30 July 1903: "Dont be allarmed [sic] at this nothing turribel [sic] had did [sic] only I have a little time and nothing better to do. I take therefor[e] my pen in hand. . . .
"Am stalled here [at his mother's in New York City] for a few weeks as some of my schemes for living on my friends fell through. . . .
"Went up to Clinton [Hamilton College], Bluffed The Boss into a decent schedule for the next year o[r] so. [N]o exams Ph.B in 05. Had a good time and met some awfully nice people. . . .
"Am killing time . . . trying to learn the typfwriter [sic] & banjo. I say in defense that I banj. better than I type. All of which is doubtless of world wide interest. [A]nd will be worth $9. a column when I get to be Pope, King of England, Czar of Rooshy, Empress of India, J.P. Carnegan [sic], and Boss of the 1234567th ward. But as Ive written it [I]'ll send it but you dont have to read it if you dont want to. (There is as you may know a stone in a stream in Ireland on which is written, 'When this stone is out of sight it is dangerous crossing'. . . ."
13 August [1903]: ". . . Did You Recover the Colored Lady's underware [sic] (Drawers to be explicit). . . . Last week I made, paid, performed, did, had or something--a visit to a divinity on Long Island, for the two weeks before I lost my heart & change to a Washington divinity passing through N.Y., a Blue & Brown divinity (Brown as to hair, & blue as to eyes,--I specify lest you imagine one, blue as to temperament & brown as to skin). I am now quite desolate in a divinityless atmosphere & am trying to drown my grief in Taine's 1100 quarto page History of Eng. Lit. . . .
"Will pass through the village of brotherly filth & perfection in machine politics about Sept. 1 . . . ."
27 December [1907]: ". . . I have about a hundred infants to boss during term time. About sixty in one aggregation which was some fun to bluff and say sweet sarcastic things to, the 'Wabash' [Wabash College] noted the fact that I had missed my calling--I 'ought to have been a blacksmith'.
"The job amuses me. Am going to give a bunch of (what ought to be) Post Grad. lectures next term, just hitting the high places in all Romance lit. Of course my ordinary rag chewing is much more enlightening than the ordinary college lecture, so I shall drag in Aristotle and Schopenhauer and the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead' and any other trifles that appeal to my verdant vagrant fancy. . . ."
30 October 1909: ". . . I enclose certain 'ads'--the modesty of those concerned with titterchure is daily decreasing.
". . . Exultations is presumably out. 'The Spirit of Romance' prose, commissioned for the spring, one mss, 'The Dawn' with a publisher, another book begun (poems) & four more in mind, prose & pseudo-scholarly.
"It has long--& this is between you, me, & the ink pot--long been in my mind, that you, me, & a class mate of mine, whose father has by the miraculous stupidity of our nation been elevated to considerable prominence in Washington, might, if we so chose, go a long way towards controlling a congressional district if we were tactful in locating it, where your knowledge of city politics, his energy to influence, & my, let us say, opportunist temperament, should all have a certain chance of expression. . . . Young [son of Vice President James S.] Sherman is I think predestined to get into Congress & perhaps further. The stream from Hamilton to Washington is rather continuous. One should of course be E.P. . . . Elihu Root, Sherman . . . . I want a diplomatic, not a political, or judicial job. . . . I am modest, an embassy being a luxury reserved for the rich, but there are several humbler posts which I could use to advantage. . . ."
[5 November 1912]: ". . . I have written revolutionary articles, & lectured and sent mss to my publisher which will appear in due course, . . .
"No, I haven't gone thru' . . . Darwin or Spencer. You'll find Burckhardt good on 'the Renaissance' if you ever try that period, & the newer school seem to get over the ground more concisely than the old, tho' Robertson's 'Charles V' still stands the test. . . . As for D[arwin?] & S[pencer?] I can't get up even a glimmer of interest in their period, confiteor. I'm going to do a monument on Renaissance prose in my old age, which will probably be much duller than anything Victorian.
"The presidential campaign interests me. Tho' the one staunch Rooseveltian whom I've seen on this side of the water seemed to have some flair when he said, 'I want R. because he wont do what he says he's going to.'
"About the philosophy, I have a feeling that one ought not to bother reading works that are pretty generally accepted & assimilated, it tends to make one agree with current opinion & this is bad, for one is not then so likely to be stimulated . . . ."
With--(Ezra Pound.) 6 items, sent by Pound to Woodward during their correspondence: Two typed poems, possibly by Pound, unsigned. The first, 8 lines beginning "I ne sing nat the cley / Wherein the crushed herte heideth." The second, 4 stanzas, beginning "Valle plateado de linia / Sendero de mis amores / Quiero ofrendarle las fores / El canto de mi montuna." Each 1/2 page, oblong 8vo or 4to. Np, 1906; nd. One with the original envelope • Alfred Richard Orage. ALS, "A.R. Orage," to "My dear Pound," thanking him for sending the article by Woodward and proposing to publish it. 1 page, 4to, ruled paper. [London], 2 April 1915 • Three printed leaflets, unsigned, including a course description and registration form for Pound's medieval literature course beginning October 11, 1909 at the Polytechnic on Regent Street [today part of University of Westminster], and two advertisements with quotations from reviewers, one for Exultations of Ezra Pound and the other for Lustra. Each 8vo or 12mo. 1909.