I am enjoying a book, a picture, a statue, or, say, a piece of music.
I know these to be the finished works of the man or the woman, but I
invariably hark back to the boy or the girl.
What I want to discover is the precise time, in the lives of certain
boys and girls, when the steel first struck the flint, the spark flew,
and out streamed that jet of fire which never afterwards was
extinguished.
I was reading an article entitled "Professor Wriggler," written by Mr.
William Hamilton Gibson, which appeared in "Harper's Young People," in
the number of October 31, 1893. I need not tell you that both old and
young, at home and abroad, delight in reading what Mr. Hamilton Gibson
has written, because he was not alone the most observant of
naturalists, but a distinguished artist and a sympathetic author.
He thus filled a peculiar position in the literary and artistic world
which is seldom given to any one man to fill. Besides being a
naturalist from his boyhood, he was able to write better than most
people what he wished to write, and to illustrate his articles in a
way that was unique. Mr. Gibson's death a few days ago, therefore,
has closed the career of a man who had the ability to interest a large
number of people not only in natural history, but in art and
literature.
The news of Mr. Gibson's death came to me suddenly, and as I was
reading it I recalled an interesting talk I had with him less than a
year ago about his work early in life and the way he got his start. I
had been reading one of his articles to a lady, who, when she heard
the name of the author, said:
"Why, I knew Mr. Hamilton Gibson long ago. When he was a lad he
painted a lovely drop-curtain for us. He could not have been more than
fifteen or sixteen then."
The next time I met Mr. Hamilton Gibson I asked him about this
drop-curtain. "Do you remember it?"
"Certainly I do. We had a temperance society at Sandy Hook,
Connecticut, and we gave a grand entertainment. I made the
drop-curtain. It represented a wood. There was a rock in the
foreground, and a Virginia-creeper was climbing over it."
"Was it an original composition?" I asked.
"I made many studies of the rock and the Virginia-creeper from nature.
On the other side of the curtain I painted a drawing-room. There were
a marble mantelpiece, a clock, and lace curtains. I don't think I
enjoyed painting the clock as much as the Virginia-creeper."
"To paint a drop-curtain at fifteen or sixteen means that you had then
a certain facility. But that could not have been your beginning. When
did you break your shell? What chipped or cracked your egg so that
your particular bird emerged, chirped, and finally took flight? That
was what I wanted to know."
"Is that what you are after?" asked Mr. Hamilton Gibson. "From my
baby days I was curious about flowers and insects. The two were always
united in my mind. What could not have been more than a childish guess
was confirmed in my later days." Then Mr. Hamilton Gibson paused. I
could see he was recalling, not without emotion, some memories of the
long past.
"I was very young, and playing in the woods. I tossed over the
fallen leaves, when I came across a chrysalis. There was nothing
remarkable in that, for I knew what it was. But, wonderful to
relate--providentially I deem it--as I held the object in my hand a
butterfly slowly emerged, then fluttered in my fingers."
"You were pleased with its beauty," I said.
"Oh! It was more than that. I do not know whether I was or was not a
youngster with an imagination, but suddenly the spiritual view of a
new or of another life struck me. I saw in this jewel born from an
unadorned casket some inkling of immortality. Yes, that butterfly
breaking from its chrysalis in my hand shaped my future career."
"But some young people may feel passing impulses, but how account for
your artistic skill and literary powers?"
"As to the art side, at least deftness of hand came early. I had the
most methodical of grandmothers. Every day I had a certain task. I
made a square of patch-work for a quilt. I learned how to sew, and I
can sew neatly to-day. I knew how to use my fingers."
"Did you like patch-work?" I inquired.
"I simply despised it. Sewing must have helped me, for it was
eye-training, and when I went to work with a pencil and a paint-brush
I really had no trouble. I read a great deal. I devoured Cooper's
novels and the Rollo series: but there was one special volume, 'Harris
on Insects,' I never tired of. I studied that over and over again. It
was the illustrations of Marsh which fascinated me. I never found a
bug, caterpillar, or butterfly that I did not compare my specimens
with the Marsh pictures. I learned this way much which I have never
forgotten."
"Had you any particular advantages?"
"Yes; my brother was a doctor, and he let me use his microscope, and
so I acquired a knowledge of the details of flowers and insects that
escape the naked eye. I pulled flowers to pieces, but not in the
spirit of destruction, but so that I might better understand their
structure. When I was ten I had a long illness. When I was getting
better I was permitted to take an hour's or so turn in the garden.
That hour I devoted to collecting insects and flowers. On my return to
my room, what I had collected amused me until I could get out again
next day or the day after."
"It was pleasure and study combined," I said.
"I was not conscious that I was studying. Then in my sick-room I began
to draw and paint the insects. I think I was conscientious about it,
and careful--perhaps minutely so. I tried to put on paper exactly what
I saw, and nothing else. You say you like 'Professor Wriggler.' I drew
him when I was ten or eleven, and I could not make him any more
accurate to-day than I did thirty years ago."
"Were you encouraged at your work?" I inquired.
"Yes; once I was much pleased. I came across a curious insect. I could
not find it in the books. I made a drawing of it and sent it to a
professor of the Smithsonian, asking him to give me its scientific
name. Back came by return mail my sketch, and under it the Latin
name. The professor wrote me that if the people who were always
annoying him with pictures of impossible bugs would only send him as
accurate a picture as was mine, he never would have any more bother."
"Did you have any setbacks?"
"Yes; and I haven't forgotten it up to to-day. I was always
collecting, and I had brought together every insect I had found in my
neighborhood. As I took them home I pinned them in the drawers of an
old-fashioned bureau. In time the whole of the drawers, bottom and
sides, were full of pinned specimens, and there was room for no more.
I had saved enough money to buy a cabinet, and I went to New York and
purchased one. When I returned home the first thing I did was to look
at my precious collection. When I opened a drawer there was a confused
mass of wings only. One single wretch of a black ant had got in, and
had passed the word to 10,000 other black ants. They had eaten the
bodies of my insects in all the drawers. That quite broke my heart."
"But your writing. How did that come about?" I asked.
"I don't think that you can develop in one direction only. You must
unbosom yourself. You are forced to tell or to write about the things
you have most at heart. When I was a small boy I wrote a book for
myself, and called it 'Botany on the Half-shell.' The first thing I
ever wrote which was printed was an article for one of Messrs.
Harper's publications, and I made the pictures for it. That was my
debut."
"Then your work went hand in hand?"
"Certainly. The one was the stimulant of the other. We all grew up
together. The days spent in my room when I was ill helped me. I think
I studied flowers then, so that their forms and colors were indelibly
impressed on my mind. When I was older I made a small bunch of flowers
in wax. Not a detail escaped me. I made moulds of all kinds of leaves.
Once I put together a rose, some sprigs of mignonette and heliotrope
in wax, and gave them to my dear old friend, Henry Ward Beecher. He
was delighted with my flowers, and put them on his study table.
Presently Mrs. Beecher came in. She ran to the flowers and broke the
rose all to pieces."
"How could she have done that?" I asked.
"It must have been with her nose. She wanted to smell the rose."
Then Mr. Hamilton Gibson showed me some monster drawings of
flowers--Brobdingnagian ones. The flowers opened and closed when you
pulled a string, showing their interior structure. Here were bees or
other insects, and they flew into the flowers, collected the honey,
and, above all, the pollen, and buzzed out again. He explained to me
how plant life would perish if it were not for certain insects, which
bring a new existence to flowers; for without these winged helpers
there would be no longer any varieties of flowers or seeds.
You will see, then, that in tracing the beginning of Mr. Hamilton
Gibson's career what I mean by harking backward.
I am certain, too, that in every boy and girl there is something good
and excellent. Like the flower visited by the bee, all it wants is
impulse. Then, as Mr. Hamilton Gibson explained it to me, will come
the blossoming, and lastly perfect fruitage.