[In the following essay, Pound writes flippantly on the subject of labeling Sandburg a “tough” poet.]

Ezra Pound writes from Paris, with particular reference to the article in The Double Dealer for February entitled “The Literary Tough” (q. v.):

“Neither Sandburg's last book nor Professor Schelling's review of it has reached me. As an ‘effete neo-European’ may I be permitted to ask whether ‘tough’ is a term of insult?

Sandburg was a lumber-jack, at least that was, I think, the term used in the first introduction of him. His ability was recognized both in Chicago and London about ten years ago. Let us for the sake of argument say that he is a ‘tough’:

A. In the language of the so indubitably refined brothers Goncourt: ‘Are there prescribed classes in literature?’

B. If Sandburg still is a tough, whose fault is it?

Sandburg has been known for ten years, there has been plenty of time for some University to offer him a fellowship, with leisure to browse in its library and ‘polish’ his language. But no, despite the anglo-olatry of many of our ‘English Departments’ fellowships are reserved for the docile mediocrity.

Three forces in America decline to unite; the collegiate dog-in-the-manger; the outside impulse, and the ‘literary’ section of the press.

Newspaper reviewers are, for some reason, chosen for their laxness and inaccuracy; the colleges, instead of trying to get hold of men of literary ability, men who could receive the knowledge (which is both an asset and an obstacle to good writing) insist that they should aim at the instruction of mediocrity, and not of the exceptional man.

In other words, instead of trying to put their ‘tradition’ into the minds where it would be most fruitful, most apt to be fused with a living will, they prefer the passive incompetents. Thus the darkness is maintained.

Was Carl offered an acquaintance with the classics; and did he refuse it?

What are the facts? After Masters had declined to improve Spoon River; after he had begun to get slack, and still more slack, Sandburg tried to present the small town, the Middle West, in harder language, to get his stroke cleaner, really to write better. There were all sorts of obstacles, notably the human obstacles, who wanted him to be the laureate of Chicago, to sing the ‘BIG’ songs. This colossus mania is not limited to America; Mestrovic would have been an excellent sculptor if some Vienese hadn't told him to go and be the Michael Angelo of Serbia.

A man's admirers are not necessarily a help, when he is trying to form a style.

.....

On the other hand; when I was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, the English Department was still dubious about Whitman (that was 1905-07); you know what one is at twenty, one hears silly things and repeats 'em. The first time I was ever taken up for some flippancy about Whitman was by a German post grad, I think his name was Reithmuller. He flared round at me with: ‘Fvwy, in Tdenmargk eeffen deh beasandts kkknow him.’ I don't mean to imply that Whitman is the ‘last word,’ he never thought he was. He only overcame the obstacles of the King James version, the Murkhn newspaper, and some sort of rehash of Hindoo authors in about thirty pages of his collected poems.

I dare say those thirty pages will stand against the work of the Concord agglomerate.

Now, naow I wonder does Carl mind bein' called ‘tough.’ Keats, as the cultured are never tired of reminding us, was a … but no … one shudders … but still the author of Endymion may 'ave dropped 'is haitches.

.....

On the other or third hand: Sandburg might write better, Whitman might have written better; the current prose and verse of America might be better written; a knowledge of the classics is an advantage if a man knows how to temper it with common sense, and if he don't think Shakespeare and Tacitus are the suitable ‘models’ for a XXth century writer.

Toughness is not a mere matter of vocabulary. You will find ‘mug’ in the works of the late (pause) … Henry James. It is used not as a synonym for the Elizabethan word visage, but rather as a synonym for the vulgar term ‘boko,’ (français caboche). The French, tête, being derived, according to some authorities, from the tough latin testa, a pot.) Point being that both the professors and the toughs (journalists) have something to learn from each other, neither of 'em has a monopoly on all there is to be known, but they are each convinced that they have. (Oh my grammar!)

The professors, upon the one part, and the journalists on the other, for the one part, for the other, might with mutual benefit assemble, foregather, and knock with advantage the one off the other the chips, dust, and other residua; but they can't see the wood for the trees.

Yaas, some place has giv' Frost a job, but he was a school-teacher before he escaped to England and got hisself publish'd. He ain't no tough, chimmey. And Mr. Eliot was born in St. Louis.”