“I saw a many ‘gruesome’ sights”

“The stout little old gentleman who ate four fish-balls for breakfast on Sunday”

How better to charm a woman than by drawing an old man about to vomit? That was Howard Pyle’s tactic, at least, in a letter he wrote to Miss Alice Hannum Cresson on August 19, 1875:

Wilmington

Aug 19th 1875

Dear Miss Alice:

Now ma am the question is am I or am I not to be forgiven for my appearant neglect of your kind permission to write to you. Before the court decides let me be heard in a little excuse “iv it be plazen to yus mum [?]”. Now the fact is that immediately upon my return home I received orders to prepare myself ‘instanter’ for a business trip to the north so you can easily imagen that I must have been much hurried to get off in reasonable time.

I arrived home on Monday or rather Tuesday last at half past one o’clock at night, rather fagged out to tell the truth; having travelled about thirteen hundred miles (and all at night at that) the foregoing week. However I am now as you perceive in my normal state of vavicious brilliancy - “Richard’s himself again!” in fact.

Boston was the last city I visited before I returned home and from there I came to Philadelphia by ocean. Ah Miss Alice in two days of ocean travel I saw a many “gruesome” sights - old gentleman that would ever and anon dash frantically to the edge of the boat where they would stand with bodies that heaved and swayed with the force of some internal conflict between breakfast and stomach. The wail of little children and cries of suffering women whilst the stewardess ran hither and thither with a baisin in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other - no ma am I was not sea-sick.

This little sketch represents the stout little old gentleman who ate four fish-balls for breakfast on Sunday.

[drawing of man, 7/8 x 3/4" - see above]

But enough of this “fal-lal.”

I saw Spencer this evening. He tells me that he has received a letter from Miss Sallie inviting us both up to Consho. next Saturday. Most unfortunately I have sundry little engagements for that day; while Saturday week Spencer is engaged; however on Saturday two weeks weather permitting and provided it suits you we shall do ourselves the pleasure of visiting you.

I suppose Spencer has told you all about our departure from Maryland. How I scarcely had time to buy my segars and ticket and to dash off a few agonized lines of parting to Miss Smith and at the last moment to post your letters almost forgetting my valise in my hurry. We were both upon the platform of course to catch a last lingering look at our lady friends at Mansion Farm and were duly gratified.

I enclose an illustration of Shakspeare - “a poor thing but mine own” - applicable to this peach and watermelon season [enclosure missing]. Please give my respects to your father and mother and the rest of my Consho. friends and believe me as ever -

Very Respectfully Yours

Howard Pyle

May I hope to hear from you soon in answer to this my first letter since my return from Maryland?

I should note that although Pyle dated the letter “Aug 19th” sometimes he got his dates wrong, plus the envelope (see below) was postmarked 10 p.m. August 20th, so it’s possible he wrote it on that day.

I’ve posted a couple of things regarding “Miss Alice” already, but here’s a quick review:

When the 22-year-old Pyle wrote to Alice Hannum Cresson, 26, she was living with her parents, Walter and Alice (Hannum) Cresson, and sisters, Anna and Sarah (or Sallie), in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. She and Pyle were cousins by marriage - Alice’s maternal aunt, Hannah Hannum (1817-1896), was the widow of Pyle’s maternal uncle, John Painter (1824-1865) - so they may have known each other since childhood.

First, regarding “iv it be plazen to yus mum”: I’ve been squinting at that phrase for the last fifteen years. “It be” and “to” were clear, but the other parts I thought, at various times, were “played to your music” or “muse” and “plague to your name” and so on. All nonsense. But I think I’m on the right track now. It really can’t be anything but “plazen” - that’s Pyle’s “p” and “z,” etc. - and if we say it with an “Irish” accent, it translates to “it be pleasing to.” Since Pyle was familiar with Irish character songs and plays, this seems likely. I might be misreading the first word “iv” (or “if”), but Pyle also was apt to add extra bits to his letterforms and not dot his “i”s consistently. “To yus mum” - i.e. “to you, ma’am” - is iffy (or ivvy), but I don’t know what else it could be. Any takers?

But what else does this letter show us, apart from Pyle’s earthy sense of humor - and that he sometimes smoked “segars”?

Well, we see that Pyle was a mediocre speller, but he knew that: “I was never a good hand at spelling,” he admitted years later. He also knew his “Shakspeare” - sort of: “a poor thing but mine own” is a common misquotation of “an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own” from As You Like It (Act 5, Scene 4). Incidentally, Pyle also used the phrase to “modestly” describe his fairy-tales in an 1889 letter: “But you know what Touchstone says - ‘A poor thing, a poor thing, but mine own!’” Meanwhile, “Richard’s himself again!” comes from Act 5, Scene 3 of Colley Cibber’s Richard III.

“Spencer,” it turns out, was Willard Spenser, born July 7, 1852 (or later), in Cooperstown, New York. He moved to Wilmington in 1873 and in 1875 was living at 1229 Tatnall Street with his mother, Mary, and brother, Claude. All three taught music. Spenser had early musical talent and composed his first waltz at age 7. In 1886, “The Little Tycoon” - for which he wrote both the music and the libretto - premiered in Philadelphia and became the first successful light opera by an American composer. By then it seems that he and Pyle had drifted apart, though later they were fellow members of the Franklin Inn Club.

“Mansion Farm,” as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, was the Owings Mills, Maryland home of Pyle’s (and Alice’s) aunt and uncle, Sarah and Milton Painter. I recently learned, though, that the place - also known as ULM and built by Samuel Owings himself - was the focus of controversy some 15 years ago, when a developer sneakily demolished it. A more full, interesting, and illustrated history of it can be found here.

But perhaps the most intriguing thing about this letter is what it reveals about Pyle’s otherwise murky involvement in his father’s leather business. The 1875-76 Wilmington city directory (published in June 1875) lists William Pyle as a “leather dealer” and Howard Pyle as an “artist.” The latter description may have been wishful thinking at that point, but it’s plain that Howard’s duties went beyond clerking in an office and that he acted - well, once - as a sort of traveling salesman, going by train - and boat - to visit scattered customers. This is, at least, exactly what his father did, especially in the 1880s, after his younger sons, Clifford and Walter, had taken the reins of the family enterprise.

One more thing: chief among the Pyles’ products (eventually, but quite possibly in the 1870s, too) was leather for bookbinding. Their clients, naturally, would have included publishers. In fact, according to Alpheus Sherwin Cody - who interviewed Pyle in 1894 - Roswell Smith, President of Scribner & Company, “was a friend of [Pyle’s] father.” Why would a Delawarean leather dealer become friendly with a New York publisher?

I wonder, therefore, if this as-yet hypothetical connection to the publishing world was an “in” - or the “in” - that Pyle successfully exploited in 1876, after writing up his Chincoteague experiences...

“That Miserable Engagement”

In his letter of August 26, 1876, to the Misses Cresson, Howard Pyle mentioned “that miserable engagement that detained me at the Newspaper Office, until half past one on that Tuesday when you passed through Wilmington.”

But what miserable engagement? What Newspaper Office? What Tuesday? I needed to find out. Fortunately, there were only a couple of newspapers published in Wilmington at that time, chiefly Every Evening and the Wilmington Daily Commercial. Pyle had an established relationship with the former: his first known published work of any kind was a drawing for Every Evening’s masthead in 1871. But for some reason that I can’t recall now (this was 15 years ago), I decided to search the Commercial first; perhaps it was because its editor, Howard M. Jenkins (1842-1902), was a friend of the Pyle family and a fellow member of the Friends’ Social Lyceum (plus Swarthmore College has a letter Pyle wrote him in 1889). Jenkins, incidentally, went on to edit The American - a Philadelphia-based periodical which published several works by Pyle’s mother and sister - and The Friends’ Intelligencer. An account of life and tragic death can be found here.

Anyway, the Library of Congress had bound volumes of the newspaper - which were less blinding to go through than microfilm - and I set to slog. As the volume for 1876 wasn’t delivered right away, I started with earlier years, which gave me a better sense of what life was like in Wilmington during Pyle’s youth (I was struck, in particular, by the number of stories about spelling bees and cases of epizooty).

Now, in his Cresson letter, Pyle also mentioned that “duty called me to make a visit to Chincoteague.” This was equally intriguing: after all, Pyle’s “Chincoteague, The Island of Ponies,” (Scribner’s Monthly, April 1877) helped launch his career. He called the article "the first I ever wrote for publication” (in a letter to Henry Troth, April 13, 1897) and it is routinely mentioned in interviews and biographical sketches. In 1903, for instance, Pyle said:

"Then I went to an island off the coast of Virginia, where roamed at will a breed of half-wild ponies. Once a year they were corraled and branded. I wrote an article about them and made some pencil drawings, which were redrawn; and on its publication I felt my art was of some practical use. This was confirmed by Mr. Roswell Smith, who advised me through my father, who had dropped in at Scribner’s to inquire if an article of mine were acceptable, to come to New York." (Interview with Charles Hall Garrett in The Reader, May 1903)

Well, I eventually got to August 1876 in the Wilmington Daily Commercial - and this jumped out at me:

Wilmington Daily Commercial, Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, August 15, 1876.

LIFE ON CHINCOTEAGUE.

A CORNER “OUT OF THE HURLY-BURLY” - THE SIMPLICITY OF A CENTURY AGO - BEACH AND SEA - HOW THE CHINCOTEAGUERS DWELL IN PEACE

Correspondence of the Commercial.

Chincoteague, Va., August 12. - Could a man be suddenly transported from one country to another, as in eastern fables, he could meet with no more strongly marked and different peculiarities than he will discover when a day’s ride from Wilmington lands him on the Island of Chincoteague, just off the northernmost coast, or Eastern Shore, of Virginia.

The inhabitants themselves, are a peculiar race, for the most part of a sallow, leathery, smoke-dried complexion, with back and shoulders rounded like the bowl of a spoon. They generally roam in bare feet in summer, thus avoiding the unnecessary expense of shoe leather, their chief costume consisting of a pair of extraordinarily patched trowsers, strapped up to the seventh rib, a red or checked shirt, and a straw hat with wonderful breadth of brim, sheltering a placid face from the torrid glare of the sun.

Immediately to the eastward of Chincoteague, between it and the ocean, stretches Assateague Island, or, as the natives call it, “the beach,” upon the middle of which stands Assateague light-house, a first-class light and one of the finest in the country.

The ponies for which Chincoteague is so widely celebrated mostly roam in a wild state over the whole island, though some are now confined by their owners to large tracts of salt meadows fenced off, while others are swum across the narrow channel that separates Chincoteague from Assateague, to run at large upon the latter island, which, in spite of its quite heavy pine timber, is still in many portions unclaimed land.

Land-locked as Chincoteague is, separated by interest as by water from the rest of Virginia, its inhabitants seem to have retained the thoughts and prejudices of the state of civilization of seventy-five years ago. Not more than one or two of the older native inhabitants can read, and though in the last few years many people from the mainland have settled upon the island, you may still live there for weeks without beholding a newspaper, or a book of any kind for that matter.

Among the quaint and curious characters of the island is one popularly known as “Uncle Ken” Jester, one of the largest pony owners of the place, all whose thoughts seem to bear directly or indirectly upon “beach-hosses,” and to the one additional topic of whiskey. Of this favored liquor Uncle Ken imbibes on an average a quart or three pints a day, but drunk or sober he knows all that is to be known about ponies, and can catch them when at their wildest.

The wisdom evolved from the inner consciousness of these illiterate people is often quaint and shrewd enough. An old negro who goes by the name of “Ole Dan Tucker” was very entertaining in this respect. A pencil sketch of his queer figure was much desired, and he was offered ten cents as an inducement to stand still for that purpose. “Look yeh, Mass,” said he, in his broad Virginia accent, “reckon I’s ugly ’nough ’out puttin’t on paper. Land knows I want money too, I reckon. Money’ll take a man anywhe’s - ’cept to Heaven.” So Dan could not be persuaded to “pose,” but was subsequently caught upon the wing, so to speak, in front of the hotel.

Curious to northern eyes were the interior of some of the houses visited on Chincoteague, but with hospitable inhabitants. On the visitor’s entrance to the first the good woman of the house who was smoking vile tobacco in a very dirty short pipe, spanked a child who was rolling nearly naked upon the floor, whipped a sauce pan and a dirty pair of trousers off a chair and bade her guest sit down, all in a breath. One or two cheap prints, a highly-colored circus advertisement, and bottles with red flannel inside them were hung here and there, ornamenting the walls. The housekeeping arrangements consisted of three or four rickety chairs, a saucepan, a cracked pitcher, a griddle and a coffee pot; the smaller properties heaped in a rickety wash tub in one corner of the room. Then the bed! a voluminous mass of feathers rising in a mountainous heap quite five feet in height, with tawny counterpane and spindle bed-posts decked at the top with bits of parti-colored worsted. So hospitable are the owners of these dwellings that it requires some ingenuity to escape from the pressing invitations to share the meal which spread their board, consisting of fried potatoes, nodules of fat pork fried and floating in molasses, and conical chunks of bread which they dip in the same.

Some of the houses of a better class are equally curious in their way. One such is the residence of Capt. Caulk, an ex-Delawarean, a frame structure of hexagon shape in front of which is a collection of immense bones, relics of an enormous whale that was stranded upon the beach in a storm.

The Island of Chincoteague claims to have been, during the late war, the only loyal spot in East Virginia. The interests of the islanders were all against secession; they dealt with the North and held intercourse with it, while with Virginia and the South they had little or nothing in common. Only one man upon the Island, Joseph Hill by name, voted for the ratification of the secession act of the Virginia Assembly. The inhabitants of Chincoteague raised an immense flag-pole, a hundred and odd feet in height, to which, being Bell-Everett men, they hung a great bell and a United States flag. Prominent in this action was Mr. J. A. M. Whealton, a man of an intellect and education not often found among native Chincoteaguers. Upon a deputy coming from the mainland to protest and threaten, “Gentlemen,” said the courageous loyalist, “I hung that flag and bell, and when they go down I go down with them, but they hang there so long as I have powder and bullets and can use them.” And the Mainlanders were satisfied and let them hang!

At this season of the year Chincoteague is visited by quite a number of guests from other sections of the country, drawn by the exceptionally good gunning and fishing to be found upon the island no less than by the legitimate attractions of the ponies. Among these we had great pleasure in making the acquaintance of Prof. Otto Leugger, the German naturalist of the Baltimore Academy of Natural Sciences, who was there, puzzling the natives with his strange implements and proceedings; his butterfly nets and insect chasing; his seines and dredges and deep sea fishing. A pleasant expedition we had through the pine woods and thickets that clothe the island, though from that expedition and those thickets we emerged covered with myriads of seed ticks. Seated upon the edge of a stranded boat we endeavored to remove them from our persons with but indifferent success. Among the many insects which the Professor has collected it may be doubted if any have cost him more pains than those he doubtless still carries about him.

The most important event in the routine of Chincoteague life is the occasional penning of the ponies, or driving them into corral, one of which took place during our visit last week, when the ponies were penned for public sale. The pen was located immediately behind and to one side of a curious old frame building called the Virginia Hotel. It was quite early in the morning when the penning came off. Along the beach that stretches up the Island a mile or more, came suddenly in sight a crowd of ponies dashing along, now pattering over the moist sand, now splashing through shallow salt-pools that lay here and there along the strand. Behind came clattering with noise and gesticulation the figures of the drivers, men and boys, riding for the most part stirrupless and upon simple sheep-skins strapped to their ponies’ backs, bending almost level from their seat, every now and then dashing ahead to head off some fractious animal. Presently they approach the pen and squealing, whickering, biting and kicking, the ponies are headed tumultuously in. Then comes the tug of war, the capturing and haltering for the sale.

The lasso used is a rope about fifteen yards long with a running noose at one end. They do not cast the lasso after the manner of the Western mustang catchers, but hanging the noose around the end of a pole eighteen or twenty feet long, they approach near enough to drop it over the pony’s head. Now “Uncle Ken” takes the pole. Cautiously approaching, he keeps his eye fixed upon the one he wishes to secure, keeping the pole and noose well raised so as not to scare his intended captive. Suddenly, one of them taking fright, away they all plunge, scattering the spectators right and left. In the meantime the chosen pony is wedged in the midst of a crowd of his fellows. Uncle Ken sees his advantage; he runs forward, the noose is dropped and the pony captive. Then, as the animal feels the noose tighten upon his neck, ensues a shouting and struggling, half a dozen negroes at one end of the line and the pony at the other. He rears and plunges, dragging Ned and Sambo and the rest through the soft sand in a cloud of dust. Sometimes they are thrown completely off their feet as the pony makes a side plunge; then over they go, their heads plowing through the sand and stink-weed, but still gallantly and with much perspiration they retain their hold upon the line. At length the choking noose overcomes the pony’s courage; he stands still, trembling, with eyes rolling, while he emits a wheezing noise from his contracted larynx. Now is the time; a parcel of negroes rush quickly forward seizing the pony by every available point, legs, mane and tail. In vain the creature struggles; a sudden heave and over he goes, amid the tumultuous cheers of the surrounding spectators. Even yet he does not cease from his struggles, and sometimes by a sudden kick, he will send his captors tumbling right and left through the scattering crowd. But it is a last effort; a running noose is slipped over his nose and a piece of string tied from his forelock to this new loop. From this moment a sadder change comes over the pony. Now and then he will kick and plunge, of course, but as a general rule, he stands with half closed eyes as though nearly asleep, so that one would scarcely imagine that this was a veritable wild pony. But should you imagine that all the spirit has died out of him, attempt to mount him and you will discover your error.

The game in Chincoteague is excellent. Trout are caught by the fishermen in great abundance and sometimes of very large size. One that was shown me must have weighed two pounds. Another sportsman claimed to have shot one hundred and twenty snipe in less than two hours. The oysters and crabs are delicious, and indeed the island upon the whole abounds in good things; an interesting place to visit, though not altogether favorable for a permanent abode.

H.P.

So, as Every Evening’s masthead is Pyle’s first known published drawing, this article represents Pyle’s first known published piece of prose. It predates the publication of “Chincoteague, The Island of Ponies” by more than seven months.

It also begs a few questions: Was Pyle working - even occasionally - as a reporter? Possibly, but I was unable to find any other pieces with his byline in the Commercial (or, for that matter, in Every Evening). Did he write the article on speculation, then submit it to Jenkins, or did Jenkins commission it? I wish I knew. But “that miserable engagement” probably involved Jenkins prodding Pyle at the Commercial offices (at the southwest corner of Fifth and Market Streets in Wilmington) to tweak and polish his text until it was good enough to be printed in that day’s paper.

As luck would have it, just as an Every Evening reader had criticized Pyle’s masthead drawing back in 1871, a disgruntled Commercial reader found fault with his Chincoteague letter. On August 29, 1876, the paper printed the following:

Chincoteague’s Bright Side.

SOME OF ITS ATTRACTIVE FEATURES - ITS SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, LITERARY TASTE - A VIGOROUS RACE, PHYSICALLY.

Correspondence of the Commercial.

Chincoteague, Va., August 22. - Chincoteague boasts to-day of her public institutions; though the youngest settlement on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, hers is the only school district that runs a graded school. Its session covers ten months in the year, with an average attendance of scholars which exceeds one hundred, and to the expense of which the trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund made an annual appropriation of three hundred dollars.

Chincoteague has her Cornet Brass Band of fourteen instruments, under the leadership of Mr. J. T. Kenney, a gentleman of extraordinary musical ability, and though the organization has been in existence but twelve months, it stands side by side with similar institutions of longer standing.

We invite your correspondent “H.P.” to visit our churches and Sabbath schools, of which we have three, claiming that Chincoteague in her pulpits and pews, has as much ability and intelligence as is usually found in country churches.

Instead of the islanders, as “H.P.” asserts, being of a “sallow, leathery, smoke-dried complexion, with back and shoulders rounded like the bowl of a spoon,” they are in complexion the picture of tanned health; and in stature they resemble the North American Indian, from which race a few of them claim to have descended. An acquaintance with the Birch family, the Whealton and Lewis families, and a host of others, will fully corroborate the above statement. Whatever else may be said of the natives, to their credit we will say that in their homes and persons, though many of them are poor, they are the personification of neatness and cleanliness.

It is a strange fact, that while, as “H.P.” asserts, “one might live here for weeks without beholding a newspaper or a book of any kind,” we should read his article in the Commercial of the 15th the following morning; and we would say, just here, that if “H.P.” had made the acquaintance and associated with the better class of our island, they would have supplied him with the following leading publications: Harper’s Weekly, N.Y. Herald, N.Y. Sun, Philadelphia Times, Philadelphia Ledger, Wilmington Commercial, Baltimore American, Baltimore Sun, Richmond Dispatch, N.Y. Christian Advocate, Baltimore Methodist Protestant, with a host of lesser lights, all of which are received at our post office by actual subscription. The fact that H.P. failed to get a copy of Appleton’s Journal was not a proof of his assertion. We boast too of our commercial importance. Chincoteague Bay and tributaries yield to the toilers of the sea an annual income of two hundred thousand dollars, while from our agriculture, ponies, and sheep comes no small revenue.

Among our summer visitors we have had Hon. John A. J. Creswell, Col. H. R. Torbert of the Baltimore Custom House, Lieut. Thomas Traviss of the U.S.R.M. service, Mr. James Maffitt, theatrical manager, of Boston, Capt. C. H. Smith and family, of Wilmington, and a host of others, who spent their summer vacation here.

JONADAB.

(Our correspondent, as may be inferred from some expressions, takes strong exception to a letter from Chincoteague, published in the Commercial of August 15th. He does not give fair credit, we think, to the generally kind and friendly tone of “H.P.’s” letter, but as he presents a number of additional facts, we print his letter with pleasure, and should be glad to hear from him again. - Ed. Commercial)

But Pyle ignored “Jonadab.” Rather, he broadened his text threefold, added more anecdotes and local color, retained all of his grotesque descriptions, and further lampooned the islanders. In doing so, however, he was emulating the travel-writing of his day, which combined autobiography, history, and humor - as well as prevailing prejudices. He had excellent models: both Mark Twain and Bayard Taylor, America’s first professional travel writer (and Pyle’s “cousin” - at least according to Pyle), had grown wealthy and world-renowned on the genre. When completed, the second version of Pyle’s Chincoteague article surely lacked the finesse of these masters, but it was a creditable, even precocious effort - and worthy enough to appear in Scribner’s Monthly the following April.

The sketches Pyle had made, though, weren’t quite up to snuff, so the magazine had them redrawn by more seasoned illustrators. Still, as this and his illustrated fable, “Drummer Fritz and his Exploits” (St. Nicholas, September 1877), had been accepted by national publications - and even some commissions had begun drifting his way - Pyle felt encouraged enough to set out on what he later called his “new life” as an artist-author. And by mid-October 1876, he had left Wilmington for New York.


Howard Pyle’s text and the redrawn pictures for “Chincoteague, The Island of Ponies” will be in my next post.

August 26, 1876: Part Two

Here’s some more about Howard Pyle’s letter of August 26, 1876...

First off, Pyle used fugitive ink to write this one, or else the ink was pale or diluted to begin with. Also, although the letter is dated August 26 - a Saturday - the envelope is postmarked 10 p.m. August 28. So there’s a chance he got the date wrong (not unusual for him), or he missed Saturday’s mail and couldn’t mail it Sunday, then forgot to post it until late Monday, or some such scenario. Pyle was 23 years old, then, and living with his parents at 917 Market Street in Wilmington; presumably he wrote the letter there.

The addressees are the Misses Alice and Sallie Cresson. Alice Hannum Cresson was born December 24, 1848, in Philadelphia. In 1876 she was living with her parents, Walter and Alice (Hannum) Cresson, and sisters, Anna and Sarah, in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Alice’s maternal aunt, Hannah Hannum (1817-1896), had married Pyle’s uncle, John Painter (1824-1865), in 1845, so the “cousins” probably met as children. Sarah (Sallie) Cresson was born June 16, 1852, and closer in age to Pyle, but Alice seems to have interested him more: five of the six letters from this series are addressed solely to her. It’s not clear, though, if Pyle’s interest was romantic: his tone tends to be playful, sometimes flirty, but never ardent - except in jest.

In summertime, Pyle and various relatives and friends would often escape the confines of Wilmington for “Mansion Farm” in Owings Mills, Maryland. The four hundred acre estate on the Reisterstown Turnpike belonged to Pyle’s uncle, Milton Painter (1815-1888), and for many years it was the site of sundry family gatherings. The Delaware Historical Society has a great photograph taken on one of these summer outings of Pyle standing amongst - and towering over - a crowd of young folk (perhaps including the Cresson sisters) in the nearby woods.

The “Cameron” Pyle mentions was James H. Cameron, who lived with his father Dr. John Cameron, at 819 West 4th Street, Wilmington. Like Pyle, Cameron was a tenor, a Swedenborgian, and a member of the Friends’ Social Lyceum. He also took part in events organized by Pyle’s mother, including poetry readings and tableaux.

So here’s my transcription:

Wilmington Aug 26th / 76

Miss Alice & Sallie:

Dear Ladies:

“We note the passage of our life by its losses and neglects”; says a certain author, so do I recollect with real regret, my failure to meet you on your way home from Maryland.

Very possibly, - probably; perhaps it may be to you a matter of the utmost indifference; unfortunately for myself, I cannot look at it in that light; and I assure you frequently breathe words, I hope you never use, against that miserable engagement that detained me at the Newspaper Office, until half past one on that Tuesday when you passed through Wilmington.

I am in regard to the sentiments of my regret, very similar to the old fellow who when his wife died; with tears in his eyes thus expressed himself. “I have had many losses! I have lost crops; I have lost chickens; I have lost pigs; but I never had a loss like Maria!”

There is something rather comfortable in performing ones duty, and there is something decidedly comfortable in taking ones pleasure; but when they come upon one in conjunction, and opposed to each other; they produce an effect metaphorically speaking like good salt, and good coffee; which try and you will appreciate!

So was I situated when duty called me to make a visit to Chincoteague, and pleasure to Maryland, and many times when the mosquitoes were particularly troublesome, and the weather uncommonly hot; and when I contrasted my uncomfortable lot with the pleasant times I might have enjoyed in Maryland, I vowed to myself never in future to give duty the priority of position with pleasure.

You can believe; my dear ladies, that my cheerfulness was not at all heightened, when I, whilst desperately fighting mosquitoes, pictured to myself Cameron, sitting radiently on the gate-post; or when plowing hot, cross, and perspiring, through the shifting sand of Chincoteague, I saw in my imagenation all of you sitting, cosily chatting over your ice cream, on the shady breezy poarch [sic] of Mansion Farm. I was like starving Tantalus, whose misery was heightened by seeing the fruit he could not reach.

And so I have meandered dolefully to the close of my complaining letter; - pity ladies my disappointments of this summer! and believe me as ever

Yours Most Respectfully

Howard Pyle

“Disappointments,” indeed! Although Pyle disparages his Chincoteague trip, the article born out of it was key to his transitioning from clerk (or salesman, or whatever he was) in his father’s leather business to professional artist-author. At this very time, his “Chincoteague, Island of Ponies” was accepted for publication in Scribner’s Monthly and, as some of his illustrated fables had also been accepted by St. Nicholas, Pyle finally “felt my art was of some practical use. This was confirmed by Mr. Roswell Smith, who advised me through my father...to come to New York.”

All well and good. But what about “that miserable engagement that detained me at the Newspaper Office, until half past one on that Tuesday”? I’ll answer that in my next post.

August 26, 1876: Part One

I doggedly pursue Howard Pyle’s correspondence because even seemingly slight or unimportant letters can shed light on his life. Sometimes, too, they can create a snowball effect: a passing reference to a name or an event can open up vast new lines of research.

A little over fifteen years ago I came across a cache of seven letters by Pyle, written when he was 22 and 23 years old. Deciphering his quirky handwriting and occasional misspellings and then following up on the people and places and goings-on mentioned kept me busy for weeks - months, in fact - and I still find myself filling in persistent gaps now and then.

I’ll touch on all of these curious epistles in future posts, but here’s one, written on this day in 1876. See if you can figure out what it says. I’ll present my transcription and more details about it soon...

And here is Part Two.