He had brought to Newbern and to the amazed Harvey Whipple the strange news that America had no native culture; that it was raw, spiritually impoverished, without national self-consciousness; with but the faintest traces of art in any true sense of the word.

Harvey Whipple would have been less shocked by this disclosure, momentous though it was, had not Merle betrayed a conviction that his life work would now be to uphold the wavering touch of civilization.
This brought the thing home to Harvey D.Merle, heading his valiant little band of thinkers, would light a pure white flame to flush America's spiritual darkness.

He would be a vital influence, teaching men and women to cultivate life for its own sake.

For the cheap and tawdry extravagance of our national boasting he would substitute a chastening knowledge of our spiritual inferiority to the older nations.
America was uncreative; he would release and nurse its raw creative intelligence till it should be free to function, breaking new intellectual paths, setting up lofty ideals, enriching our common life with a new, self-conscious art.

Much of this puzzled Harvey D.and his father, old Gideon.