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.”

Even the “Evening Post” calls them “Mr. Gibson’s four sympathetic, appreciative, poetically interpretative essays upon the seasons.” And it puts the question to its readers, “Need we say that this author-artist is a poet although he writes in prose, or that his text and his pictures are essentially a poem of the New England year?” But two of his reviewers—one in the “Utica Morning Herald,” and another in the “Boston Literary World”—actually cite the same passage in his prose which “reads with the movement and rhythm of blank verse.” The latter of these says:

“Mr. Gibson writes with a curious study of rhythmic effect; his whole book, in fact, might easily have been converted into blank verse,—as witness this extract from pp. 127-8, which, to help the illusion, we print in that form:

“All this, understand, and the rest of a hundred and fifty and more pages like it, is sober prose; but it makes one think of eighteenth-century poetry like Graham’s, which is very good descriptive poetry by the way.”

Says one enthusiastic critic, speaking first of the make-up of the volume:

“It is almost too beautiful to read; but with a determination to see what lay beyond this vision of the beautiful, we commenced to read, and found the author to be a high-priest of nature. We were led along by the charming simplicity of the writer, till at last, in midsummer we seemed to be surrounded by scenes so familiar that we almost suspected that by some strange mishap the author had misspelled the name of the school of early days, and had written ‘Snuggery’ for ‘Gunnery.’ How is this?...

“The letter-press of such books is usually a make-weight for the illustrations; but in this case it is hard to decide which of the two merits the palm.”

Another speaks of the text of the book, saying:

“Here quite as strikingly as in the designs for illustration is shown that loving familiarity with all the infinite variations in nature’s moods and works. Without the pictures altogether, these sketches would compel admiration as very notable specimens of word-painting.”

It will be news to many of his admirers to know that Gibson’s first book was published in 1876. It was entitled, “The Complete American Trapper,” and was published by James Miller, of New York. The book was republished in 1878 by Bradley & Co., and again in 1880 by Harper Brothers under the title, “Camp-Life in the Woods; and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap-Making.” It was written out of the joyous and ample memories of his youth, supplemented by his reading and intercourse with hunters and woodsmen. He refers in the preface to his own boyish days, and to “one autumn in particular which shines out above all the rest; and that was when his traps were first set, and were the chief source of his amusement. The adventurous excitement which sped him on in those daily tramps through the woods, and the

buoyant, exhilarating effect of the exercise, can be realized only by those who have had the same experience.” This little book, which still appeals to the juvenile mind,—a new edition was put out as lately as 1899,—has had a singular charm, not only for boys, but for those grown men who never quite lose the heart of boyhood. Gibson himself brought it to the notice of Charles A. Dana, of the “New York Sun,” and handed him a copy to read. The result of that chance courtesy was not a perfunctory review by a subordinate of the staff. The “chief” himself read it and wrote an enthusiastic notice of over two columns’ length. The young author—he was only twenty-six—went to Mr. Beecher for a notice, at the time he first changed publishers. He wrote this account of the call to his mother:

“On the morning after receiving the above I found a letter from Bradley & Co., in which they remarked that they hoped I would succeed in getting a word from Mr. Beecher. I sent the notice to them and would like you to see the letter I got from them in acknowledgment.”

Dr. J. G. Holland was another friend to whom he looked for a word of approval. He was not quite so sure of his own mind, and wrote in a much more guarded way. His humane heart was a little troubled about the effect of the book. In truth, Gibson himself became, in later years, quite uneasy about it. His own sympathy with animals increased, and his love for them, as little brothers and sisters of the wood; and he grew more and more averse to whatever gave them pain. But he rested in the intent of his book as he describes it explicitly in the preface: “If the poor victims are to serve no use after their capture, either as food, or in the furnishing of their plumage or skins for useful purposes, the sport becomes heartless cruelty, and we do not wish to be understood as encouraging it under any circumstances.” He would probably have strengthened that utterance at a later day, and possibly have written another preface. Dr. Holland’s letter runs thus:

It should not be supposed that Gibson was so confident of himself and his own resources that he disdained the work and experience and knowledge of others. He was a good reader and a hard student. The pages of his books are crowded with passages out of his favorite poets, and his note-books show the careful husbanding of the fruits of his reading on all the themes nearest to his heart. Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Browning, in all that they have seen and sung of nature, were his authorities often cited, and annotated, and winnowed into his note-books. The New England poets he knew and loved, and shared all their honest preference for those home products which so many count homely and call commonplace because they happen to be common. Thoreau he knew thoroughly and loved as a master in the great profession of nature-study; and his references to him are always those of a modest disciple, his bearing and attitude that of deference and respect. Hawthorne, too, was one whose subtle and spiritual genius found a sympathetic and ready interpreter in his own imagination. Darwin he knew, and all his works which bore upon cross-fertilization had mastered. When he gave the wonderful talks on flowers and their insect allies to the townspeople and farmers of Washington, an old “native” came to him, and in the dialect of old New England said: “Mr. Gibson, do you mean to tell me thet thet’s whut Darwin’s been tellin’ ’baout?” “Yes,” was the reply, “that is one of the things he has been talking about.” “Wal,” was the rejoinder, “I never took no stock in Darwin afore, but I sh’ll think a heap on him naow.” Indeed, there was, in all his lectures, the frankest acknowledgment of his indebtedness—of the common debt of all of us—to those pioneers in this fallow field of knowledge. He stinted no praise, no honor to their names, and used their work with hearty acknowledgment. He knew Sprengel, Darwin, MÜller, well and, following their lead into the enchanted and enchanting country of new knowledge, soon made himself a student at first hand of the things he had been taught by these great masters.

Gibson was by no means an “easy” writer. His page, as it stands, revised and corrected, hardly gives a sign of the pains taken to bring it into smooth and fluent shape. It seems to be a natural, spontaneous running-on of a mind as sure of its expressions as it is of its impressions. But the effect was purchased only by the hardest and most conscientious labor. His “first drafts” show all the experiments he made in words, phrases, expressions, and construction. Many times the text is hardly legible, it is so crossed, recrossed, cut, interlined, and rewritten altogether. If Sheridan’s judgment is to be accepted, that “easy writing’s curst hard reading,” Gibson comes honestly by his pleasing style. The patient work of the author has smoothed the way for the reader. He had both the qualifications which Pope declares constitute the secret of good writing,—“to know thoroughly what one writes about, and not to be affected.” And to these he added a third; he took pains.

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.

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