CANTO VII

The massive head, the slow uplift of the hand, gli occhi onesti e tardi, the long sentences piling themselves up in elaborate phrase after phrase, the lightning incision, the pauses, the slightly shaking admonitory gesture with its ‘wu-await a little, wait a little, something will come’; blague and benignity and the weight of so many years’ careful, incessant labour of minute observation always there to enrich the talk. I had heard it but seldom, yet it is all unforgettable. […] No man who has not lived on both sides of the Atlantic can well appraise Henry James; his death marks the end of a period.

Ezra Pound, “Henry James.” Little Review August 1918. LE 295.

RELATED CANTOS

CANTO XXVII [cultural mediocrity and abulia in England and France]

CANTO XXXV [conservative mentalities and mindless traditionalism in Vienna]