William Hamilton Gibson: artist—naturalist—author

by John Coleman Adams

An instant and complete success awaited this new venture. Everywhere there was a demand for the lectures, and they were received with a popular interest rather surprising when one considers how thoroughly scientific they were. The farmers of his own neighborhood; the members of sedate city clubs; school-children and society-women,—all classes and types of people with any appetite for knowledge, or any sense of the wonderful in nature, joined in the applause which greeted Gibson’s appearance as a lecturer upon natural history. He repeated upon the platform the success he had won as a writer and an artist. He established his reputation as a master in scientific demonstration. It was truly said of him that the field he entered in these lectures “had not since the days of Agassiz been cultivated with such success as by Mr. Gibson.” As a popular teacher of scientific fact no man in this country since Agassiz gained such a hold or did such a work as he. There is no doubt that if he had lived he would have won an international renown in this field as well as that of art.

The Writing Desk

Brooklyn Studio

CHAPTER VI
THE ACCIDENT OF AUTHORSHIP

IT was written deep in the constitution of his spirit that William Hamilton Gibson was to be a naturalist and an artist. By endowment and by desire he was marked for that career which made him at once the observer of nature and her illustrator by pencil and by brush. But the predestination does not seem so clear in the case of his authorship. It does not appear to have been so plainly provided in his nature that he was called to be a writer of books. Here the prophecy could not have been so surely made—beforehand. Gibson himself used to declare that he drifted into authorship; that his writing was not premeditated but accidental. He was not impelled to this mode of expression as he was to his drawing and his painting and his lecturing. He described to a friend the manner in which he began to write, and his first attempt at such work as afterward gave him standing as an author:

“The way in which I drifted into literary work was quite natural, and in a way this work became imperative if I was to gain a livelihood. I had my sketch-book and portfolio full of drawings from nature. As a beginner I could not illustrate, I could only show these specimens, which would not sell alone by themselves. But there were certain things in natural history which my sketches did illustrate. This fact suggested to me the possibility of writing up matter to go with my sketches. In this way I found entrance into the illustrated publications, and eventually secured a good hold for myself. But I had never yet had the remotest idea of becoming a writer. The way in which I happened to take up more serious writing was through a suggestion of Mr. Henry M. Alden, the editor of Harper’s Magazine. I returned one summer from a vacation spent in Washington, Connecticut, and was describing to him my school-life, telling him little episodes which had been recalled by my visit to Mr. Gunn. Mr. Alden seemed interested, and when I was done, said to me, ‘I want you to write that out for the magazine.’ This suggestion led to an article called ‘Snug Hamlet,’ which to my surprise and gratification was received when it appeared, with a good deal of favor. Then Mr. Alden suggested that I prepare an article to go with it, which, as this had to do with summer, should treat of winter. This, too, was written, ‘The Winter Idyl.’ Then followed others upon spring and autumn. With these four sketches I had enough for a book; and ‘Pastoral Days’ was the result, which proved a great success.”

Such was his introduction to literature. He always regarded it as a pendant to his other work, something to introduce his sketches, to help along his art. He never became confused by his various aptitudes, nor lost sight of his great passion and purpose. He kept the essential spirit of his life and work quite clear of any entanglement with what was accidental. He had never expected, never intended to be a writer; and his success at literary work was a surprise to him, as it was to his friends. They apparently had never thought of him as a possible author, and scarcely knew how to take his achievement.

When the press-notices of “Pastoral Days” began to come in, they were almost unanimous in according to the newly fledged author unstinted praise for the literary portion of his work. The chorus of appreciation is almost unbroken; and one feels, through all the perfunctory graciousness of the reviewers, so hard-pressed at Christmas-tide, a note of sincerity and real pleasure in the new writer’s production. When one considers that Gibson the writer was an unknown aspirant for favor, and that he was competing with Gibson the artist, the reigning favorite among American illustrators, the success of his literary venture is really amazing. Repeatedly the book is called “a prose-poem.” “Although there be no poetry in it, the book in its totality is a most exquisite poem.” “There is a smooth and tender rhythmic flow in the phrasing, an affluence of diction which constitute one of the indispensable elements of poetry, and almost entitle the sketches to be named among the poems of the language.” One of the most competent critics, in a journal of the first rank, wrote of his prose:

“William Blake is the most noted poet-artist of this century, but not in his work is to be found such unity and harmony between what he does as pictorial and literary artist, as exists in ‘Pastoral Days.’ We have used the words poet-artist advisedly in connection with Mr. Gibson. He is above all a poet-artist. Not a poet alone, nor an artist alone, but the two together, a combination as rare as it is charming.”