The lecture commences with an apparent attack on the attitudes of some members of the Club, including its president Henry Simpson.
Hulme discusses how forms rise and fall, and proceeds to the topic of French vers libre, referring to Gustave Kahn's explanation of the technique: "It consisted in a denial of a regular number of syllables as the basis of versification.
The length of the line is long and short, oscillating with the images used by the poet; it follows the contours of his thought and is free rather than regular."
Hulme concludes with a call to arms: "a shell is a very suitable covering for the egg at a certain period of its career, but very unsuitable at a later age.
... [it] has become alive, it has changed from the ancient art of chanting to the modern impressionist, but the mechanism of verse has remained the same.