Thomas Gibson

“ The man who hews the coal to feed the fires." [7]
His poem, The Machine, awakens sympathy for the printer of Christmas story books and reveals Gibson as the twentieth-century Thomas Hood of The Song of the Shirt. One of the most richly human of his poems is The Crane, the story of the seamstress mother and her lame boy. His realistic volume of verse bearing the significant title, Daily Bread (1910) , contains a number of narrative poems, which endeavor to set to music the "one measure" to which all life moves,—the earning of daily bread. ”

“ One Sunday afternoon, some Conistone youths crossed the lake, and bought of her husband a quantity of apples. Some dispute arising as to the partition of the purchase, it was agreed that Robinson should divide them. Her quick eye detected him giving a larger share to one than the rest, when she called out, “Nay, nay, Thomas! if thou will make Tom Park a present, bring him out some of thy own, but don’t give away other folks’ apples.” From Townend, they removed to the Black Bull, where she remained for many years. ”

“ The Founder of the Cockney School would fain claim poetical kindred with Lord Byron and Thomas Moore. Such a connexion would be as unsuitable for them as for William Wordsworth. The days of Mr Moore's follies are long since over; and, as he is a thorough gentleman, he must necessarily entertain the greatest contempt for such an under-bred person as Mr Leigh Hunt. But Lord Byron! ”

“ From alleged dislike to pluralism he now gave up the Peperharow living. His health was very delicate, and he settled down to a quiet literary life, undertaking the education of Thomas Steele, well known in the Pitt administration, and his brother Robert. ”

“ Thomas Rundall, vicar of Ellingham, Northumberland―previously usher, then headmaster, of Durham Grammar School―bequeathed to him in 1779 twenty manuscript volumes of collections relating to the counties of Durham and Northumberland. To these manuscript treasures he added a vast mass of charters, transcripts of visitations, legal and genealogical records, and printed works on history and topography; and the noble library thus accumulated Allan generously laid open to the use of the antiquaries of his time. ”

“ I even mourn to think of what I was deprived of in my youth. I can’t imagine a country boy, a real American boy, who would not go without{147} his dinner for months if in this way only he could obtain this wonderful boy’s book! And that parent is hard-hearted, and may even be in dread of I Timothy 5;8, who will not buy this book for his boys; and for that matter, a man is a boy until he is fifty years old. I am all the more interested in the book because Mr. Gibson is one of my boys, brought up under my eyes in old Plymouth, and by good hard work has deserved success.
“‘Henry Ward Beecher.’ ”

“ He is interested in State Consolidated Oil Co., and a director both of Wm. Cane & Sons Co., Newmarket, and of Fire Insurance Exchange Corporation, Toronto. Mr. Gibson has always taken a prominent part in church and benevolent work. For some years he was President of the Guelph Y.M.C.A. and Treasurer and Member of the Board of the Toronto Y.M.C.A. For thirteen years he has been Superintendent of Central Presbyterian Sunday School, and for seven years Treasurer of the Ontario Branch of the Dominion Alliance. ”

“ His portrait figures in no shop windows, nor can his biography in concentrated form be purchased for a penny at the local stationer's, nor is the house he occupied an item in the round of the enterprising char-a-banc. Poor Gibson, in short, is not reckoned among the immortals of the Lake Country, by outsiders at any rate; but, unlike any of these except Wordsworth, he was a native of it and a product of the soil. Gibson was, in fact, a country doctor, whose practice carried him [204] far and wide through hill and dale, among all classes of people. ”

“ CHILMEAD, EDMUND (1610–1654) , miscellaneous writer (erroneously mentioned as Edward in several books) , was born in 1610 at Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire. He became one of the clerks of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1625, and copied out music-books for the college choir in 1632 and 1634. He graduated B.A. in 1628, and M.A. in 1632, and became in the latter year one of the chaplains of Christ Church, Oxford. He was ejected in 1648 as a royalist, and came to London in great necessity. Here he took lodgings with Thomas Este, the musician and printer of music. ”

“ Gibson replied very quietly,—
'I shall go on coming to see her, and I know you will not forbid my visits. But I shall bring Dr Nicholls with me the next time I come. I may be mistaken in my treatment; and I wish to God he may say I am mistaken in my apprehensions.'
'Don't tell me them! I cannot hear them!' cried the squire. 'Of course we must all die; and she must too. But not the cleverest doctor in England shall go about coolly meting out the life of such as her. I dare say I shall die first. I hope I shall. But I'll knock any one down who speaks to me of the death sitting within me. ”

“ I perceived that Gibson, like many others of his class, conceives France as a territory about the size of the Isle of Wight, with Paris in the middle.
"But France is a very big country, Gibson," I said. "Far larger than England. Even if I did object to you, we shouldn't be likely to meet. You couldn't learn to be a chauffeur at Saint Véronique. It's the last place in the world. That's why I go there."
Gibson looked at me narrowly.
"I thank you, Ma'am," he said curtly and proudly. And he made room for me to pass.
In his own fashion, Gibson is as good and as likable as Susan. ”

“ We know so little over here of the best American art that it may chance that Mr. Gibson is very well known in New York. We confess, however, that we never heard of him before; but his drawings are so full of delicate fancy and feeling, and his writing so skilful and graceful, that, in calling attention to his book, we cannot but express the hope that we soon may hear of him again, in either function, or in both.
==>“PASTORAL DAYS” is published by Harper & Brothers, New York, who will send the work, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of $7 50. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Personally, I never met a man of such varying moods. Over that Swanborough murder Case he was alert, uncanny, and irritatingly active; over Major Gibson's case he always looked as if he were going to sleep, and as if any trashy French novel were more interesting than the honour of his client.
Now, I remember when Major Gibson first called upon him and told him his story, I thought to myself: "Here's the prettiest kettle of fish that ever Skin o' my Tooth had placed before him." He was a good-looking man, this Major Gibson; but the day he called at the office he looked as white as a ghost. ”

“ My dear mother knows all about it.
'Mr. Gibson has a large farm, and employs eighteen hands, who all receive fair wages, and have made comfortable homes for themselves. The Sabbath before last, Mr. Gibson was telling me the history of some of the men he has employed, and it suddenly flashed upon me that it was in his power to do what you desire with respect to Tom Beadle. ”

“ Gibson for five years. "At the end of that time," Mr. Gibson said, "he will, if he is industrious, have a home of his own and money in his pocket. Then he can send for his wife, and they will have a good future before them." Mr. Gibson put it this way. "Tom Beadle," he says, "must do something to show that he is worthy of the confidence that is to be placed in him; he has to grow out of old bad ways into new good ones. Give him something to work for," said Mr. Gibson, "something to look forward to, and the chances of his turning out right are more in his favour." Well, dear Mr. ”

“ Gibson's shoulder, and soothe his wife's anxiety, by saying, 'Let us alone, little woman. We understand each other, don't we, doctor? Why, bless your life, he gives me better than he gets many a time; only, you see, he sugars it over, and says a sharp thing, and pretends it's all civility and humility; but I can tell when he's giving me a pill.'
One of Mrs. ”

“ But—shall I?—" a wild flash in his eyes. Yes, Mr. Hope, you shall have the story. I must tell it to some one. It's too good to keep. Ha, ha!"
"Take a seat," he continued, pushing a cask towards me, upon which I dropped, not certain that I was not in the presence of a madman.
Taking up a bottle, he brushed the cobwebs from it, then, breaking off the neck, passed it to me, saying:
"Take a pull. It's damp in this cellar, and this will take the chill out of your blood. This is an excellent wine—it was a favorite brand with Judson Pickford. Yes, sir; and Judson was a competent judge. Ha,ha! ”

“ His favourite pupil, Miss Hosmer, once expressed regret to him that she had been so long about a piece of work on which she was engaged. "Always try to do the best you can," Gibson answered. "Never mind how long you are upon a work—no. No one will ask how long you have been, except fools. You don't care what fools think."
During his long life at Rome, he was much cheered by the presence and assistance of his younger brother, Mr. Ben, as he always called him, who was also a sculptor, though of far less merit than John Gibson himself. ”

“ Gibson's habit, as it had been Mr. Hall's before him, to take two 'pupils,' as they were called in the genteel language of Hollingford, 'apprentices,' as they were in fact—being bound by indentures, and paying a handsome premium' to learn their business. They lived in the house, and occupied an uncomfortable, ambiguous, or, as Miss Browning called it with some truth, 'amphibious' position. They had their meals with Mr. Gibson and Molly, and were felt to be terribly in the way; Mr. Gibson not being a man who could make conversation, and hating the duty of talking under restraint. ”

“ But when Lord Hollingford returned to make the Towers his home, affairs were altered. Mr. Gibson really heard and learnt things that interested him seriously, and that gave fresh flavour to his reading. From time to time he met the leaders of the scientific world; odd-looking, simple-hearted men, very much in earnest about their own particular subjects, and not having much to say on any other. Mr. Gibson found himself capable of appreciating such persons, and also perceived that they valued his appreciation, as it was honestly and intelligently given. ”

“ In this phase of his work, Gibson carries the office of the illustrator to its highest possible point, and shows all its dignity and power.
He did all this in his own way. No artist of our generation was more thoroughly individual in his methods and in his aim. He sought what his own spirit loved and longed for. He saw with no eyes but his own. He drew and painted after his own fashion. His originality was absolute. He had none of the mannerisms of any man or any school but his own. He asked no one to tell him the color of the grass, or the fashion in which he should paint the clouds. ”

“ They were hugging each other and laughing as the monstrous vehicle rumbled up and stopped at the curb beside them. It wasn't a bus, but it was probably as near and as big as the Martians could come to those specifications. It was, actually, a giant, open-topped moving van.
"Once around the park, Jeeves!" The thought bounced gleefully into his mind as he shoved Audry toward the van. It waited patiently until they had clambored up to the seats, squatting on the low metal frames that had once boasted cushions. Then it was off.
Audry gasped in surprise. "Where's it taking us?"
Donovan told her. ”

“ A QUICK SUCCESS FROM this time forward, Gibson’s success as an artist was assured. And not very long after, he was induced to try his hand at authorship, with results quite as convincing. During the summer of 1878 he spent his vacation, in company with his wife, in the old homes at Newtown and at Washington, Connecticut. Returning to the city in the autumn, and recounting his delightful experiences to Mr. Alden, the editor of “Harper’s Magazine,” the latter insisted that Gibson should put them into an article which he should also illustrate. ”

“ A fighter born, Gibson enlisted at the beginning of the War, earning his commission and subsequent promotion by sheer merit. On the eve of battle he begged that his company should be placed on the right, for, said he:--
"The Macdonalds have always been on the right since the '45." And the right this morning was a post of danger. Gibson was heard cheering his troops on in the darkness, and continually pressed on always in the van. When he reached the first parapet of our old trenches he cried: "Come on, boys, home at last!" ”

“ A friend, who is himself a keen observer of nature, wrote of Gibson, at his death:
“It was to the habit of observation more than to any endowment that he owed the prosperity of his work,—for his life was a successful one. It enabled him to see clearly, without a teacher, what others find it hard to see at all. He acquired his art practically without instruction, and indeed against opposition, simply taking his pencil and brush into the field and drawing and painting what he saw there. The greatest painters are those who have pursued this{178} method. ”