Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

287 Olga Triumphant
tite for food and ‘desultory reading,’ my mother used to reprove me for,
good as ever.’’ An incomplete draft of a letter (possibly never posted):
‘‘Old people are dreadful, always know more than you want to know and
insist on telling it!’’
Commenting on a recent broadcast about the Princesse de Polignac,
another nonagenarian, Olga jotted: ‘‘a woman making the best use of her
last years, exercising her mind, learning Greek, practical—glasses, pencils,
notebooks on all floors—discriminating gourmet, calm, no fuss, kind
but not sentimental.’’ She might well have been describing herself. ‘‘In my
youth, I was easy on the eyes,’’ she wrote. ‘‘I get more compliments now,
but they mean less—I know better.’’ She was pleased by Father Desmond
Chute’s remark after years of separation during the war: ‘‘Olga, you are
growing old gracefully.’’