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[ Aetat. 44-47 ] J O Y C E 5 9 iWeaver.' 48She was rather frightened by his anguish, and urged him notto bother to defend himself. 49Joyce thought at firsthe could check Pound's criticism that Work inProgress was 'all a bad stunt' 50by showing him the manuscript of thethirteen poems he had written since Chamber Music. At the suggestionof Mrs. Arthur Symons he was thinking of having them published.*But this overture did not work out well. Pound handed them back withouta word. Joyce pressed him for an opinion, and Pound said, 'Theybelong in the Bible or in the family album with the portraits.' 'You don'tthink they are worth printing at any time?' Joyce asked. 'No, I don't,'said Pound, and began to extol the work of a young man he had justdiscovered named Ralph Cheever Dunning. Joyce read Dunning and gotMiss Weaver to read him. She agreed it was poor stuff. 52Joyce then, atthe beginning of March, asked Archibald MacLeish to read his newpoems, and MacLeish sent him two letters so enthusiastic as to renewJoyce's self-esteem, confirm him in his opinion of Pound's caprice, andencourage him to have his poems published under the modest title ofPomes Penyeach. 53The criticism of Finnegans Wake continued, however, to weigh on hismind, especially since other friends and sometime adherents like SydneySchiff were also making their opposition open. Perhaps to counter suchhostility he accepted an invitation from the English P.E.N. Club to beguest of honor at their dinner on April 5, 1927,1 and, without feelingmuch better, he made a short trip to London from April 3-9 for thepurpose. John Drinkwater presided and Galsworthy attended. Joyce disappointedthe audience by not making the customary speech in reply.Afterwards he played again with the idea of going to Ireland but of coursedid not go. Back in Paris, he wrote Miss Weaver on May 12 that hewould gladly turn over the book to somebody else to finish. 'But who isthe person?' 54One name came to him, and on May 2 0 he disclosed toher one of the strangest ideas in literary history:As regards that book itself and its future completion I have asked MissBeach to get into closer relations with James Stephens. I started readingone of his last books yesterday Deirdre. I thought he wrote The Return ofthe Hero, which I liked. $ His Charwoman's Daughter is now out in French.He is a poet and Dublin born. Of course he would never take a fraction* Rhoda Symons, visiting Paris in 1926, wrote to her husband, 'I am going down toSylvia Beach's—perhaps Joyce will be there—he wants me to bring back his verse, writtenrecently—for you to read and advise upon—said he hadn't the courage to show it to you.• . .' 51Symons wrote the 'Epilogue' for The Joyce Book (1933) in which Pomes Penyeachwas set to music.t He had been one of eight writers who presided over a table each at a meeting of theP.E.N. Club in Paris, May 21-23, 1926. Among the others presiding were Galsworthy,Heinrich Mann, Pirandello, and Unamuno.t Joyce did not like The Crock of Gold, and said of it to Elliot Paul, 'It's all right, but itisn't written. I don't see why anybody couldn't do that.' 55