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

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Lost Loves
1918–1922
‘‘We make our own tragedies’’
The Armistice was signed by the Allied Powers and Germany on
November 11, 1918—too late for Arthur and many of the gifted youth of
his generation (as Pound commemorated in Canto 110, ‘‘the holiness of
their courage forgotten’’). A million Parisians filled the streets and public
squares, celebrating the end of hostilities. But eight million on all sides had
died in the war. Julia returned to Belsize Park to be near Ted, her surviving
son, but Arthur’s death was a blow from which she never recovered.
The pain and disillusionment she su√ered are evident in this thinly veiled
warning to Olga: ‘‘Do not worry about me being alone. . . . It seemed
rather awful to look forward to, but now that it has come . . . I see how
foolish I have been in so many ways. I have been married twenty-five
years, and it has taken me all that time to learn a few necessary lessons. . . .
I have thrown away my youth and talent in the struggle. My Paris days, as
I look back, were wonderful, though I did not in any sense make the best
of them.’’
Her only consolation was her daughter’s growing reputation as a concert
violinist. A high point in Olga’s career at this time was an invitation
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