113
INTRODUCTION
only by freedom and by experiment. Modern times have brought to multitudes of men new ideas from other lands through the channels of English literature and modern science. As the English poets of the sixteenth century were emancipated by the study of Greek and Latin and by removal of the trammels of the mediaeval church, is there not hope that from the mass of noble poetry, lyrical, narrative, descriptive, which England offers to them and which they read with avidity and delight may come some inspiration to experiment in form and language and thought unknown to those who are still in the bonds of our decadent Mediaevalism? And prose, written for an artistic or a popular scientific purpose can learn to be gathered is that current literature and current educated speech have one common basis; prose rhythm, prose formalities of order, subtle effects of expression as when instinct or emotion hits on the fittest words for its conveyance--all the devices of the artist--do not need dead vocabulary and dead grammar; between the artist and his audience there is the greater contact when speaks and they listen to language which both share; and his message makes a wider appeal.
Our purpose is not merely to discuss these facts; we hope to attract men to experiment in our pages. Translations and original work will both be
