William Hamilton Gibson: artist—naturalist—authorAdams, John Coleman
General
William Hamilton Gibson: artist—naturalist—author
Adams, John Coleman
Gibson, W. Hamilton (William Hamilton), 1850-1896; Illustrators -- United States -- Biography
“Mr. Gibson never permitted the very handsome things that were said of
his writings to disturb his relation to his artistic ideals. ‘I am an
artist,’ he said to me when this subject came up between us, and
profound as was his affection for plant and insect life, it was as an
artist that he looked across the leaping lines of this Washington
country; it was as an artist that he labored to transmit with his brush
the flame colors of autumn or the lustrous prophecies of spring. The
healthy ideals of his art and the hearty simplicity of his nature are to
be read in the unmannerish charm of his pictures.
“Once or twice we met on the trains in the course of our lecturing work.
He had stories to tell me of his own experiences--of hardship, of
accident, of humorous incident. Once his voice left him so completely
that he was obliged to make a momentary exit after a pantomimic apology
to the audience. On the whole I think that he greatly enjoyed his
lectures. Certainly they were inspiringly memorable to those who were
privileged to hear them.
“When I recall him in his own home and in mine, I have before me a
splendidly strong head and figure. I hear his strong healthy laugh. I
see his broad shoulders turned to me as he sits at the piano playing the
‘Largo’ with a full singing volume of tone. His ear was so keen and
sympathetic that he could express without knowledge of notes even the
subtler harmonies of a fragment like the ‘Largo,’ and his playing always
had the fascination that is present in the interpretations of those who
truly love music, and who find in an instrument a companion to whom they
may go in any mood with certainty of response.
“The news of his death brought to me a shock and a sense of bereavement
deeper and more lasting than any I had known for many years. Here,
surely, was a fine spirit, a lover of life and of art, and an exponent
of all that is sanest and sweetest in both.”
It was four years after his death that the Alumni and friends of the
“Gunnery” school completed a memorial of Gibson which for fitness and
significance is one of the most successful in America. On the left of
the road, as one climbs the long hill from the railroad station to
Washington Green, nearly at the top of the slope, there stands a large
boulder, a little back from the highway. Here it was determined to place
a bronze medallion in bas-relief, which should aim to suggest the man
and commemorate his relation to the little town which he so loved and
which so loved him.
The report of Mr. E. K. Rossiter, made to the Alumni Association, tells
the interesting story of the inception and completion of this loving
task, whose results will be an enduring memorial of this inspiring life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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