Part 1

THE LITTLE REVIEW

A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS MAKING NO COMPROMISE WITH THE PUBLIC TASTE

Margaret C. Anderson Publisher

JULY, 1917

Imaginary Letters, III. Wyndham Lewis Poems: T. S. Eliot Le Directeur Mélange adultère de tout Lune de Miel The Hippopotamus Aux Etuves de Wiesbaden Ezra Pound Three Nightpieces John Rodker Improvisations Louis Gilmore Poet’s Heart Maxwell Bodenheim The Reader Critic

Published Monthly

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MARGARET C. ANDERSON, Editor EZRA POUND, Foreign Editor 24 West Sixteenth Street NEW YORK CITY

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The Little Review

VOL. IV.

JULY 1917

NO. 3

Copyright, 1917, by Margaret C. Anderson.

Imaginary Letters

(Six Letters of William Bland Burn to his Wife)

Wyndham Lewis

The Code of a Herdsman

(_A set of rules sent by Benjamin Richard Wing to his young friend Philip Seddon enclosed with a letter. Under the above title now edited._)

(1) Never maltreat your own intelligence with parables. It is a method of herd-hypnotism. Do not send yourself to sleep with the rhythm of the passes that you make.=As an example of herd-hypnotism, German literature is so virulently allegorized that the German really never knows whether he is a Kangaroo, a Scythian, or his own sweet self.=You, however, are a Herdsman. That is surely Parable enough!

(2) Do not admit _cleverness_, in any form, into your life. Observe the accomplishment of some people’s signatures! It is the herd-touch.

(3) Exploit Stupidity.=Introduce a flatness, where it is required into your commerce. Dull your eye as you fix it on a dull face.=Why do you think George Borrow used such idiotic clichés as “The beams of the descending luminary—?” He was a great writer and knew what he was doing.=Mock the herd perpetually with the grimance of its own garrulity or deadness. If it gets out of hand and stampedes towards you, leap on to the sea of mangy backs until the sea is still. That is: cast your mask aside, and spring above them. They cannot see or touch anything _above_ them: they have never realized that their backs—or rather their _tops_—exist! They will think that you have vanished into Heaven.

(4) As to language: eschew all clichés implying a herd personality. Never allow such terms as Top-Hole, Priceless, or Doggo to pass your lips. Go to the Dictionary if you want an epithet. If you feel eloquent, use that moment to produce a cliché of your own. Cherish your personal vocabulary, however small it is. Use your own epithet as though it were used by a whole nation, if people would have no good reason for otherwise accepting it.

_Examples of personal epithets._

That man is _abysmal_.

That is an _abysmal_ book.

_It was prestigious!_ } Borrowed from the French. Here comes that _sinister bird_! }

He is a _sinister card_. (Combination of French and 1890 Slang.)

He has a great deal of _sperm_.

I like a fellow with as much _sperm_ as that.

Borrow from all sides mannerisms of callings or classes to enrich your personal bastion of language. Borrow from the pulpit, from the clattering harangue of the auctioneer, the lawyer’s technicality, the pomposity of politicians.=Borrow grunts from the fisherman, solecisms from the inhabitant of Merioneth.=“He is a preux, ah, yes-a-preux!” You can say—“ah-yes-a-preux” as though it were one word, accent on the “yes.”

(5) In accusing yourself, stick to the Code of the Mountain. But crime is alien to a Herdsman’s nature.

(6) Yourself must be your Caste.

(7) Cherish and develop, side by side, your six most constant indications of different personalities. You will then acquire the potentiality of six men. Leave your front door one day as B.: The next march down the street as E. A variety of clothes, hats especially, are of help in this wider dramatisation of yourself. _Never_ fall into the vulgarity of being or assuming yourself to be one ego. Each trench must have another one behind it. Each single self—that you manage to be at any given time—must have five at least indifferent to it. You must have a power of indifference of _five_ to _one_. All the greatest actions in the world have been five parts out of six impersonal in the impulse of their origin. To follow this principle you need only cultivate your memory. You will avoid being the blind man of _any_ moment. B will see what is hidden to D.=(Who were Turgenev’s “Six Unknown”? Himself.)

(8) Never lie. You cannot be too fastidious about the truth. If you must lie, at least see that you lie so badly that it would not deceive a pea-hen.—The world is, however, full of pea-hens.

(9) Spend some of your spare time every day in hunting your weaknesses, caught from commerce with the herd, as methodically, solemnly and vindictively as a monkey his fleas. You will find yourself swarming with them while you are surrounded by humanity. But you must not bring them up on the mountain.=If you can get another man to assist you—one, that is, honest enough not to pass his own on to you—that is a good arrangement.

(10) Do not play with political notions, aristocratisms or the reverse, for that is a compromise with the herd. Do not allow yourself to imagine “a fine herd though still a herd.” There is no _fine herd_. The cattle that call themselves “gentlemen” you will observe to be a little cleaner. It is merely cunning and produced with a product called _soap_. But you will find no serious difference between them and those vast dismal herds they avoid. Some of them are very dangerous and treacherous.=Be on your guard with the small herd of gentlemen!

(11) You will meet with this pitfall: at moments, surrounded by the multitude of unsatisfactory replicas, you will grow confused by a similarity bringing them so near to us.=You will reason, where, from some points of view, the difference is so slight, whether that delicate margin is of the immense importance that we hold it to be: _the only thing of importance_ in fact.=That group of men talking by the fire in your club (you will still remain a member of your club), that party at the theatre, look good enough, you will say. Their skins are fresh, they are well-made, their manners are good. You must then consider what they really are. On closer inspection you _know_, from unpleasant experience, that they are _nothing_ but limitations and vulgarities of the most irritating description. The devil Nature has painted these sepulchres pink, and covered them with a blasphemous Bond Street distinction. Matter that has not sufficient mind to permeate it grows, as you know, gangrenous and rotten. Animal high spirits, a little, but easily exhausted, goodness, is all that they can claim.

What seduced you from your severity for a moment was the same thing as a dull woman’s good-looks.=This is _probably_ what you will have in front of you.=On the other hand, everywhere you will find a few people, who, although not a mountain people are not herd.=They may be herdsmen gone mad through contact with the herd, and strayed: or through inadequate energy for our task they may be found there: or they may be a hybrid, or they may even be herdsmen temporarily bored with the mountain. (I have a pipe below myself sometimes.)

There are numerous “other denominations.” Treat them as brothers. Employ them, as opportunity offers, as auxiliaries in your duties. Their society and help will render your task less arduous.

(12) As to women: wherever you can, substitute the society of men.=Treat them kindly, for they suffer from the herd, although of it, and have many of the same contempts as yourself. They are a sort of bastard mountain people.=There must be somewhere a female mountain, a sort of mirage-mountain. I should like to visit it.=But women, and the processes for which they exist, are the arch conjuring trick: and they have the cheap mystery and a good deal of the slipperiness, of the conjuror.=Sodomy should be avoided, as far as possible. It tends to add to the abominable confusion already existing.

(13) Wherever you meet a shyness that comes out of solitude, (although _all_ solitude is not _anti_-herd) naiveness, and a patent absence of contamination, the sweetness of mountain water, any of the signs of goodness, you must treat that as sacred, as portions of the mountain.

However much you suffer for it, you must defend and exalt it. On the other hand, _every_ child is not simple, and _every_ woman is not weak.=In many cases to champion a female would be like springing to the rescue of a rhinoceros when you notice that it had been attacked by a flea. Chivalrous manners, again, with many women are like tiptoeing into a shed where an ox is sleeping.=Some children, too, rival in nastiness their parents. But you have your orders in this matter. Indifference where there should be nothing but the _whole_ eagerness or compunction of your being, is the worst crime in the mountain’s eyes.

(14) Conquests have usually been divided from their antitheses, and defeats from conquests, by some casual event. Had Moscow not possessed a governor ready to burn the Kremlin and the hundreds of palaces accumulated there, peace would have been signed by the Czar at Bonaparte’s entrance.=Had the Llascans persevered for ten days against Cortés, the Aztecs would never have been troubled. Yet Montezuma was right to remain inactive, paralysed by prophecy. Napoleon was right when he felt that his star was at last a useless one. He had drained it of all its astonishing effulgence.=The hair’s breadth is only the virtuosity of Fate, guiding you along imaginary precipices.=And all the detail is make-believe, anyway. Watch your star soberly and without comment. Do not trouble about the paste-board cliffs!

(15) _There are very stringent regulations_ about the herd keeping off the sides of the mountain. In fact your chief function is to prevent their encroaching. Some, in moments of boredom or vindictiveness, are apt to make rushes for the higher regions. Their instinct always fortunately keeps them in crowds or bands, and their trespassing is soon noticed. Those traps and numerous devices you have seen on the edge of the plain are for use, of course, in the last resort. Do not apply them prematurely.=Not very many herdsmen lose their lives in dealing with the herds.

(16) Contradict yourself. In order to live, you must remain broken up.

(17) The teacher does not have to _be_, although he has to _know_: He is the mind imagining, not the executant. The executant, the young, svelte, miraculous athlete, the strapping virtuoso, really has to give the illusion of a perfection.=Do not expect _me_ to keep in sufficiently good training to perform the feats I recommend.=I usually remain up on the mountain.

(18) Above all this sad commerce with the herd, let something veritably remain “un peu sur la montagne.” Always come down with masks and thick clothing to the valley where we work.

Stagnant gasses from these Yahooesque and rotten herds are more dangerous often than the wandering cylinders that emit them. See you are not caught in them without your mask.=But once returned to our adorable height, forget your sallow task: with great freedom indulge your love.=The terrible processions beneath are not of our making, and are without our pity. Our sacred hill is a volcanic heaven. But the result of its violence is peace.=The unfortunate surge below, even, has moments of peace.

(_Next letter will appear in August number._)

Poems

T. S. Eliot

Le Directeur

Malheur à la malheureuse Tamise! Qui coule si près du Spectateur. Le directeur Conservateur Du Spectateur Empeste la brise. Les actionnaires Réactionnaires Du Spectateur Conservateur Bras dessus bras dessous Font des tours A pas de loup. Dans un égout Une petite fille En guenilles Camarde Regarde Le directeur Du Spectateur Conservateur Et crève d’amour.

Mélange adultère de tout

En Amérique, professeur; En Angleterre, journaliste; C’est à grands pas et en sueur Que vous suivrez à peine ma piste. En Yorkshire, conférencier; A Londres, un peu banquier, Vous me paierez bien la tête. C’est à Paris que je me coiffe Casque noir de jemenfoutiste. En Allemagne, philosophe Surexcité par Emporheben Au grand air de Bergsteigleben; J’erre toujours de-ci de-là À divers coups de tra la la De Damas jusqu’à Omaha. Je célébrai mon jour de fête Dans une oasis d’Afrique Vêtu d’une peau de girafe.

On montrera mon cénotaphe Aux côtes brûlantes de Mozambique.

Lune de Miel

Ils ont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre Haute; Mais une nuit d’été, les voici à Ravenne, À l’aise entre deux draps, chez deux centaines de punaises; La sueur aestivale, et une forte odeur de chienne. Ils restent sur le dos écartant les genoux De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures. On relève le drap pour mieux égratigner. Moins d’une lieue d’ici est Saint Apollinaire In Classe’ basilique connue des amateurs De chapiteaux d’acanthe que tournoie le vent.

Ils vont prendre le train de huit heures Prolonger leurs misères de Padoue à Milan Où se trouvent le Cène, et un restaurant pas cher. Lui pense aux pourboires, et rédige son bilan. Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascétique, Vieille usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encore Dans ses pierres écroulantes la forme precise de Byzance.

The Hippopotamus

The broad backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us Yet he is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail, Susceptible to nervous shock; While the True Church can never fail For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err In compassing material ends, While the True Church need never stir To gather in its dividends.

The potamus can never reach The mango on the mango-tree; But fruits of pomegranate and peach Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo’s voice Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd, But every week we hear rejoice The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus’s day Is past in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way— The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the potamus take wing Ascending from the damp savannas, And quiring angels round him sing The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean And him shall heavenly arms enfold, Among the saints he shall be seen Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow, By all the martyr’d virgins kist, While the True Church remains below Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.

Aux Etuves de Wiesbaden

A. D. 1451

Ezra Pound

They entered between two fir trees. A path of irregular flat pentagonal stones led along between shrubbery. Halting by the central court in a sort of narrow gallery, the large tank was below them, and in it some thirty or forty blond nereïds for the most part well-muscled, with smooth flaxen hair and smooth faces—a generic resemblance. A slender brown wench sat at one end listlessly dabbling her feet from the spring-board. Here the water was deeper.

The rest of them, all being clothed in white linen shifts held up by one strap over the shoulder and reaching half way to the knees,—the rest of them waded waist- and breast-deep in the shallower end of the pool, their shifts bellied up by the air, spread out like huge bobbing cauliflowers.

The whole tank was sunken beneath the level of the gardens, and paved and pannelled with marble, a rather cheap marble. To the left of the little gallery, where the strangers had halted, an ample dowager sat in a perfectly circular tub formed rather like the third of an hogshead, behind her a small hemicycle of yew trees kept off any chance draught from the North. She likewise wore a shift of white linen. On a plank before her, reaching from the left to the right side of her tank-hogshead, were a salver with a large piece of raw smoked ham, a few leeks, a tankard of darkish beer, a back-scratcher, the ham-knife.

Before them, from some sheds, there arose a faint steam, the sound of grunts and squeals and an aroma of elderly bodies. From the opposite gallery a white-bearded town-councillor began to throw grapes to the nereïds.

Le Sieur de Maunsier: They have closed these places in Marseilles, causa flegitii, they were thought to be bad for our morals.

Poggio: And are your morals improved?

Maunsier: Nein, bin nicht verbessert.

Poggio: And are the morals of Marseilles any better?

Maunsier: Not that I know of. Assignations are equally frequent; the assignors less cleanly; their health, I presume, none the better. The Church has always been dead set against washing. St. Clement of Alexandria forbade all bathing by women. He made no exception. Baptism and the last oiling were enough, to his thinking. St. Augustine, more genial and human, took a bath to console himself for the death of his mother. I suspect that it was a hot one. Being clean is a pagan virtue, and no part of the light from Judaea.

Poggio: Say rather a Roman, the Greek philosophers died, for the most part, of lice. Only the system of empire, plus a dilettantism in luxuries, could have brought mankind to the wash-tub. The christians have made dirt a matter of morals: a son of God can have no need to be cleansed; a worm begotten in sin and foredoomed to eternal damnation in a bottle of the seven great stenches, would do ill to refine his nostrils and unfit himself for his future. For the elect and the rejected alike, washing is either noxious or useless—they must be transcendent at all costs. The rest of the world must be like them; they therefore look after our morals. Yet this last term is wholly elastic. There is no system which has not been tried, wedlock or unwedlock, a breeding on one mare or on many; all with equal success, with equal flaws, crimes, and discomforts.

Maunsier: I have heard there was no adultery found in Sparta.

Poggio: There was no adultery among the Lacedaemonians because they held all women in common. A rumour of Troy had reached the ears of Lycurgus: “So Lycurgus thought also there were many foolish vain joys and fancies, in the laws and orders of other nations, touching marriage: seeing they caused their bitches and mares to be lined and covered with the fairest dogs and goodliest stallions that might be gotten, praying and paying the maisters and owners of the same: and kept their wives notwithstanding shut up safe under lock and key, for fear lest other than themselves might get them with child, although themselves were sickly, feeble-brained, extreme old.” I think I quote rightly from Plutarch. The girls of Lacedaemon played naked before the young men, that their defects should be remedied rather than hidden. A man first went by stealth to his mistress, and this for a long space of time; thus learning address and silence. For better breeding Lycurgus would not have children the property of any one man, but sought only that they should be born of the lustiest women, begotten of the most vigorous seed.

Maunsier: Christianity would put an end to all that, yet I think there was some trace left in the _lex Germanica_, and in some of our Provençal love customs; for under the first a woman kept whatever man she liked, so long as she fancied: the children being brought up by her brothers, being a part of the female family, _cognati_. The chivalric system is smothered with mysticism, and is focussed all upon pleasure, but the habit of older folk-custom is at the base of its freedoms, its debates were on matters of modus.

These girls look very well in their shifts. They confound the precepts of temperance.

Poggio: I have walked and ridden through Europe, annotating, observing. I am interested in food and the animal.

There was, before I left Rome, a black woman for sale in the market. Her breasts stuck out like great funnels, her shoulders were rounded like basins, her biceps was that of a wheel-wright; these upper portions of her, to say nothing of her flattened-in face, were disgusting and hideous but, she had a belly like Venus. From below the breasts to the crotch she was like a splendid Greek fragment. She came of a tropical meat-eating tribe. I observe that gramenivorous and fruit-eating races have shrunken arms and shoulders, narrow backs and weakly distended stomachs. Much beer enlarges the girth in old age, at a time when the form in any case, might have ceased to give pleasure. The men of this nubian tribe were not lovely; they were shaped rather like almonds: the curious roundness in the front aspect, a gradual sloping-in toward the feet, a very great muscular power, a silhouette not unlike that of an egg, or perhaps more like that of a tadpole.

Civilized man grows more frog-like, his members become departmental.

Maunsier: But fixed. Man falls into a set gamut of types. His thoughts also. The informed and the uninformed, the clodhopper and the civilian are equally incapable of trusting an unwonted appearance. Last week I met an exception, and for that cause the matter is now in my mind, and I am, as they say “forming conclusions.” The exception, an Englishman, had found a parochial beauty in Savoia, in the inn of a mountain town, a “local character” as he called her. He could not describe her features with any minute precision, but she wore, he remembered, a dress tied up with innumerable small bits of ribbon in long narrow bow-knots, limp, hanging like grass-blades caught in the middle. She came in to him as a sort of exhibit. He kissed her hand. She sat by his bedside and conversed with him pleasantly. They were quite alone for some time. Nothing more happened. From something in his manner, I am inclined to believe him. He was convinced that nothing more ever did happen.

Poggio: Men have a curious desire for uniformity. Bawdry and religion are all one before it.

Maunsier: They call it the road to salvation.

Poggio: They ruin the shape of life for a dogmatic exterior. What dignity have we over the beasts, save to be once, and to be irreplaceable!

I myself am a rag-bag, a mass of sights and citations, but I will not beat down life for the sake of a model.

Maunsier: Would you be “without an ideal?”

Poggio: Is beauty an ideal like the rest? I confess I see the need of no other. When I read that from the breast of the Princess Hellene there was cast a cup of “white gold,” the sculptor finding no better model; and that this cup was long shown in the temple at Lyndos, which is in the island of Rhodes; or when I read, as I think is the textual order, first of the cup and then of its origin, there comes upon me a discontent with human imperfection. I am no longer left in the “slough of the senses,” but am full of heroic life, for the instant. The sap mounts in the twigs of my being.

The visions of the mystics give them like courage, it may be.

Maunsier: My poor uncle, he will talk of the slough of the senses and the “loathsome pit of contentment.” His “ideas” are with other men’s conduct. He seeks to set bounds to their actions.