The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith by Clark Ashton Smith Page B

verse and prose that, prior to meeting Smith, I am afraid that I somewhat naively anticipated the poet to speak in a voice of brass and in a manner as sententious and orotund as that of a sorcerer in one of Smith’s tales. To my considerable surprise Smith spoke in a deep, quiet, pleasant voice that put me instantly at my ease. With his trim mustache and his handsome, distinguished features, he seemed a perfect gentleman, affable but not unctuously so, civilized and tolerant, about whom there hovered a certain aura of individuality that would have set him apart anywhere but not in any blatant, affected manner: that true individuality which comes from within and has nothing of the theatrical in it.
    Of that first visit I recall in particular a delightful picnic we held on the beach about a block and a half east of their home. It was literally a “golden afternoon” with but a few fleecy clouds high overhead, with the gulls crying about us and the waves lisping among the rocks. Smith wore his beret and Mrs. Smith an immense straw hat which gave her the piquant appearance of a twentieth-century enchantress. With Mrs. Smith generously purveying the food from a straw hamper, we ate a simple but tasty repast of good, crumbly wheaten bread piled with miniature slabs of a sharp cheddar cheese, all washed down with one of the good red wines of California poured into paper cups: a wine of pomegranates from Hyperborea held in goblets of crystal and orichalch could not have tasted any better. Our conversation was informal and covered a wide range of topics, occasionally spiced by some wise, witty, and often ironic comment from Smith on the contemporary political and international scene.
    Of my second visit I recall, among other things, a lengthy discussion Smith and I had apropos divers literary figures, especially Poe and Baudelaire. The discussion reached its climax when Smith, with an unforgettable intensity, read aloud in French one of the powerful sonnets of Baudelaire. Smith commented afterwards: “That’s terrific stuff!” I nodded my head in agreement and said, “Well, it certainly wasn’t written by Alfred Lord Tennyson!” Then we both laughed, breaking the tension. Earlier, upon my noticing and commenting upon a “complete works” of Poe in some eight or ten volumes on a bookshelf in the dining room, Smith had confided to me that he had read virtually everything written by Poe that he had been able to obtain. However, it was during my first visit that Smith showed me his portfolio of drawings and paintings. I must confess myself somewhat taken aback by their deliberately primitive technique, having become somewhat spoiled by the technical excellence of Smith’s verse and prose; but there were a number of demonic heads which struck me as powerful and original. Smith’s sculptures, on the other hand, as deliberately primitive as the paintings, impressed me far more favorably and suggested something Egyptian or Mayan or Peruvian of the Inca period, without being quite the same as those. These carvings of Smith’s possess a quality rare in sculpture, which generally surrenders its essence at once to the beholder, especially sculpture of a conventionally technical perfection. Smith’s carvings grow gradually in the onlooker’s appreciation: the more one sees them, the more fascinating they become, adumbrating an essence never fully revealed but extending itself infinitely.
    Smith was as generous and fine a friend as Sterling must have been. I happened to lack only one of Smith’s volumes of poetry, the slender reprint collection Nero and Other Poems , published by The Futile Press. Smith took a copy he had given and inscribed to his wife, cut out the inscription page, wrote in a new inscription to me and then gave me the book gratis. I protested—somewhat feebly, I admit—but Clark and Carol insisted I keep it. I can still recall the thrill that I felt when Smith gave me out of his own hands that copy of Nero and