PREFACE                     ix
new technique: for technique does not create vision,
but is created by it. The true stylistic corollary of
what has been affirmed above is merely, then, that
all literary art of the future must adopt a more ab-
solute economy of means: which signifies that the
poet, naturally spendthrift of his imaginings, must
forsake the flowery way of his fancies for a more com-
plete concentration of energy on his vision.
  To embody this vision without any loss of a feel-
ing of inspired spontaneity, whose source seems in-
finite, will be his tasK. For only by possessing or
suggesting some ineffable connection with the infinite
will he be able to make a strict art economy seem
divine.
  A preface, whose purpose is to tune the reader's
mind to what follows rather than set jangling in him
a hundred diverse theories of criticism, should doubt-
less say no more. Let the rest, then, be silence.

                            CALE YOUNG RICE.
  January, I9I5.