read from the classics to "the people",
remembering that the same character means the lesser funcionaries.
X, VII, For fasting, he adhered to the prescribed diet, sat
in the appointed place. (again, this might be subjunctive,
"should") Does this apply to the prince?

Book XI, Chap. IV. omit parenthesis. most certainly filial,
never disagrees with what his father, mother, and elder brothers
say.

XI, XI, emphasize Pound's parenthesis

XI, XVI not chief but prince of Chi

XI, XX, or is it just simulated gravity?

XI, XXII, maybe *danger* rather than *dread*.

XI, XXV, section 7, last paragraph -- a chance for a poetic
picture: in I river (Shantung) with the wind ripples and
possibly the rain dancing over it, sing together and stroll
home.

Book XII, chapter I, section 1, second par. seems to relate
to the prince: If "the man" can be adequate ...

XII, V, 4. I used this passage as a sort of mast-head, or to
set the tone at the beginning of my book, China a Model for
Europe. To be sure, the interpretation might be narrower --
all men are his elder and younger brothers.

XII, VIII, 2: Regard the great philosopher's words. He is
the superior man. Four horses cannot overtake his tongue.

XII, XI, 3, although there is grain, will all manage to eat?

XII, XVIII refers to the prince. If the prince weren't covetous ...

XII, XIX, second paragraph, ditto. "the man" acting according
to his conscience is the wind, the lesser folk, obeying as
his conscience directs, are grass, ...

Aug. 22

8

18

Book XV, Chap. XIV: Requiring full performance from himself
and being satisfied with little from others.

Does Chapter XV relate to comparing things for him, rather than
comparing him to anything?

XV, XXI, he is for wide interchange (cosmopolitanism) ?

XV, XXII, XXXV, Here Confucius takes a stand more like that
of Plato, and less like that of Adam Smith: Manhood's one's
own, not attributable to his teacher. (elsewhere he has said
men are born equal.)

Book XVI, Chapter II, 1, line 7, proceed from the ta fu,
the ministers of the feudal state

Book XVII, Chapter II. Here Confucius agrees with Plato.

XVII, VIII, better punctuation. colon in each of the lines
of part 3.

XVII, XIII, none of us is very good.

Book XVIII, chap. IV, remember that the same character means
both people and lesser officers.

The Ch'i officers (acting for their prince) sent a present . . .

XVIII, IX, 5. Remember that _stones_ is plural.

Book XIX, chap. II. This might relate to the prince?

Line 2: to know the letter of the right process . . .

XIX, III, line 4: associate with those who can give and take,
and avoid those who cannot. ?

XIX, IV, line 2: worth attention. But hold it at arm's length;
'ware mud.

XIX, VII, 1: Artisans (the hundred trades) live in each
market town near their shops; this helps to perfect their
technique. The proper man studies them, so that he may
arrive at an understanding of the various processes.

(does this refer particularly to the prince?)

XIX, IX, better punctuation: three transformations: at a
distance, dignified; gentle to approach; his words as precise
as though sharpened on a grindstone.

XIX, XII, 2, line 5: how could the proper man's behaviour
fail to bring occasional undesired results? Only the sage
starts out knowing all the consequences.

XIX, XXII, 2, line 4: and minor items were rooted in the
traditions of the common people . . . how could the big
man help discerning it, though without a regular teacher?

Book XX, I, 3 is mystic or confused. Overspreading. (period)
overgrown. (period) But I get little meaning.

The next paragraph shifts from dealings between emperors,
to private citizens (or does it?) Let us stick to the
emperors:

If in us, the emperor's person be at fault, the myriad
regions may suffer disaster, through no fault of their own,
merely the shortcoming of the emperor.

Chapters IV, ff. furnish an entirely different topic:
XX, II, I, 4: Chao invited a general counseling; helpful
counselors would be rewarded. 5. He received the Chao
invitation. The prince said, it is not a matter of someone
else's manhood. If the hundred clans suffer, it is the fault
of me, the prince.

Aug. 21

3

> Wan ... abandoned them and fled abroad. Coming to another state he said, "Here they are like the minister (ta fu) Ch'u'i",
> and departed from that first state to a second. There he again said, "They are like the minister Ch'u'i", and departed.

Aug. 21

4

VI, III, sentence 2: wearing light fox fur. I have heard said the distressed, not that they toady to riches.

VI, XXIII: A squared dish without corners: what sort of a squared dish is that?

Aug 21

6

X, IV, sentence 4: he subdued (or muffled) his breath
X, VI; Is this subjunctive or indicative? (should?)
sentence 3: In hot weather, an unlined robe of linen or
grass cloth may be worn. 4. organize the pairs: black silk
robe and lambskin; white robe and fawnskin; yellow robe and
fox fur (facings? lapels?). 5. For informal dress, a fur
robe with long or short sleeves. 6. The night gown may be
half or full length. 9 ? 11. The reason for this dress
at the beginning of the month, is that that is the time of the
new moon, and a ceremony was always held at time of full moon.
Some high officer read from the classics to "the people",
remembering that the same character means the lesser funcionaries.
X, VII, For fasting, he adhered to the prescribed diet, sat
in the appointed place. (again, this might be subjunctive,
"should") Does this apply to the prince?

Aug. 22

9

Book XX, continued; chapt. I, continued; section 7 refers
to a single state, not to the empire

XX, II, 1, paragraph 3: subjunctive? The man (prince)
should be? should desire? should be honourable?

section 2. the parenthesis (their harvest of grain);
bottom line, they will work,

top p. 98: If, whether he is dealing with many or few,
with small matter or great, the man (prince) will not be
churly ... If the man adjusts ...

Section 3: second line *but* . . . third line *but* . . .

30

g August 24, '57
2027 S. Bentley Ave., LA 25.

More or less random thoughts as I read Jefferson and/or Mussolini.

First, an item regarding my last letter -- said to relate to the Analects. Actually, some of the reference was to Ernest Fenollosa and the Chung Yung. It was there particularly that the Chinese character was so beautifully dissected. I made a few pencil marks in the text there too, but they are of no significance. I won't bother you with them.

Now to Jefferson Mussolini:

In 1933-34, I devoted a lot of time to trying to find out what the technocrats were trying to accomplish -- what was their credo. Much less time to C.H. Douglas. I met none of the leaders personally. Unless a handshake in Moscow in the summer of 1933, when our conducted tour happened to stop in the same hotel as George Cadbury. I concluded that the technocrats were just another breed of cats. That they were socialists, approaching more or less Marxist conclusions, but approaching them from a different emotional position. Marx said the world is a hell of a place; let us join together to make our poverty less desperate -- to share what little we have. The technocrats said modern technology and capital equipment has brought the millenium. The only trouble is that capital does all the work of production. That would leave man out -- no employment. So let's join together to compel even distribution of the wonderful proceeds of capital.

Money, as such, did not figure much with the technocrats. It was later that I ran into the Gesell, Soddy, etc. school of monetary reformers. I have never been a monetary expert. It is easy for a monetary enthusiast to talk me into silence. I have noticed, in arranging teaching programs for departments of economics in universities, that the course in money and banking is very popular, both with instructor and student. The instructors are likely to fight one another for the privilege of teaching the course.

One of the troubles with the stamped scrip money (not the only trouble) is a principle of money that is not often explicitly stated: *Only that medium can be called money which the people accept as money*. The legislators may pass laws, but if the people do not accept the medium, IT IS NOT MONEY. That is what would happen to stamped scrip, with its depreciation of 12% per year. It would fail in one of the essential functions of money, namely the storehouse of value, and the people would not accept it. They would prefer even to revert to barter.

Another general point about money is the amount needed in circulation. One of these schools would have money issued in the amount of goods produced. Presumably equal in amount. A sort of warehouse receipt.

Aug. 24

2.

31

Was the above person Gesell? or Soddy?

Now it is true, and important, that the amount of money in circulation should have a definite relation to the amount of goods passing from hand to hand. But that relationship is surely *not* one of equality. The turnover of money and the turnover of goods (the number of times changing hands in a year) are quite different, and obey different principles of change. When we have an increase in the number of trusts (vertical integration: from mines and fields to the final retail customer), the same amount of goods enters the markets, but not for the same number of exchanges. Much less money is needed.

If the economy becomes accustomed to a specific price level, then real estate, bonds, mortgages, stocks, goods have prices that are more or less consistent with one another. Thereupon, if there is a substantial change on either side -- goods or money; the amount of goods or the matter of vertical integration of firms (on the one side); or the amount of money or its velocity, or even the lack of public trust in the money (on the other side)-- there ensues trouble. A declining price level (not all such, but some of them) we call deflation. A rising price level we call inflation. Goods of one sort change prices quickly in such period of change; others, like real estate, change very slowly. At one time, before the formation of strong labor unions, wages changed rather late in an inflation; now they change very quickly.

Gesell and/or Soddy made little provision for the retirement of the warehouse receipts they would use for money. So the amount of money was not well cared for. Our banks do a better job of that. But maybe that shortcoming could be cured,

Another general principle of money, which I believe I stated in an earlier letter, is that if "management" of the money is placed in the hands of the government, we can be sure that sooner or later we shall have *mismanagement*. This is just as true of Gesell's money or Soddy's. This is the reason that over the past 2500 years, after each "bust" the general public learns to place no trust in the government. That is why we have returned periodically to the somewhat unsatisfactory metal coin money, rather than the wholly unsatisfactory managed paper money.

One of the sad lessons drawn from the New Deal, with its greatly increased interference of the government in business, industry, and corporate and individual affairs, is that the government does *not* take the long view. It does not plan for the decades or centuries. It wastes resources worse than did prévate enterprisers. This applies to Eisenhower as well as to Roosevelt, to Russia as well as to America, to the five-year plan countries as well as to the others.

Aug. 24

my page 6.

Then the innate kindliness of peoples (which had been present but not effective in the barbarian situation) takes over. The incompetent increase in relative numbers. Soon the golden age is over. The Greeks are completely ordinary; with no more than the usual appearance of genius.

That is where America stands today. In a century, it will develop that no type of government will be able to prevent our subsiding to the same level as Egypt or India. Desegregation is only a part of it. If we had a cruel and wholesome elimination of unfit --- both among the whites and the blacks (and the others)--- we could state it off on the basis of quality. Then in the end, only quantity would get us down.

But, of course, if we put the power of sterilization in the hands of anyone, he might turn out to be another madman like Hitler, with a bias against Jews, or whites, or blacks, or orientals.

Hence, we may say, simply, that the civilization will fall.

But, to get along with my reading. Pick up at page 30.

Page 36: Your paragraph on the new economics is gratefully received. It fits into my crusade on productivity.

p. 62. Whether there is or is not "enough" land; whether there would be "more" if the land were not privately owned. Or at least more product. Aristotle discussed this in criticizing Plato, didn't he?

page 69. The three principles need the background of my discussion of population, above. No I shows that you like producers more than drones, though you would be generous in the division.

The home folks should get their share before the foreigners. Always remembering the principles of population quality.

III, not only production and distribution, but conservation for future decades and centuries. For the Fourth World War, and for the Fifth. Here the government has failed dismally. Our grandchildren have rights; we are in a sense merely stewards for them; the government doesn't care a damn about them. And not only in the public sense of failing to provide for them. The income tax and inheritance tax make it certain they will not be provided for either by national government or by private care.

Interesting that Mussolini did not overdo the state interference and domination over the individual.

first ten lines or so on page 71, about the sellers of munitions. And in 1950s we see the mis-called communist government just as eager about producing and using guns.

top of page 60 fits in with my Kuan-tzu quotation from Jefferson: "The best place for keeping money is in the pockets of the people".

Next sentence: wealth is not so badly concentrated in a capitalistic society as in India, with its Rajahs. (pre-1940)

Aug. 25

my page 7.

36

page 80 2/3: Certainly money in the people's pockets would not produce deflation. It would produce inflation. The modern western countries have abandoned their obligation to maintain the value of the money, and have substituted welfare aims. The question is whether they will succeed, or run into bankruptcy.

Top of 81. Here we have the espousal of the use of money as a certificate of work done -- something like a warehouse receipt. Going back to a slight modification of the teachings of Robert Owen.

The two monetary reforms advocated in the book are quite different, and mutually exclusive: stamped scrip and warehouse receipts.

That the warehouse receipts will do away with the need for taxes is very dubious. The whole price structure will be in constant turmoil, and relations between the prices of capital goods, wages, rents, stock certificates, land, and foreign imports, will be in chaos. Because the quantity of money will be completely out of control.

In the Kuan-tzu, Essay 73, pages 121-122, the substances used for money were from remote sources, and not easily increased in quantity. p. 136 suggests the same. 142, a suitable quantity of money. 147 keeps the people out of a mining area. Also, on 147, a repetition of 73, etc., see index.

Another trouble with what I have called warehouse receipts is that when a man has produced a lamp and sells it, the buyer owns the lamp. He does not want anyone else to have and hold a piece of paper that entitles him to the lamp. So the term "warehouse receipt" was wrong. What the man who made the lamp holds is simple money, a ten dollar bill, made out by the buyer of the lamp? Or is the "money" made out only when the sale is to the government? And who determines that ten dollars shall be the amount, rather than twenty?

I'm agin it.

On p. 81, you have worried about perishables as compared with durables. I don't blame you.

And I repeat that something like 1/10 (varying with the business and industrial set-up) of the amount of goods produced per year, is all that is needed in the amount of money.

The circulation chart of money shows it going round and round many times, through the various channels. Whereas the goods have a one-way ticket; the return is accomplished by productive services of land, labor, capital, and enterprise.

I'm agin it.

Page 82: Of course the rascals act now, and would act under the proposed system. And so the good men. Maybe something good could be made of the proposed system, with their inventive aid.

Aug. 25.

p. 8

37

Chap. XXII, p. 86

Although in some ways economics seems to be a new subject, it has ancient and medieval roots. Bodin, Oresme, and others. Quite a group just before and just after the year 1800.

Various groups in the economic scene have seemed, at one time and another, to dominate that scene. The bankers may have looked like bosses just prior to 1929, but surely not from 1932 to 1936. Just now the governments think they can dominate the economic scene. But it may prove that the economy is bigger than the government.

And the merchants of death had their day. Now the governments are in that business too, especially the Russians.

You were certainly right about the Maginot Line; it failed dismally.

Chapter XXIV. As you point out, Mussolini had the sense to abandon radical dogma, and become somewhat of an opportunist. I agree. See my page 3, above. You are more inclined than I to grant credit to Lenin; but I agree he was much preferable to Stalin. But they are not really the subject of your discussion, and I drop them.

page 104. Have you thought how much F.D. Roosevelt imitated fascist Italy in the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the codes that were set up for different industries? Labor, management or ownership, and the government or people participated, in each case. All for objectives laid down by the government.

XXVIII. Yes indeed, the wail to be dominated was and is disheartening. The rating of security above freedom, F.D.Roosevelt's listing of the freedom from want as a freedom rather than as a security, helped to fog the issue. And his government came all out against the elemental virtue of saving. Spend, spend, spend.

p. 109. The word "soviet" applied originally to the electing of delegates by the local (and at that moment somewhat independent) workers' councils, said delegates to govern the larger areas (let us use American terminology and call them states); then the regional soviets elected representatives, who should govern the nation. (Never mind that the system was rigged from the start; this was the ostensible intention.) Just like the early days in America, when the state legislatures selected the national senators.

p. 115, I dispute the statement that the earth belongs to the living. See bottom my page 6.

The First and Second Banks of the U.S. The anarchy that followed the refusal to extend the charter of the second, wild-cat banking; no-good bank notes. the great depression beginning 1837. We needed the bank. But, of course, it needed to be controlled and canalized. But even in 1925, under a central system, decisions were reached that fostered speculation and the later collapse.

August 28. On reading Cantos LII - LXXI

I am no poet, merely a Philistine. I am no expert on
China, merely one who loves the early Chinese. I know very
little of American revolutionary and post-revolutionary history.

A few apparent errors (I pass over deliberate individual
spellings):

p. 4 2/3 and p. 5½: repetition for two different months,
of odour of burning, and to the hearth god the lungs

top 13. There were no coins 1200 B.C. -- at least not in
popular circulation.

80, 5 lines from bottom: not _distributing_, but _disrupting_.

97, line 8: effect, affect?

111 twice on the page: out ports for our ports

118½ decent

155½ Vergennes

Unless one already knows the history of China, the Cantos
remain somewhat cryptical. With that history already in
mind, the innuendos take on much extra meaning.

The historical sources of the China portion are not
quite clear. But Continental spelling of Chinese terms is
employed, rather than the more or less standardized form
for English transcription -- the Wade.

Canto LII. Ben Franklin also wanted to keep out _all brunets_ (guess the color of Franklin's hair).

The Chinese seasons beautifully handled (see my Kuan-tzu,
Essay 40, pages 88-92).

But page 5, lines 6,7. Yin and yang are _not_ then equal;
one is supreme; this is the solstice.

Canto LIII. Use of Chinese characters begins. Beautiful,
and therefore warranted to accompany the poetry. But add
little meaning to aid the reader.

Macaronic use of sundry other languages begins here too.

Ultimately: Latin, Greek, Chinese, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Dutch and English -- did I miss one? I find it
easier to follow here than in Finnegan's Wake.

p. 12½ As for the "schools", they should be taken with a
grain of salt. Very few pupils; probably no girls; did they
teach only obedience to the laws and rites? and reading?

Here and later, at intervals, excellent passages on the good
rulers and their service to the people. Also, for contrast,
p. 18, an evil king, taking pot shots at pedestrians.

21½. Do you concede too much to Shih Huang Ti? (that he
buned the books because of the fool litterati)?

To go back to p. 18. Too bad to omit mention of the other
schools of philosophy, Mo Ti, Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu, etc.

Bottom p. 24. Very brief (inadequate?) ref. to the great
conqueror Wu, who, incidentally, bankrupted China.

26. Omitted the picturesque Wang Mang

27. Omitted the Voltaire of early China, Wang Chung

But I must grant that an author has _SOME_ right to select.

45 1/3 Not clear whether you approve or disapprove issuing
notes and redeeming them at 1/3. Maybe even one-third is
better than what they would have lost had they carried gold?