FROST (ROBERT) Autograph letter signed ("R.F."), 1914
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FROST (ROBERT)
Autograph letter signed ("R.F."), to the Imagist poet F.S. Flint ("Dear Flint"), sending him North of Boston ("...I send you my Sportsman's Sketches - if you know what I mean by that..."), commenting on Pound's anthology Des Imagistes which Flint had sent him ("...Thanks for the book, though not as profusely as if it had been more yours to give. I like your part in it and I can do well enough with Pound and the Aldingtons but Amy [Lowell] and Skipwith [Cannell] are a little too much and too little respectively..."), and mentioning their mutual friend T.E. Hulme ("...I hear Hulme has thought of something new lately..."); other subjects covered include Flint's shortcomings as an epistolary audience ("...You do my letters less than justice, possibly because you read the pages in the wrong order. I assure you it was all there, as we say in America. It meant most if read backwards, but the only really wrong way to read it was in alternate pages, first, third, second, and fourth. Of course you had to light on that..."), rhymes on Dante's hell ("...I like best the second - 'That second circle of sad 'L/ Where Paolo and his Francesca dwell/ And the O'Shea goes soon to join Parnell..."), Wilfrid Gibson's forthcoming baby ("...Come and kiss the baby yourself - but don't come till the baby comes. Mrs Gibson says she is not booking any kisses in advance..."), a proposed translation of Paul Claudel ("...We are reading the play now. I am hoping to see my way clear for the south of France next winter. When I know more French I can tell you better what I think of Claudel and some others..."), and a terrible "Kemmist person" ("...Just who is he? Is he yours? He came down here and forced himself on us at a time when I had particularly asked him not to come. We had to malinger to get rid of him. If he had said one interesting thing!..."); in a postscript he sends his daughter Irma's remembrance to Flint's daughter Ianthe, 3 pages, 8vo, first page slightly sunned, very small stain on third page, Little Iddens, Ledington, Ledbury, June 1914
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Footnotes

  • A FINE LETTER BY ROBERT FROST, SENDING HIS FELLOW POET F.S. FLINT A COPY OF 'NORTH OF BOSTON', JUST PUBLISHED. This letter dates from possibly the most productive period of Frost's life, when he was living in the cottage Little Iddens among the 'Dymock Poets' (including Edward Thomas and Rupert Brooke), and during which time he wrote some of his best-known poems, such as 'Mending Wall', 'After Apple-Picking' and 'Birches'. His second, and many believe greatest, volume, North of Boston (which contains the first two of these poems) had been published on 15 May. Lavishly praised by Edward Thomas, it was to make his name.

    The Imagist poet F.S. Flint, whose "fluency in French and knowledge of European literature, coupled with his special focus on the French symbolist poets, placed him at the vanguard of early English modernism" was among the most important of Frost's friends during this stay in England before the Great War (Caroline Zilboorg, ODNB). In the assessment of Sarah R. Jackson, "Flint, the first literary figure Frost met in England, not only offered friendly moral support to an American in a foreign land, but also offered valuable practical assistance. He introduced Frost to important writers and critics such as Ezra Pound and T. E. Hulme, assessed unpublished manuscripts of Frosts poetry, acted as a sounding board for Frost's new poetic theory, and published reviews of Frost's works. Frost, in turn, reviewed Flint's manuscripts, offered to place Flint's works with an American publisher, strengthened the younger poet's self-esteem by encouraging him to stand up to Ezra Pound, and arranged that Flint meet the critic and poet, Edward Thomas. Without a doubt, the friendships Frost experienced among writers in England provided a nurturing experience that encouraged his creative output, and his friendship with Frank Flint was especially beneficial" ('Letters from the Bungalow: Robert Frost to Frank S. Flint', Dartmouth Library Bulletin, November 1994).

    Other letters by Frost to Flint are held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin; the present letter, which has remained with the family, appears to have remained unpublished (for publishing details, see Jackson, op.cit.).

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