from "admitting the Universe"! The Universe, which flings down
its continents and seas, and leaves them without comment. Art is as much
a function of the Universe as an Equinoctial gale, or the Law of Gravitation;
and we insist upon considering it merely a little scroll-work,
of no great importance unless it be studded with nails from which
pretty and uplifting sentiments may be hung!

For the purely technical side I must state my immense debt to the French,
and perhaps above all to the, so-called, Parnassian School,
although some of the writers who have influenced me most do not belong to it.
High-minded and untiring workmen, they have spared no pains
to produce a poetry finer than that of any other country in our time.
Poetry so full of beauty and feeling, that the study of it is at once
an inspiration and a despair to the artist. The Anglo-Saxon of our day
has a tendency to think that a fine idea excuses slovenly workmanship.
These clear-eyed Frenchmen are a reproof to our self-satisfied laziness.
Before the works of Parnassians like Leconte de Lisle,
and Jose/-Maria de Heredia, or those of Henri de Re/gnier, Albert Samain,
Francis Jammes, Remy de Gourmont, and Paul Fort, of the more modern school,
we stand rebuked. Indeed -- "They order this matter better in France."

It is because in France, to-day, poetry is so living and vigorous a thing,
that so many metrical experiments come from there. Only a vigorous tree has
the vitality to put forth new branches. The poet with originality and power
is always seeking to give his readers the same poignant feeling which
he has himself. To do this he must constantly find new and striking images,
delightful and unexpected forms. Take the word "daybreak", for instance.
What a remarkable picture it must once have conjured up!
The great, round sun, like the yolk of some mighty egg, BREAKING through
cracked and splintered clouds. But we have said "daybreak" so often