With an armful of projects under way, Hobart had little time for Thurley
during the winter. He met her with a sort of “You’ve got beyond me but I
don’t think I’ll bother to chase after” attitude, praising her when she
did well or keeping his silence when she did some showy, foolish thing,
food for press agents. He was noncommittal as to Dan Birge’s visits—as
Miss Clergy had been, since the latter looked upon them as a particularly
choice part of her revenge, for here was a man debarred from marrying the
woman he loved, yet following her hopelessly whenever she permitted, Pied
Piper fashion.
When Lissa had hinted of unsavory things to him, Hobart dismissed
the matter with a careless speech and a shrug of the shoulders. This
he had learned to do long ago, whenever Lissa came prattling of some
imaginary scandal which pleased her tarnished mind. There had been the
time she tried to convince Hobart that Collin really did not paint his
own pictures, but hypnotized Polly into doing it and thus kept her
starving in a garret, hopelessly in love with Collin and Collin playing
a modern Svengali. Lissa had endeavored for many days to make Ernestine
believe that Caleb was the storm center of a liaison with a Broadway
actress, thus ferreting out Ernestine’s state of mind concerning Caleb
and promptly running to Caleb to tell him, ever so confidentially, that
Ernestine was in danger of drinking herself to death, poor woman,—too
bad she loved that wretched gypsy violinist who had played with her in
concert work—could nothing be done about it? The world had soon learned
not to value Lissa’s information, paying no heed to her hints of Sam
Sparling’s dreadful actions or that Bliss Hobart did not go to his
hermitage in the Maine woods—why, there was the silliest little movie
actress at San Diego—living in a perfect castle, too—
So Hobart, well versed in tactics, when Lissa approached him on the
subject of Dan and Thurley, managed to switch the conversation on to
the information that Mark had danced so poorly his position as premier
was threatened and Lissa had better adopt the diet of a Belgian refugee
if she still wished to look her best in tailored things! Lissa, ousted
for the time being, would depart to vent her wrath on the shoulders
of her maid or Mark, who was, in truth, dancing poorly because he was
bored and he felt dancing was not a man’s life-work when other things
kept whispering themselves to him—and, hang it all, why did a clean cut,
wonder girl like Thurley let Lissa pull her around by the nose anyway?
In a spirit of half earnest, half flippant revenge for Hobart’s neglect,
Thurley sang poorly at a salon concert at which Hobart was the host. She
so resorted to Lissa’s mannerisms that Caleb took notes on his cuff for
future use.
Thurley knew the concert was a failure since she was to be the one to
make it a success. She refused to meet Hobart’s disappointed gaze,
pretending to be engrossed in listening to a Russian agitator telling of
his escape over the frontier.
The next morning, when Thurley was debating whether or not it would be
convenient to have Dan visit her so soon again, if this summer was to be
spent in shocking the natives or, as Caleb had urged, selecting a site
for a permanent country home and seeing it well on its way to completion
by fall, she lifted the telephone receiver to answer its ring and heard
Bliss Hobart’s voice—his teacher voice—saying,
“Come over at ten, Thurley, you’ve a lot to answer for.”
“Suppose I won’t come?” she retorted, delighted at the prospect.
But he had disconnected. She deliberately made herself late by
overdressing. A mad hatter’s model of a bonnet in blue and a frock
of rose taffeta with a coat to match furnished her with the proper
scenery, she admitted to herself. She slipped in to where Miss Clergy
industriously sat knitting army socks and told her she was off for a
coaching lesson.
“A coaching or a dancing lesson?” Miss Clergy asked mischievously.
“Both,” Thurley declared.
She found Hobart in his inner study; he was playing an old gavotte and
greeting her with a curt nod.
“Well—is a luncheon to follow the lesson? You must have thought I’d keep
you all morning. I’ve a pupil at eleven.”
Thurley sat on one of the little peasant chairs and pouted becomingly.
“I dress to suit my mood. Some mornings I have a desire for a winding
sheet; this morning I wanted rose taffeta and sapphire velvet.”
Hobart smiled. “Does Miss Clergy ever row about your adorers?”
Thurley flushed, saying in a more natural voice, “Not exactly. To
her mind it is the more enhancing—keeping mankind at bay. And it
settles a distressing question for me.... I daresay I’d make a cropper
of marriage, most of us do. This way, I do as I like,” turning to
contemplate the empty fireplace. “Must I be coached this morning?” she
added. “My throat feels scratchy and I have a benefit concert to-night.”
“It wasn’t your voice—but yourself.” He ended the song and, rising, took
an opposite chair before the fireplace. “I am going away earlier than
usual this year because of some work in England; making art aid the war.
If I don’t see you again, let me give you a little moral coaching which
is all you need to set you right.”
She would have interrupted, but he held up a protesting hand. “Age before
camouflage,” he pleaded. “For a long time, Thurley, I have been watching
you. You have come now to where you feel that an utter disregard of
morals is really preparation and a necessary frame of mind in order to
win the violet crown—”
“What do you mean by the violet crown?” She did not look at him.
“One of my pet names.” He became boyish in manner as he always did when
prevailed upon to speak of the things nearest his heart. “I’ve a lot of
pet names—and secrets—tucked under this salt and pepper hair of mine. A
long time ago, I sang rather well,—nice people have said I sang as well
as yourself, with as much ease and as little training. That was why I
understood you. My mother was an Italian and my father an American, but
we lived in Italy to please my mother and, after my father died, she
felt she could not bear to leave the blessed memories, for they had been
ideally happy.” He seemed lost in a reverie from which he roused himself
with an effort to continue:
“After my mother was gone and I was singing as well as yourself and
every one making quite a fuss over me and wanting me to tour America,”
he seemed to dread even the saying of the words, “I loved a woman who
was older than myself and who sang, too, but not well—more like Lissa. I
loved her very dearly and, of course, I believed in her. But she was an
art intriguer and not a worker and she said she loved me merely because
my golden voice meant real gold—for her to spend.... After awhile,—I
suppose I became a tedious, dreamy lad too occupied with ideals,—she
found a man with a great deal of money and no more knowledge of music
or art than a lapdog has.... Without telling me, she went up to Paris
and they were married and she laughed at my moonings and made fun of my
ideals.... For a long time I was ill, absurdly so, and when I was well,
my voice was gone,” he tried to speak lightly, “but in its stead I had a
vision.... Does that sound too superlative? It does to myself, for it is
one of the things words spoil the full meaning of; it would take music to
express it, a sonata inspired by the three oldest sounds in the world—”
“What are they?” Thurley asked, feeling the simple girl from Birge’s
Corners again, a _de luxe_ Topsy!
“The wind, the death cry of a warrior and a woman’s sobs,” he answered so
quickly she knew it had been clear to him for a long time. “No one will
ever write the sonata, so words must do their best. At least, I choose to
whom they shall be said. For it is as if you were looking into the very
soul of me, as a mother does when she first sees her newborn child, the
instant when the mysterious bond between them is formed for all time,
despite all happenings.”
Thurley leaned forward in her chair, her blue eyes serious. “I shall
understand,” she promised.
“I have never told any one all I shall tell you to-day, because I could
not bear to have them jangle and disagree in silly, stupid ways—like an
auctioneer trying to prove that the contents of a shrine were not of
intrinsic value but merely worth while as souvenirs! Because I think it
is worth while, I shall tell you. All the others,” he shook his head,
“were not worth it! Nor could I have told you at the beginning—you could
not have understood. Now, you are at the crossroads, flirting with each
direction, undecided which way you are going to travel.”
“I shall understand you,” she repeated. To herself she added, “Because I
love you!”
“It seemed to me as I pulled myself together after the fever and
cast about for another way of being useful, that true art was not
symbolized by a laurel wreath but by a violet crown—I daresay the
notion started from my admiration of the wonderful enamelled cups used
in cathedrals—lavender and sapphire. So I named the symbol for genius,
the crown typifying supremacy, violet, as the ecclesiastics interpret
it—humbleness, for those who possess true genius must be ever mindful
of the sparrow’s fall. It has seemed to me the violet crown could be,
figuratively, won only by such a nation as America, which, like the Child
in the temple, commanded respect and consideration of the elders—or the
Old World with its shallow reasonings as to art. For the Old World has,
to my mind, treated art and its artists somewhat after the fashion of
Barmecide’s Feast—the Arabian Nights’ tale of the prince who bade the
beggar sit at the snowy table a-glitter with golden service and, lo,
when the platters were lifted, the plates were devoid of food! So it is
with true art—we have had wonderful achievements, but we have not yet
made ourselves realize the moral significance and responsibility of art
and artists, that has been as devoid of justice as the golden plates of
Prince Barmecide were of food—” He paused.
Thurley was eager to speak. “Why, then, can I understand your vision?”
hoping for but one reply.
“Because you are one of the vanguard! Another of my secrets! There are
never many of the vanguard, and we are not always rich or great or
talented. Sometimes the vanguard of civilization are humble and their
earthly record most uninteresting. But have you never thought to yourself
there were just a few, rare souls who—who understand? Who can smile at
the trials the world seeks to escape from and sometimes sob at the vapid
joys for which the world strives so unceasingly? The vanguard can make
the most out of little and belittle the most. They seem to glimpse the
coming trials of the nation and her resultant triumphs; they are never
given to cowardice of flesh or spirit. As a general’s military vanguard
moves further along the battleline, so we, the altruistic vanguard,
must be ever ahead of the times in thought, deed and prophecy. It is
not always a pleasant rôle—to blaze the trail. The vanguard are usually
misjudged, ridiculed and never idle—”
“So the first vanguard was the group at Calvary who gave defiance to the
mob.” Thurley forgot the personal issue between them.
He nodded, well pleased. “In science, theology, economics, art, so on, we
always find a few members allying themselves distinctly with each great
cause and these few dare to see and to say wherein lie the errors of the
past and the possibilities of the future. Let you and me, Thurley, as
artists help America as a nation to the winning of the violet crown.”
“This war—” she began.
“Ah, not this physical war, for it will be over within a short time—so
to speak. America will enter and soon surface peace will result. But
long, long afterwards—when art assumes fairly normal proportions and
consideration and the world lapses back into the old ways—what then? Some
one has said the French have taken this war as an immortal martyrdom and
the British as a bully, well worth while game—then let our nation take it
as the chance to win the violet crown—first by the necessary sacrifice
and change in extravagant, thoughtless living which will prepare our
minds to be ready for the great moral battle long after the fields of
Flanders are recreated into fragrant orchards.”
“Then you did not want to preach to me,” Thurley sighed with relief.
“This is all a part of it,” he warned, “for you have strayed far from
the vanguard. First, to finish about myself. For I have been glad the
world lost an excellent tenor because he might have been a foolish one. I
am better placed as I am; but you, Thurley, are running amuck. Why this
shallow flippancy? This false basis of theories, mistaking shadow for
substance? Because you hear such and such a great _diva_ bore a child for
a crown prince—that this artist acts under the influence of morphine and
that one paints only when addled from absinthe—you must not pursue these
phantoms of self-indulgence—and you who sit there looking confused yet
combative, you are at this very moment halfway inviting an intrigue with
an honest country lad—Dan Birge! Can you not remember that scullery maids
as well as prima donnas dabble their virtue in cheap stains; there is
nothing distinctive about it?”
Instantly at war with herself, yet happy because Hobart was speaking to
her, Thurley, of her personal tangles, she began a spirited defence,
using Lissa’s blasé theories.
He waved them aside, answering in a brusque manner, a contrast to
his dreamy fashion of a moment ago, “You say, ‘I am different—on an
independent train!’ Then so are we all, rich man, poor man, beggar man,
thief.
“Why applaud, throw gold, even title a man or a woman who, despite
remarkable ability, has betrayed every simple tenet of faith and mocked
at the very subject matter which gives them their laurel wreath? We need
a new standard for art, Thurley.
“As the air has been conquered for a flight, a dozen things of science,
a broader version of theology, let us make the standards of personality
of importance in considering genius. Ultimately we should not lose.
The artists themselves would be the spiritual gainers, if forced to
live up to the ideals they so conscientiously and glibly prescribe for
every one else. You hear of a tradesman who abuses his family and his
business invariably falls off as a result. Yet we encore a man who has
cynically betrayed a young girl and laugh indulgently when reading of
his drunken escapades. ‘But what a Romeo!’ we say. ‘We must excuse
him—an artist, you know.’ There is an end of it. Is it not true that in
politics nothing damns a candidate more than a whisper against his good
name—his name, mark you, not his abilities? In religion, what ruins a
clergyman more than the rumor of the little choir girl—? In everything
else the world has attempted to deal out justice regarding the equation
of personal and professional life, but at the mere mention of talent,
genius—temperament—even a bobbed-haired musical comedy actress—the public
sinks giggling like a schoolgirl into an orchestra chair and becomes
ineffectual, blind, duped—immoral!”
Thurley made no comment, but she rose and showed her nervous tension by
walking rapidly up and down the floor.
After a pause Hobart added, “If we are to make American art permanent,
we must make American artists hold to the best in themselves. That,
Thurley, is my vision! That is what you must do, for you are of the
vanguard and you have true genius. Of course there would be a time of
temporary disillusionment for art, with every one scrambling about and
crying, ‘Help-ho—surely, not _me_!’ After the readjustment, when the
craft of artists realize that the public demands clean-breathed lives of
them and the surplus of amateurs have been beaten back into the ranks,
I see an art so ennobling and enduring that all other glories pale
beside it—an art of which America alone is capable—virile, innocent not
ignorant, mystical yet practical. In truth America’s sixth race can be
the inspiration of the bleeding, older world. That, Thurley, by degrees,
must be our part in reconstruction—the winning for America of the violet
crown.”
Thurley paused in her walking of the floor.
“But when one is so young and—when—” She faltered, all the wild-rose self
of her returning, like a child reluctant to confess its misdoings.
Hobart took her hands in his. “The personal twist to any problem is for
the person to solve; no one else can estimate it as well. Only to you
have I told my vision, confided my hopes. Do not disappoint me,” he
would have added more but the rap at the door recalled him to the eleven
o’clock lesson.
“Au revoir,” he said gaily, “and if I do not see you until fall—”
“You must see me; you cannot leave me at the crossroads.”
“You are making yourself walk backwards to them,” he contradicted.
“You did not finish about yourself,” she refused to be conscious of his
appointment, “the woman you—loved—that part of the story—”
“I told you all I have ever allowed myself to remember,” he corrected,
the inner illumination vanishing and the rather cynical man of the world
in elegant morning dress remaining.