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

THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA
American history and life. The series finally included so
many pictures, in fact, that it could almost serve as a pictorial history of the nation, for practically no period was
omitted with the exception of the very modern.
So much absorption in an American past gave him a profound appreciation of everything connected with it. He
could not see an old house destroyed without undergoing
severe mental tortures, and the mere repairing of famous
old buildings would move him to their support. The dismay which he expresses in the following letter to Mr. W.
H. Mersereau, who was engaged in making repairs on the
Old Swede's Church in Wilmington, is typical of the attitude which he had toward all such improvements:
cc*0aOld buildings and fragments of the past are to
me very and vitally alive with the things of the past.
When, for instance, I saw your carpenters working upon
the Old Swede's Church I could not but picture to myself
in fancy the old builders of that past day in knee breeches
and their leather aprons and their queer uncouth tools
building up that which the present generation was tearing
down.
"I understand exactly the unfortunate necessity of such
repairs, but it also grieves me sadly to see them.
"Old Swede's Church has so long been a joy and a pride
to me. In passing by on the train with any of my friends
from other places I have always pointed it out with such
pleasure, and I never failed to receive from them expressions of intense interest. To pass by now and see the garish
yellow shingles and the crass new woodwork that stands in
its place causes me a feeling of real distress that cannot be
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