The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE EQUINOX of Mr. Pound’s—‘going through the motions.’ The author ‘goes through the mo- tions’ not only in L’homme Moyen Sensuel: he is always making you think he is about to do something, then he never does it. Take any of the first four Pavannes pieces. There are all the preliminaries, but never the achievement. The most elaborate and painstaking preparations have been made for Mr. Pound’s marriage with his Art, but alas! the union has never been consummated. Yet even about his sterility there is something engaging. He is much too Amer- ican for any Englishman ever to dislike him. The Americans who rile us are the ones who are not American enough. As it is impossible to be angry with the authentic professor or the authentic American, so it is impossible to be angry with Mr. Pound. For one thing, what a simple wholesome American pleasure he culls from the use of French words and phrases! He, like all other real Americans and real professors, disarms by his naiveté, his earnestness, his in- dustry, his patience. He is untiringly patient, both with other people and with himself. One sees clearly that he is a kind, and, I am sure, a good man. I do not speak ironically. This American goodness, this American patience are beautifully distinctive national qualities to which no sort of justice has yet been done by for- eign observers. They should be more widely known: and Mr. Pound’s Ameri- canism should be more widely known. Louis WILKINSON. Evorution Criricisep. By T. B. BisHor. Oliphants Ltd. Broopy Bix is commonly supposed to have been somewhat severe with the Bel- gians. But only the ‘spurlos versenkt’ suggestion of an admittedly insane agent of his approaches the maniacal savagery of I Samuel xv, 3, and by no means matches the undiscriminating imbecility of its ferocity: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Who is the author of this order? It is the father of Jesus Christ. “I and my father are one.” It is therefore the God of Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, the American people (if their newspapers lie not), and a very few particularly trog- lodytic Englishmen of whom Mr. T. B. Bishop is a striking ‘survival of the meanest.” Mr. Bishop really believes that this tribal demon designed butterflies, and put the rainbow in the sky as a guarantee that the world would never be destroyed by water. He even thinks that it once was destroyed by water! When any student of nature discovers beauty, or design, or evidence of intelligence, Mr. Bishop falls into a senile rage. He is not content with destroying his fellow- man, with his wife, children, cattle, and so on; Mr. Bishop is not happy unless he is sure that they will all be roasted without cessation or hope. 284