15 Feb

Dear Sig/ Pellizzi

Thanks for the valentine in the Corriere

ONE fundamental very thoroughly stated/

only error is that
S/ Credit doesn't mean that the state does all the work, banking.
The state or community CONTROLS the credit /

the actual
accountancy etc/ needn't pass to state bureaucracy.

In fact the history of the Banco Giro, shows how hard it is
to get a bureaucracy to function on ANY new ground.

BUT the essentially dynamic thought you have
GOT, and very clearly.

I have been trying to meet De'Stefani for a long time.
Almost started it by challenging him to a duel on account
of his nibbling and coming up just TO the edge of the
real thing and then drawing back.

One of his articles SHOWN very clearly that" it is a MONETARY
problem."

That was an article on Italy killing pigs and
lambs while importing meat.

His thought in that article
should have led STRAIGHT to Douglas' prezzo compensato and

Is this PERFECTLY clear to YOU ?

ref/ Por in La Stirpe ; 'ec. and my note in Vita Italiana
for
/ gennaio.

Has Por kept you in touch with current
publication here/ his Osservatore Romano and other articles ?

//
Where there are roman roads ; mediaeval road, mulatiere,
it wd/ be possible at small expense to develop traffic
by motorcycle side car, or very small autos, that wd. take
two people and the marketing. This is particularly Ligurian
possibility, but I dare say there are other hill districts
where it wd. be useful.

prescrittibile.

HOW the HELL are you going to get THAT into the mind
of the French radicals ??

Someone OUGHT to be sent to PARIS
to DO THAT JOB, and do it bloody quick.

Union of the Latin peoples ( including the
frogs ).

Nobody took any NOTICE what blood ever of " Italia
PROLETARIA e fascista ".

Hell! I was in the Piazza Venezia.
To hell with BLUM. I shd/ think he is complete pewk.
But DALADIER is another matter ( as far as I can find out.
Have even personal assurance that he is honest. a FROG
politician/ HONEST !!!

Anyhow Tardieu is retiring ( unless its a hoax 1.
Can you persuaded ANYONE to get into touch with Jacques Duboin
(depute, Ligue du Droit du Travail ) Too busy to write
letters, but he has a friend who will. Edouard Charpentier
8 rue de Choiseul. Paris 2e.

Jugoslav minister of Building has gone " moneta
prescrittibile ". You have seen Por's articles in La Stirpe and
Regime Corporativo ???

ad interim.

Dear Pellizzi

Do you know anything about the Centro Italiano
di Studi Americani ?

or any of the blocks on the frontage ??

A?Farinelli / P.Gorgolini / P. Bolzano F.F.à Lanze , Lucille Ambruzzi
Mat. Bartoli, Gio Marro, Francesca Z.Salazar, Ser. Sergi ?

14 Dec

Dear Pellizzi

The Left Review, 2 Barton St. W.C.I

has just brought out a pamphlet " Authors Take Sides "
of 148 opinions on Spain, 122 are violently against Franco
a few calm, and five pro Franco.

Apart from H.G.Wellis and myself there is NOT a great
deal of sense expressed. None of the 122 wd/ matter if alone.

BUT the mass IDIOGY is a revelation of what the shit press
has done/ it is DANGEROUS idiocy/ it has can prolong war
and cost 100,000 more lies.

I wish you wd. GET the pamphlet AND
THEN try to get yr/ compatriots to understand who is to blame.

It is NOT the little London pinks, it is the
BLOODDY piffling asses who are regared as men of letters
in Italy, who, AS I have tried to get some wop editor to print
for ten years past /
have stopped at 1890, who have crabbed or
failed to understand the decennio and the Quindecennio/
/ and AS opinion in the intelligentzia
abroad comes from the intelligentzia IN a country

etc.

these Bontempellites, and Paris/ites

have causes this idiocy/ plus the fuorusciti and people who
found Lauro de Bosis chairs of literature in Harvard " University "

I don't know that the London Embassy can be pursued to
try to wake the ministry of Educ Pub ( late Stampa
and *rop//

BUT They ought to see this pamphlet/ and take it as
steam guage.

Where's Odon ?

yrz 12

19 Jan

Dear Pellizzi

Thanks. I don't see how I can do an authoritative
long article until I have some idea of what the blighters actually
do teach' and what not/ in the universe.

Given my normal density of express/ or condensation etc. i doubt if any
of you can digest more at a time than what i am now using in short
articles in meridiane/ But if you wd/ occasionally QUOTE from these
articles it wd/ or might drive an occasional pref to read 'em and
perhaps ( the not likely ) to think.

especially as bro Adelf etc/
is now being quite explicit and i suppose comprehensible to his
followers.

Someday the axis will tip toward the north end/ if you blokes
dont try a little CULTURE at this end. and if you dont get it from
me Christ alone knows where you will get it/

and damn all if you
put me against the whole Forschungsinstitut i will need damnall i he
have got and few blokes to hold down my coat tails. Germany isn't
all Stukas/ the thank gawd she is a LOT of 'em.

And if I have one 25th of the publicity that is given to shits
like Wells and vain fahrts like Shaw there wd/ be more uncle ee/
'inkans and wheelers in the U.S. or rather then gents wd/
have got going sooner.

Six lines in Cult. Fasc/ nothing that I have recommended

Butchart's " Money "

Brooks Adams publications from 1897 to 1905

Proper compendia of the real thought of the American founders
(as of interest possibly greater than french revolutioners of 1789)

plus various other less available sources/ might START opening
the mind of etc. was anyone here learned even what Voltaire
already saw re/ economy? One might think the Boss had read him in
early youth and forgotten it. though i dare say he saw it all for
himself.

Just reading Artistic little ok/ I appear to have been right by
instinct/ but American conditions are damn well different and need
something more or different/ ang/sax's will NOT meet, and not even
form committees of correspondence or use circular letters. so much the
goddesses worse for 'em. and so forth.

If the war持续all ever ends + shall try to get Uberti if he
ever has any time to collaborate in a real history of the U.S.A.

imean time it wd/ accelerate if Dara ("e Jemier) wd. git on with
that collection of stuff from Rassegna, Monetaria and Eridiano/
helps to have a book out/ something to feed to neophytes/ even if
there has been eight years lost time/

spose several people wanted to
milk the old racket before admitting that the world do move etc.
however now that Adelph has SAID several things quite plainly I
spose the opposition want still think it can hide under a
pisspot.

and so forth

benedictions

6 Dix

Dear Pellissi

Re/ book BONIFICA mentioned in this morning's papers.

WHO is on the committee ? Will it be possible to get at least
PART of the NECESSARY books translated into Italian ??

Secondly BILINGUAL editions of a few essential books that NEED
the original HM on page facing the text ?

Three a HHHH cheap edition ( say at 10 or 12 lire ) of
stuff in commonly known languages / german/ french / english.
( or perhaps not french as french books are already cheap ) /

Suff the god damn jew Tauchuiz/Albatross will never print and
that students write to me about, because they can't get the books
and couldn't afford 12 shillings/ a quid/ or 3 or 5 dollars even
if the books were imported ?

Naturally the value of the bonifica depends on the selection /

yours

Via Marsala 12/ Rapallo

Dear Pel

We ought to be at least clearer in our own minds,
as to what is the cultural program. IF there is one, I ought
to be correlating my stuff TO IT.

I hope you have had time to look at the B.Adams/; I think there
ought to be in the insegnamento: some concept of the
historic CYCLE/

I am of course continually trying to get a
clearer and briefer statement of what Adams drove at/ and to
improve definitions of it.

The Confucians was first blood/ first 24 necessary pages/
I have done the Confucian Organum into English/ and shall go
on with that.

BUT, in interim, we ought to emphasize the IDENTITY of the
two revolutons/ American 1776, and Fascist rev.

Ought to be at least half a page in the school books/

IF you here don't understand it, the one teaching al estero
gets slowed down, quite needlessly.

Those seem to me the immediate points that one should make.

I mean NOW, at once.

I don't suppose you have time to read Meridiano, I mean NY articles.
One on Social Credit this week.

That is all more complicated, the IDENTITY of the Two revolts
ions can be asserted without raising controversy/ ought to worry
any one.

Of course I have MORE program/ necessary books,
in ORIGINAL, as well as in translation. proper divulgation and
conservation and opening up of archives; etc. let the rest

12, Via di Villa Albani

Rome, 7 December 1952.

Dear **WILLIAM POUND**,

I have been silent so long, but not altogether forget-
ful. With other friends of yours about here we have been considering whether
the new situation in the States may not bring some novelty in connection with
your position. But you will get reports about these talks from other sources,
as I, unfortunately, am not in a position to do much, directly. I feel there
ought to be now a steady determination on many sides to bring the whole damn-
able affair to a head.

Not many novelties on the local sector - which is bad,
because the general trend is not what it ought to be, to make one hopeful.
Americans making themselves felt a little more with commissions and criticisms
about our medioeval "productivity", total lack of serious studies on human
relations in industry (but I have being trying to do this stuff in Florence
for the last 2 years), and bad faith on the part of our industrialists (many
of them, at least) in the application of the suggestions that come from across
the Atlantic. General output of the country slightly increased, even relati-
vely to the population increase (which is now less than that of France): but
the increase is mostly industrial, because there we are so far behind the
times, and any little effort brings some jump forward. In agriculture we are
lagging. You insist on new cultures: you ought to be here and fight it out
with the specialists: they speak as if we were already doing too much. The
Govt. is carrying on the agrarian reform, making for itself many enemies and
few friends. "Orthodox" finance remains the order of the day: never spend
the money you have not got. But prices are going up all the time, by tiny
surreptitious bounds.

Liberals and demoXstians get jobs; the MSI gesticulate
and hardly ever think (as they did for twenty years before, and I must con-
fess I am done and finished with all that); the monarchists have got nothing
to say but collect votes from people who are fed up; the intell-
ectuals are fond of spooning with the communists in the semi-dark corners.
Most of the economy of the country is in 30 or 40 hands, and most of these
are practically unconnected with any appreciable amount of grey matter. So-
cial affection: almost nil.

O. Por is a nice man and does not spoon; he makes good pills
against diarrhea, works hard in spite of age; but feels the call of the fo-
rest from beyond the "line". In his native Hungary they are certainly doing
things, more than we butterflies are doing here; but he seems forgetful of o-
ther sides to the matter, important sides on which he has been spatiating
for many years past. He's a good friend, anyhow.

New magazine format New Yorker might be a good idea for
a bit of dough. Thanks for the suggestion. But what are we to do ? Generally,
one gets the script back with many thanks, but "not quite suitable". Suitabi-
lity is the curse of our work.

Wishing you the best

120, Viale Itálico
Forte dei Marmi (Lucca).

13 - 9 - '53.

Dear Pound;

under pinetrees on the seaside; working, though not so
much. This is partly why delay etc. Each one of your letters would require
a book for an answer, and I have neither the brains nor the time for it (be
sides, I hate books, - they always make one write more than ① has to say).

Papini near here; very ill but still himself, and clever. Soffici
too, and some minor fry. Pella all right as far as things have been going on
here these last ten years or so: not very broad or new views, but sound,
and hated by all the politicians (which says a lot in his favour). Trieste
not a genuine affair: muddled by leaders, Degasperi among them, all the time
since the war. The Brits have their feet in, and won't let go so easily. The
Slavs will stop nowhere end at nothing, and this country is still too soft
and cracked to stand up to them. Last elections here showed millions of votes
swinging here and there without any idea whatsoever of possible real results.
May be worse at next elections, which may be near in time. The Huns seem to
know better: they have no illusions about the Tartars.

Been in Belgium for a sociology congress: tosh, mainly. But got
the clear impression that Switzerland, Germany, and all Europe north of
France definitely alert about the danger from the East. France is a sort of
academy of contradictions. England trying to play an obsolete game: but I
fail to see what other game they could play. The focal point on this Conti
nent is now Bonn, with American alliance. The Brits are on the fringe, and
can only perform disturbance actions, or get something each time for not
doing so.

I am not in the mood for ideas. Read and written so many of them,
and not a thing done ever. Vocat/ represent/ better than what we have now,
but anything, or nearly, would be that. The last decennio has brought us
back more than 50 years in political thinking; economic affairs always on
the verge of ruin; Cavour and Mazzini paleozoic in themselves, but too ad
vanced already for our present élite. And it is hardly any use writing pole
miche against *WWW* orthodox nonsense such as "red fascists" and other back
wash of propaganda in the last 25 years. Might as well wait to see what the
next wave of mass-produced brains will bring us. Work-money, for inst., is
an old idea; traces of it even in S. Thomas, I think.

I only wish you could be here or in Rapallo, looking up at the
stars and writing a few more Cantos. (I am afraid Faber never *will* send me
the translations, but I might sound Agresti about them). There is hardly any
thing better that could be done.

CENTRO DI STUDI SUI PROBLEMI DEL LAVORO

PRESSO LA FACOLTÀ DI SCIENZE POLITICHE E
SOCIALI "C. ALFIERI" - UNIVERSITÀ DI FIRENZE

IL DIRETTORE

12, Via di Villa Albani
Roma, 12-12-'53.

Dear Pound,

This letter paper just to show you in what kind
of horror I am getting enmeshed. Il Direttore is
yours very sincerely etc. No money in it, though,
- I am out of my own expenses so far - unless our
plutocrati and burocrati decide that we might even
do a bit of useful work there amidst the horrors
of Florence. Except that, if they have any such
suspicion, they would probably have the whole thing
smashed to bits. I even hope we might do something
about monetary issue some day - although economics
is not our normal pabulum.

Certainly, there was no hint of it in the Liège
congress.

Am writing to your young Seidel. Too late now to
join a Univ. regularly, here. But why the hell
should he do that at all ? Univ. lectures are free
and open to anybody here - which is probably one
of the good reasons why nobody attends them, not
even the students mostly. He might join next fall.
Some Univ. mainly a senseless crowd; much better
my own Faculty in Florence, if it comes to that.
However, I am writing to the young hopeful, begg-
ing for details or instructions.

Soffici's two volumes of autobiografia, already
publshd by Vallecchi, and a third coming out
presently, not bad here and there, and an incompa-
rably better Italian than Ramperti's. Papini too
old, though Soffici was born earlier.

Publisher sent me from America your "Translations",
which I am very glad to have. But he said in the

note therewith: "Either you review this book (and
send us cutting) or else you must jolly well send
the book back".

Can I be thoroughly dishonest like a real Italian
and do neither ?

I'd like to keep the book, and the paper I write
for has Praz as the local monopolist of lichera
chure in English. If I ever attempted to trespass
there would be a row.

No: no use ever trying to educate the Corriere. A
very provincial paper, anyhow. (One of the curious
things happening is that Rome is becoming a capi-
tal).

Another thing happening: masses of the people in
the South voting communist. The North is becoming
more stabilized; the South, after going to see Amer-
ican films (they mostly didn't have cinemas in the
past), and getting bits of difficult land on the
Riforma Agraria, goes and votes communist, or pro.
The margin of safety in votes being now so small,
after the next general elections dear Woptaly, and
yours very affectionate etc., might find themselves
in an awful mess. Nobody really wants it, not even
Togliatti: but the trouble is that everybody votes.

Glad to see progress of Ezzismo. A girl from a Ca-
nadian University translated my article on E.P.
and sent it to me for correction: was to be pubshd
in their University magazine.

Many thanks for the Agassiz, too.

And "Buone Feste", also from my wife, whatever
your symbolical values in connection with them.

12, Via di Villa Albani

28 march 1954. Roma.

Dear Pound, a most casual correspondent I
am, but not a forgetful friend.

I still have to answer on Dante: excellent
point you made there. The other night, Florence la-
dies reading aloud Paolo e Francesca, but I said no,
you should read Paradiso: that's the stuff to give
them. And your two booklets just out, to be seen
in shop windows in via Tornabuoni: I felt elated:
drops on a desert - still, everything helps.

Benton: please give a poor dense fellow more
precise details; some day I might even write an
tkl about him, though the papers never want se-
rious things, and my paper in particlr, IL TEMPO
is linked up with awful money and dmXstn buggaries.

Yes, Life of Robesperr by Giuseppe Maranini of
Florence (also wrote a history of the Venice consti-
tution which would fit in with you).

On Tuesday going to Paris to take part in an
entretien on "family". Sociologists and statistics
etc. Stuffy. However, I am curious to get some di-
rect exprnce of how things down, or up, there. Should
be back in tendays.

This country nearly drowning herself into the
suspenders of poor girl sunk near Ostia. She had no
suspenders on her, but police said she died because
she was watering feet against eczema. Commies all
out to make capital of police and govnmt stupidity
and bad faith. People now a bit tired; but margin of
safety very narrow, if there shld be elections in
near future. Dirt and state-socialism here there and
everywhere. Underpaid burcets give themselves away
for little (or much, sometimes). Professors always
in debts, unless they blackmail you on surgical ope-
rations etc., in which case they charge monstrously.
Like most other things in the country, they get de-
filed owing to uncontrolled and unchecked miscon-
duct of a few.

12, Via di Villa Albani
Roma, 22-5-54.

Dear Pound,

Waiting for the Benton; and many thanks for thus look-
ing after my sadly neglected education.

Details about Webster received from a Mr. French of
Alexandria, Va. Plus remarks about sociology and literature: to which I
agree, as I am saying in my answer to him. In fact these sociologists ought
to know more Latin - and Americans in general: supposing, for a moment,
that there is anything worth doing for or about the future.

Your queries:

- Which is the particular view you would like to creep into the week-
ly BugEasy ? (If it is the one about McCarthy, I can say that Prezzolini
in his frequent articles is very much tuned to it. But now and then I am
trying to bring in some of your more general heresy).

- I never get the Social Crediter. Can't afford to buy subscription.

- ABC ought to be mentioned in the aforesaid weekly. I seldom con-
tribute to it, but would touch on the subject, and perhaps enlarge on it,
some day, if I see the way to link it up with something noisy at the mo-
ment.

Mazzei vastly unknown here, _and_ by myself. If this is not too troublesome
for you, please let me have some details (books, and where they can be
found, etc.)

If certain things keep _we_ going as they are now going, and other personal
things develop in a certain way, I might take up my sack and go into exile
again, - which would be sad indeed, because I only really conceive of life
betwixt here and Florence & Forte dei Marmi. The bastards are throwing this
_our_ country to the dogs - red dogs, as I always feared and predicted. Margin
of security now as thin as cigarette paper. CED probably not going through,
the French and probably also the English boycotting it somehow; we got
stuck on this silly aftair of Trieste, in which Tito seems to be playing
a double game, very convenient for the Huns. This country likely to remain
weaker still; _we_ no idea how to prevent the reds from getting more and
more votes - and getting through the cigarette paper.

I wish I could send you more bracing news. Consider that the very fact of
writing and signing on such a muddled paper _as_ the BugEasy is enough
to make your name taken down as of an "enemy of the class" or something.

Yours

Aux soins de M.me Bordes
5, Rue des États Henri de Bornier
Paris 16me - 27/2/55.

My dear Pound, sorry I am so late answering
your infuriated letter of January. Really there is
a hell of a lot to do here, though the actual re-
sults are probably so meagre. And I have been tra-
velling in the snow and frost to Holland, Austria,
Geneva (BIT). In two days I shall have to go to
London. Results of all this ? Vide supra.

Sure Brown would deserve a spanning, in spite
of the fact that he is so widely unknown. But I have
not been publishing a line since early August, and
I am not supposed to start any fireworks as long as
I want to work here: which I do, for the time being
at least, because it would be silly to get sacked
now that I am beginning to understand something
about it, after a very tiring apprendistato.

Must try and contact Brancusi immediately I
can take the breath. So with others, by word of mouth,
I often have talks about you: Joppolo,
for instance, who says you published his first art-
icle ever. You seem to get sympathy even in the
extreme left, as they call it - as in his case.
Who is Soddy, or what ? Sure one misses boats in
life - better than journeying so much, as I am
doing now. But this seems to be a boat I took wi-
thout knowing it.

Excuse my impiety. One of the saddest things
about your present situation is that inevitably
you loose sight of actual situations and propor-
tions. Refugees, as Machiav/ said, always give bad
advise; and you are like one who is forcedly a re-

Chez M. me Bordes
5, Rue Henri de Bornier
Paris 16me. 1/5/'55.

Dear Pound, BIT is Bureau Intern. du Travail (Geneva).

Hope to see Joppolo today. Shall suggest that he writes something, somewhere.
Not important but a good man. Not his job to write about that Brown, but should write
about you. And his "redness", as usual with such men when they are in good faith, is
mostly a "cultural lag". Better if he can write in some French periodical, but I am
not sure he can. Perhaps Enrico Fulchignoni, who has admission in some sophisticated
centres here, and me even writes for them. The undersigned knows nobody (except the few
congenial "centenaires" you introduced him to - but Miss Barney has relapsed into
complete silence: why don't you write to her ?), and only works from mornning to night
at a funny thing called "human factors in productivity" - supposed to be applied so-
ciology or something. (Family still in Rome - bit lonely here in the face of blooming
marronniers - just had two weeks in Florence managing an international seminar on
"human relations in industry"). Do not know how long I am going to stick it, or they
will stick me. Better pay than a bl. Italian prof., and the bliss of not having to
written a line for publication in the last nine months. Back home the old "corriere
della serva" would not have me again, and it is the only paper in Woptaly as pays any-
thing decent for an article.

No idea who runs "Rivarol", but can ask.

"Reality", "situation", are words we use when we have that uncomfortable feeling
of knowing too damn little about either. But nobody will ever really know, even
approximately, what they "really" mean.

New buggar at the top in Woptaly - vastly intended to show the Mr 'Mrikans that the na-
tives are willing to bear up with them only to the extent of accepting their money:
plus all the Reds rushing into the gap. I do not expect, however, that it will make
much difference in the general confusion.

This man Peg has courage, and you should not complain too much of his bending sometimes
to the *idola fori*: they would not let him publish antything, I suppose, if he did not.
(Oh, the happiness of *not* writing for publication !)

And what do you want me to be Aristotelian about ?

Please mention specific queries, keep healthy, and remember

5, Rue Henri de Bornier
Paris 16me. 11/11/'55.

Dear Pound,

Ages. No apologies. Nothing new, except bad teeth, and this
dry work against the natural bent of men and things. Where the hell is Europe ?

Who is this man Stock writing from Melbourne in your name and Swabey's ?
He wants articles - but I am not _writing_ just now.

Papini was decent, they tell me. /I never read the Corr. della Serva.
What else. Last summer, at Forte dei Marmi, I met that Italian lady with an American
accent (she teaches in Washington, I understand, and _is_ American) who worries about
you, as most of us do when we are men enough to remember the facts. With her we con-
tacted all the sleepy bunch of the intellllektooals who group and espy one another
with deep distrust under the platano: all of them ready to sign something about you
somewhere sometime; the lady tried to get Cini, the miliardaire, and the phony kultu-
ral affair he finances, and which is directed by a phonier man called, I think, Tasca.
They would not have it, and so the thing fell through as usual. What is Mary doing,
or the others ? A man from your Embassy in Rome told a friend of mine the other day
that you are after all respectfully looked after in "a clinic" in Wash.D.C. (Damned
Cant).

Und so weiter. Only hope, the antiproton. I am approaching the attitude of the Spanish
anarchist whose motto was: "bajo el existiente".

Well, Pea is ageing behind his beard - wants a literary prize every year and generally
does not get it. Said "please remind me to EP etc." Not seen Vander. and Natalie for
ages now.

People will die of "distension" and a wrong philosophy. I have a big go in Rome
for this shop, end of january, on "human relations": trying to make managers talk
it over with tradeunionists, in the presence of some specialists - twelve countries
represented and mixed up there. Probably it won't go, after which they will give me
the sack here at last. "El derrojo es el trofeo de las almas bien nacidas". Why do
I quote so much Spanish to-night, I don't know. Saw your poetry books in the window,
at S. Germain des Prés.

Well, enough of this. _Do_ keep on existing: it'd make it too easy for
them if you did not.

probably deadest and fussiest in europe, fmal
Spanish, swedish and portagoose trans/ come out better. Wop
also v. difficult at receiving end.

Jheez. it wa/ be jus' tew bad if a frog got desoriente. (p 211 Butr)
Butr see s not to know that the Div. Com has..three sections.. but
he is french, ca se comprend. We can THAN, him for " entente avec
la nature" ( still room for la b/( belle ou bloody) France in or at
edge of civilization. let us recall buzzard in Bib. Nat. when I told
him " Mais, Monsieur, votre catalogue est une blague. "

I spose some bright spart will FINALLY get to usury as MECHANISM, not a motive. ma! Ambrose'denunciation got some nice prose details . have just got round to him / King Jim british vurry inferior to latin/

Relative duration of Byzantine empire, and Manchu dynasties / to
be correlated with usury rates. ( I mean it has been.. but Butter
wont know that for a bit/ besied he has got printed.

What race is Butter/ last eve I heard of a local kike,
spuming into eulogy of Sowbelly, " in his cape, real american
royalty "/ I wonder who started the idea that I was aimin to
putt Mus on the right hand of Kike the Father

5, Rue Henri de Bornier. Paris 16me.

23.9.'56.

Dear Pound, yes, what, sheer laziness on my part. I do meet a number of letterati, also painters etc., mainly in Rome when I am there; they have nothing to say, though they say it rather well sometimes. You the only one I know who has got some kind of a world of his own nella pancia, and are being punished because you attempted childbirth in the public street. I have not the slightest fear of writing and even publishing anything that might interest you, except that as long as I get salary here I better not get involved in writing in papers which would collour, classify me: and I am unclassifiable just now, not because I want to be, but simply because I find no bearings: probably almost emptybellied. "Friends": Emilio Cecchi, still writes next to nothing on next to nothing in good Italian (quasi-dead language. I am a barbarian, born near Turin, family from Reggio Emilia, still traces of northern accent, which incenses wife and children: yet I can write some sort of Italian if I set myself to it; which I never do just now); Bartoli the painter, occasionally very witty; Moravia very seldom, is a very good boy despite his grimaces, his wife Elad Morante, a bit mad and a bit of a writer; Flaiano, a clever writer at times, now works mostly for the cinema; Cardarelli, overdressed and furcoat even in July, used to come to lunch at my house because there was a stove going, undependable to the point of criminality, but ho nest in critical judgement (not widely informed), and in conversation could at times produce bits which were of the very best I ever heard; lately so ill that he even promised to take a bath, for once in his life; but doctor found him not so bad after all, and so he promptly withdrew his promise. A group of writer-journalists who were "liberal" and now have turned "radical", whatever that means, except that they hope to remain on crest of the wave if Nenni comes to power with Saragat and the "moderates" of reddism. Ernesto Rossi attacking big business in "Il Mondo", clever articles (also, a book on the collusions of big bus. and fASCISM, facts mostly correct, slant often mistaken): Alb. De Stefani told me the same things, and why he had to leave the Govnmt. far back in '24 (I think), ages ago, and better than Rossi); but Rossi in charge of a post-war affair called ARAR which the very reverse of all he preaches; etc. etc. Why waste time on all this? You would say "shit", a good all-inclusive metaphor. In Florence, Maranini is the Dean of the Faculty when I am a prof. of sociology (nominally, for the time being, but see infra). In addition to Robesp. and other things, wrote one or two good books on the working of the constitution of old Venice (have you read them ?) Junior colleague there Giov. Spadolini, historian of recent Italy (e.g. the anti-uniteditaly catholics), also now director of "Il resto del carlino" (under new name) in Bologna. Nothing to get very excited about. Here, Gino Antonini, knows everibody in lichrchr in both countries and writes about them all, here and there; has done so since neanderthal; suffers from charges still been made against him, without foundation, by reds and liberators: a good friend, and it is he who filled Mohrt's mind with the EP stuff with which I had filled his: no wonder it got muddled in the end. (I find your Ciardi rather bischero, and I am passing the Uberti on to my charming American semiprocommunist millionairess, who has abruptly returned to Paris).

2.

In Milan: Longanesi, violent feelings which are sometimes the right ones, a measure of wit, taste and application in such various things, a small-sized romagnolo with a severe inferiority complex, like all his compatriots in Romagna wants to be aitan-no and is disgusted because they won't let him; not one single idea inx a lifetime, therefore pulls to pieces anything that looks like ideas from others; he would like to be financed by big business, but on his own terms, which is the nearest approxi-mation to honesty and independence of conscience in my own countryx, as far as I know, in present times: of course, big business lets him down and he is periodically in trouble. I have not contributed to his paper for some 56 months now: too busy here, but also, discrepancies with his ideas, or lack of same, and unwilling to be classified by every idiot as one of his group. Giovanni Ansaldo, editor of "Il Mattino" of Naples, writes a lot nel Borghese, on a conservative, liberal, giolittian, "good old times" tone; sometimes writes well (see his "Italiani illustri e oscuri", which I find a very good serial); is a declaredly avaricious genovese and a good friend, but I seldom see him.

Or do you want me to speak of the Vanoni Plan? Everibody does, also because nobody has read it (nor I). Enough if I say that it started by telling Italians to economize on consumptions and give their savings to the state, who would invest them etc. When I say that Italians ought to be induced to consume _more_ anyhow, every professor of economics tells me that this would lead to inflation: a thing which I learnt at school, but I persist in the notion that even the politicians might try and do something for their living (e.g., read some of your paranoic stuff): keeping consumption up _without_ inflation should be just their trade. Most Italians, however, especially since they have been liberated, can only think in such terms as "the left", "the right", etc.

Here: in charge of "human factors of productivity" for a year and a half; then trip-ped and kicked upstairs under the title of "counsellor on Training" and the applied social sciences"; tried to push "human relations in industry" in Europe, which eve-ribody else is now trying to do; find hostilities here and there; find support on the American side among sociologists and experts in management, but a strong group of tradeunionists hostile, not to me, but to the intrusion of social sciences in their pasture fields. The shop, after the cessation of American financing, falls back on financing by the "free" countries of Europe, and is therefore reduced to 2/3 of its previous budget; economizes mostly on applied social sciences; thinks fit, after next June, to get my lights only occasionally, because, they say, they cannot employ me full time "as a scientist": which is true, if the things to be done are silly or next to nothing. I expect then to go back to Italy, where, after all, there may even be some chance of doing some practical work. But it almost means starting again, anew, for the Nth time in my life. I am not allowed to get old, - and I have not even got the forced vertues of old age.

All the family permanently in Rome; eldest boy, Francesco (16), here now for a time; has been chasing Remusat all through the Quartier Latin; unsuccessfully so far, but there is hope; shall put him also on the track of Renauld's Psellos if you still want it.

Difficult to meet Fritz, but I shall try again.

Vale.

18-XI-'56.

My dear Pound, Tu scriptor art still floating (morally) on the ruins of this decrepit continent. Sir Anthony had his own crossing of the Mareb, but then did not move quickly enough and got spanked. Good display of up-to-date consciousness on the part of many Englishmen, by no means all laborers. Two ships sunk in the middle of the Suez canal, and two or three Arabs breaking one or two oil pipes in the Near East, and the whole of our worthy Continent here is short in petrol. We go to bed in the cold and we can't motor outside the district. Fancy if we had to face a major war !

In world war I the Magyar honveds were never detailed on the Italian front because they would fraternise with the wops. They would fight like hell, on the contrary, against the Russians. It's their knack. Fancy trying to force a Russian rule on them. But Mark of course maintained that once you change the economic infrastructure the rest will follow. My noble friend, I am afraid you too have gone through too much economy in your time (the economists are strangling me, even in Italy). This Hungarian upheaval is most unorthodox and uneconomic: imagine, the general strike weapon being employed to bring to reason their dictatorship of the proletariat !! And this, after the tanks of the proletarian regime have done their very worst and decimated a country. Old Marx' bones must be turning in their grave.

There does not seem to be much conviction in the air where I work, and it looks as though I shall only stay on here a few months. But, what about my own country? I have tried to launch there applied and industrial Sociology at University level: a most revolutionary thing to do in the land consecrated to Croce (may God have him in his mercy). This is what the people from your country are all out to obtain: they have spent millions of dollars for it. Yet the old cliques will certainly carry the day: I hardy know whatever I could do when I go back to what you call Woptaly. Give some badly paid lectures, of course - and no change all round.

Sure both Talleyrand and Metternich excellent men, worth studying, both, if one wishes to understand dung flood in which Europe now sinking. What's the EP symposium ? No news of it yet in this sharkey corner of Paris and the world.

Best wishes etc.

IF. 21 Nv/ the emiNent Pllz would stop attributing to ME
all the goddam cliches that I have never accepted or emitted
the situation in his own foro interiore might be more
diverting.

what Dant/ and Shx/ not to mention egg-heads like
Ari/ Locke, Newton etc. have NOT scorned is not materia
poetica, you better find out what is.

I have putt the term VOLitionist on title page of
my HH econ/ Doug/ sd/ money: more an implement of
policy than a medium of exchange.

the god damn socialists refuse to look at the
most powerful implement( after the alphabet) and wallow
in a morass of webbism/ passports and papperASSe.

Obviously the crab louse puts up
price of oil / as did the red shindy in Spain. That is WHAT
it is for. as wars to make debts, and even afric folk lore
contains: I debiti fanno i schiavi.

consider woptaly / a few descendants of
citizens/ and a mass from the slave population/ hence
the wobble and Lonagnesismo.

You cant be convinced of the
maundering of infamtilism / as of the admiral who got
the 50 million $ s/ atom-sub/ and dont know what it is
paid for WITH/

and who will get a few million a year
from the people as rent on thenation's own credit.

Even in Firenze yu cd/ use yr/ mind, and
communicate with a few intelligent men / wereNSt more
tha 80( if that) in ericles' Athens.

Takes a life time to find
'em.

Henry James ( not jr) writes me from teXas that there
is still more kulch in YuRupp than in teXas . Waco.

The Oriya trans/ of Whitman is about to appear.
alzo Oisaner Yesange in krautisch. with a "achwort
by the formidale Evaaaa.

Symposium, wasin Nuova Corrente, 250 pages or zummat
rear-guard action of part of slowly retreating egg-heads
( boiling time 1¼ minutes ).

The only european comment to date on Mr Carruth in Prospetti
has been" condescending ass". But Nation Europa prints
a, I spose, dutch van der Made, who SEZ it re Ez.

It is the vi th year of the mag, which printz
alzo Kennedy and Jenner. mebbe you are in too international
a POSEition to see that active publication. IF you
want addresses I can send 'em.

I spose you cd/ save 10 bucks by asking Stock for
exchange copies of " Edge"/ now the livliest monthly in
the common Illth of brito yank nations. The N.Times
hotter and more Political.

Yes yesm patient wops still bearing a
croce. Why not ditch it.

gladly my cross-eyed bear

child timid about entering edifice/ because of animal.

Economy / income first year of other war 42 quid( stg)

Kasper acquitted with cheers / but they still trying to
hang a year on him for some technicality.

NUTS, Talleyrand a gt/ man, Metternihk a dirty punk /
and it is goys like Met/ and Gentz that bitch civilization
fra voi di voi non ride.

do dissociate / Note protestant tolerance of stink of
decaying mind/ I dunno nowt re Waldensians / But
yu had orter cling to some of mediterranean heritage.

discovering the moon late in life / i.e. mediaeval
latin corny is rel/ greek of the period , and or
back berore them.

A czarist general only man I ever heard
emphasizing the FALL after Alex Mac/ worse than
after flop of Imp. Rom. burry li'l nooz in my anterior circles/
of civilization in Byzance/ of course Diehl VERY a noyed
when I asked him IF anything interesting ever occurred

there. He answered that it wasn't historians business to
look for things of interest.

which is ILLUSTRATIV of
beaneries. and the decline of froggery. apart from
n.r.f. midwife of France' decay.

You might lecture on Thiers,¹ doubt
if any Florentine has done so. and dont know what the
life of the mind is in Perugia. Hear the Cent. Gentilian

5, Rue Henri de Bornier
Paris 16me. 18-1-57.

Dear Pound, there was nothing at the back of my mind in sending the Rilke except that some of the stuff is good writing here and there (was written originally in French, when R. was trying to write even French verse in a Valérian mood) - and the comments on the unnamable regime typical of a certain choosey intelligentzia at that time - yet, something better than a good deal of the anti- stuff we have been generously served since the last écoulement du monde. The cover band, in my interpretation, was meant to catch a certain number of buyers, on false preten-ces. Permanently I have never been particularly keen on "all that". But I thought you would have known some of the characters in the book.

Will try and find out about G. Bude.

Metternich saw certain things clearly; more clearly than most of our politicians seem to have understood to this day. (Gentz quite another matter). E.g., that liberalism, nationalism and socialism had been born together, would prosper toGETHER, die together. He was agin' them all conscientiously; most of his oppo-nents were for one or the other of them for the wrong reason, and failed to see their close kinship and mutual involvement. Yet he knew that you could not stop a young man going to whore or, worse, becoming sleppless over Greta Garbo, and so his policy was not one of 100% resistance: in fact, for more than 16 years he tried to persuade Joseph II to grant a mild form of constitution; which the Emperor, "il Fiorentino", always promised to him he would do, but when it came to it he would say "darüber muss Mann schlafen", and so never did it.

Now that the three things (in their early XIXth cent. meaning) are dying out under our eyes (for those who have any sight), a man as clearsighted as Mett., who could tell us something about whete the hell we are going to, would be appreciable. Of course Tall., from what I know of him, had more facets to his personality: but he never displayed such a far sight as that.

I feel rather cold just now, because central heating goes only a few hours a day. Three puzzapiedi bedouins blowing up a pipeline somewhere in the desert, and three Europ. countries have to cut to one third their petrolx consumption: I wonder how Brooks Adams would interpret this; aggressive weapons would seem to be omnipotent just now, yet the last of fools can bring more havoc than an army at war. Power is concentrated in two or three places on earth, yet it needs some form of comp-liance from everybody if it has to subsist. This seems to be the moral of the e-VENTS of the last three months, and I daresay the lesson was needed rather badly there as in London - everywhere perhaps. But people do not generally learn such lessons. Same with money: I agree, it is just one form of power: but this is why you cannot talk and argue people out of behaving the way they do: you can't expect to argue power out of power. Yours

[Pellizi?]

[1958]

You once said I had hold of part of an idea / my notes not absolutely clear, but what looks like reference to Jus tinian/ Constitutions IX, ii Col. XIX 4. and XXI usury limit 8% /

TOTAL interest must not excede twice the capital.

naturally I was more humane, but the start of a concept, seems to be there.

ANY of yuDam wops still discus ANYthing ?

Haegel m for ABbsolute monarchy. I spose " people know that " but they don't sufficiently tack it onto Charlie Mordecai.

yrz Ez

Via di Villa Albani, 12.
Roma, 7 - 4 - '58 (Pasquetta).

Dear Pound, "La Stampa" from what I know (subject to further precisions) is edited by Ben Benedetti, not strictly an "Arian", nor financed by Valletta, the FIAT boss, has a leftist bias, and sounds as an alibi prepared by the FIAT people "in case...." I know Gino Tomajuoli, a harmless man, easily misinformed and in any case "conformista" to the mood of his paper. But the titles were almost certainly a product of the copy desk, as usual in our papers. Just got your letter respinta from Paris, where I am no longer; not seen yet the one offending article; will look for it and perhaps can have an article about it in "La Nazione" and "Il Resto del Carlino"- this is the best I can do at the moment, unless these two papers object (but I hope not). But certainly it would be most absurd and out of proportion on your part to overestimate the meaning and importance of the Stampa artcl. The attitude in your favour among the intellectuals here is now widely spread; you would be copy if you were to return, and all the signs are intellettuali would fight to have you at dinner. The rest of the populace would hardly know who you are, and in any case would not care a damn. The communists would probably take a sprint to show how braodminded they are welcoming a poet anyhow. And Mon tale, having being told publicly in Rome by Eliot that he is not the living heir to Leopardi, or something to the same effect, would probably write in the "Corriere della Sera" or elsewhere to remind people that he and you and Eliot are etc. etc.

The weather here is foul as usual and I felt much stronger in Paris, but we have good sunsets at times, and Rapallo, where I was three days recently, remains a good spot and would probably receive you in a friendly way if you decided to go there. Politically the country is out of joint as usual (the Italian situation is desperate, but not grave - I forget who said this), and the coming general elections will make it worse if anything. Issuing money without interest will be a good yarn: I know the Treasury Minister, Medici, and will tell him as soon as I see him, if ever I manage to see him again (ministers here are much more impregnable than they used to be). So far, there is a tremendous amount of money without interest is being spent on the illustri personaggi, or many of them, who have been in control of the country for the last 15 years or so. But the approval of my old College colleague Gaitskell will be a good point in your favour with the sinistre moderate.

I had enough of the OEEC but not of Paris, which remains to my feeling the best place I know to live in. Dear Ethel Duncan de Courcy was really and intelligent "dear"; and unfortunately I saw too little of Vanderpyl, but I thought he was one of the most attractive personalities I had ever met. Thank you for letting me know them.

Now lecturing in Florence as usual, living in Rome with wife and the three children grown bulky. Giovanna, the eldest, is trying to become an actress. Saw your charming and nicely-bearded son-in-law last month and had your news, but could not help in the thing he suggested about you. Heard later that Ungaretti had taken the initiative through the Univ. of Rome: three cheers for him. Praz has done his part decently, I understand, although not too "poundiano" either in literature or politics.

All the best from

Caro P1ZZZ

I unnerstan that Sen Ferretti lummeggiated my figure
a few weeks ago,
but can't find out what the hell he said.
Apart from one report that said there was FIRE.

I dont spose you assisted at the lummeggiation.
it impede my permesso di sogg.
Vanni swating 7 shirts le

( however they have given me 2 years
instead of life.

Despite the Senatorial illumination.

///
First hopeful signs from the defiled area, a pamphlet by
Marson
American Tragedy, our schools.

You might like to review it, if I can get a spare copy.
BUT still better oggi / a circular re/

OPERATION TEXT BOOK, which you ought to be able to
describe 'without singing a 1/2 yr whiskers,
fra altro.
quote

NOT accident. Beginning nearly 30 years ago
a group of educators -- interested in using education to
propaganda -- devised the means to distort and stant the
text books used in teaching our children.
can us, use this ?

"This was done so cleverly that it is
dx extremely difficult for any but the trained eye to spot the
underhand .. teaching ...

etc.

Got settled names like Felix Morley, Merriloot,
Kendall of Yale,
aim is to EXAMINE text books now in use.

with criteria, of standards.
which they offer to supply.

You cd/ at least write to Executive Secretary. Operation extbook
542 Main St. New Rochelle . N.Y. U.S.A.

and ask for a few copies of their circular, and the " drafted standar
leaflet.

I shd/ like several copies, and dont want to write 'em direct.
so ... know what Snow Pearson and other trype they may have been

That at least cant compromise you with the spewocracy.

Has there been any italian comment on Ike's losing out
by betraying his alledged party ?

Of course he is no more a republican than Molitoff.

Also have you any data on Mrs Odgen Reid / of the Spew Pork
"erald.

One of the ten whomever ame ricans whose death might
most profit the cleanliness of that desolate area.

I don't spose you go skating in this weather, or are ever
in reach of lunch table, or even as near as Bolzano ??

12, Via di Villa Albani

Roma, 24 - 1 - '59.

Dear Pound,

The enclosed is what I have got at long last
from "America's Future".

I got the two precious bouquins from your
daughter; thank you for writing them.

I do not know the person called Mrs. Ogden
Reid.

I do not foresee coming anywhere near Bolza
no in the near future.

Episode concerning your "permesso di soggior
no" typical of this thing they have set up here, which
they call "libertà e democrazia".

Ferretti not much (have known him for the last
50 years). And for Heaven's sake keep clear of the MKKK
MSI. They are not worse than the others, and prejudice
against them is totally un-democratic. But in your case
(as well as - si licet - in mine) being mixed up with
them means adding confusion in the minds of most people,
and lending weapons to dirt and scum. In any case they are
not prompted by anything approaching your motivations:
which means there are objective reasons for staying apart.

Greetings to you and family.