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names that are invading the table of contents and title pages.

I come to no conclusion as to what is to-day, or what may be to-morrow, American poetry. It may or may not follow the crystallization of "an American language." These reflections, I hope, serve merely to call some attention to the fact that there is an influence more mystical than the average critic gives credit for being which is reshaping the foundation of our poetic ideals and visions. In the art of poetry as well as in our national temper, there is a psychologic conflict taking place which may be revealed in the words of Gustave Le Bon when he says that "in addition to the shifting elements of the individual character there are extremely stable ancestral elements established by the past. Strong enough to limit the oscillations of personality, they immediately establish national unity in times of crisis."

Arlington Heights
Massachusetts