Unfortunately, Gibson has not left us any notice of how he managed to
make both ends meet during this long adult student period at Rome.
Information on that point would indeed be very interesting; but so
absorbed was the eager Welshman always in his art, that he seldom tells
us anything at all about such mere practical every-day matters as bread
and butter. To say the truth, he cared but little about them. Probably
he had lived in a very simple penurious style during his whole
studenthood, taking his meals at a _caffe_ or eating-house, and
centering all his affection and ideas upon his beloved studio. But now
wealth and fame began to crowd in upon him, almost without the seeking.
Visitors to Rome began to frequent the Welshman's rooms, and the death
of "the great and good Canova," which occurred in 1822, while depriving
Gibson of a dearly loved friend, left him, as it were, that great
master's successor. Towards him and Thorwaldsen, indeed, Gibson always
cherished a most filial regard. "May I not be proud," he writes long
after, "to have known such men, to have conversed with them, watched all
their proceedings, heard all their great sentiments on art? Is it not a
pleasure to be so deeply in their debt for instruction?" And now the
flood of visitors who used to flock to Canova's studio began to transfer
their interest to Gibson's. Commission after commission was offered him,
and he began to make money faster than he could use it. His life had
always been simple and frugal--the life of a working man with high aims
and grand ideals: he hardly knew now how to alter it. People who did not
understand Gibson used to say in his later days that he loved money,
because he made much and spent little. Those who knew him better say
rather that he worked much for the love of art, and couldn't find much
to do with his money when he had earned it. He was singularly
indifferent to gain; he cared not what he eat or drank; he spent little
on clothes, and nothing on entertainments; but he paid his workmen
liberally or even lavishly; he allowed one of his brothers more than he