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Page:The Voice of the Valley, by Yone Noguchi; 1897.djvu/20

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Introduction

He must also be a word-builder, if he would conjure the echoes from that valley of the shadow, where heaven and earth meet, where there is no horizon save the cloud-rack and the storm.

When I heard that Yone Noguchi was in the Yosemite with his exalted muse, it seemed to me that this unconventional child of nature, this boy whose heart and soul lie naked and bare, must strike a chord that all the voices of nature shall respond to—and for these reasons:—

Noguchi is a word-builder of startling originality and power; inspired by the charming audacity of innocence, he is unfaltering in his flights; the sensuous imagination of the Oriental has lost nothing of its fire and splendor, though the new medium of expression is the most literal English that ever was uttered: his lines are charged with primitive eloquence;

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