In a letter written to Mr. Gunn in 1880, Gibson pours out his heart, as he always did to his old teacher, and reveals incidentally the spirit in which he took his literary work, as well as the honest and conscientious purpose behind it all.
“140 Nassau St., N. Y.
“June 7/80.
“Dear Mr. Gunn:
“If you only knew how much happiness your letters always give me you would never feel it necessary to accompany them with any apology whose need exists only in your imagination. There are a hundred reasons why I value a letter from you more than that of any other friend in the world, even though it should be all that you seem to think, in ‘tameness.’ I like your so-called tame letters. I don’t care how you write, so long as you write when you feel like it. Your appreciation of my ‘Springtime’ gratifies me more than all the ‘press’ encomiums put together, for you combine all the qualifications for the most perfect criticism, both as regards the question of truthfulness and style. I appreciate your praise, more than I can tell, albeit I may inwardly feel that it is not deserved. When I write on the subject of nature, there seems to be an unseen impulse that guides my hand and fairly overwhelms me with memories. It is difficult for me to select from the enormous mass of reminiscences and vivid pictures that crowd upon me. Dates and figures I cannot remember, but verily it does seem that every bit of animate or inanimate nature, whether in the form of insect or of flower, whether subtle tint of bark or lichen, crumpled leaf or dried and broken twig among the herbage, every one comes up before me as though by magic spell, and I thank my happy life at the Gunnery for the inspiration that led to the thoughtful study of the infinite beauties of nature. How thankful I am that they are infinite, that so long as I live I shall always find fresh food for contemplation. I am now in my element and as happy a man as walks the earth at this moment. My future is without a sign of disappointment, and so long as I keep convinced of a present lack of fulfilment of the powers within me, so long am I sure of progress and happiness as far as my work is concerned. My work is so full of faults to me, that I am amazed that others do not see them. So long as I improve I am satisfied and I am greatly gratified that you consider my latest an improvement on the former efforts.
“I have just finished a set of drawings for an article to complete the series. It is an ‘Autumn Reverie,’ to appear in October. The drawings are better I think than ‘Springtime.’ The article is yet unborn but exists in chaos in my brain, an immense tangle in which at present it seems impossible to find the loose end. But I shall get hold of it in a few days and it will reel off all right I suppose. This literary work was a strange result of circumstances. I can thank the Gunnery for this also, for it was only after narrating my happy experience at Washington that I was urged to write it up. The article was a success and of course another followed and another, each apparently an improvement, until now I find my literary work at a premium....
“When it comes to extended landscapes I would rather paint them on larger surfaces than a few inches. Don’t count too much on my ‘climbing.’ I have not written much yet. You may yet have the chance, but not if I know it. I have been utterly amazed at the ignorance shown by the people (who are supposed to be writing from the ‘inspiration of Nature’) both in their anachronisms and in their wild ideas about our fauna. Thus in September ‘Harper’s’ will appear five large drawings by me illustrating a poem written by some fellow who you would imagine was fresh from England with his skylarks and fieldfares, etc. I called the attention of the editor to it, but I suppose it will go in all the same. My portfolios are full of sketches and studies and notes thereon as to dates, etc. In writing haphazard I fall into many errors, but I let no manuscript leave my hands carelessly prepared. I have been criticised on my ‘coltsfoot,’ some thinking only Tussilago Farfara, whereas I used the ‘common’ name in our section for the Asarum Canadense. So also with my partridge, I knew better; but should I have alluded to a ‘ruffed grouse’ in Sandy Hook, they would have thought I was talking Latin!”
There is an interesting letter, much prized by Gibson, in which his old friend gave him such unstinted praise as seldom comes from so exacting a critic in the field in which the young man was at work. Mr. Gunn wrote him:
“Gunnery, Washington, Conn.
“Sunday, June 6th, 11 P.M.
“My Dear Willie:
“I have thought of you 7 times every day, ever since the publication of your beautiful Idyll of Spring. You expected me to write; but I cannot do that even now. Everything that I think and much more everything that I think on paper, seems so flat and unworthy to be written. Other men seem content to write and say little, or little to the purpose. The fact is, Willie, there are few men who know the spring. They know a little about it, a few flowers, a few birds, a few showers, a few facts and phenomena—but I don’t know any artists, poets, or other men but you and John Burroughs that know it all. I don’t see how or when you