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
better without illustrations than with them-that is unless
these 'Illustrations be made to fill out the text rather than
to make a picture of some scene described in it.
"I do not feel that my ability in picture-making lies in
illustrating stories. In such work I am hampered and confined by the text, and my talent (such as it is) can have no
room in which to play. It has always seemed to me to be
better to choose for an illustration some point, if possible,
not mentioned directly in the text but very descriptive of
the text.
"For example, in the first instance I was compelled to
choose the return of the little boy from school welcomed
by his mother. This, while perfectly charming in your description of it, was not a subject one could very well depict.
You gave the idea of cool, dark interiors and wide spaces.
In making the drawing I had to limit myself to the open
door and a small vista outside; for in making a drawing
one must make it with what one sees with the eyes and not
with what one sees with the mind and thought, as you
make in the text. If the story which I was illustrating
had been mine, I would rather have chosen some impersonal
subject to be called, perhaps, 'Mother and Son,' in which
the mother, with her arm around the little boy, is walking
down the dark room with such surroundings as you depict
in the text.
"There is no such scene mentioned in your story, but
I think it would illustrate the feeling you intend to convey,
and if correctly drawn, would carry forward the thought
of the reader with some definiteness of purpose... *1
The soundness of this view of illustration immediately
won Dr. Mitchell to the side of the artist. From that
[ 163]1