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.”
“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.”