In answer to Richard's questions, here are a few interesting paragraphs that preceded the quote from JEFF and/or MUSS that I posted regarding Pound's assessment of Mussolini's " deep 'concern' or will for the welfare of Italy...organic, composed of the last ploughman and the last girl in the olive-yards..." The brief parenthesis in the excerpt below, in which Pound's focus jumts to his grandfather's railway days, leads me to believe that Pound was not a mere sychophant -- a "Mussolini groupie" as Wei puts it. One might read the following statements in light of the excerpt from Pound's letter to Hubert Creekmore, which I posted a day or two ago. Often Pound will refer to his family when he wishes to establish his sincerity, his _bona fides_. Perhaps this belief in the goodness of his ancestor is mere self-deception. Wei might be able to tell us whether Pound grand-père paid his workers a living wage. Tim Romano "Any thorough treatment of MUSSOLINI will be in a measure an act of faith, it will depend on what you _believe_ the man means, what you believe that he wants to accomplish. I have never believed that my grandfather put a bit of railway across Wisconsin simply or chiefly to make money or even with the illusion that he would make money, or make more money in that way than in some other. I don't believe any estimate of Mussolini will be valid unless it _starts_ from his passion for construct- ion. Treat him as _artifex_ and all the details fall into place. Take him as anything save the artist and you will get muddled with contradictions. Or you will waste a lot of time finding that he don't fit your particular preconceptions or your particular theories. The Anglo-Saxon is particularly inept at under- standing the Latin clarity of "Qui veut la fin veut les moyens." Who wills the end wills the means. There is Lenin's calm estimate of all other Russian parties: They are very clever, yes, they can do EVERYTHING except act. If you don't believe that Jefferson was actuated by a (in the strict quaker sense) "concern" for the good of the people, you will quibble, perhaps, over details, perhaps over the same details that worried his old friend John Adams." --EP JEFF and/or MUSS, ch VI. > Assuming it is agreed that in Tim Romano's quotation Pound is at least > purporting to show concern for the worker, was he (a) lying, (b) joking, (c) > deceiving himself, (d) showing off, (e) writing without thinking or (f) some > combination of all or some of these? > > And what about "The enormous tragedy of the dream in the peasant's bent > shoulders"? > > Richard Edwards