Howard Pyle, a chronicle by Charles D. Abbott, with an introduction by N. C. Wyeth and many illustrations from Howard Pyle's works.

HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE
pression which are very reminiscent of the early years in
New York. On July 1 7, 1883, he wrote to Mrs. Pyle,
who was at Rehoboth: "I sit here this evening a right up and
down blue man. Why am I so blue? That I can't tell
thee; thee knows how I get such spells upon me; one of
them is upon me now. I have had a day of enforcedI might almost sayý-idleness through the failure of Harpers to send the Higginson MS. that they must forward.
Beside this, my drawing for Butler (the Philadelphia publisher) has not turned out what I could have desired. It is
too good to do over again and yet is almost too bad to send
away. I want to get it out of the house for I hate the sight
of it when I come into the studio. I don't know whether it
is the hot weather or whether it is thy being away that
upsets me, or whether I am going backward in my work, but
certainly it seems to me that I do not draw so well now as
I did three months ago. I really am very much inclined to
write to Mr. Parsons and ask him to send me away somewhere on a trip so that I can get away from the jog-trot
drudgery of manufacturing pictures for two or three weeks.
If I have a change, perhaps I can tackle my work again with
more vim and go when I come back to 'it again." Then on
the following day: "Bad luck today. No MS. from Harpers.... Rubbed off from my picture that which I did
yesterday, and think it looks better. I shall send it away
tomorrow without touching it any more-I hope....
These spells, however, were never of long duration, and
were the inevitable snares into which he could not help falling. It was impossible for him to do such great quantities
of work and, at the same time to have such high critical
faculties, without feeling a certain dissatisfaction with some
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