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—”