Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-20

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w
WHEN Charles
w Dana Gibson was at Harvard they thought
low but turned up their noses at his drawings.
Whatever else Gibson privately thought OF his
work, he probably knew it could be done better.
and kept at it; but he got little encouragement
when he put it before those who buy such things;
and So when the editor of g Life" took of his
pictures which he had called g The Moon and l. and
handed him a check for it, Gibson, it is told,
made very certain that fortune within his grasp
The check was for four dollars. Gibson straightway
did in arithmetic: if one such drawing was
worth four dollars, five drawings were worth twenty
dollars. To decide just what this meant in daily in
he sat down and did five drawings IN rapid Sue
cession Early the next morning he took them to
"Lifes" Office. The editor glanced at them and
handed back all five, accompanied, it is said, by
reflection upon the workmanship they displayed
which sent Gibsons castle in the air to the ground.
At the same time, however, the scales fell from
the artist eyes, and he able to do his in
arithmetic somewhat after this fashion: 1t one
whole day of honest work plus original idea from
observation OF life, was worth certain fraction OF
an equally good idea, is worth more than double
that same fraction of twenty dollars. This last
proposition seemed to him the better one. and he
proceeded to try it out and it that basis he
continued his work. 1t has proved a rather sound
basis too, judging by results; for not long ago it
thousand dollars year for his exclusive services.
and he is abroad doing things with coors which
will accomplish for him no one knows how much.
The Story of Thanatopsis
TT is not told of William Cullen Bryant that sting
ing rebuke anything of the sort had to do with
his achievements though the story does go that
when child his head was abnormaly large to
cause his father in alarm over what this condition
might portend, dip him. head, heels, and all, into
a cold spring of water every morning before break
fact R,1f 11cE hrOl1
work to critical attention much earlier than prob
ably would otherwise have been the case. Young
Bryant had gone to studying law, and during vaca
ton while wandering in the woods at Cummngton,
his home in Massachusetts, wrote some poetry, which,
when he returned to the law office, he left IN the
drawer of table. His father, the doctor, hap
pened to find it there and read it to visitor,
who promptly went into tears. This affected the
doctor that he despatched the verses forthwith to
the editor of THE North American Review" who
published them. though scarcely believing that
they could be the product OF an American writer.
Those verses were " IhanatoPsls
Edison's First Big Job
TT is scarcely conceivable that the author of
A"Thanatopss would in any event have gone long
undiscovered poet it IS not less unlikely that
but for fortutous circumstance the genius of Amer
lea S most fertile and widely known inventor would
have been unproductive and himself unrecognized
by Fame. Yet Thomas A. Edison has said that it
was a great battle-that of PttSburg Landing
which first opened his eyes to what could be done
by the telegraph that the lucky chance which
sealed his lips twice at critical JunctureS resulted
multiplying the financial rewards from his nven-
TONS and that it the mereSt accident of his
presence a certain spot at certain moment
which gave him his first real start in the business
of telegraphing
The incident though more or less familiar, gains
from his recital of it. AT the time, he had had
perience as a telegraph operator and had invented
the quadruplex telegraph. But the invention
temporarily failure and the inventor was tramp
ing New York streets without cent. 81 happened
day" he says. into the office of gold ticker