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

ITALY AND THE END
two weeks' siege of it which has prevented my doing any
work-or my doing anything.
It (Florence) seems to be a wonderful place, and
very interesting, but it is dirty and ramshackle compared to
our American ideals. In fact, Italy, especially the southern
part, impresses me as a great big charnel house, full of the
dead and chiefly of the dead bones of the past;i and while
northern Italy, and especially Florence, is much more prosperous, still the charnel house idea remains with me, and I
think I shall use it in an article.
"As for Rome, I hate it. I was in my room all the time
but twice, and when I went out then I saw the Roman ruins,
and not Saint Peter's and the great pictures and statues.
The 'Moses' was the only thing I saw. As for the Roman
ruins, they are without shape, weatherworn, and channeled
by the rivulets of centuries of rain. They are black in some
places and white in others, and are, I think, ugly and disagreeable. I saw nothing beautiful in them, but only the
weatherworn remnants of a past and forgotten age.
"In contrast to this I like Florence very much, and am
sure that I shall like it better as time goes on. I want to
get to the Garden of the Medicis and the place where Lorenzo de Medici breathed his last. I am almost sure that
will -be very beautiful, and I am going to make my first
article upon it... 0
To Stanley A rtkurs.
"December 21, 1910.
I like Florence very much, but have not yet seen
it under the best auspices. We are just now in a pension or
boarding-house, and I am not very fond of boarding-house
life-in fact, my long domestic life has unfitted me for it.
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