Richard,
I don't know the answer to your question, but I've always taken the line to
mean that it is difficult to ACHIEVE beauty in one's art.  The steps have to
be scrubbed and scrubbed.
Tim Romano



----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Edwards" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 4:08 PM
Subject: Beardsley


> We've all gone terribly quiet, perhaps understandably.
>
> May I break the silence with what is I hope an innocuous enquiry about the
> allusion in the following line from I think Canto 74 (quoted from memory):
>
> Beauty is difficult, Yeats, sd Mr Beardsley
>
> Terrell is not awfully helpful, merely telling me (again from memory) that
> Beardsley was a 19th century illustrator.
>
> What were Yeats and Beardsley talking about, and how did Pound come to
know
> of their conversation?
>
> The reason I ask is that the lines have become something of a touchstone
for
> the apologists of difficulty in modern poetry; whereas I think they may
have
> misunderstood what Beardsley was saying, which was that precisely
*because*
> "beauty is difficult" he didn't bother trying. He wasn't defending his art
> on the ground that its beauty could only be appreciated by the initiated
> few.
>
> I'm sure I've read somewhere about the source of these lines but at the
> moment I can't see where: it's not in Terrell, Cookson, Kenner, or Makin
so
> far as I can tell.
>
> Richard Edwards
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