good, bad, and indifferent, and present them to
the reader in a form that will command his approval.

The artist cannot tease the mind with the vague influence of
description, as can the author, nor can he veil his products with the
pleasing glamour of unreality. Without haze his work stands forth,
bold facts in half-tone reproduction and printer's ink, fighting an
uncertain fight at best with the imagination of the reader.

People will have illustrations, though. If the pictures do not
literally fill the bill, they nevertheless please. Something definite,
carrying a story idea, is always acceptable.

Something which excites the imagination invariably challenges
interest, and the illustrator who is true to his calling and above
shirking his task enhances the interesting features of a book a
thousand fold, if he spares no pains in arriving at an actual
expression of the author's intention.

The knowledge that an illustrator brings to his work should be as
broad and varied as human history. Above and beyond his ability to
draw or execute in a manner technically pleasing, should stand his
knowledge of people, places, and events. It should include all Things,
Ologies, and Isms. A living Index he must be, knowing just enough to
readily discover more, and with this knowledge he must make others
feel and imagine.

If the author would tell of wars, Trojan, Egyptian, or Siamese, the
illustrator must follow him and be truthful. He must know enough of
Troy, Egypt, or Siam to make clear to the reader the face, form, and
clothes of the characters, their weapons of bloodshed, their way of
killing, how they marched to do it and through what manner of country.
He must know or find out all these things, and within all his pictures
must carry the spirit of terror and murder that stalked at the time,
so carefully expressed that the terror and murder will be of that
particular epoch and no other. All this must be shown as clearly as
that the characters belong to their helmets or shields, their war
chariots or bamboo lances. Simple the task may seem in these days of
public libraries and ready reference, yet it is a most nerve-racking
business, this placing an embossed helm or set of greaves on the hero
of a story, so that he may stand out a Roman, and when the labor is
finished having him stare genially out at you, insistently proclaiming
the masquerade, and seemingly proud of his resemblance to a St. Louis
button salesman.

When a