“His facility of expression and ingenious illustration of his subject by his crayon and mechanical appliances instructed and entertained his audiences, and no man had appeared in this field since Agassiz with such success as met him. There was a charm in his personality from the earnestness and kindliness of his nature, and the number of those who mourn his early death is not confined to his personal friends alone. “Pleasant and unfading memories mingle with our regrets at parting with those whose names are recorded here. They were men without exception worthy, true, and of good report. May we not say, as their survivors, and conscious of our failings-- “‘Our lives are albums written through, With good or ill, with false or true, And as the blessed angels turn The pages of our years, God grant they read the good with smiles And blot the ill with tears.’ “HENRY E. HOWLAND, _”Secretary_. “CENTURY CLUB HOUSE, “NEW YORK, _January 9th, 1897_.” Other phases of his versatile spirit are noted by Mr. Alexander Black: “I first met Mr. Gibson at the Authors Club in the old rooms on Twenty-fourth Street. At that time he was a regular attendant at the meetings, and he remained among the faithful until his lectures began. Thereafter he came, I fancy, whenever he was free to come, and found a stimulating enjoyment in meeting his fellow-craftsmen, literary and artistic, with whom at all times he had a hearty frankness of cordiality that made him an always-welcome figure in this singularly democratic group. At times I found him pulling at a ‘long Tom,’ generally, as he put it, ‘in self-defense,’ for we hovered in a deep fog of smoke. After I myself had been elected to the Club (in 1888) we met regularly in this literary aerie, and endured in common the recurrent jest inflicted upon those who, at two A.M., still had to make a homeward journey to Brooklyn,--an infliction which fell lightly upon me when I had his company to the Bridge, and could hear him talk of the flowers and their insect visitors, or the current movements of art.