The curiosity of all Paris will not be assuaged until she knows what M. Jacques de Lacretelle will say this afternoon-is saying now-about Henri de Regnier. It will be frontpage news, stop-press news, crowding out all tidings of bombs on Barcelona, in an hour or so and for all tomorrow, in all the papers of France. All minds here are on the figure of the handsome, young Monsieur Jacques who is standing under the cupola, in his green uniform - with his sword at his side, because Napoleon thought that Men of Letters were gentlemen and should have the wherewithal to fight duels - waiting to deliver his eulogy of his predecessor in the academic fauteuil that he shall occupy.

This passage is hilarious. Of course Ford does not mention the stance of M. Jacques de Lacretelle in albeit ambivalent defense of European Jewry as it was known then and the political motive.

Ford Maddox Ford was a bugger of a chap and had the wit of an Albion caterpillar. All high and mighty and with just a bit of goodnight, good ladies for you there. And good old Ford had almost no lower jaw if you care about that sort of thing and you do. His writing pleases like passing gas. Funny in a silly way but also necessary. Ford is also a snob in the Proustian sense. Impossible to be unenvious of the gentleman that pens this phrase: Of intrinsic value as a wife, I think she had none at all for me. I fancy I was not even proud of the way she dressed. Or this nugget of a gem: Well, it was the first time I had ever been embraced by a woman-- and it was the last when a woman's embrace has had in it any warmth for me. . . . And finally an Englishman has written seriously about American sacramental marriage. Ford M. Ford is as Anglo as he is obese. And he should know about commuter practices: Florence had, of course, several other fellows, too--strapping young New Englanders, who worked during the day in New York and spent only the evenings in the village of their birth. This must have been a novel concept. But honestly I actually read The Good Soldier, not read, listened on Librivox a few years back, and being utter disinterest I found  The Good Soldier (book report style) to be most hilarious saddest story I ever heard at triple the speed. Actually I remember now that I listened to it while weeding beets on the West Coast. West Coast beets baby. I also listened then to The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain another batshit ridiculous book.

An emotional affect sounds like a overstatement to me. Affected emotion maybe. Affectation and not affection as in nothing matters but the quality. But nobody wants an argument over pathos and bathos any more than anybody wants to distinguish. But do learn to discriminate. D.H. Lawrence stuck in a stucco wall. But as to the technique, of course it is emasculate, excuse me immaculate. Ford Maddox Ford had the genuine affection of many brilliant man. Pound, William Carlos Williams, both of whom wrote charming eulogy to the man. I laugh to think of you wheezing in Heaven. He was at any rate a stupendously liar. Williams blurts out damn it you lied grossly / sometimes. But it was all, I / see now, a carelessness, the part  of a man / that is homeless here on earth. Touching and Hem would spit on it. But how so? Ford Maddox Ford had been cast out of English literary and social favor and aligned himself progressively with the avant-gard of American and French letters. Pound praises Ford  in that Fordie / never dented an idea for a phrase’s sake. This refers to an honesty beyond language. As for Paris and verité, Hem and Ford told their truth. They were as a matter of fact and a matter of speaking full of it. 

A Moveable Feast has moved me. What can I say? And what else?

Mayakovsky was a good guy and killed

himself, I suppose, not to embarass you.