SAORSTÁT EIREANN
(IRISH FREE STATE).

Uimh. Tagartha
(Reference No.)

ROINN GNÓTHAÍ COIGRÍCHE
(Department of External Affairs),

BAILE ÁTHA CLIATH
(Dublin).

22nd December 1926.

Dear Pound,

I was in London from October 15th to November 24th. Your letter
came while I was there. I came back here threatened with appendicitis;
that is to say, threatened with an operation, and with a Report to make
on the Conference. The Report is now made and the debate over. That
is all in explanation of my delay in answering your letter.

If I had been at your elbow I should probably have advised against
the starting of a Review. It is an ungrateful job to undertake. But
as you have got the fever I suppose it must run its course. Thanks
for thinking of me: but you know what my life is. My time is given
practically entirely to politics. Somebody described politics as the
science of the second best, and surely a small Review is to aim at the
quintessential—and our politics are particularly hum-drum.

I hope to send you with this some of the reports of our Banking
Commission. You will probably regard us as hopelessly conservative,
but we move on slowly.

I should like to subscribe to the Review, and when I have seen
some numbers of it I may have an idea as to what sort of thing would
be suitable. Meanwhile I keep my eye open here for signs of new
genius. The only two figures that have come into the limelight
during the last couple of years are Sean O'Casey and Liam O'Flaherty.

I had hoped that I might be passing through the Rapallo neighbour-
hood about this time, but that turns out to be impossible now; I must
put it off till Easter.

I have a vague notion that you were in Paris one time when I
passed through. I was rather annoyed at not seeing you. I am never
in Paris for any length of time, and usually am never able to say

- 2 -

beforehand when I shall be there. And you, what are your movements?
Do you just sit on in Rapallo and edit your Review there?

I met a number of your friends in London, but I don't remember
who they were now. I think Lady Colfax was one.

I am glad you are gentle with my little brochure. Most of
its contents have never seen the light, so if you care to fill some
of them in to blank spaces I shall of course be very happy.

How about your Opera? Is it finished? Have you taken any
steps towards letting the public hear it? You are the man with the
news; I come from Missouri.

As I said above, I am trying to get copies of the Banking
Commission Reports to send you. I also send the Imperial Conference
Report and my statement on it. They include all my news.

I see Uncle William occasionally. I hope he is writing poetry.
His conversation at social functions is very unquintessential.

Take my advice and don't worry about politics. When I am really
depressed & want to call to mind a really happy vision I think of you
in Rapallo writing a little in your room, going out to play tennis,
and just absorbing the sun at the sea's edge. I have to face an
election within the next six months. If the Irish people were
really nice and ungrateful I should be able to adopt such a life as
yours, but I know they will add injury to insult and re-elect the
present Government.

When does the Review come out? What is it to be called? Can
I get a subscription form?

I have an idea that the beautiful spy lady whom you may remember
writes occasionally poems for her own delectation. If I can get some
copies I will send them to you.

When I came back last year I did actually remember that you asked
me about literature on the Doctrine of the Albigenses. I looked
the matter up at the time. Their doctrine seemed very vague and to

J. Guiraud ... Cartulaire de N.-D. de Prouille, tome 1. pages 1 to 31.
Critique of Sources.

Dr. Smedt ... Histoire et doctrine des Cathares ou Albigeois, 2 vols.
Paris 1849.

Bierre des Vaux de Cernay ... Histoire Albigeois in the collection of
the Memoires relatifs a l'histoire de France de Guizot,
tome 19.

Cacandard ... Etudes de critique et d'histoire religieuse 2nd series
1910, pages 179 to 215.

Douais ... Les Albigeois, Paris 1879, second edition.

Guiraud ... Questions d'histoire, Paris 1906.

" ... Cartulaire de N.D. de Prouille eiee precede d'une
etude sur l'Albigeisme languedocien in the 12th and
13th century, Paris 1907.

ROINN COSANTA
(Department of Defence)
BAILE ATHA CLIATH
(Dublin).

13th. November, 1928.

Private

Dear Ezra,

Received your letters. Had hoped to see you somewhere about Christmas time but no chance now !

I am not nearly as worried about the Censorship Bill as you are and I think if you waited to see it in operation you would be less concerned. I am satisfied that an enlightened Committee - and Uncle William and The Irish Times notwithstanding the Committee will be enlightened - will not only not prevent any single person from reading anything that you or I think it desirable should be read, but also that Committee will have an enlightening effect, will put a stop to ignorant clamour - clamour against books that are innocuous or of definite artistic value.

You and I are both Censors. You (I believe) have tried to lead people to appreciate, say, Guido Cavalcanti and Armistead Daniel. I advertise Dante, Audelaire and St. Thomas. The Censorship Committee may make it just a little less easy for people to read all about every rape and incest performed in England.

Protestantism, during my life time and a long time before it, has tried to maintain its attenuated existence by preaching that the Catholic Church stands for unenlightenment. That prejudice represents the whole Protestant Credo of many people. Ireland is a Catholic country. Censorship in some form exists in every country. Here there is a proposal to put the matter in the hands of a Committee who will be enlightened and who will carry authority amongst the less enlightened. Therefore, Yeats, etc., say that we are going into utter ignorance because of the operations of that Committee. I shall have to have that proved to me before I believe it.

To sum up: Every country has some form of censorship because some censorship is necessary. I believe that the censorship here will be enlightened (as enlightened as it is possible for censorship to be).

( OVR )

АТНА 200 ИНИОП
(gifted to dreamer)
ITALIA ANTA BIAIAN
(married)

- 2 -

On the other hand other people (such as Yeats, the editor of the Irish Times, etc.) assume that it will be the opposite because this is a Catholic country (and Catholicism inculcates ignorance).

But I happen to know something about the history - teaching philosophy, etc. of the Catholic Church, and I also know that Yeats and the editor of the Irish Times, etc. are more than average ignorant. Therefore, I back my estimate of the workings of the Committee against theirs.

I admit that attitude hardly touches the question of the Censorship Bill. I am irritated by two things:

(1) Knowing something about the Catholic Church, I am annoyed when people who know nothing (such as Uncle William) make ignorant assertions and expect me to accept them as proved.

(2) I believe in the Real. If I happen to know that the world is round, and it is round, I am not going to say that it is flat. If another man believes it is flat I don't need to quarrel with him.

But I'm damned if I am going to agree that it is round for me and therefore round - and flat for him and therefore flat. It either round or flat.

The suggestion that I am intolerant and that I interfere with another man's freedom because I say the world is round when it is round, is a thesis that I am not going to agree to.

Well, having said all that I go on to say that I am very overworked here. The first opportunity I get I shall slip off for a holiday. I hope that it will take me somewhere beyond Rapallo. I hope to see you there. I shall be quite content to let you pour out all your feelings about the Censorship Bill on my poor head and merely gurgle in reply the words of Aristotle that the work requires delectation - if not spiritual, then carnal.

Best Wishes.

[1938]

Dear Fitzgerald

Continuing/ I am sufficiently interested in yr/ pamphlet scheme/ and also in age's proposals to ask a couple of more questions/ or make couple of suggestions.

Raven Thompson has brought out a clear pamphlet

The Coming Corporate State / 48 pages/ rather full

i;e; good deal longer than yr/ pamph//

This COULD be improved by R/T/ if he had to revise it/

Many of his formulae of/ be coordinated or put in language that wd/ coincide with a greater body of opinion/ or with formulae of different reform groups/

That revises and/or simplified form ; coming from Brit. Fascist wd/ be official. of MEANING of fascism in Bosley's organization.

Totally different from bogsbooo meaning now current among inclut readers of the Nation and the general shit and sugar trailing after Villard and British newspapers.

//

SECOND/ to get wide attention IN the U.S. entirely apart from political ideology/ a pamph/ of enquiry into ENDOWMENTS

( there general shit/ and perversion and betrayal of EXPRESSED intentions of doners ( whatever the real intentions IF any )

in short mortmain vs/ GUILD organization/ earth belongs to the living /

wd/ blop off a lot of roof as all universitaire America adorse and how tows to the donor of gyms and dormitories/

happy word/ what the american collegian DOES ably and thazzall,

How much do you and age correlate ?

yrz

20th July 1939

La Casa dello Studente
via del Porrione 32
SIENA (Toscana)

Dear Mr Pound,

I shall be passing Rapallo on my way back to Ireland
about 16th September and should like very much to come and see you if
you are in Italy at that time.

I believe you know my father, Desmond Fitzgerald, who
used to be a member of that group of poets who called themselves the
Imagists - Storer, Hulme, Aldington, and others.

I am very interested in modern poetry, but like most
people who are interested in it, I do not know half as much about it as
I pretend.

I hope you won't consider me unduly pushing in
writing this way to you.....

I remain,