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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John James Audubon, by John Burroughs
+
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+Title: John James Audubon
+
+Author: John Burroughs
+
+Release Date: February, 2005  [EBook #7404]
+[This file was first posted on April 24, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON ***
+
+
+
+
+Eric Eldred, Robert Connal, David Garcia, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
+
+_John Burroughs_
+
+
+
+
+TO C. B.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The pioneer in American ornithology was Alexander Wilson, a Scotch weaver
+and poet, who emigrated to this country in 1794, and began the publication
+of his great work upon our birds in 1808. He figured and described three
+hundred and twenty species, fifty-six of them new to science. His death
+occurred in 1813, before the publication of his work had been completed.
+
+But the chief of American ornithologists was John James Audubon. Audubon
+did not begin where Wilson left off. He was also a pioneer, beginning his
+studies and drawings of the birds probably as early as Wilson did his, but
+he planned larger and lived longer. He spent the greater part of his long
+life in the pursuit of ornithology, and was of a more versatile, flexible,
+and artistic nature than was Wilson. He was collecting the material for his
+work at the same time that Wilson was collecting his, but he did not begin
+the publication of it till fourteen years after Wilson's death. Both men
+went directly to Nature and underwent incredible hardships in exploring the
+woods and marshes in quest of their material. Audubon's rambles were much
+wider, and extended over a much longer period of time. Wilson, too,
+contemplated a work upon our quadrupeds, but did not live to begin it.
+Audubon was blessed with good health, length of years, a devoted and
+self-sacrificing wife, and a buoyant, sanguine, and elastic disposition. He
+had the heavenly gift of enthusiasm--a passionate love for the work he set
+out to do. He was a natural hunter, roamer, woodsman; as unworldly as a
+child, and as simple and transparent. We have had better trained and more
+scientific ornithologists since his day, but none with his abandon and
+poetic fervour in the study of our birds.
+
+Both men were famous pedestrians and often walked hundreds of miles at a
+stretch. They were natural explorers and voyagers. They loved Nature at
+first hand, and not merely as she appears in books and pictures. They both
+kept extensive journals of their wanderings and observations. Several of
+Audubon's (recording his European experiences) seem to have been lost or
+destroyed, but what remain make up the greater part of two large volumes
+recently edited by his grand-daughter, Maria R. Audubon.
+
+I wish here to express my gratitude both to Miss Audubon, and to Messrs.
+Charles Scribner's Sons, for permitting me to draw freely from the "Life
+and Journals" just mentioned. The temptation is strong to let Audubon's
+graphic and glowing descriptions of American scenery, and of his tireless
+wanderings, speak for themselves.
+
+It is from these volumes, and from the life by his widow, published in
+1868, that I have gathered the material for this brief biography.
+
+Audubon's life naturally divides itself into three periods: his youth,
+which was on the whole a gay and happy one, and which lasted till the time
+of his marriage at the age of twenty-eight; his business career which
+followed, lasting ten or more years, and consisting mainly in getting rid
+of the fortune his father had left him; and his career as an ornithologist
+which, though attended with great hardships and privations, brought him
+much happiness and, long before the end, substantial pecuniary rewards.
+
+His ornithological tastes and studies really formed the main current of his
+life from his teens onward. During his business ventures in Kentucky and
+elsewhere this current came to the surface more and more, absorbed more and
+more of his time and energies, and carried him further and further from the
+conditions of a successful business career.
+
+J. B.
+
+WEST PARK, NEW YORK, January, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY
+
+
+1780
+
+_May 4_. John James La Forest Audubon was born at Mandeville,
+Louisiana.
+
+(Paucity of dates and conflicting statements make it impossible to insert
+dates to show when the family moved to St. Domingo, and thence to France.)
+
+
+1797 (?)
+
+Returned to America from France. Here followed life at Mill Grove Farm,
+near Philadelphia.
+
+
+1805 or 6
+
+Again in France for about two years. Studied under David, the artist. Then
+returned to America.
+
+
+1808
+
+_April_ 8. Married Lucy Bakewell, and journeyed to Louisville,
+Kentucky, to engage in business with one Rozier.
+
+
+1810
+
+_March_. First met Wilson, the ornithologist.
+
+
+1812
+
+Dissolved partnership with Rozier.
+
+
+1808-1819
+
+Various business ventures in Louisville, Hendersonville, and St. Genevieve,
+Kentucky, again at Hendersonville, thence again to Louisville.
+
+
+1819
+
+
+Abandoned business career. Became taxidermist in Cincinnati.
+
+
+1820
+
+Left Cincinnati. Began to form definite plans for the publication of his
+drawings. Returned to New Orleans.
+
+
+1822
+
+Went to Natchez by steamer. Gunpowder ruined two hundred of his drawings on
+this trip. Obtained position of Drawing-master in the college at
+Washington, Mississippi. At the close of this year took his first lessons
+in oils.
+
+
+1824
+
+Went to Philadelphia to get his drawings published. Thwarted. There met
+Sully, and Prince Canino.
+
+
+1826
+
+Sailed for Europe to introduce his drawings.
+
+
+1827
+
+Issued prospectus of his "Birds."
+
+
+1828
+
+Went to Paris to canvass. Visited Cuvier.
+
+
+1829
+
+Returned to the United States, scoured the woods for more material for his
+biographies.
+
+
+1830
+
+Returned to London with his family.
+
+
+1830-1839
+
+Elephant folio, _The Birds of North America_, published.
+
+
+1831-39
+
+_American Ornithological Biography_ published in Edinburgh.
+
+
+1831
+
+Again in America for nearly three years.
+
+
+1832-33
+
+In Florida, South Carolina, and the Northern States, Labrador, and Canada.
+
+
+1834
+
+Completion of second volume of "Birds," also second volume of _American
+Ornithological Biography_.
+
+
+1835
+
+In Edinburgh.
+
+
+1836
+
+To New York again--more exploring; found books, papers and drawings had
+been destroyed by fire, the previous year.
+
+
+1837
+
+Went to London.
+
+
+1838
+
+Published fourth volume of _American Ornithological Biography_.
+
+
+1839
+
+Published fifth volume of "Biography."
+
+
+1840
+
+Left England for the last time.
+
+
+1842
+
+Built house in New York on "Minnie's Land," now Audubon Park.
+
+
+1843
+
+Yellowstone River Expedition.
+
+
+1840-44
+
+Published the reduced edition of his "Bird Biographies."
+
+
+1846
+
+Published first volume of "Quadrupeds."
+
+
+1848
+
+Completed _Quadrupeds and Biography of American Quadrupeds_. (The last
+volume was not published till 1854, after his death.)
+
+
+1851
+
+_January 27_. John James Audubon died in New York.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+There is a hopeless confusion as to certain important dates in Audubon's
+life. He was often careless and unreliable in his statements of matters of
+fact, which weakness during his lifetime often led to his being accused of
+falsehood. Thus he speaks of the "memorable battle of Valley Forge" and of
+two brothers of his, both officers in the French army, as having perished
+in the French Revolution, when he doubtless meant uncles. He had previously
+stated that his only two brothers died in infancy. He confessed that he had
+no head for mathematics, and he seems always to have been at sea in regard
+to his own age. In his letters and journals there are several references to
+his age, but they rarely agree. The date of his birth usually given, May 4,
+1780, is probably three or four years too early, as he speaks of himself as
+being nearly seventeen when his mother had him confirmed in the Catholic
+Church, and this was about the time that his father, then an officer in the
+French navy, was sent to England to effect a change of prisoners, which
+time is given as 1801.
+
+The two race strains that mingle in him probably account for this illogical
+habit of mind, as well as for his romantic and artistic temper and tastes.
+
+His father was a sea-faring man and a Frenchman; his mother was a Spanish
+Creole of Louisiana--the old chivalrous Castilian blood modified by new
+world conditions. The father, through commercial channels, accumulated a
+large property in the island of St. Domingo. In the course of his trading
+he made frequent journeys to Louisiana, then the property of the French
+government. On one of these trips, probably, he married one of the native
+women, who is said to have possessed both wealth and beauty. The couple
+seem to have occupied for a time a plantation belonging to a French
+Marquis, situated at Mandeville on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
+Here three sons were born to them, of whom John James La Forest was the
+third. The daughter seems to have been younger.
+
+His own mother perished in a slave insurrection in St. Domingo, where the
+family had gone to live on the Audubon estate at Aux Cayes, when her child
+was but a few months old. Audubon says that his father with his plate and
+money and himself, attended by a few faithful servants, escaped to New
+Orleans. What became of his sister he does not say, though she must have
+escaped with them, since we hear of her existence years later. Not long
+after, how long we do not know, the father returned to France, where he
+married a second time, giving the son, as he himself says, the only mother
+he ever knew. This woman proved a rare exception among stepmothers--but she
+was too indulgent, and, Audubon says, completely spoiled him, bringing him
+up to live like a gentleman, ignoring his faults and boasting of his
+merits, and leading him to believe that fine clothes and a full pocket were
+the most desirable things in life.
+
+This she was able to do all the more effectively because the father soon
+left the son in her charge and returned to the United States in the employ
+of the French government, and before long became attached to the army under
+La Fayette. This could not have been later than 1781, the year of
+Cornwallis' surrender, and Audubon would then have been twenty-one, but
+this does not square with his own statements. After the war the father
+still served some years in the French navy, but finally retired from active
+service and lived at La Gerbetiere in France, where he died at the age of
+ninety-five, in 1818.
+
+Audubon says of his mother: "Let no one speak of her as my step-mother. I
+was ever to her as a son of her own flesh and blood and she was to me a
+true mother." With her he lived in the city of Nantes, France, where he
+appears to have gone to school. It was, however, only from his private
+tutors that he says he got any benefit. His father desired him to follow in
+his footsteps, and he was educated accordingly, studying drawing,
+geography, mathematics, fencing, and music. Mathematics he found hard dull
+work, as have so many men of like temperament, before and since, but music
+and fencing and geography were more to his liking. He was an ardent,
+imaginative youth, and chafed under all drudgery and routine. His
+foster-mother, in the absence of his father, suffered him to do much as he
+pleased, and he pleased to "play hookey" most of the time, joining boys of
+his own age and disposition, and deserting the school for the fields and
+woods, hunting birds' nests, fishing and shooting and returning home at
+night with his basket filled with various natural specimens and
+curiosities. The collecting fever is not a bad one to take possession of
+boys at this age.
+
+In his autobiography Audubon relates an incident that occurred when he was
+a child, which he thinks first kindled his love for birds. It was an
+encounter between a pet parrot and a tame monkey kept by his mother. One
+morning the parrot, Mignonne, asked as usual for her breakfast of bread and
+milk, whereupon the monkey, being in a bad humour, attacked the poor
+defenceless bird, and killed it. Audubon screamed at the cruel sight, and
+implored the servant to interfere and save the bird, but without avail. The
+boy's piercing screams brought the mother, who succeeded in tranquillising
+the child. The monkey was chained, and the parrot buried, but the tragedy
+awakened in him a lasting love for his feathered friends.
+
+Audubon's father seems to have been the first to direct his attention to
+the study of birds, and to the observance of Nature generally. Through him
+he learned to notice the beautiful colourings and markings of the birds, to
+know their haunts, and to observe their change of plumage with the changing
+seasons; what he learned of their mysterious migrations fired his
+imagination.
+
+He speaks of this early intimacy with Nature as a feeling which bordered on
+frenzy. Watching the growth of a bird from the egg he compares to the
+unfolding of a flower from the bud.
+
+The pain which he felt in seeing the birds die and decay was very acute,
+but, fortunately, about this time some one showed him a book of
+illustrations, and henceforth "a new life ran in my veins," he says. To
+copy Nature was thereafter his one engrossing aim.
+
+That he realised how crude his early efforts were is shown by his saying:
+"My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples." His steady progress, too,
+is shown in his custom, on every birthday, of burning these 'Crippled'
+drawings, then setting to work to make better, truer ones.
+
+His father returning from a sea voyage, probably when the son was about
+twenty years old, was not well pleased with the progress that the boy was
+making in his studies. One morning soon after, Audubon found himself with
+his trunk and his belongings in a private carriage, beside his father, on
+his way to the city of Rochefort. The father occupied himself with a book
+and hardly spoke to his son during the several days of the journey, though
+there was no anger in his face. After they were settled in their new abode,
+he seated his son beside him and taking one of his hands in his, calmly
+said: "My beloved boy, thou art now safe. I have brought thee here that I
+may be able to pay constant attention to thy studies; thou shalt have ample
+time for pleasures, but the remainder _must_ be employed with industry
+and care."
+
+But the father soon left him on some foreign mission for his government and
+the boy chafed as usual under his tasks and confinement. One day, too much
+mathematics drove him into making his escape by leaping from the window,
+and making off through the gardens attached to the school where he was
+confined. A watchful corporal soon overhauled him, however, and brought him
+back, where he was confined on board some sort of prison ship in the
+harbour. His father soon returned, when he was released, not without a
+severe reprimand.
+
+We next find him again in the city of Nantes struggling with more odious
+mathematics, and spending all his leisure time in the fields and woods,
+studying the birds. About this time he began a series of drawings of the
+French birds, which grew to upwards of two hundred, all bad enough, he
+says, but yet real representations of birds, that gave him a certain
+pleasure. They satisfied his need of expression.
+
+At about this time, too, though the year we do not know, his father
+concluded to send him to the United States, apparently to occupy a farm
+called Mill Grove, which the father had purchased some years before, on the
+Schuylkill river near Philadelphia. In New York he caught the yellow fever:
+he was carefully nursed by two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding house in
+Morristown, New Jersey.
+
+In due time his father's agent, Miers Fisher, also a Quaker, removed him to
+his own villa near Philadelphia, and here Audubon seems to have remained
+some months. But the gay and ardent youth did not find the atmosphere of
+the place congenial. The sober Quaker grey was not to his taste. His host
+was opposed to music of all kinds, and to dancing, hunting, fishing and
+nearly all other forms of amusement. More than that, he had a daughter
+between whom and Audubon he apparently hoped an affection would spring up.
+But Audubon took an unconquerable dislike to her. Very soon, therefore, he
+demanded to be put in possession of the estate to which his father had sent
+him.
+
+Of the month and year in which he entered upon his life at Mill Grove, we
+are ignorant. We know that he fell into the hands of another Quaker,
+William Thomas, who was the tenant on the place, but who, with his worthy
+wife, seems to have made life pleasant for him. He soon became attached to
+Mill Grove, and led a life there just suited to his temperament.
+
+"Hunting, fishing, drawing, music, occupied my every moment; cares I knew
+not and cared naught about them. I purchased excellent and beautiful
+horses, visited all such neighbours as I found congenial spirits, and was
+as happy as happy could be."
+
+Near him there lived an English family by the name of Bakewell, but he had
+such a strong antipathy to the English that he postponed returning the call
+of Mr. Bakewell, who had left his card at Mill Grove during one of
+Audubon's excursions to the woods. In the late fall or early winter,
+however, he chanced to meet Mr. Bakewell while out hunting grouse, and was
+so pleased with him and his well-trained dogs, and his good marksmanship,
+that he apologised for his discourtesy in not returning his call, and
+promised to do so forthwith. Not many mornings thereafter he was seated in
+his neighbour's house.
+
+"Well do I recollect the morning," he says in the autobiographical sketch
+which he prepared for his sons, "and may it please God that I never forget
+it, when for the first time I entered Mr. Bakewell's dwelling. It happened
+that he was absent from home, and I was shown into a parlour where only one
+young lady was snugly seated at her work by the fire. She rose on my
+entrance, offered me a seat, assured me of the gratification her father
+would feel on his return, which, she added, would be in a few moments, as
+she would despatch a servant for him. Other ruddy cheeks and bright eyes
+made their transient appearance, but, like spirits gay, soon vanished from
+my sight; and there I sat, my gaze riveted, as it were, on the young girl
+before me, who, half working, half talking, essayed to make the time
+pleasant to me. Oh! may God bless her! It was she, my dear sons, who
+afterwards became my beloved wife, and your mother. Mr. Bakewell soon made
+his appearance, and received me with the manner and hospitality of a true
+English gentleman. The other members of the family were soon introduced to
+me, and Lucy was told to have luncheon produced. She now rose from her seat
+a second time, and her form, to which I had paid but partial attention,
+showed both grace and beauty; and my heart followed every one of her steps.
+The repast over, dogs and guns were made ready.
+
+"Lucy, I was pleased to believe, looked upon me with some favour, and I
+turned more especially to her on leaving. I felt that certain '_Je ne
+sais quoi_' which intimated that, at least, she was not indifferent to
+me."
+
+The winter that followed was a gay and happy one at Mill Grove; shooting
+parties, skating parties, house parties with the Bakewell family, were of
+frequent occurrence. It was during one of these skating excursions upon the
+Perkiomen in quest of wild ducks, that Audubon had a lucky escape from
+drowning. He was leading the party down the river in the dusk of the
+evening, with a white handkerchief tied to a stick, when he came suddenly
+upon a large air hole into which, in spite of himself, his impetus carried
+him. Had there not chanced to be another air hole a few yards below, our
+hero's career would have ended then and there. The current quickly carried
+him beneath the ice to this other opening where he managed to seize hold of
+the ice and to crawl out.
+
+His friendship with the Bakewell family deepened. Lucy taught Audubon
+English, he taught her drawing, and their friendship very naturally ripened
+into love, which seems to have run its course smoothly.
+
+Audubon was happy. He had ample means, and his time was filled with
+congenial pursuits. He writes in his journal: "I had no vices, but was
+thoughtless, pensive, loving, fond of shooting, fishing, and riding, and
+had a passion for raising all sorts of fowls, which sources of interest and
+amusement fully occupied my time. It was one of my fancies to be
+ridiculously fond of dress; to hunt in black satin breeches, wear pumps
+when shooting, and to dress in the finest ruffled shirts I could obtain
+from France."
+
+The evidences of vanity regarding his looks and apparel, sometimes found in
+his journal, are probably traceable to his foster-mother's unwise treatment
+of him in his youth. We have seen how his father's intervention in the nick
+of time exercised a salutary influence upon him at this point in his
+career, directing his attention to the more solid attainments. Whatever
+traces of this self-consciousness and apparent vanity remained in after
+life, seem to have been more the result of a naive character delighting in
+picturesqueness in himself as well as in Nature, than they were of real
+vanity.
+
+In later years he was assuredly nothing of the dandy; he himself ridicules
+his youthful fondness for dress, while those who visited him during his
+last years speak of him as particularly lacking in self-consciousness.
+
+Although he affected the dress of the dandies of his time, he was temperate
+and abstemious. "I ate no butcher's meat, lived chiefly on fruits,
+vegetables, and fish, and never drank a glass of spirits or wine until my
+wedding day." "All this time I was fair and rosy, strong and active as one
+of my age and sex could be, and as active and agile as a buck."
+
+That he was energetic and handy and by no means the mere dandy that his
+extravagance in dress might seem to indicate, is evidenced from the fact
+that about this time he made a journey on foot to New York and accomplished
+the ninety miles in three days in mid-winter. But he was angry, and anger
+is better than wine to walk on.
+
+The cause of his wrath was this; a lead mine had been discovered upon the
+farm of Mill Grove, and Audubon had applied to his father for counsel in
+regard to it. In response, the elder Audubon had sent over a man by the
+name of Da Costa who was to act as his son's partner and partial guardian--
+was to teach him mineralogy and mining engineering, and to look after his
+finances generally. But the man, Audubon says, knew nothing of the subjects
+he was supposed to teach, and was, besides, "a covetous wretch, who did all
+he could to ruin my father, and, indeed, swindled both of us to a large
+amount." Da Costa pushed his authority so far as to object to Audubon's
+proposed union with Lucy Bakewell, as being a marriage beneath him, and
+finally plotted to get the young man off to India. These things very
+naturally kindled Audubon's quick temper, and he demanded of his tutor and
+guardian money enough to take him to France to consult with his father. Da
+Costa gave him a letter of credit on a sort of banker-broker residing in
+New York. To New York he accordingly went, as above stated, and found that
+the banker-broker was in the plot to pack him off to India. This disclosure
+kindled his wrath afresh. He says that had he had a weapon about him the
+banker's heart must have received the result of his wrath. His Spanish
+blood began to declare itself.
+
+Then he sought out a brother of Mr. Bakewell and the uncle of his
+sweetheart, and of him borrowed the money to take him to France. He took
+passage on a New Bedford brig bound for Nantes. The captain had recently
+been married and when the vessel reached the vicinity of New Bedford, he
+discovered some dangerous leaks which necessitated a week's delay to repair
+damages. Audubon avers that the captain had caused holes to be bored in the
+vessel's sides below the water line, to gain an excuse to spend a few more
+days with his bride.
+
+After a voyage of nineteen days the vessel entered the Loire, and anchored
+in the lower harbour of Nantes, and Audubon was soon welcomed by his father
+and fond foster-mother.
+
+His first object was to have the man Da Costa disposed of, which he soon
+accomplished; the second, to get his father's consent to his marriage with
+Lucy Bakewell, which was also brought about in due time, although the
+parents of both agreed that they were "owre young to marry yet."
+
+Audubon now remained two years in France, indulging his taste for hunting,
+rambling, and drawing birds and other objects of Natural History.
+
+This was probably about the years 1805 and 1806. France was under the sway
+of Napoleon, and conscriptions were the order of the day. The elder Audubon
+became uneasy lest his son be drafted into the French army; hence he
+resolved to send him back to America. In the meantime, he interested one
+Rozier in the lead mine and had formed a partnership between him and his
+son, to run for nine years. In due course the two young men sailed for New
+York, leaving France at a time when thousands would have been glad to have
+followed their footsteps.
+
+On this voyage their vessel was pursued and overhauled by a British
+privateer, the _Rattlesnake_, and nearly all their money and eatables
+were carried off, besides two of the ship's best sailors. Audubon and
+Rozier saved their gold by hiding it under a cable in the bow of the ship.
+
+On returning to Mill Grove, Audubon resumed his former habits of life
+there. We hear no more of the lead mine, but more of his bird studies and
+drawings, the love of which was fast becoming his ruling passion. "Before I
+sailed for France, I had begun a series of drawings of the birds of
+America, and had also begun a study of their habits. I at first drew my
+subject dead, by which I mean to say that after procuring a specimen, I
+hung it up, either by the head, wing, or foot, and copied it as closely as
+I could." Even the hateful Da Costa had praised his bird pictures and had
+predicted great things for him in this direction. His words had given
+Audubon a great deal of pleasure.
+
+Mr. William Bakewell, the brother of his Lucy, has given us a glimpse of
+Audubon and his surroundings at this time. "Audubon took me to his house,
+where he and his companion, Rozier, resided, with Mrs. Thomas for an
+attendant. On entering his room, I was astonished and delighted that it was
+turned into a museum. The walls were festooned with all sorts of birds'
+eggs, carefully blown out and strung on a thread. The chimney piece was
+covered with stuffed squirrels, raccoons and opossums; and the shelves
+around were likewise crowded with specimens, among which were fishes,
+frogs, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. Besides these stuffed
+varieties, many paintings were arrayed upon the walls, chiefly of birds. He
+had great skill in stuffing and preserving animals of all sorts. He had
+also a trick of training dogs with great perfection, of which art his
+famous dog Zephyr was a wonderful example. He was an admirable marksman, an
+expert swimmer, a clever rider, possessed great activity, prodigious
+strength, and was notable for the elegance of his figure, and the beauty of
+his features, and he aided Nature by a careful attendance to his dress.
+Besides other accomplishments, he was musical, a good fencer, danced well,
+had some acquaintance with legerdemain tricks, worked in hair, and could
+plait willow baskets." He adds that Audubon once swam across the Schuylkill
+with him on his back.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Audubon was now eager to marry, but Mr. Bakewell advised him first to study
+the mercantile business. This he accordingly set out to do by entering as a
+clerk the commercial house of Benjamin Bakewell in New York, while his
+friend Rozier entered a French house in Philadelphia.
+
+But Audubon was not cut out for business; his first venture was in indigo,
+and cost him several hundred pounds. Rozier succeeded no better; his first
+speculation was a cargo of hams shipped to the West Indies which did not
+return one fifth of the cost. Audubon's want of business habits is shown by
+the statement that at this time he one day posted a letter containing eight
+thousand dollars without sealing it. His heart was in the fields and woods
+with the birds. His room was filled with drying bird skins, the odour from
+which, it is said, became so strong that his neighbours sent a constable to
+him with a message to abate the nuisance.
+
+Despairing of becoming successful business men in either New York or
+Philadelphia, he and Rozier soon returned to Mill Grove. During some of
+their commercial enterprises they had visited Kentucky and thought so well
+of the outlook there that now their thoughts turned thitherward.
+
+Here we get the first date from Audubon; on April 8, 1808, he and Lucy
+Bakewell were married. The plantation of Mill Grove had been previously
+sold, and the money invested in goods with which to open a store in
+Louisville, Kentucky. The day after the marriage, Audubon and his wife and
+Mr. Rozier started on their journey. In crossing the mountains to Pittsburg
+the coach in which they were travelling upset, and Mrs. Audubon was
+severely bruised. From Pittsburg they floated down the Ohio in a flatboat
+in company with several other young emigrant families. The voyage occupied
+twelve days and was no doubt made good use of by Audubon in observing the
+wild nature along shore.
+
+In Louisville, he and Rozier opened a large store which promised well. But
+Audubon's heart was more and more with the birds, and his business more and
+more neglected. Rozier attended to the counter, and, Audubon says, grew
+rich, but he himself spent most of the time in the woods or hunting with
+the planters settled about Louisville, between whom and himself a warm
+attachment soon sprang up. He was not growing rich, but he was happy. "I
+shot, I drew, I looked on Nature only," he says, "and my days were happy
+beyond human conception, and beyond this I really cared not."
+
+He says that the only part of the commercial business he enjoyed was the
+ever engaging journeys which he made to New York and Philadelphia to
+purchase goods.
+
+These journeys led him through the "beautiful, the darling forests of Ohio,
+Kentucky, and Pennsylvania," and on one occasion he says he lost sight of
+the pack horses carrying his goods and his dollars, in his preoccupation
+with a new warbler.
+
+During his residence in Louisville, Alexander Wilson, his great rival in
+American ornithology, called upon him. This is Audubon's account of the
+meeting: "One fair morning I was surprised by the sudden entrance into our
+counting room at Louisville of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author
+of the American Ornithology, of whose existence I had never until that
+moment been apprised. This happened in March, 1810. How well do I remember
+him as he then walked up to me. His long, rather hooked nose, the keenness
+of his eyes, and his prominent cheek bones, stamped his countenance with a
+peculiar character. His dress, too, was of a kind not usually seen in that
+part of the country; a short coat, trousers and a waistcoat of grey cloth.
+His stature was not above the middle size. He had two volumes under his
+arm, and as he approached the table at which I was working, I thought I
+discovered something like astonishment in his countenance. He, however,
+immediately proceeded to disclose the object of his visit, which was to
+procure subscriptions for his work. He opened his books, explained the
+nature of his occupations, and requested my patronage. I felt surprised and
+gratified at the sight of his volumes, turned over a few of the plates, and
+had already taken my pen to write my name in his favour, when my partner
+rather abruptly said to me in French: 'My dear Audubon, what induces you to
+subscribe to this work! Your drawings are certainly far better; and again,
+you must know as much of the habits of American birds as this gentleman.'
+Whether Mr. Wilson understood French or not, or if the suddenness with
+which I paused disappointed him, I cannot tell; but I clearly perceived he
+was not pleased. Vanity, and the encomiums of my friend, prevented me from
+subscribing. Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many drawings of birds, I rose,
+took down a large portfolio, laid it on the table, and showed him as I
+would show you, kind reader, or any other person fond of such subjects, the
+whole of the contents, with the same patience, with which he had showed me
+his own engravings. His surprise appeared great, as he told me he had never
+had the most distant idea that any other individual than himself had been
+engaged in forming such a collection. He asked me if it was my intention to
+publish, and when I answered in the negative, his surprise seemed to
+increase. And, truly, such was not my intention; for, until long after,
+when I met the Prince of Musignano in Philadelphia, I had not the least
+idea of presenting the fruits of my labours to the world. Mr. Wilson now
+examined my drawings with care, asked if I should have any objection to
+lending him a few during his stay, to which I replied that I had none. He
+then bade me good morning, not, however, until I had made an arrangement to
+explore the woods in the vicinity along with him, and had promised to
+procure for him some birds, of which I had drawings in my collection, but
+which he had never seen. It happened that he lodged in the same house with
+us, but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited a strong feeling of
+discontent, or a decided melancholy. The Scotch airs which he played
+sweetly on his flute made me melancholy, too, and I felt for him. I
+presented him to my wife and friends, and seeing that he was all
+enthusiasm, exerted myself as much as was in my power to procure for him
+the specimens which he wanted.
+
+"We hunted together and obtained birds which he had never before seen; but,
+reader, I did not subscribe to his work, for, even at that time, my
+collection was greater than his.
+
+"Thinking that perhaps he might be pleased to publish the results of my
+researches, I offered them to him, merely on condition that what I had
+drawn, or might afterward draw and send to him, should be mentioned in his
+work as coming from my pencil. I at the same time offered to open a
+correspondence with him, which I thought might prove beneficial to us both.
+He made no reply to either proposal, and before many days had elapsed, left
+Louisville on his way to New Orleans, little knowing how much his talents
+were appreciated in our little town, at least by myself and my friends."
+
+Wilson's account of this meeting is in curious contrast to that of Audubon.
+It is meagre and unsatisfactory. Under date of March 19, he writes in his
+diary at Louisville: "Rambled around the town with my gun. Examined
+Mr. ----'s [Audubon's] drawings in crayons--very good. Saw two new birds
+he had, both _Motacillae_."
+
+_March_ 21. "Went out this afternoon shooting with Mr. A. Saw a number
+of Sandhill cranes. Pigeons numerous."
+
+Finally, in winding up the record of his visit to Louisville, he says, with
+palpable inconsistency, not to say falsehood, that he did not receive one
+act of civility there, nor see one new bird, and found no naturalist to
+keep him company.
+
+Some years afterward, Audubon hunted him up in Philadelphia, and found him
+drawing a white headed eagle. He was civil, and showed Audubon some
+attention, but "spoke not of birds or drawings."
+
+Wilson was of a nature far less open and generous than was Audubon. It is
+evident that he looked upon the latter as his rival, and was jealous of his
+superior talents; for superior they were in many ways. Audubon's drawings
+have far more spirit and artistic excellence, and his text shows far more
+enthusiasm and hearty affiliation with Nature. In accuracy of observation,
+Wilson is fully his equal, if not his superior.
+
+As Audubon had deserted his business, his business soon deserted him; he
+and his partner soon became discouraged (we hear no more about the riches
+Rozier had acquired), and resolved upon moving their goods to
+Hendersonville, Kentucky, over one hundred miles further down the Ohio.
+Mrs. Audubon and her baby son were sent back to her father's at Fatland
+Ford where they remained upwards of a year.
+
+Business at Hendersonville proved dull; the country was but thinly
+inhabited and only the coarsest goods were in demand. To procure food the
+merchants had to resort to fishing and hunting. They employed a clerk who
+proved a good shot; he and Audubon supplied the table while Rozier again
+stood behind the counter.
+
+How long the Hendersonville enterprise lasted we do not know. Another
+change was finally determined upon, and the next glimpse we get of Audubon,
+we see him with his clerk and partner and their remaining stock in trade,
+consisting of three hundred barrels of whiskey, sundry dry goods and
+powder, on board a keel boat making their way down the Ohio, in a severe
+snow storm, toward St. Genevieve, a settlement on the Mississippi River,
+where they proposed to try again. The boat is steered by a long oar, about
+sixty feet in length, made of the trunk of a slender tree, and shaped at
+its outer extremity like the fin of a dolphin; four oars in the bow
+propelled her, and with the current they made about five miles an hour.
+
+Mrs. Audubon, who seems to have returned from her father's, with her baby,
+or babies, was left behind at Hendersonville with a friend, until the
+result of the new venture should be determined.
+
+In the course of six weeks, after many delays, and adventures with the ice
+and the cold, the party reached St. Genevieve.
+
+Audubon has given in his journal a very vivid and interesting account of
+this journey. At St. Genevieve, the whiskey was in great demand, and what
+had cost them twenty-five cents a gallon, was sold for two dollars. But
+Audubon soon became discouraged with the place and longed to be back in
+Hendersonville with his family. He did not like the low bred
+French-Canadians, who made up most of the population of the settlement. He
+sold out his interest in the business to his partner, who liked the place
+and the people, and here the two parted company. Audubon purchased a fine
+horse and started over the prairies on his return trip to Hendersonville.
+
+On this journey he came near being murdered by a woman and her two
+desperate sons who lived in a cabin on the prairies, where the traveller
+put up for the night. He has given a minute and graphic account of this
+adventure in his journal.
+
+The cupidity of the woman had been aroused by the sight of Audubon's gold
+watch and chain. A wounded Indian, who had also sought refuge in the shanty
+had put Audubon upon his guard. It was midnight, Audubon lay on some bear
+skins in one corner of the room, feigning sleep. He had previously slipped
+out of the cabin and had loaded his gun, which lay close at hand. Presently
+he saw the woman sharpen a huge carving knife, and thrust it into the hand
+of her drunken son, with the injunction to kill yon stranger and secure the
+watch. He was just on the point of springing up to shoot his would-be
+murderers, when the door burst open, and two travellers, each with a long
+knife, appeared. Audubon jumped up and told them his situation. The drunken
+sons and the woman were bound, and in the morning they were taken out into
+the woods and were treated as the Regulators treated delinquents in those
+days. They were shot. Whether Audubon did any of the shooting or not, he
+does not say. But he aided and abetted, and his Spanish blood must have
+tingled in his veins. Then the cabin was set on fire, and the travellers
+proceeded on their way.
+
+It must be confessed that this story sounds a good deal like an episode in
+a dime novel, and may well be taken with a grain of allowance. Did remote
+prairie cabins in those days have grindstones and carving knives? And why
+should the would-be murderers use a knife when they had guns?
+
+Audubon reached Hendersonville in early March, and witnessed the severe
+earthquake which visited that part of Kentucky the following November,
+1812. Of this experience we also have a vivid account in his journals.
+
+Audubon continued to live at Hendersonville, his pecuniary means much
+reduced. He says that he made a pedestrian tour back to St. Genevieve to
+collect money due him from Rozier, walking the one hundred and sixty-five
+miles, much of the time nearly ankle-deep in mud and water, in a little
+over three days. Concerning the accuracy of this statement one also has his
+doubts. Later he bought a "wild horse," and on its back travelled over
+Tennessee and a portion of Georgia, and so around to Philadelphia, later
+returning to Hendersonville.
+
+He continued his drawings of birds and animals, but, in the meantime,
+embarked in another commercial venture, and for a time prospered. Some
+years previously he had formed a co-partnership with his wife's brother,
+and a commercial house in charge of Bakewell had been opened in New
+Orleans. This turned out disastrously and was a constant drain upon his
+resources.
+
+This partner now appears upon the scene at Hendersonville and persuades
+Audubon to erect, at a heavy outlay, a steam grist and saw mill, and to
+take into the firm an Englishman by the name of Pease.
+
+This enterprise brought fresh disaster. "How I laboured at this infernal
+mill, from dawn till dark, nay, at times all night."
+
+They also purchased a steamboat which was so much additional weight to drag
+them down. This was about the year 1817. From this date till 1819,
+Audubon's pecuniary difficulties increased daily. He had no business talent
+whatever; he was a poet and an artist; he cared not for money, he wanted to
+be alone with Nature. The forests called to him, the birds haunted his
+dreams.
+
+His father dying in 1818, left him a valuable estate in France, and
+seventeen thousand dollars, deposited with a merchant in Richmond,
+Virginia; but Audubon was so dilatory in proving his identity and his legal
+right to this cash, that the merchant finally died insolvent, and the
+legatee never received a cent of it. The French estate he transferred in
+after years to his sister Rosa.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Finally, Audubon gave up the struggle of trying to be a business man. He
+says: "I parted with every particle of property I had to my creditors,
+keeping only the clothes I wore on that day, my original drawings, and my
+gun, and without a dollar in my pocket, walked to Louisville alone."
+
+This he speaks of as the saddest of all his journeys--"the only time in my
+life when the wild turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thousands
+of lesser birds that enlivened the woods and the prairies, all looked like
+enemies, and I turned my eyes from them, as if I could have wished that
+they had never existed."
+
+But the thought of his beloved Lucy and her children soon spurred him to
+action. He was a good draughtsman, he had been a pupil of David, he would
+turn his talents to account.
+
+"As we were straightened to the very utmost, I undertook to draw portraits
+at the low price of five dollars per head, in black chalk. I drew a few
+gratis, and succeeded so well that ere many days had elapsed I had an
+abundance of work."
+
+His fame spread, his orders increased. A settler came for him in the middle
+of the night from a considerable distance to have the portrait of his
+mother taken while she was on the eve of death, and a clergyman had his
+child's body exhumed that the artist might restore to him the lost
+features.
+
+Money flowed in and he was soon again established with his family in a
+house in Louisville. His drawings of birds still continued and, he says,
+became at times almost a mania with him; he would frequently give up a
+head, the profits of which would have supplied the wants of his family a
+week or more, "to represent a little citizen of the feathered tribe."
+
+In 1819 he was offered the position of taxidermist in the museum at
+Cincinnati, and soon moved there with his family. His pay not being
+forthcoming from the museum, he started a drawing school there, and again
+returned to his portraits. Without these resources, he says, he would have
+been upon the starving list. But food was plentiful and cheap. He writes in
+his journal: "Our living here is extremely moderate; the markets are well
+supplied and cheap, beef only two and one half cents a pound, and I am able
+to supply a good deal myself. Partridges are frequently in the streets, and
+I can shoot wild turkeys within a mile or so. Squirrels and Woodcock are
+very abundant in the season, and fish always easily caught."
+
+In October, 1820, we again find him adrift, apparently with thought of
+having his bird drawings published, after he shall have further added to
+them by going through many of the southern and western states.
+
+Leaving his family behind him, he started for New Orleans on a flatboat. He
+tarried long at Natchez, and did not reach the Crescent City till
+midwinter. Again he found himself destitute of means, and compelled to
+resort to portrait painting. He went on with his bird collecting and bird
+painting; in the meantime penetrating the swamps and bayous around the
+city.
+
+At this time he seems to have heard of the publication of Wilson's
+"Ornithology," and tried in vain to get sight of a copy of it.
+
+In the spring he made an attempt to get an appointment as draughtsman and
+naturalist to a government expedition that was to leave the next year to
+survey the new territory ceded to the United States by Spain. He wrote to
+President Monroe upon the subject, but the appointment never came to him.
+In March he called upon Vanderlyn, the historical painter, and took with
+him a portfolio of his drawings in hopes of getting a recommendation.
+Vanderlyn at first treated him as a mendicant and ordered him to leave his
+portfolio in the entry. After some delay, in company with a government
+official, he consented to see the pictures.
+
+"The perspiration ran down my face," says Audubon, "as I showed him my
+drawings and laid them on the floor." He was thinking of the expedition to
+Mexico just referred to, and wanted to make a good impression upon
+Vanderlyn and the officer. This he succeeded in doing, and obtained from
+the artist a very complimentary note, as he did also from Governor
+Robertson of Louisiana.
+
+In June, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, to rejoin his wife and
+boys, but somewhere on the journey engaged himself to a Mrs. Perrie who
+lived at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach her daughter drawing during the
+summer, at sixty dollars per month, leaving him half of each day to follow
+his own pursuits. He continued in this position till October when he took
+steamer for New Orleans. "My long, flowing hair, and loose yellow nankeen
+dress, and the unfortunate cut of my features, attracted much attention,
+and made me desire to be dressed like other people as soon as possible."
+
+He now rented a house in New Orleans on Dauphine street, and determined to
+send for his family. Since he had left Cincinnati the previous autumn, he
+had finished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two
+snakes, fifty portraits of all sorts, and had lived by his talents, not
+having had a dollar when he started. "I sent a draft to my wife, and began
+life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much eagerness to
+pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America."
+
+His family, after strong persuasion, joined him in December, 1821, and his
+former life of drawing portraits, giving lessons, painting birds, and
+wandering about the country, began again. His earnings proving inadequate
+to support the family, his wife took a position as governess in the family
+of a Mr. Brand.
+
+In the spring, acting upon the judgment of his wife, he concluded to leave
+New Orleans again, and to try his fortunes elsewhere. He paid all his bills
+and took steamer for Natchez, paying his passage by drawing a crayon
+portrait of the captain and his wife.
+
+On the trip up the Mississippi, two hundred of his bird portraits were
+sorely damaged by the breaking of a bottle of gunpowder in the chest in
+which they were being conveyed.
+
+Three times in his career he met with disasters to his drawings. On the
+occasion of his leaving Hendersonville to go to Philadelphia, he had put
+two hundred of his original drawings in a wooden box and had left them in
+charge of a friend. On his return, several months later, he pathetically
+recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken possession of
+the whole, and reared a young family among gnawed bits of paper, which but
+a month previous, represented nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"
+
+This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in the head; for
+several days he seemed like one stunned, but his youth and health stood him
+in hand, he rallied, and, undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with
+dog and gun. In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.
+
+The third catastrophe to some of his drawings was caused by a fire in a New
+York building in which his treasures were kept during his sojourn in
+Europe.
+
+Audubon had an eye for the picturesque in his fellow-men as well as for the
+picturesque in Nature. On the Levee in New Orleans, he first met a painter
+whom he thus describes: "His head was covered by a straw hat, the brim of
+which might cope with those worn by the fair sex in 1830; his neck was
+exposed to the weather; the broad frill of a shirt, then fashionable,
+flopped about his breast, whilst an extraordinary collar, carefully
+arranged, fell over the top of his coat. The latter was of a light green
+colour, harmonising well with a pair of flowing yellow nankeen trousers,
+and a pink waistcoat, from the bosom of which, amidst a large bunch of the
+splendid flowers of the magnolia, protruded part of a young alligator,
+which seemed more anxious to glide through the muddy waters of a swamp than
+to spend its life swinging to and fro amongst folds of the finest lawn. The
+gentleman held in one hand a cage full of richly-plumed nonpareils, whilst
+in the other he sported a silk umbrella, on which I could plainly read
+'Stolen from I,' these words being painted in large white characters. He
+walked as if conscious of his own importance; that is, with a good deal of
+pomposity, singing, 'My love is but a lassie yet'; and that with such
+thorough imitation of the Scotch emphasis that had not his physiognomy
+suggested another parentage, I should have believed him to be a genuine
+Scot. A narrower acquaintance proved him to be a Yankee; and anxious to
+make his acquaintance, I desired to see his birds. He retorted, 'What the
+devil did I know about birds?' I explained to him that I was a naturalist,
+whereupon he requested me to examine his birds. I did so with much
+interest, and was preparing to leave, when he bade me come to his lodgings
+and see the remainder of his collection. This I willingly did, and was
+struck with amazement at the appearance of his studio. Several cages were
+hung about the walls, containing specimens of birds, all of which I
+examined at my leisure. On a large easel before me stood an unfinished
+portrait, other pictures hung about, and in the room were two young pupils;
+and at a glance I discovered that the eccentric stranger was, like myself,
+a naturalist and an artist. The artist, as modest as he was odd, showed me
+how he laid on the paint on his pictures, asked after my own pursuits, and
+showed a friendly spirit which enchanted me. With a ramrod for a rest, he
+prosecuted his work vigorously, and afterwards asked me to examine a
+percussion lock on his gun, a novelty to me at the time. He snapped some
+caps, and on my remarking that he would frighten his birds, he exclaimed,
+'Devil take the birds, there are more of them in the market.' He then
+loaded his gun, and wishing to show me that he was a marksman, fired at one
+of the pins on his easel. This he smashed to pieces, and afterward put a
+rifle bullet exactly through the hole into which the pin fitted."
+
+Audubon reached Natchez on March 24, 1822, and remained there and in the
+vicinity till the spring of 1823, teaching drawing and French to private
+pupils and in the college at Washington, nine miles distant, hunting, and
+painting the birds, and completing his collection. Among other things he
+painted the "Death of Montgomery" from a print. His friends persuaded him
+to raffle the picture off. This he did, and taking one number himself, won
+the picture, while his finances were improved by three hundred dollars
+received for the tickets. Early in the autumn his wife again joined him,
+and presently we find her acting as governess in the home of a clergyman
+named Davis.
+
+In December, there arrived in Natchez a wandering portrait painter named
+Stein, who gave Audubon his first lessons in the use of oil colours, and
+was instructed by Audubon in turn in chalk drawing.
+
+There appear to have been no sacrifices that Mrs. Audubon was not willing
+and ready to make to forward the plans of her husband. "My best friends,"
+he says at this time, "solemnly regarded me as a mad man, and my wife and
+family alone gave me encouragement. My wife determined that my genius
+should prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist should be
+triumphant."
+
+She wanted him to go to Europe, and, to assist toward that end, she entered
+into an engagement with a Mrs. Percy of Bayou Sara, to instruct her
+children, together with her own, and a limited number of outside pupils.
+
+Audubon, in the meantime, with his son Victor, and his new artist friend,
+Stein, started off in a wagon, seeking whom they might paint, on a journey
+through the southern states. They wandered as far as New Orleans, but
+Audubon appears to have returned to his wife again in May, and to have
+engaged in teaching her pupils music and drawing. But something went wrong,
+there was a misunderstanding with the Percys, and Audubon went back to
+Natchez, revolving various schemes in his head, even thinking of again
+entering upon mercantile pursuits in Louisville.
+
+He had no genius for accumulating money nor for keeping it after he had
+gotten it. One day when his affairs were at a very low ebb, he met a
+squatter with a tame black wolf which took Audubon's fancy. He says that he
+offered the owner a hundred dollar bill for it on the spot, but was
+refused. He probably means to say that he would have offered it had he had
+it. Hundred dollar bills, I fancy, were rarer than tame black wolves in
+that pioneer country in those days.
+
+About this time he and his son Victor were taken with yellow fever, and
+Mrs. Audubon was compelled to dismiss her school and go to nurse them. They
+both recovered, and, in October (1823), set out for Louisville, making part
+of the journey on foot. The following winter was passed at Shipping Port,
+near Louisville, where Audubon painted birds, landscapes, portraits and
+even signs. In March he left Shipping Port for Philadelphia, leaving his
+son Victor in the counting house of a Mr. Berthoud. He reached Philadelphia
+on April 5, and remained there till the following August, studying
+painting, exhibiting his birds, making many new acquaintances, among them
+Charles Lucien Bonaparte, giving lessons in drawing at thirty dollars per
+month, all the time casting wistful eyes toward Europe, whither he hoped
+soon to be able to go with his drawings. In July he made a pilgrimage to
+Mill Grove where he had passed so many happy years. The sight of the old
+familiar scenes filled him with the deepest emotions.
+
+In August he left Philadelphia for New York, hoping to improve his
+finances, and, may be, publish his drawings in that city. At this time he
+had two hundred sheets, and about one thousand birds. While there he again
+met Vanderlyn and examined his pictures, but says that he was not impressed
+with the idea that Vanderlyn was a great painter.
+
+The birds that he saw in the museum in New York appeared to him to be set
+up in unnatural and constrained attitudes. With Dr. De Kay he visited the
+Lyceum, and his drawings were examined by members of the Institute. Among
+them he felt awkward and uncomfortable. "I feel that I am strange to all
+but the birds of America," he said. As most of the persons to whom he had
+letters of introduction were absent, and as his spirits soon grew low, he
+left on the fifteenth for Albany. Here he found his money low also.
+Abandoning the idea of visiting Boston, he took passage on a canal boat for
+Rochester. His fellow-passengers on the boat were doubtful whether he was a
+government officer, commissioner, or spy. At that time Rochester had only
+five thousand inhabitants. After a couple of days he went on to Buffalo
+and, he says, wrote under his name at the hotel this sentence: "Who, like
+Wilson, will ramble, but never, like that great man, die under the lash of
+a bookseller."
+
+He visited Niagara, and gives a good account of the impressions which the
+cataract made upon him. He did not cross the bridge to Goat Island on
+account of the low state of his funds. In Buffalo he obtained a good dinner
+of bread and milk for twelve cents, and went to bed cheering himself with
+thoughts of other great men who had encountered greater hardships and had
+finally achieved fame.
+
+He soon left Buffalo, taking a deck passage on a schooner bound for Erie,
+furnishing his own bed and provisions and paying a fare of one dollar and a
+half. From Erie he and a fellow-traveller hired a man and cart to take them
+to Meadville, paying their entertainers over night with music and portrait
+drawing. Reaching Meadville, they had only one dollar and a half between
+them, but soon replenished their pockets by sketching some of the leading
+citizens.
+
+Audubon's belief in himself helped him wonderfully. He knew that he had
+talents, he insisted on using them. Most of his difficulties came from
+trying to do the things he was not fitted to do. He did not hesitate to use
+his talents in a humble way, when nothing else offered--portraits,
+landscapes, birds and animals he painted, but he would paint the cabin
+walls of the ship to pay his passage, if he was short of funds, or execute
+crayon portraits of a shoemaker and his wife, to pay for shoes to enable
+him to continue his journeys. He could sleep on a steamer's deck, with a
+few shavings for a bed, and, wrapped in a blanket, look up at the starlit
+sky, and give thanks to a Providence that he believed was ever guarding and
+guiding him.
+
+Early in September he left for Pittsburg where he spent one month scouring
+the country for birds and continuing his drawings. In October, he was on
+his way down the Ohio in a skiff, in company with "a doctor, an artist and
+an Irishman." The weather was rainy, and at Wheeling his companions left
+the boat in disgust. He sold his skiff and continued his voyage to
+Cincinnati in a keel boat. Here he obtained a loan of fifteen dollars and
+took deck passage on a boat to Louisville, going thence to Shipping Port to
+see his son Victor. In a few days he was off for Bayou Sara to see his
+wife, and with a plan to open a school there.
+
+"I arrived at Bayou Sara with rent and wasted clothes, and uncut hair, and
+altogether looking like the Wandering Jew."
+
+In his haste to reach his wife and child at Mr. Percy's, a mile or more
+distant through the woods, he got lost in the night, and wandered till
+daylight before he found the house.
+
+He found his wife had prospered in his absence, and was earning nearly
+three thousand dollars a year, with which she was quite ready to help him
+in the publication of his drawings. He forthwith resolved to see what he
+could do to increase the amount by his own efforts. Receiving an offer to
+teach dancing, he soon had a class of sixty organised. But the material
+proved so awkward and refractory that the master in his first lesson broke
+his bow and nearly ruined his violin in his excitement and impatience. Then
+he danced to his own music till the whole room came down in thunders of
+applause. The dancing lessons brought him two thousand dollars; this sum,
+together with his wife's savings, enabled him to foresee a successful issue
+to his great ornithological work.
+
+On May, 1826, he embarked at New Orleans on board the ship _Delos_ for
+Liverpool. His journal kept during this voyage abounds in interesting
+incidents and descriptions. He landed at Liverpool, July 20, and delivered
+some of his letters of introduction. He soon made the acquaintance of Mr.
+Rathbone, Mr. Roscoe, Mr. Baring, and Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley said in
+looking over his drawings: "This work is unique, and deserves the patronage
+of the Crown." In a letter to his wife at this time, Audubon said: "I am
+cherished by the most notable people in and around Liverpool, and have
+obtained letters of introduction to Baron Humboldt, Sir Walter Scott, Sir
+Humphry Davy, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Hannah More, Miss Edgeworth, and your
+distinguished cousin, Robert Bakewell." Mark his courtesy to his wife in
+this gracious mention of her relative--a courtesy which never forsook him--
+a courtesy which goes far toward retaining any woman's affection.
+
+His paintings were put on exhibition in the rooms of the Royal Institution,
+an admittance of one shilling being charged. From this source he soon
+realised a hundred pounds.
+
+He then went to Edinburgh, carrying letters of introduction to many well
+known literary and scientific men, among them Francis Jeffrey and
+"Christopher North."
+
+Professor Jameson, the Scotch naturalist, received him coldly, and told
+him, among other things, that there was no chance of his seeing Sir Walter
+Scott--he was too busy. "_Not see Sir Walter Scott_?" thought I; "I
+SHALL, if I have to crawl on all fours for a mile." On his way up in the
+stage coach he had passed near Sir Walter's seat, and had stood up and
+craned his neck in vain to get a glimpse of the home of a man to whom, he
+says, he was indebted for so much pleasure. He and Scott were in many ways
+kindred spirits, men native to the open air, inevitable sportsmen, copious
+and romantic lovers and observers of all forms and conditions of life. Of
+course he will want to see Scott, and Scott will want to see him, if he
+once scents his real quality.
+
+Later, Professor Jameson showed Audubon much kindness and helped to
+introduce him to the public.
+
+In January, the opportunity to see Scott came to him.
+
+"_January 22, Monday_. I was painting diligently when Captain Hall
+came in, and said: 'Put on your coat, and come with me to Sir Walter Scott;
+he wishes to see you _now_.' In a moment I was ready, for I really
+believe my coat and hat came to me instead of my going to them. My heart
+trembled; I longed for the meeting, yet wished it over. Had not his
+wondrous pen penetrated my soul with the consciousness that here was a
+genius from God's hand? I felt overwhelmed at the thought of meeting Sir
+Walter, the Great Unknown. We reached the house, and a powdered waiter was
+asked if Sir Walter were in. We were shown forward at once, and entering a
+very small room Captain Hall said: 'Sir Walter, I have brought Mr.
+Audubon.' Sir Walter came forward, pressed my hand warmly, and said he was
+'glad to have the honour of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks
+struck me; he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of
+Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him and
+a kindness most prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at him, my eyes
+feasted on his countenance. I watched his movements as I would those of a
+celestial being; his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me forcibly. His
+little room was tidy, though it partook a good deal of the character of a
+laboratory. He was wrapped in a quilted morning-gown of light purple silk;
+he had been at work writing on the 'Life of Napoleon.' He writes close
+lines, rather curved as they go from left to right, and puts an immense
+deal on very little paper. After a few minutes had elapsed, he begged
+Captain Hall to ring a bell; a servant came and was asked to bid Miss Scott
+come to see Mr. Audubon. Miss Scott came, black haired and black-dressed,
+not handsome but said to be highly accomplished, and she is the daughter of
+Sir Walter Scott. There was much conversation. I talked but little, but,
+believe me, I listened and observed, careful if ignorant. I cannot write
+more now. I have just returned from the Royal Society. Knowing that I was a
+candidate for the electorate of the society, I felt very uncomfortable and
+would gladly have been hunting on Tawapatee Bottom."
+
+It may be worth while now to see what Scott thought of Audubon. Under the
+same date, Sir Walter writes in his journal as follows: "_January_ 22,
+1827. A visit from Basil Hall, with Mr. Audubon, the ornithologist, who has
+followed the pursuit by many a long wandering in the American forests. He
+is an American by naturalisation, a Frenchman by birth; but less of a
+Frenchman than I have ever seen--no dust or glimmer, or shine about him,
+but great simplicity of manners and behaviour; slight in person and plainly
+dressed; wears long hair, which time has not yet tinged; his countenance
+acute, handsome, and interesting, but still simplicity is the predominant
+characteristic. I wish I had gone to see his drawings; but I had heard so
+much about them that I resolved not to see them--'a crazy way of mine, your
+honour.'"
+
+Two days later Audubon again saw Scott, and writes in his journal as
+follows: "_January 24_. My second visit to Sir Walter Scott was much
+more agreeable than my first. My portfolio and its contents were matters on
+which I could speak substantially, and I found him so willing to level
+himself with me for awhile that the time spent at his home was agreeable
+and valuable. His daughter improved in looks the moment she spoke, having
+both vivacity and good sense."
+
+Scott's impressions of the birds as recorded in his journal, was that the
+drawings were of the first order, but he thought that the aim at extreme
+correctness and accuracy made them rather stiff.
+
+In February Audubon met Scott again at the opening of the Exhibition at the
+rooms of the Royal Institution.
+
+"_Tuesday, February 13_. This was the grand, long promised, and much
+wished-for day of the opening of the Exhibition at the rooms of the Royal
+Institution. At one o'clock I went, the doors were just opened, and in a
+few minutes the rooms were crowded. Sir Walter Scott was present; he came
+towards me, shook my hand cordially, and pointing to Landseer's picture
+said: 'Many such scenes, Mr. Audubon, have I witnessed in my younger days.'
+We talked much of all about us, and I would gladly have joined him in a
+glass of wine, but my foolish habits prevented me, and after inquiring of
+his daughter's health, I left him, and shortly afterwards the rooms; for I
+had a great appetite, and although there were tables loaded with
+delicacies, and I saw the ladies particularly eating freely, I must say to
+my shame I dared not lay my fingers on a single thing. In the evening I
+went to the theatre where I was much amused by 'The Comedy of Errors,' and
+afterwards, 'The Green Room.' I admire Miss Neville's singing very much;
+and her manners also; there is none of the actress about her, but much of
+the lady."
+
+Audubon somewhere says of himself that he was "temperate to an intemperate
+degree"--the accounts in later years show that he became less strict in
+this respect. He would not drink with Sir Walter Scott at this time, but he
+did with the Texan Houston and with President Andrew Jackson, later on.
+
+In September we find him exhibiting his pictures in Manchester, but without
+satisfactory results. In the lobby of the exchange where his pictures were
+on exhibition, he overheard one man say to another: "Pray, have you seen
+Mr. Audubon's collection of birds? I am told it is well worth a shilling;
+suppose we go now."
+
+"Pah! it is all a hoax; save your shilling for better use. I have seen
+them; the fellow ought to be drummed out of town."
+
+In 1827, in Edinburgh, he seems to have issued a prospectus for his work,
+and to have opened books of subscription, and now a publisher, Mr. Lizars,
+offers to bring out the first number of "Birds of America," and on November
+28, the first proof of the first engraving was shown him, and he was
+pleased with it.
+
+With a specimen number he proposed to travel about the country in quest of
+subscribers until he had secured three hundred. In his journal under date
+of December 10, he says: "My success in Edinburgh borders on the
+miraculous. My book is to be published in numbers containing four [in
+another place he says five] birds in each, the size of life, in a style
+surpassing anything now existing, at two guineas a number. The engravings
+are truly beautiful; some of them have been coloured, and are now on
+exhibition."
+
+Audubon's journal, kept during his stay in Edinburgh, is copious, graphic,
+and entertaining. It is a mirror of everything he saw and felt.
+
+Among others he met George Combe, the phrenologist, author of the once
+famous _Constitution of Man_, and he submitted to having his head
+"looked at." The examiner said: "There cannot exist a moment of doubt that
+this gentleman is a painter, colourist, and compositor, and, I would add,
+an amiable though quick tempered man."
+
+Audubon was invited to the annual feast given by the Antiquarian Society at
+the Waterloo Hotel, at which Lord Elgin presided. After the health of many
+others had been drunk, Audubon's was proposed by Skene, a Scottish
+historian. "Whilst he was engaged in a handsome panegyric, the perspiration
+poured from me. I thought I should faint." But he survived the ordeal and
+responded in a few appropriate words. He was much dined and wined, and
+obliged to keep late hours--often getting no more than four hours sleep,
+and working hard painting and writing all the next day. He often wrote in
+his journals for his wife to read later, bidding her Good-night, or rather
+Good-morning, at three A.M.
+
+Audubon had the bashfulness and awkwardness of the backwoodsman, and
+doubtless the naivete and picturesqueness also; these traits and his very
+great merits as a painter of wild life, made him a favourite in Edinburgh
+society. One day he went to read a paper on the Crow to Dr. Brewster, and
+was so nervous and agitated that he had to pause for a moment in the midst
+of it. He left the paper with Dr. Brewster and when he got it back again
+was much shocked: "He had greatly improved the style (for I had none), but
+he had destroyed the matter."
+
+During these days Audubon was very busy writing, painting, receiving
+callers, and dining out. He grew very tired of it all at times, and longed
+for the solitude of his native woods. Some days his room was a perfect
+levee. "It is Mr. Audubon here, and Mr. Audubon there; I only hope they
+will not make a conceited fool of Mr. Audubon at last." There seems to have
+been some danger of this, for he says: "I seem in a measure to have gone
+back to my early days of society and fine dressing, silk stockings and
+pumps, and all the finery with which I made a popinjay of myself in my
+youth.... I wear my hair as long as usual, I believe it does as much for
+me as my paintings."
+
+He wrote to Thomas Sully of Philadelphia, promising to send him his first
+number, to be presented to the Philadelphia Society--"an institution which
+thought me unworthy to be a member," he writes.
+
+About this time he was a guest for a day or two of Earl Morton, at his
+estate Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh. He had expected to see an imposing
+personage in the great Chamberlain to the late queen Charlotte. What was
+his relief and surprise, then, to see a "small, slender man, tottering on
+his feet, weaker than a newly hatched partridge," who welcomed him with
+tears in his eyes. The countess, "a fair, fresh-complexioned woman, with
+dark, flashing eyes," wrote her name in his subscription book, and offered
+to pay the price in advance. The next day he gave her a lesson in drawing.
+
+On his return to Edinburgh he dined with Captain Hall, to meet Francis
+Jeffrey. "Jeffrey is a little man," he writes, "with a serious face and
+dignified air. He looks both shrewd and cunning, and talks with so much
+volubility he is rather displeasing.... Mrs. Jeffrey was nervous and very
+much dressed."
+
+Early in January he painted his "Pheasant attacked by a Fox." This was his
+method of proceeding: "I take one [a fox] neatly killed, put him up with
+wires, and when satisfied with the truth of the position, I take my palette
+and work as rapidly as possible; the same with my birds. If practicable, I
+finish the bird at one sitting,--often, it is true, of fourteen hours,--so
+that I think they are correct, both in detail and in composition."
+
+In pictures by Landseer and other artists which he saw in the galleries of
+Edinburgh, he saw the skilful painter, "the style of men who know how to
+handle a brush, and carry a good effect," but he missed that closeness and
+fidelity to Nature which to him so much outweighed mere technique.
+Landseer's "Death of a Stag" affected him like a farce. It was pretty, but
+not real and true. He did not feel that way about the sermon he heard
+Sydney Smith preach: "It was a sermon to _me_. He made me smile and he
+made me think deeply. He pleased me at times by painting my foibles with
+due care, and again I felt the colour come to my cheeks as he portrayed my
+sins." Later, he met Sydney Smith and his "fair daughter," and heard the
+latter sing. Afterwards he had a note from the famous divine upon which he
+remarks: "The man should study economy; he would destroy more paper in a
+day than Franklin would in a week; but all great men are more or less
+eccentric. Walter Scott writes a diminutive hand, very difficult to read,
+Napoleon a large scrawling one, still more difficult, and Sydney Smith goes
+up hill all the way with large strides."
+
+Having decided upon visiting London, he yielded to the persuasions of his
+friends and had his hair cut before making the trip. He chronicles the
+event in his journal as a very sad one, in which "the will of God was
+usurped by the wishes of man." Shorn of his locks he probably felt humbled
+like the stag when he loses his horns.
+
+Quitting Edinburgh on April 5, he visited, in succession, Newcastle, Leeds,
+York, Shrewsbury, and Manchester, in quest of subscribers to his great
+work. A few were obtained at each place at two hundred pounds per head. At
+Newcastle he first met Bewick, the famous wood engraver, and conceived a
+deep liking for him.
+
+We find him in London on May 21, 1827, and not in a very happy frame of
+mind: "To me London is just like the mouth of an immense monster, guarded
+by millions of sharp-edged teeth, from which, if I escape unhurt, it must
+be called a miracle." It only filled him with a strong desire to be in his
+beloved woods again. His friend, Basil Hall, had insisted upon his
+procuring a black suit of clothes. When he put this on to attend his first
+dinner party, he spoke of himself as "attired like a mournful raven," and
+probably more than ever wished himself in the woods.
+
+He early called upon the great portrait painter, Sir Thomas Lawrence, who
+inspected his drawings, pronounced them "very clever," and, in a few days,
+brought him several purchasers for some of his animal paintings, thus
+replenishing his purse with nearly one hundred pounds.
+
+Considering Audubon's shy disposition, and his dread of persons in high
+places, it is curious that he should have wanted to call upon the King, and
+should have applied to the American Minister, Mr. Gallatin, to help him to
+do so. Mr. Gallatin laughed and said: "It is impossible, my dear sir, the
+King sees nobody; he has the gout, is peevish, and spends his time playing
+whist at a shilling a rubber. I had to wait six weeks before I was
+presented to him in my position of ambassador." But his work was presented
+to the King who called it fine, and His Majesty became a subscriber on the
+usual terms. Other noble persons followed suit, yet Audubon was despondent.
+He had removed the publication of his work from Edinburgh to London, from
+the hands of Mr. Lizars into those of Robert Havell. But the enterprise did
+not prosper, his agents did not attend to business, nor to his orders, and
+he soon found himself at bay for means to go forward with the work. At this
+juncture he determined to make a sortie for the purpose of collecting his
+dues and to add to his subscribers. He visited Leeds, York, and other
+towns. Under date of October 9, at York, he writes in his journal: "How
+often I thought during these visits of poor Alexander Wilson. Then
+travelling as I am now, to procure subscribers he, as well as myself, was
+received with rude coldness, and sometimes with that arrogance which
+belongs to _parvenus."_
+
+A week or two later we find him again in Edinburgh where he breakfasted
+with Professor Wilson ("Christopher North"), whom he greatly enjoyed, a man
+without stiffness or ceremonies: "No cravat, no waistcoat, but a fine frill
+of his own profuse beard, his hair flowing uncontrolled, and his speech
+dashing at once at the object in view, without circumlocution.... He gives
+me comfort by being comfortable himself."
+
+In early November he took the coach for Glasgow, he and three other
+passengers making the entire journey without uttering a single word: "We
+sat like so many owls of different species, as if afraid of one another."
+Four days in Glasgow and only one subscriber.
+
+Early in January he is back in London arranging with Mr. Havell for the
+numbers to be engraved in 1828. One day on looking up to the new moon he
+saw a large flock of wild ducks passing over, then presently another flock
+passed. The sight of these familiar objects made him more homesick than
+ever. He often went to Regent's Park to see the trees, and the green grass,
+and to hear the sweet notes of the black birds and starlings.
+
+The black birds' note revived his drooping spirits: to his wife he writes,
+"it carries my mind to the woods around thee, my Lucy."
+
+Now and then a subscriber withdrew his name, which always cut him to the
+quick, but did not dishearten him.
+
+"_January 28_. I received a letter from D. Lizars to-day announcing to
+me the loss of four subscribers; but these things do not dampen my spirits
+half so much as the smoke of London. I am as dull as a beetle."
+
+In February he learned that it was Sir Thomas Lawrence who prevented the
+British Museum from subscribing to his work: "He considered the drawings
+so-so, and the engraving and colouring bad; when I remember how he praised
+these same drawings _in my presence,_ I wonder--that is all."
+
+The rudest man he met in England was the Earl of Kinnoul: "A small man with
+a face like the caricature of an owl." He sent for Audubon to tell him that
+all his birds were alike, and that he considered his work a swindle. "He
+may really think this, his knowledge is probably small; but it is not the
+custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's own house." Audubon
+heard his words, bowed and left him without speaking.
+
+In March he went to Cambridge and met and was dined by many learned men.
+The University, through its Librarian, subscribed for his work. Other
+subscriptions followed. He was introduced to a judge who wore a wig that
+"might make a capital bed for an Osage Indian during the whole of a cold
+winter on the Arkansas River."
+
+On his way to Oxford he saw them turn a stag from a cart "before probably a
+hundred hounds and as many huntsmen. A curious land, and a curious custom,
+to catch an animal and then set it free merely to catch it again." At
+Oxford he received much attention, but complains that not one of the
+twenty-two colleges subscribed for his work, though two other institutions
+did.
+
+Early in April we find him back in London lamenting over his sad fate in
+being compelled to stay in so miserable a place. He could neither write nor
+draw to his satisfaction amid the "bustle, filth, and smoke." His mind and
+heart turned eagerly toward America, and to his wife and boys, and he began
+seriously to plan for a year's absence from England. He wanted to renew and
+to improve about fifty of his drawings. During this summer of 1828, he was
+very busy in London, painting, writing, and superintending the colouring of
+his plates. Under date of August 9, he writes in his journal: "I have been
+at work from four every morning until dark; I have kept up my large
+correspondence. My publication goes on well and regularly, and this very
+day seventy sets have been distributed, yet the number of my subscribers
+has not increased; on the contrary, I have lost some." He made the
+acquaintance of Swainson, and the two men found much companionship in each
+other, and had many long talks about birds: "Why, Lucy, thou wouldst think
+that birds were all that we cared for in this world, but thou knowest this
+is not so."
+
+Together he and Mr. and Mrs. Swainson planned a trip to Paris, which they
+carried out early in September. It tickled Audubon greatly to find that the
+Frenchman at the office in Calais, who had never seen him, had described
+his complexion in his passport as copper red, because he was an American,
+all Americans suggesting aborigines. In Paris they early went to call upon
+Baron Cuvier. They were told that he was too busy to be seen: "Being
+determined to look at the Great Man, we waited, knocked again, and with a
+certain degree of firmness, sent in our names. The messenger returned,
+bowed, and led the way up stairs, where in a minute Monsieur le Baron, like
+an excellent good man, came to us. He had heard much of my friend Swainson,
+and greeted him as he deserves to be greeted; he was polite and kind to me,
+though my name had never made its way to his ears. I looked at him and here
+follows the result: Age about sixty-five; size corpulent, five feet five
+English measure; head large, face wrinkled and brownish; eyes grey,
+brilliant and sparkling; nose aquiline, large and red; mouth large with
+good lips; teeth few, blunted by age, excepting one on the lower jaw,
+_measuring nearly three-quarters of an inch square._" The italics are
+not Audubon's. The great naturalist invited his callers to dine with him at
+six on the next Saturday.
+
+They next presented their letter to Geoffroy de St. Hilaire, with whom they
+were particularly pleased. Neither had he ever heard of Audubon's work. The
+dinner with Cuvier gave him a nearer view of the manners and habits of the
+great man. "There was not the show of opulence at this dinner that is seen
+in the same rank of life in England, no, not by far, but it was a good
+dinner served _a la Francaise._" Neither was it followed by the
+"drinking matches" of wine, so common at English tables.
+
+During his stay in Paris Audubon saw much of Cuvier, and was very kindly
+and considerately treated by him. One day he accompanied a portrait painter
+to his house and saw him sit for his portrait: "I see the Baron now, quite
+as plainly as I did this morning,--an old green surtout about him, a
+neckcloth that would have wrapped his whole body if unfolded, loosely tied
+about his chin, and his silver locks looking like those of a man who loves
+to study books better than to visit barbers."
+
+Audubon remained in Paris till near the end of October, making the
+acquaintance of men of science and of artists, and bringing his work to the
+attention of those who were likely to value it. Baron Cuvier reported
+favourably upon it to the Academy of Sciences, pronouncing it "the most
+magnificent monument which has yet been erected to ornithology." He
+obtained thirteen subscribers in France and spent forty pounds.
+
+On November 9, he is back in London, and soon busy painting, and pressing
+forward the engraving and colouring of his work. The eleventh number was
+the first for the year 1829.
+
+The winter was largely taken up in getting ready for his return trip to
+America. He found a suitable agent to look after his interests, collected
+some money, paid all his debts, and on April 1 sailed from Portsmouth in
+the packet ship _Columbia_. He was sea-sick during the entire voyage,
+and reached New York May 5. He did not hasten to his family as would have
+been quite natural after so long an absence, but spent the summer and part
+of the fall in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prosecuting his studies and
+drawings of birds, making his headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. He spent
+six weeks in the Great Pine Forest, and much time at Great Egg Harbor, and
+has given delightful accounts of these trips in his journals. Four hours'
+sleep out of the twenty-four was his allotted allowance.
+
+One often marvels at Audubon's apparent indifference to his wife and his
+home, for from the first he was given to wandering. Then, too, his
+carelessness in money matters, and his improvident ways, necessitating his
+wife's toiling to support the family, put him in a rather unfavourable
+light as a "good provider," but a perusal of his journal shows that he was
+keenly alive to all the hardships and sacrifices of his wife, and from
+first to last in his journeyings he speaks of his longings for home and
+family. "Cut off from all dearest me," he says in one of his youthful
+journeys, and in his latest one he speaks of himself as being as happy as
+one can be who is "three thousand miles from the dearest friend on earth."
+Clearly some impelling force held him to the pursuit of this work,
+hardships or no hardships. Fortunately for him, his wife shared his belief
+in his talents and in their ultimate recognition.
+
+Under date of October 11, 1829, he writes: "I am at work and have done
+much, but I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the
+specimens; still I am delighted at what I have accumulated in drawings this
+season. Forty-two drawings in four months, eleven large, eleven middle
+size, and twenty-two small, comprising ninety-five birds, from eagles
+downwards, with plants, nests, flowers, and sixty different kinds of eggs.
+I live alone, see scarcely anyone besides those belonging to the house
+where I lodge. I rise long before day, and work till nightfall, when I take
+a walk and to bed."
+
+Audubon's capacity for work was extraordinary. His enthusiasm and
+perseverance were equally extraordinary. His purposes and ideas fairly
+possessed him. Never did a man consecrate himself more fully to the
+successful completion of the work of his life, than did Audubon to the
+finishing of his "American Ornithology."
+
+During this month Audubon left Camden and turned his face toward his wife
+and children, crossing the mountains to Pittsburg in the mail coach with
+his dog and gun, thence down the Ohio in a steamboat to Louisville, where
+he met his son Victor, whom he had not seen for five years. After a few
+days here with his two boys, he started for Bayou Sara to see his wife.
+Beaching Mr. Johnson's house in the early morning, he went at once to his
+wife's apartment: "Her door was ajar, already she was dressed and sitting
+by her piano, on which a young lady was playing. I pronounced her name
+gently, she saw me, and the next moment I held her in my arms. Her emotion
+was so great I feared I had acted rashly, but tears relieved our hearts,
+once more we were together."
+
+Mrs. Audubon soon settled up her affairs at Bayou Sara, and the two set out
+early in January, 1830, for Louisville, thence to Cincinnati, thence to
+Wheeling, and so on to Washington, where Audubon exhibited his drawings to
+the House of Representatives and received their subscriptions as a body. In
+Washington, he met the President, Andrew Jackson, and made the acquaintance
+of Edward Everett. Thence to Baltimore where he obtained three more
+subscribers, thence to New York from which port he sailed in April with his
+wife on the packet ship Pacific, for England, and arrived at Liverpool in
+twenty-five days.
+
+This second sojourn in England lasted till the second of August, 1831. The
+time was occupied in pushing the publication of his "Birds," canvassing the
+country for new subscribers, painting numerous pictures for sale, writing
+his "Ornithological Biography," living part of the time in Edinburgh, and
+part of the time in London, with two or three months passed in France,
+where there were fourteen subscribers. While absent in America, he had been
+elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and on May 6 took his seat
+in the great hall.
+
+He needed some competent person to assist him in getting his manuscript
+ready for publication and was so fortunate as to obtain the services of
+MacGillivray, the biographer of British Birds.
+
+Audubon had learned that three editions of Wilson's "Ornithology" were
+soon to be published in Edinburgh, and he set to work vigorously to get his
+book out before them. Assisted by MacGillivray, he worked hard at his
+biography of the birds, writing all day, and Mrs. Audubon making a copy of
+the work to send to America to secure copyright there. Writing to her sons
+at this time, Mrs. Audubon says: "Nothing is heard but the steady movement
+of the pen; your father is up and at work before dawn, and writes without
+ceasing all day."
+
+When the first volume was finished, Audubon offered it to two publishers,
+both of whom refused it, so he published it himself in March, 1831.
+
+In April on his way to London he travelled "on that Extraordinary road
+called the railway, at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour."
+
+The first volume of his bird pictures was completed this summer, and, in
+bringing it out, forty thousand dollars had passed through his hands. It
+had taken four years to bring that volume before the world, during which
+time no less than fifty of his subscribers, representing the sum of
+fifty-six thousand dollars, had abandoned him, so that at the end of that
+time, he had only one hundred and thirty names standing on his list.
+
+It was no easy thing to secure enough men to pledge themselves to $1,000
+for a work, the publication of which must of necessity extend over eight or
+ten years.
+
+Few enterprises, involving such labour and expense, have ever been carried
+through against such odds.
+
+The entire cost of the "Birds" exceeded one hundred thousand dollars, yet
+the author never faltered in this gigantic undertaking.
+
+On August 2, Audubon and his wife sailed for America, and landed in New
+York on September 4. They at once went to Louisville where the wife
+remained with her sons, while the husband went to Florida where the winter
+of 1831-2 was spent, prosecuting his studies of our birds. His adventures
+and experiences in Florida, he has embodied in his Floridian Episodes, "The
+Live Oakers," "Spring Garden," "Deer Hunting," "Sandy Island," "The
+Wreckers," "The Turtles," "Death of a Pirate," and other sketches. Stopping
+at Charleston, South Carolina, on this southern trip, he made the
+acquaintance of the Reverend John Bachman, and a friendship between these
+two men was formed that lasted as long as they both lived. Subsequently,
+Audubon's sons, Victor and John, married Dr. Bachman's two eldest
+daughters.
+
+In the summer of 1832, Audubon, accompanied by his wife and two sons, made
+a trip to Maine and New Brunswick, going very leisurely by private
+conveyance through these countries, studying the birds, the people, the
+scenery, and gathering new material for his work. His diaries give minute
+accounts of these journeyings. He was impressed by the sobriety of the
+people of Maine; they seem to have had a "Maine law" at that early date;
+"for on asking for brandy, rum, or whiskey, not a drop could I obtain." He
+saw much of the lumbermen and was a deeply interested spectator of their
+ways and doings. Some of his best descriptive passages are contained in
+these diaries.
+
+In October he is back in Boston planning a trip to Labrador, and intent on
+adding more material to his "Birds" by another year in his home country.
+
+That his interests abroad in the meantime might not suffer by being
+entirely in outside hands, he sent his son Victor, now a young man of
+considerable business experience, to England to represent him there. The
+winter of 1832 and 1833 Audubon seems to have spent mainly in Boston,
+drawing and re-drawing and there he had his first serious illness.
+
+In the spring of 1833, a schooner was chartered and, accompanied by five
+young men, his youngest son, John Woodhouse, among them, Audubon started on
+his Labrador trip, which lasted till the end of summer. It was an expensive
+and arduous trip, but was greatly enjoyed by all hands, and was fruitful in
+new material for his work. Seventy-three bird skins were prepared, many
+drawings made, and many new plants collected.
+
+The weather in Labrador was for the most part rainy, foggy, cold, and
+windy, and his drawings were made in the cabin of his vessel, often under
+great difficulties. He makes this interesting observation upon the Eider
+duck: "In one nest of the Eider ten eggs were found; this is the most we
+have seen as yet in any one nest. The female draws the down from her
+abdomen as far toward her breast as her bill will allow her to do, but the
+feathers are not pulled, and on examination of several specimens, I found
+these well and regularly planted, and cleaned from their original down, as
+a forest of trees is cleared of its undergrowth. In this state the female
+is still well clothed, and little or no difference can be seen in the
+plumage, unless examined."
+
+He gives this realistic picture of salmon fishermen that his party saw in
+Labrador: "On going to a house on the shore, we found it a tolerably good
+cabin, floored, containing a good stove, a chimney, and an oven at the
+bottom of this, like the ovens of the French peasants, three beds, and a
+table whereon the breakfast of the family was served. This consisted of
+coffee in large bowls, good bread, and fried salmon. Three Labrador dogs
+came and sniffed about us, and then returned under the table whence they
+had issued, with no appearance of anger. Two men, two women, and a babe
+formed the group, which I addressed in French. They were French-Canadians
+and had been here several years, winter and summer, and are agents for the
+Fur and Fish Co., who give them food, clothes, and about $80 per annum.
+They have a cow and an ox, about an acre of potatoes planted in sand, seven
+feet of snow in winter, and two-thirds less salmon than was caught here ten
+years since. Then, three hundred barrels was a fair season; now one hundred
+is the maximum; this is because they will catch the fish both ascending and
+descending the river. During winter the men hunt Foxes, Martens, and
+Sables, and kill some bear of the black kind, but neither Deer nor other
+game is to be found without going a great distance in the interior, where
+Reindeer are now and then procured. One species of Grouse, and one of
+Ptarmigan, the latter white at all seasons; the former, I suppose to be,
+the Willow Grouse. The men would neither sell nor give us a single salmon,
+saying, that so strict were their orders that, should they sell _one,_
+the place might be taken from them. If this should prove the case
+everywhere, I shall not purchase many for my friends. The furs which they
+collect are sent off to Quebec at the first opening of the waters in
+spring, and not a skin of any sort was here for us to look at."
+
+He gives a vivid picture of the face of Nature in Labrador on a fine day,
+under date of July 2: "A beautiful day for Labrador. Drew another _M.
+articus._ Went on shore, and was most pleased with what I saw. The
+country, so wild and grand, is of itself enough to interest any one in its
+wonderful dreariness. Its mossy, grey-clothed rocks, heaped and thrown
+together as if by chance, in the most fantastical groups imaginable, huge
+masses hanging on minor ones as if about to roll themselves down from their
+doubtful-looking situations, into the depths of the sea beneath. Bays
+without end, sprinkled with rocky islands of all shapes and sizes, where in
+every fissure a Guillemot, a Cormorant, or some other wild bird retreats to
+secure its egg, and raise its young, or save itself from the hunter's
+pursuit. The peculiar cast of the sky, which never seems to be certain,
+butterflies flitting over snowbanks, probing beautiful dwarf flowerets of
+many hues, pushing their tender, stems from the thick bed of moss which
+everywhere covers the granite rocks. Then the morasses, wherein you plunge
+up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery,
+making one think that as he goes he treads down the _forests_ of
+Labrador. The unexpected Bunting, or perhaps Sylvia, which, perchance, and
+indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or
+hear singing from the creeping plants on the ground. The beautiful
+freshwater lakes, on the rugged crests of greatly elevated islands, wherein
+the Red and Black-necked Divers swim as proudly as swans do in other
+latitudes, and where the fish appear to have been cast as strayed beings
+from the surplus food of the ocean. All--all is wonderfully grand, wild--
+aye, and terrific. And yet how beautiful it is now, when one sees the wild
+bee, moving from one flower to another in search of food, which doubtless
+is as sweet to it, as the essence of the magnolia is to those of favoured
+Louisiana. The little Ring Plover rearing its delicate and tender young,
+the Eider Duck swimming man-of-war-like amid her floating brood, like the
+guardship of a most valuable convoy; the White-crowned Bunting's sonorous
+note reaching the ear ever and anon; the crowds of sea birds in search of
+places wherein to repose or to feed--how beautiful is all this in this
+wonderful rocky desert at this season, the beginning of July, compared with
+the horrid blasts of winter which here predominate by the will of God, when
+every rock is rendered smooth with snows so deep that every step the
+traveller takes is as if entering into his grave; for even should he escape
+an avalanche, his eye dreads to search the horizon, for full well he knows
+that snow--snow is all that can be seen. I watched the Ring Plover for some
+time; the parents were so intent on saving their young that they both lay
+on the rocks as if shot, quivering their wings and dragging their bodies as
+if quite disabled. We left them and their young to the care of the Creator.
+I would not have shot one of the old ones, or taken one of the young for
+any consideration, and I was glad my young men were as forbearing. The
+_L. marinus_ is extremely abundant here; they are forever harassing
+every other bird, sucking their eggs, and devouring their young; they take
+here the place of Eagles and Hawks; not an Eagle have we seen yet, and only
+two or three small Hawks, and one small Owl; yet what a harvest they would
+have here, were there trees for them to rest upon."
+
+On his return from Labrador in September, Audubon spent three weeks in New
+York, after which with his wife, he started upon another southern trip,
+pausing at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond. In Washington
+he made some attempts to obtain permission to accompany a proposed
+expedition to the Rocky Mountains, under Government patronage. But the cold
+and curt manner in which Cass, then Secretary of War, received his
+application, quite disheartened him. But he presently met Washington
+Irving, whose friendly face and cheering words revived his spirits. How one
+would like a picture of that meeting in Washington between Audubon and
+Irving--two men who in so many ways were kindred spirits!
+
+Charleston, South Carolina, was reached late in October, and at the home of
+their friend Bachman the Audubons seem to have passed the most of the
+winter of 1833-4: "My time was well employed; I hunted for new birds or
+searched for more knowledge of old. I drew, I wrote many long pages. I
+obtained a few new subscribers, and made some collections on account of my
+work."
+
+His son Victor wrote desiring the presence of his father in England, and on
+April 16, we find him with his wife and son John, again embarked for
+Liverpool. In due time they are in London where they find Victor well, and
+the business of publication going on prosperously. One of the amusing
+incidents of this sojourn, narrated in the diaries, is Audubon's and his
+son's interview with the Baron Rothschild, to whom he had a letter of
+introduction from a distinguished American banking house. The Baron was not
+present when they entered his private office, but "soon a corpulent man
+appeared, hitching up his trousers, and a face red with the exertion of
+walking, and without noticing anyone present, dropped his fat body into a
+comfortable chair, as if caring for no one else in this wide world but
+himself. While the Baron sat, we stood, with our hats held respectfully in
+our hands. I stepped forward, and with a bow tendered my credentials.
+'Pray, sir,' said the man of golden consequence, 'is this a letter of
+business, or is it a mere letter of introduction?' This I could not well
+answer, for I had not read the contents of it, and I was forced to answer
+rather awkwardly, that I could not tell. The banker then opened the letter,
+read it with the manner of one who was looking only at the temporal side of
+things, and after reading it said, 'This is only a letter of introduction,
+and I expect from its contents that you are the publisher of some book or
+other and need my subscription.'
+
+"Had a man the size of a mountain spoken to me in that arrogant style in
+America, I should have indignantly resented it; but where I then was it
+seemed best to swallow and digest it as well as I could. So in reply to the
+offensive arrogance of the banker, I said I should be _honoured_ by
+his subscription to the "Birds of America." 'Sir,' he said, 'I never sign
+my name to any subscription list, but you may send in your work and I will
+pay for a copy of it. Gentlemen, I am busy. I wish you good morning.' We
+were busy men, too, and so bowing respectfully, we retired, pretty well
+satisfied with the small slice of his opulence which our labour was likely
+to obtain.
+
+"A few days afterwards I sent the first volume of my work half bound, and
+all the numbers besides, then published. On seeing them we were told that
+he ordered the bearer to take them to his house, which was done directly.
+Number after number was sent and delivered to the Baron, and after eight or
+ten months my son made out his account and sent it by Mr. Havell, my
+engraver, to his banking-house. The Baron looked at it with amazement, and
+cried out, 'What, a hundred pounds for birds! Why, sir, I will give you
+five pounds and not a farthing more!' Representations were made to him of
+the magnificence and expense of the work, and how pleased his Baroness and
+wealthy children would be to have a copy; but the great financier was
+unrelenting. The copy of the work was actually sent back to Mr. Havell's
+shop, and as I found that instituting legal proceedings against him would
+cost more than it would come to, I kept the work, and afterwards sold it to
+a man with less money but a nobler heart. What a distance there is between
+two such men as the Baron Rothschild of London, and the merchant of
+Savannah!"
+
+Audubon remained in London during the summer of 1834, and in the fall
+removed to Edinburgh, where he hired a house and spent a year and a half at
+work on his "Ornithological Biography," the second and third volumes of
+which were published during that time.
+
+In the summer of 1836, he returned to London, where he settled his family
+in Cavendish Square, and in July, with his son John, took passage at
+Portsmouth for New York, desiring to explore more thoroughly the southern
+states for new material for his work. On his arrival in New York, Audubon,
+to his deep mortification, found that all his books, papers, and valuable
+and curious things, which he had collected both at home and abroad, had
+been destroyed in the great fire in New York, in 1835.
+
+In September he spent some time in Boston where he met Brewer and Nuttall,
+and made the acquaintance of Daniel Webster, Judge Story, and others.
+
+Writing to his son in England, at this time, admonishing him to carry on
+the work, should he himself be taken away prematurely, he advises him thus:
+"Should you deem it wise to remove the publication of the work to this
+country, I advise you to settle in Boston; _I have faith in the
+Bostonians."_
+
+In Salem he called upon a wealthy young lady by the name of Silsby, who had
+the eyes of a gazelle, but "when I mentioned subscription it seemed to fall
+on her ears, not as the cadence of the wood thrush, or of the mocking bird
+does on mine, but as a shower bath in cold January."
+
+From Boston Audubon returned in October to New York, and thence went
+southward through Philadelphia to Washington, carrying with him letters
+from Washington Irving to Benjamin F. Butler, then the Attorney General of
+the United States, and to Martin Van Buren who had just been elected to the
+presidency. Butler was then quite a young man: "He read Washington Irving's
+letter, laid it down, and began a long talk about his talents, and after a
+while came round to my business, saying that the Government allows so
+little money to the departments, that he did not think it probable that
+their subscription could be obtained without a law to that effect from
+Congress."
+
+At this time he also met the President, General Jackson: "He was very kind,
+and as soon as he heard that we intended departing to-morrow evening for
+Charleston, invited us to dine with him _en famille._ At the hour
+named we went to the White House, and were taken into a room, where the
+President soon joined us, I sat close to him; we spoke of olden times, and
+touched slightly on politics, and I found him very averse to the Cause of
+the Texans.... The dinner was what might be called plain and substantial in
+England; I dined from a fine young turkey, shot within twenty miles of
+Washington. The General drank no wine, but his health was drunk by us more
+than once; and he ate very moderately; his last dish consisting of bread
+and milk."
+
+In November Audubon is again at the house of his friend Dr. Bachman, in
+Charleston, South Carolina. Here he passed the winter of 1836-7, making
+excursions to various points farther south, going as far as Florida. It was
+at this time that he seems to have begun, in connection with Dr. Bachman,
+his studies in Natural History which resulted in the publication, a few
+years later, of the "Quadrupeds of North America."
+
+In the spring he left Charleston and set out to explore the Gulf of Mexico,
+going to Galveston and thence well into Texas, where he met General Sam
+Houston. Here is one of his vivid, realistic pen pictures of the famous
+Texan: "We walked towards the President's house, accompanied by the
+Secretary of the Navy, and as soon as we rose above the bank, we saw before
+us a level of far-extending prairie, destitute of timber, and rather poor
+soil. Houses half finished, and most of them without roofs, tents, and a
+liberty pole, with the capitol, were all exhibited to our view at once. We
+approached the President's mansion, however, wading through water above our
+ankles. This abode of President Houston is a small log house, consisting of
+two rooms, and a passage through, after the southern fashion. The moment we
+stepped over the threshold, on the right hand of the passage we found
+ourselves ushered into what in other countries would be called the
+antechamber; the ground floor, however, was muddy and filthy, a large fire
+was burning, a small table covered with paper and writing materials, was in
+the centre, camp-beds, trunks, and different materials, were strewed about
+the room. We were at once presented to several members of the cabinet, some
+of whom bore the stamp of men of intellectual ability, simple, though bold,
+in their general appearance. Here we were presented to Mr. Crawford, an
+agent of the British Minister to Mexico, who has come here on some secret
+mission.
+
+"The President was engaged in the opposite room on some national business,
+and we could not see him for some time. Meanwhile we amused ourselves by
+walking to the capitol, which was yet without a roof, and the floors,
+benches, and tables of both houses of Congress were as well saturated with
+water as our clothes had been in the morning. Being invited by one of the
+great men of the place to enter a booth to take a drink of grog with him,
+we did so; but I was rather surprised that he offered his name, instead of
+the cash to the bar-keeper.
+
+"We first caught sight of President Houston as he walked from one of the
+grog shops, where he had been to prevent the sale of ardent spirits. He was
+on his way to his house, and wore a large grey coarse hat; and the bulk of
+his figure reminded me of the appearance of General Hopkins of Virginia,
+for like him he is upwards of six feet high, and strong in proportion. But
+I observed a scowl in the expression of his eyes, that was forbidding and
+disagreeable. We reached his abode before him, but he soon came, and we
+were presented to his excellency. He was dressed in a fancy velvet coat,
+and trousers trimmed with broad gold lace; around his neck was tied a
+cravat somewhat in the style of seventy-six. He received us kindly, was
+desirous of retaining us for awhile, and offered us every facility within
+his power. He at once removed us from the ante-room to his private chamber,
+which, by the way, was not much cleaner than the former. We were severally
+introduced by him to the different members of his cabinet and staff, and at
+once asked to drink grog with him, which we did, wishing success to his new
+republic. Our talk was short: but the impression which was made on my mind
+at the time by himself, his officers, and his place of abode, can never be
+forgotten."
+
+Late in the summer of 1837, Audubon, with his son John and his new wife--
+the daughter of Dr. Bachman, returned to England for the last time. He
+finally settled down again in Edinburgh and prepared the fourth volume of
+his "Ornithological Biography." This work seems to have occupied him a
+year. The volume was published in November, 1838. More drawings for his
+"Birds of America" were finished the next winter, and also the fifth volume
+of the "Biography" which was published in May, 1839.
+
+In the fall of that year the family returned to America and settled in New
+York City, at 86 White street. His great work, the "Birds of America," had
+been practically completed, incredible difficulties had been surmounted,
+and the goal of his long years of striving had been reached. About one
+hundred and seventy-five copies of his "Birds" had been delivered to
+subscribers, eighty of the number in this country.
+
+In a copy of the "Ornithological Biography" given in 1844 by Audubon to J.
+Prescott Hall, the following note, preserved in the _Magazine of American
+History_ (1877) was written by Mr. Hall. It is reproduced here in spite
+of its variance from statements now accepted:--
+
+"Mr. Audubon told me in the year 184- that he did not sell more than 40
+copies of his great work in England, Ireland, Scotland and France, of which
+Louis Philippe took 10.
+
+"The following received their copies but never paid for them: George IV.,
+Duchess of Clarence, Marquis of Londonderry, Princess of Hesse Homburg.
+
+"An Irish lord whose name he would not give, took two copies and paid for
+neither. Rothschild paid for his copy, but with great reluctance.
+
+"He further said that he sold 75 copies in America, 26 in New York and 24
+in Boston; that the work cost him L27,000 and that he lost $25,000 by it.
+
+"He said that Louis Philippe offered to subscribe for 100 copies if he
+would publish the work in Paris. This he found could not be done, as it
+would have required 40 years to finish it as things were then in Paris. Of
+this conversation I made a memorandum at the time which I read over to Mr.
+Audubon and he pronounced it correct.
+
+"J. PRESCOTT HALL."
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+About the very great merit of this work, there is but one opinion among
+competent judges. It is, indeed, a monument to the man's indomitable energy
+and perseverance, and it is a monument to the science of ornithology. The
+drawings of the birds are very spirited and life like, and their
+biographies copious, picturesque, and accurate, and, taken in connection
+with his many journals, they afford glimpses of the life of the country
+during the early part of the century, that are of very great interest and
+value.
+
+In writing the biography of the birds he wrote his autobiography as well;
+he wove his doings and adventures into his natural history observations.
+This gives a personal flavour to his pages, and is the main source of their
+charm.
+
+His account of the Rosebreasted Grosbeak is a good sample of his work in
+this respect:
+
+"One year, in the month of August, I was trudging along the shores of the
+Mohawk river, when night overtook me. Being little acquainted with that
+part of the country, I resolved to camp where I was; the evening was calm
+and beautiful, the sky sparkled with stars which were reflected by the
+smooth waters, and the deep shade of the rocks and trees of the opposite
+shore fell on the bosom of the stream, while gently from afar came on the
+ear the muttering sound of the cataract. My little fire was soon lighted
+under a rock, and, spreading out my scanty stock of provisions, I reclined
+on my grassy couch. As I looked on the fading features of the beautiful
+landscape, my heart turned towards my distant home, where my friends were
+doubtless wishing me, as I wish them, a happy night and peaceful slumbers.
+Then were heard the barkings of the watch dog, and I tapped my faithful
+companion to prevent his answering them. The thoughts of my worldly mission
+then came over my mind, and having thanked the Creator of all for his
+never-failing mercy, I closed my eyes, and was passing away into the world
+of dreaming existence, when suddenly there burst on my soul the serenade of
+the Rosebreasted bird, so rich, so mellow, so loud in the stillness of the
+night, that sleep fled from my eyelids. Never did I enjoy music more: it
+thrilled through my heart, and surrounded me with an atmosphere of bliss.
+One might easily have imagined that even the Owl, charmed by such
+delightful music, remained reverently silent. Long after the sounds ceased
+did I enjoy them, and when all had again become still, I stretched out my
+wearied limbs, and gave myself up to the luxury of repose."
+
+Probably most of the seventy-five or eighty copies of "Birds" which were
+taken by subscribers in this country are still extant, held by the great
+libraries, and learned institutions. The Lenox Library in New York owns
+three sets. The Astor Library owns one set. I have examined this work
+there; there are four volumes in a set; they are elephant folio size--more
+than three feet long, and two or more feet wide. They are the heaviest
+books I ever handled. It takes two men to carry one volume to the large
+racks which hold them for the purpose of examination. The birds, of which
+there are a thousand and fifty-five specimens in four hundred and
+thirty-five plates, are all life size, even the great eagles, and appear to
+be unfaded. This work, which cost the original subscribers one thousand
+dollars, now brings four thousand dollars at private sale.
+
+Of the edition with reduced figures and with the bird biographies, many
+more were sold, and all considerable public libraries in this country
+possess the work. It consists of seven imperial octavo volumes. Five
+hundred dollars is the average price which this work brings. This was a
+copy of the original English publication, with the figures reduced and
+lithographed. In this work, his sons, John and Victor, greatly assisted
+him, the former doing the reducing by the aid of the camera-lucida, and the
+latter attending to the printing and publishing. The first volume of this
+work appeared in 1840, and the last in 1844.
+
+Audubon experimented a long time before he hit upon a satisfactory method
+of drawing his birds. Early in his studies he merely drew them in outline.
+Then he practised using threads to raise the head, wing or tail of his
+specimen. Under David he had learned to draw the human figure from a
+manikin. It now occurred to him to make a manikin of a bird, using cork or
+wood, or wires for the purpose. But his bird manikin only excited the
+laughter and ridicule of his friends. Then he conceived the happy thought
+of setting up the body of the dead bird by the aid of wires, very much as a
+taxidermist mounts them. This plan worked well and enabled him to have his
+birds permanently before him in a characteristic attitude: "The bird fixed
+with wires on squares I studied as a lay figure before me, its nature
+previously known to me as far as habits went, and its general form having
+been perfectly observed."
+
+His bird pictures reflect his own temperament, not to say his nationality;
+the birds are very demonstrative, even theatrical and melodramatic at
+times. In some cases this is all right, in others it is all wrong. Birds
+differ in this respect as much as people do--some are very quiet and
+sedate, others pose and gesticulate like a Frenchman. It would not be easy
+to exaggerate, for instance, the flashings and evolutions of the redstart
+when it arrives in May, or the acting and posing of the catbird, or the
+gesticulations of the yellow breasted chat, or the nervous and emphatic
+character of the large-billed water thrush, or the many pretty attitudes of
+the great Carolina wren; but to give the same dramatic character to the
+demure little song sparrow, or to the slow moving cuckoo, or to the
+pedestrian cowbird, or to the quiet Kentucky warbler, as Audubon has done,
+is to convey a wrong impression of these birds.
+
+Wilson errs, if at all, in the other direction. His birds, on the other
+hand, reflect his cautious, undemonstrative Scotch nature. Few of them are
+shown in violent action like Audubon's cuckoo; their poses for the most
+part are easy and characteristic. His drawings do not show the mastery of
+the subject and the versatility that Audubon's do;--they have not the
+artistic excellence, but they less frequently do violence to the bird's
+character by exaggerated activity.
+
+The colouring in Audubon's birds is also often exaggerated. His purple
+finch is as brilliant as a rose, whereas at its best, this bird is a dull
+carmine.
+
+Either the Baltimore oriole has changed its habits of nest-building since
+Audubon's day, or else he was wrong in his drawing of the nest of that
+bird, in making the opening on the side near the top. I have never seen an
+oriole's nest that was not open at the top.
+
+In his drawings of a group of robins, one misses some of the most
+characteristic poses of that bird, while some of the attitudes that are
+portrayed are not common and familiar ones.
+
+But in the face of all that he accomplished, and against such odds, and
+taking into consideration also the changes that may have crept in through
+engraver and colourists, it ill becomes us to indulge in captious
+criticisms. Let us rather repeat Audubon's own remark on realising how far
+short his drawings came of representing the birds themselves: "After all,
+there's nothing perfect but _primitiveness_."
+
+Finding that he could not live in the city, in 1842 Audubon removed with
+his family to "Minnie's Land," on the banks of the Hudson, now known as
+Audubon Park, and included in the city limits; this became his final home.
+
+In the spring of 1843 he started on his last long journey, his trip to the
+Yellow-stone River, of which we have a minute account in his "Missouri
+River Journals"--documents that lay hidden in the back of an old secretary
+from 1843 to the time when they were found by his grand-daughters in 1896,
+and published by them in 1897.
+
+This trip was undertaken mainly in the interests of the "Quadrupeds and
+Biography of American Quadrupeds," and much of what he saw and did is woven
+into those three volumes. The trip lasted eight months, and the hardships
+and exposures seriously affected Audubon's health. He returned home in
+October, 1843.
+
+He was now sixty-four or five years of age, and the infirmities of his
+years began to steal upon him.
+
+The first volume of his "Quadrupeds" was published about two years later,
+and this was practically his last work. The second and third volumes were
+mainly the work of his sons, John and Victor.
+
+The "Quadrupeds" does not take rank with his "Birds." It was not his first
+love. It was more an after thought to fill up his time. Neither the drawing
+nor the colouring of the animals, largely the work of his son John,
+approaches those of the birds.
+
+"Surely no man ever had better helpers" says his grand-daughter, and a
+study of his life brings us to the same conclusion--his devoted wife, his
+able and willing sons, were his closest helpers, nor do we lose sight of
+the assistance of the scientific and indefatigable MacGillivray, and the
+untiring and congenial co-worker, Dr. Bachman.
+
+Audubon's last years were peaceful and happy, and were passed at his home
+on the Hudson, amid his children and grandchildren, surrounded by the
+scenes that he loved.
+
+After his eyesight began to fail him, his devoted wife read to him, she
+walked with him, and toward the last she fed him. "Bread and milk were his
+breakfast and supper, and at noon he ate a little fish or game, never
+having eaten animal food if he could avoid it."
+
+One visiting at the home of our naturalist during his last days speaks of
+the tender way in which he said to his wife: "Well, sweetheart, always
+busy. Come sit thee down a few minutes and rest."
+
+Parke Godwin visited Audubon in 1846, and gives this account of his visit:
+
+"The house was simple and unpretentious in its architecture, and
+beautifully embowered amid elms and oaks. Several graceful fawns, and a
+noble elk, were stalking in the shade of the trees, apparently unconscious
+of the presence of a few dogs, and not caring for the numerous turkeys,
+geese, and other domestic animals that gabbled and screamed around them.
+Nor did my own approach startle the wild, beautiful creatures, that seemed
+as docile as any of their tame companions.
+
+"'Is the master at home?' I asked of a pretty maid servant, who answered my
+tap at the door; and who, after informing me that he was, led me into a
+room on the left side of the broad hall. It was not, however, a parlour, or
+an ordinary reception room that I entered, but evidently a room for work.
+In one corner stood a painter's easel, with the half-finished sketch of a
+beaver on the paper; in the other lay the skin of an American panther. The
+antlers of elks hung upon the walls; stuffed birds of every description of
+gay plumage ornamented the mantel-piece; and exquisite drawings of field
+mice, orioles, and woodpeckers, were scattered promiscuously in other parts
+of the room, across one end of which a long, rude table was stretched to
+hold artist materials, scraps of drawing paper, and immense folio volumes,
+filled with delicious paintings of birds taken in their native haunts.
+
+"'This,' said I to myself, 'is the studio of the naturalist,' but hardly
+had the thought escaped me when the master himself made his appearance. He
+was a tall thin man, with a high-arched and serene forehead, and a bright
+penetrating grey eye; his white locks fell in clusters upon his shoulders,
+but were the only signs of age, for his form was erect, and his step as
+light as that of a deer. The expression of his face was sharp, but noble
+and commanding, and there was something in it, partly derived from the
+aquiline nose and partly from the shutting of the mouth, which made you
+think of the imperial eagle.
+
+"His greeting as he entered, was at once frank and cordial, and showed you
+the sincere true man. 'How kind it is,' he said, with a slight French
+accent and in a pensive tone, 'to come to see me; and how wise, too, to
+leave that crazy city.' He then shook me warmly by the hand. 'Do you know,'
+he continued, 'how I wonder that men can consent to swelter and fret their
+lives away amid those hot bricks and pestilent vapours, when the woods and
+fields are all so near? It would kill me soon to be confined in such a
+prison house; and when I am forced to make an occasional visit there, it
+fills me with loathing and sadness. Ah! how often, when I have been abroad
+on the mountains, has my heart risen in grateful praise to God that it was
+not my destiny to waste and pine among those noisome congregations of the
+city.'"
+
+Another visitor to Audubon during his last days writes: "In my interview
+with the naturalist, there were several things that stamped themselves
+indelibly on my mind. The wonderful simplicity of the man was perhaps the
+most remarkable. His enthusiasm for facts made him unconscious of himself.
+To make him happy you had only to give him a new fact in natural history,
+or introduce him to a rare bird. His self-forgetfulness was very
+impressive. I felt that I had found a man who asked homage for God and
+Nature, and not for himself.
+
+"The unconscious greatness of the man seemed only equalled by his
+child-like tenderness. The sweet unity between his wife and himself, as
+they turned over the original drawings of his birds, and recalled the
+circumstances of the drawings, some of which had been made when she was
+with him; her quickness of perception, and their mutual enthusiasm
+regarding these works of his heart and hand, and the tenderness with which
+they unconsciously treated each other, all was impressed upon my memory.
+Ever since, I have been convinced that Audubon owed more to his wife than
+the world knew, or ever would know. That she was always a reliance, often a
+help, and ever a sympathising sister-soul to her noble husband, was fully
+apparent to me."
+
+One notes much of the same fire and vigour in the later portraits of
+Audubon, that are so apparent in those of him in his youthful days. What a
+resolute closing of the mouth in his portrait taken of him in his old age--
+"the magnificent grey-haired man!"
+
+In 1847, Audubon's mind began to fail him; like Emerson in his old age, he
+had difficulty in finding the right word.
+
+In May, 1848, Dr. Bachman wrote of him: "My poor friend Audubon! The
+outlines of his beautiful face and form are there, but his noble mind is
+all in ruins."
+
+His feebleness increased (there was no illness), till at sunset, January
+27, 1851, in his seventy-sixth year, the "American Woodsman," as he was
+wont to call himself, set out on his last long journey to that bourne
+whence no traveller returns.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+As a youth Audubon was an unwilling student of books; as a merchant and
+mill owner in Kentucky he was an unwilling man of business, but during his
+whole career, at all times and in all places, he was more than a willing
+student of ornithology--he was an eager and enthusiastic one. He brought to
+the pursuit of the birds, and to the study of open air life generally, the
+keen delight of the sportsman, united to the ardour of the artist moved by
+beautiful forms.
+
+He was not in the first instance a man of science, like Cuvier, or Agassiz,
+or Darwin--a man seeking exact knowledge; but he was an artist and a
+backwoodsman, seeking adventure, seeking the gratification of his tastes,
+and to put on record his love of the birds. He was the artist of the birds
+before he was their historian; the writing of their biographies seems to
+have been only secondary with him.
+
+He had the lively mercurial temperament of the Latin races from which he
+sprang. He speaks of himself as "warm, irascible, and at times violent."
+
+His perceptive powers, of course, led his reflective. His sharpness and
+quickness of eye surprised even the Indians. He says: "My _observatory
+nerves_ never gave way."
+
+His similes and metaphors were largely drawn from the animal world. Thus he
+says, "I am as dull as a beetle," during his enforced stay in London. While
+he was showing his drawings to Mr. Rathbone, he says: "I was panting like
+the winged pheasant." At a dinner in some noble house in England he said
+that the men servants "moved as quietly as killdeers." On another occasion,
+when the hostess failed to put him at his ease: "There I stood, motionless
+as a Heron."
+
+With all his courage and buoyancy, Audubon was subject to fits of
+depression, probably the result largely of his enforced separation from his
+family. On one occasion in Edinburgh he speaks of these attacks, and refers
+pathetically to others he had had: "But that was in beloved America, where
+the ocean did not roll between me and my wife and sons."
+
+Never was a more patriotic American. He loved his adopted country above all
+other lands in which he had journeyed.
+
+Never was a more devoted husband, and never did wife more richly deserve
+such devotion than did Mrs. Audubon. He says of her: "She felt the pangs of
+our misfortune perhaps more heavily than I, but never for an hour lost her
+courage; her brave and cheerful spirit accepted all, and no reproaches from
+her beloved lips ever wounded my heart. With her was I not always rich?"
+
+"The waiting time, my brother, is the hardest time of all."
+
+While Audubon was waiting for better luck, or for worse, he was always
+listening to the birds and studying them--storing up the knowledge that he
+turned to such good account later: but we can almost hear his neighbours
+and acquaintances calling him an "idle, worthless fellow." Not so his wife;
+she had even more faith in him than he had in himself.
+
+His was a lovable nature--he won affection and devotion easily, and he
+loved to be loved; he appreciated the least kindness shown him.
+
+He was always at ease and welcome in the squatter's cabin or in elegantly
+appointed homes, like that of his friends, the Rathbones, though he does
+complain of an awkwardness and shyness sometimes when in high places. This,
+however, seemed to result from the pomp and ceremony found there, and not
+because of the people themselves.
+
+"Chivalrous, generous, and courteous to his heart's core," says his
+granddaughter, "he could not believe others less so, till painful
+experiences taught him; then he was grieved, hurt, but never embittered;
+and, more marvellous yet, with his faith in his fellows as strong as ever,
+again and again he subjected himself to the same treatment."
+
+On one occasion when his pictures were on exhibition in England, some one
+stole one of his paintings, and a warrant was issued against a deaf mute.
+"Gladly would I have painted a bird for the poor fellow," said Audubon,
+"and I certainly did not want him arrested."
+
+He was never, even in his most desperate financial straits, too poor to
+help others more poor than himself.
+
+He had a great deal of the old-fashioned piety of our fathers, which crops
+out abundantly in his pages. While he was visiting a Mr. Bently in
+Manchester, and after retiring to his room for the night, he was surprised
+by a knock at his door. It appeared that his host in passing thought he
+heard Audubon call to him to ask for something: "I told him I prayed aloud
+every night, as had been my habit from a child at my mother's knees in
+Nantes. He said nothing for a moment, then again wished me good night and
+was gone."
+
+Audubon belonged to the early history of the country, to the pioneer times,
+to the South and the West, and was, on the whole, one of the most winsome,
+interesting, and picturesque characters that have ever appeared in our
+annals.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+[Footnote: Publisher's Note: This bibliography is that of the original 1902
+edition. Many books on Audubon have been published since then.]
+
+
+The works of Audubon are mentioned in the chronology at the beginning of
+the volume and in the text. Of the writings about him the following--apart
+from the obvious books of reference in American biography--are the main
+sources of information:--
+
+I. PROSE WRITINGS OF AMERICA. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. (Philadelphia,
+1847: Carey & Hart.)
+
+II. BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. By Samuel Smiles. (Boston, 1861: Ticknor & Fields.)
+
+III. AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST OF THE NEW WORLD: His ADVENTURES AND
+DISCOVERIES. By Mrs. Horace Roscoe Stebbing St. John. (Revised, with
+additions. Boston, 1864: Crosby & Nichols. New York, 1875: The World
+Publishing House.)
+
+IV. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST. Edited,
+from materials supplied by his widow, by Robert Buchanan. (London, 1868: S.
+Low, son & Marston.)
+
+V. THE LIFE OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. Edited by his widow, with an
+Introduction by James Grant Wilson. (New York, 1869: Putnams.)
+
+VI. FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE. By Sarah Knowles Bolton. (Boston, 1889: T. Y.
+Crowell & Co.)
+
+VII. AUDUBON AND HIS JOURNALS. By Maria R. Audubon. With Zoological and
+Other Notes by Elliott Coues. (New York, 1897: Charles Scribner's Sons. Two
+volumes.) This is by far the most interesting and authentic of any of the
+sources of information.
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John James Audubon, by John Burroughs
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+Title: John James Audubon
+
+Author: John Burroughs
+
+Release Date: February, 2005  [EBook #7404]
+[This file was first posted on April 24, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON ***
+
+
+
+
+Eric Eldred, Robert Connal, David Garcia, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
+
+_John Burroughs_
+
+
+
+
+TO C. B.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The pioneer in American ornithology was Alexander Wilson, a Scotch weaver
+and poet, who emigrated to this country in 1794, and began the publication
+of his great work upon our birds in 1808. He figured and described three
+hundred and twenty species, fifty-six of them new to science. His death
+occurred in 1813, before the publication of his work had been completed.
+
+But the chief of American ornithologists was John James Audubon. Audubon
+did not begin where Wilson left off. He was also a pioneer, beginning his
+studies and drawings of the birds probably as early as Wilson did his, but
+he planned larger and lived longer. He spent the greater part of his long
+life in the pursuit of ornithology, and was of a more versatile, flexible,
+and artistic nature than was Wilson. He was collecting the material for his
+work at the same time that Wilson was collecting his, but he did not begin
+the publication of it till fourteen years after Wilson's death. Both men
+went directly to Nature and underwent incredible hardships in exploring the
+woods and marshes in quest of their material. Audubon's rambles were much
+wider, and extended over a much longer period of time. Wilson, too,
+contemplated a work upon our quadrupeds, but did not live to begin it.
+Audubon was blessed with good health, length of years, a devoted and
+self-sacrificing wife, and a buoyant, sanguine, and elastic disposition. He
+had the heavenly gift of enthusiasm--a passionate love for the work he set
+out to do. He was a natural hunter, roamer, woodsman; as unworldly as a
+child, and as simple and transparent. We have had better trained and more
+scientific ornithologists since his day, but none with his abandon and
+poetic fervour in the study of our birds.
+
+Both men were famous pedestrians and often walked hundreds of miles at a
+stretch. They were natural explorers and voyagers. They loved Nature at
+first hand, and not merely as she appears in books and pictures. They both
+kept extensive journals of their wanderings and observations. Several of
+Audubon's (recording his European experiences) seem to have been lost or
+destroyed, but what remain make up the greater part of two large volumes
+recently edited by his grand-daughter, Maria R. Audubon.
+
+I wish here to express my gratitude both to Miss Audubon, and to Messrs.
+Charles Scribner's Sons, for permitting me to draw freely from the "Life
+and Journals" just mentioned. The temptation is strong to let Audubon's
+graphic and glowing descriptions of American scenery, and of his tireless
+wanderings, speak for themselves.
+
+It is from these volumes, and from the life by his widow, published in
+1868, that I have gathered the material for this brief biography.
+
+Audubon's life naturally divides itself into three periods: his youth,
+which was on the whole a gay and happy one, and which lasted till the time
+of his marriage at the age of twenty-eight; his business career which
+followed, lasting ten or more years, and consisting mainly in getting rid
+of the fortune his father had left him; and his career as an ornithologist
+which, though attended with great hardships and privations, brought him
+much happiness and, long before the end, substantial pecuniary rewards.
+
+His ornithological tastes and studies really formed the main current of his
+life from his teens onward. During his business ventures in Kentucky and
+elsewhere this current came to the surface more and more, absorbed more and
+more of his time and energies, and carried him further and further from the
+conditions of a successful business career.
+
+J. B.
+
+WEST PARK, NEW YORK, January, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY
+
+
+1780
+
+_May 4_. John James La Forest Audubon was born at Mandeville,
+Louisiana.
+
+(Paucity of dates and conflicting statements make it impossible to insert
+dates to show when the family moved to St. Domingo, and thence to France.)
+
+
+1797 (?)
+
+Returned to America from France. Here followed life at Mill Grove Farm,
+near Philadelphia.
+
+
+1805 or 6
+
+Again in France for about two years. Studied under David, the artist. Then
+returned to America.
+
+
+1808
+
+_April_ 8. Married Lucy Bakewell, and journeyed to Louisville,
+Kentucky, to engage in business with one Rozier.
+
+
+1810
+
+_March_. First met Wilson, the ornithologist.
+
+
+1812
+
+Dissolved partnership with Rozier.
+
+
+1808-1819
+
+Various business ventures in Louisville, Hendersonville, and St. Geneviève,
+Kentucky, again at Hendersonville, thence again to Louisville.
+
+
+1819
+
+
+Abandoned business career. Became taxidermist in Cincinnati.
+
+
+1820
+
+Left Cincinnati. Began to form definite plans for the publication of his
+drawings. Returned to New Orleans.
+
+
+1822
+
+Went to Natchez by steamer. Gunpowder ruined two hundred of his drawings on
+this trip. Obtained position of Drawing-master in the college at
+Washington, Mississippi. At the close of this year took his first lessons
+in oils.
+
+
+1824
+
+Went to Philadelphia to get his drawings published. Thwarted. There met
+Sully, and Prince Canino.
+
+
+1826
+
+Sailed for Europe to introduce his drawings.
+
+
+1827
+
+Issued prospectus of his "Birds."
+
+
+1828
+
+Went to Paris to canvass. Visited Cuvier.
+
+
+1829
+
+Returned to the United States, scoured the woods for more material for his
+biographies.
+
+
+1830
+
+Returned to London with his family.
+
+
+1830-1839
+
+Elephant folio, _The Birds of North America_, published.
+
+
+1831-39
+
+_American Ornithological Biography_ published in Edinburgh.
+
+
+1831
+
+Again in America for nearly three years.
+
+
+1832-33
+
+In Florida, South Carolina, and the Northern States, Labrador, and Canada.
+
+
+1834
+
+Completion of second volume of "Birds," also second volume of _American
+Ornithological Biography_.
+
+
+1835
+
+In Edinburgh.
+
+
+1836
+
+To New York again--more exploring; found books, papers and drawings had
+been destroyed by fire, the previous year.
+
+
+1837
+
+Went to London.
+
+
+1838
+
+Published fourth volume of _American Ornithological Biography_.
+
+
+1839
+
+Published fifth volume of "Biography."
+
+
+1840
+
+Left England for the last time.
+
+
+1842
+
+Built house in New York on "Minnie's Land," now Audubon Park.
+
+
+1843
+
+Yellowstone River Expedition.
+
+
+1840-44
+
+Published the reduced edition of his "Bird Biographies."
+
+
+1846
+
+Published first volume of "Quadrupeds."
+
+
+1848
+
+Completed _Quadrupeds and Biography of American Quadrupeds_. (The last
+volume was not published till 1854, after his death.)
+
+
+1851
+
+_January 27_. John James Audubon died in New York.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+There is a hopeless confusion as to certain important dates in Audubon's
+life. He was often careless and unreliable in his statements of matters of
+fact, which weakness during his lifetime often led to his being accused of
+falsehood. Thus he speaks of the "memorable battle of Valley Forge" and of
+two brothers of his, both officers in the French army, as having perished
+in the French Revolution, when he doubtless meant uncles. He had previously
+stated that his only two brothers died in infancy. He confessed that he had
+no head for mathematics, and he seems always to have been at sea in regard
+to his own age. In his letters and journals there are several references to
+his age, but they rarely agree. The date of his birth usually given, May 4,
+1780, is probably three or four years too early, as he speaks of himself as
+being nearly seventeen when his mother had him confirmed in the Catholic
+Church, and this was about the time that his father, then an officer in the
+French navy, was sent to England to effect a change of prisoners, which
+time is given as 1801.
+
+The two race strains that mingle in him probably account for this illogical
+habit of mind, as well as for his romantic and artistic temper and tastes.
+
+His father was a sea-faring man and a Frenchman; his mother was a Spanish
+Creole of Louisiana--the old chivalrous Castilian blood modified by new
+world conditions. The father, through commercial channels, accumulated a
+large property in the island of St. Domingo. In the course of his trading
+he made frequent journeys to Louisiana, then the property of the French
+government. On one of these trips, probably, he married one of the native
+women, who is said to have possessed both wealth and beauty. The couple
+seem to have occupied for a time a plantation belonging to a French
+Marquis, situated at Mandeville on the North shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
+Here three sons were born to them, of whom John James La Forest was the
+third. The daughter seems to have been younger.
+
+His own mother perished in a slave insurrection in St. Domingo, where the
+family had gone to live on the Audubon estate at Aux Cayes, when her child
+was but a few months old. Audubon says that his father with his plate and
+money and himself, attended by a few faithful servants, escaped to New
+Orleans. What became of his sister he does not say, though she must have
+escaped with them, since we hear of her existence years later. Not long
+after, how long we do not know, the father returned to France, where he
+married a second time, giving the son, as he himself says, the only mother
+he ever knew. This woman proved a rare exception among stepmothers--but she
+was too indulgent, and, Audubon says, completely spoiled him, bringing him
+up to live like a gentleman, ignoring his faults and boasting of his
+merits, and leading him to believe that fine clothes and a full pocket were
+the most desirable things in life.
+
+This she was able to do all the more effectively because the father soon
+left the son in her charge and returned to the United States in the employ
+of the French government, and before long became attached to the army under
+La Fayette. This could not have been later than 1781, the year of
+Cornwallis' surrender, and Audubon would then have been twenty-one, but
+this does not square with his own statements. After the war the father
+still served some years in the French navy, but finally retired from active
+service and lived at La Gerbétière in France, where he died at the age of
+ninety-five, in 1818.
+
+Audubon says of his mother: "Let no one speak of her as my step-mother. I
+was ever to her as a son of her own flesh and blood and she was to me a
+true mother." With her he lived in the city of Nantes, France, where he
+appears to have gone to school. It was, however, only from his private
+tutors that he says he got any benefit. His father desired him to follow in
+his footsteps, and he was educated accordingly, studying drawing,
+geography, mathematics, fencing, and music. Mathematics he found hard dull
+work, as have so many men of like temperament, before and since, but music
+and fencing and geography were more to his liking. He was an ardent,
+imaginative youth, and chafed under all drudgery and routine. His
+foster-mother, in the absence of his father, suffered him to do much as he
+pleased, and he pleased to "play hookey" most of the time, joining boys of
+his own age and disposition, and deserting the school for the fields and
+woods, hunting birds' nests, fishing and shooting and returning home at
+night with his basket filled with various natural specimens and
+curiosities. The collecting fever is not a bad one to take possession of
+boys at this age.
+
+In his autobiography Audubon relates an incident that occurred when he was
+a child, which he thinks first kindled his love for birds. It was an
+encounter between a pet parrot and a tame monkey kept by his mother. One
+morning the parrot, Mignonne, asked as usual for her breakfast of bread and
+milk, whereupon the monkey, being in a bad humour, attacked the poor
+defenceless bird, and killed it. Audubon screamed at the cruel sight, and
+implored the servant to interfere and save the bird, but without avail. The
+boy's piercing screams brought the mother, who succeeded in tranquillising
+the child. The monkey was chained, and the parrot buried, but the tragedy
+awakened in him a lasting love for his feathered friends.
+
+Audubon's father seems to have been the first to direct his attention to
+the study of birds, and to the observance of Nature generally. Through him
+he learned to notice the beautiful colourings and markings of the birds, to
+know their haunts, and to observe their change of plumage with the changing
+seasons; what he learned of their mysterious migrations fired his
+imagination.
+
+He speaks of this early intimacy with Nature as a feeling which bordered on
+frenzy. Watching the growth of a bird from the egg he compares to the
+unfolding of a flower from the bud.
+
+The pain which he felt in seeing the birds die and decay was very acute,
+but, fortunately, about this time some one showed him a book of
+illustrations, and henceforth "a new life ran in my veins," he says. To
+copy Nature was thereafter his one engrossing aim.
+
+That he realised how crude his early efforts were is shown by his saying:
+"My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples." His steady progress, too,
+is shown in his custom, on every birthday, of burning these 'Crippled'
+drawings, then setting to work to make better, truer ones.
+
+His father returning from a sea voyage, probably when the son was about
+twenty years old, was not well pleased with the progress that the boy was
+making in his studies. One morning soon after, Audubon found himself with
+his trunk and his belongings in a private carriage, beside his father, on
+his way to the city of Rochefort. The father occupied himself with a book
+and hardly spoke to his son during the several days of the journey, though
+there was no anger in his face. After they were settled in their new abode,
+he seated his son beside him and taking one of his hands in his, calmly
+said: "My beloved boy, thou art now safe. I have brought thee here that I
+may be able to pay constant attention to thy studies; thou shalt have ample
+time for pleasures, but the remainder _must_ be employed with industry
+and care."
+
+But the father soon left him on some foreign mission for his government and
+the boy chafed as usual under his tasks and confinement. One day, too much
+mathematics drove him into making his escape by leaping from the window,
+and making off through the gardens attached to the school where he was
+confined. A watchful corporal soon overhauled him, however, and brought him
+back, where he was confined on board some sort of prison ship in the
+harbour. His father soon returned, when he was released, not without a
+severe reprimand.
+
+We next find him again in the city of Nantes struggling with more odious
+mathematics, and spending all his leisure time in the fields and woods,
+studying the birds. About this time he began a series of drawings of the
+French birds, which grew to upwards of two hundred, all bad enough, he
+says, but yet real representations of birds, that gave him a certain
+pleasure. They satisfied his need of expression.
+
+At about this time, too, though the year we do not know, his father
+concluded to send him to the United States, apparently to occupy a farm
+called Mill Grove, which the father had purchased some years before, on the
+Schuylkill river near Philadelphia. In New York he caught the yellow fever:
+he was carefully nursed by two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding house in
+Morristown, New Jersey.
+
+In due time his father's agent, Miers Fisher, also a Quaker, removed him to
+his own villa near Philadelphia, and here Audubon seems to have remained
+some months. But the gay and ardent youth did not find the atmosphere of
+the place congenial. The sober Quaker grey was not to his taste. His host
+was opposed to music of all kinds, and to dancing, hunting, fishing and
+nearly all other forms of amusement. More than that, he had a daughter
+between whom and Audubon he apparently hoped an affection would spring up.
+But Audubon took an unconquerable dislike to her. Very soon, therefore, he
+demanded to be put in possession of the estate to which his father had sent
+him.
+
+Of the month and year in which he entered upon his life at Mill Grove, we
+are ignorant. We know that he fell into the hands of another Quaker,
+William Thomas, who was the tenant on the place, but who, with his worthy
+wife, seems to have made life pleasant for him. He soon became attached to
+Mill Grove, and led a life there just suited to his temperament.
+
+"Hunting, fishing, drawing, music, occupied my every moment; cares I knew
+not and cared naught about them. I purchased excellent and beautiful
+horses, visited all such neighbours as I found congenial spirits, and was
+as happy as happy could be."
+
+Near him there lived an English family by the name of Bakewell, but he had
+such a strong antipathy to the English that he postponed returning the call
+of Mr. Bakewell, who had left his card at Mill Grove during one of
+Audubon's excursions to the woods. In the late fall or early winter,
+however, he chanced to meet Mr. Bakewell while out hunting grouse, and was
+so pleased with him and his well-trained dogs, and his good marksmanship,
+that he apologised for his discourtesy in not returning his call, and
+promised to do so forthwith. Not many mornings thereafter he was seated in
+his neighbour's house.
+
+"Well do I recollect the morning," he says in the autobiographical sketch
+which he prepared for his sons, "and may it please God that I never forget
+it, when for the first time I entered Mr. Bakewell's dwelling. It happened
+that he was absent from home, and I was shown into a parlour where only one
+young lady was snugly seated at her work by the fire. She rose on my
+entrance, offered me a seat, assured me of the gratification her father
+would feel on his return, which, she added, would be in a few moments, as
+she would despatch a servant for him. Other ruddy cheeks and bright eyes
+made their transient appearance, but, like spirits gay, soon vanished from
+my sight; and there I sat, my gaze riveted, as it were, on the young girl
+before me, who, half working, half talking, essayed to make the time
+pleasant to me. Oh! may God bless her! It was she, my dear sons, who
+afterwards became my beloved wife, and your mother. Mr. Bakewell soon made
+his appearance, and received me with the manner and hospitality of a true
+English gentleman. The other members of the family were soon introduced to
+me, and Lucy was told to have luncheon produced. She now rose from her seat
+a second time, and her form, to which I had paid but partial attention,
+showed both grace and beauty; and my heart followed every one of her steps.
+The repast over, dogs and guns were made ready.
+
+"Lucy, I was pleased to believe, looked upon me with some favour, and I
+turned more especially to her on leaving. I felt that certain '_Je ne
+sais quoi_' which intimated that, at least, she was not indifferent to
+me."
+
+The winter that followed was a gay and happy one at Mill Grove; shooting
+parties, skating parties, house parties with the Bakewell family, were of
+frequent occurrence. It was during one of these skating excursions upon the
+Perkiomen in quest of wild ducks, that Audubon had a lucky escape from
+drowning. He was leading the party down the river in the dusk of the
+evening, with a white handkerchief tied to a stick, when he came suddenly
+upon a large air hole into which, in spite of himself, his impetus carried
+him. Had there not chanced to be another air hole a few yards below, our
+hero's career would have ended then and there. The current quickly carried
+him beneath the ice to this other opening where he managed to seize hold of
+the ice and to crawl out.
+
+His friendship with the Bakewell family deepened. Lucy taught Audubon
+English, he taught her drawing, and their friendship very naturally ripened
+into love, which seems to have run its course smoothly.
+
+Audubon was happy. He had ample means, and his time was filled with
+congenial pursuits. He writes in his journal: "I had no vices, but was
+thoughtless, pensive, loving, fond of shooting, fishing, and riding, and
+had a passion for raising all sorts of fowls, which sources of interest and
+amusement fully occupied my time. It was one of my fancies to be
+ridiculously fond of dress; to hunt in black satin breeches, wear pumps
+when shooting, and to dress in the finest ruffled shirts I could obtain
+from France."
+
+The evidences of vanity regarding his looks and apparel, sometimes found in
+his journal, are probably traceable to his foster-mother's unwise treatment
+of him in his youth. We have seen how his father's intervention in the nick
+of time exercised a salutary influence upon him at this point in his
+career, directing his attention to the more solid attainments. Whatever
+traces of this self-consciousness and apparent vanity remained in after
+life, seem to have been more the result of a naïve character delighting in
+picturesqueness in himself as well as in Nature, than they were of real
+vanity.
+
+In later years he was assuredly nothing of the dandy; he himself ridicules
+his youthful fondness for dress, while those who visited him during his
+last years speak of him as particularly lacking in self-consciousness.
+
+Although he affected the dress of the dandies of his time, he was temperate
+and abstemious. "I ate no butcher's meat, lived chiefly on fruits,
+vegetables, and fish, and never drank a glass of spirits or wine until my
+wedding day." "All this time I was fair and rosy, strong and active as one
+of my age and sex could be, and as active and agile as a buck."
+
+That he was energetic and handy and by no means the mere dandy that his
+extravagance in dress might seem to indicate, is evidenced from the fact
+that about this time he made a journey on foot to New York and accomplished
+the ninety miles in three days in mid-winter. But he was angry, and anger
+is better than wine to walk on.
+
+The cause of his wrath was this; a lead mine had been discovered upon the
+farm of Mill Grove, and Audubon had applied to his father for counsel in
+regard to it. In response, the elder Audubon had sent over a man by the
+name of Da Costa who was to act as his son's partner and partial guardian--
+was to teach him mineralogy and mining engineering, and to look after his
+finances generally. But the man, Audubon says, knew nothing of the subjects
+he was supposed to teach, and was, besides, "a covetous wretch, who did all
+he could to ruin my father, and, indeed, swindled both of us to a large
+amount." Da Costa pushed his authority so far as to object to Audubon's
+proposed union with Lucy Bakewell, as being a marriage beneath him, and
+finally plotted to get the young man off to India. These things very
+naturally kindled Audubon's quick temper, and he demanded of his tutor and
+guardian money enough to take him to France to consult with his father. Da
+Costa gave him a letter of credit on a sort of banker-broker residing in
+New York. To New York he accordingly went, as above stated, and found that
+the banker-broker was in the plot to pack him off to India. This disclosure
+kindled his wrath afresh. He says that had he had a weapon about him the
+banker's heart must have received the result of his wrath. His Spanish
+blood began to declare itself.
+
+Then he sought out a brother of Mr. Bakewell and the uncle of his
+sweetheart, and of him borrowed the money to take him to France. He took
+passage on a New Bedford brig bound for Nantes. The captain had recently
+been married and when the vessel reached the vicinity of New Bedford, he
+discovered some dangerous leaks which necessitated a week's delay to repair
+damages. Audubon avers that the captain had caused holes to be bored in the
+vessel's sides below the water line, to gain an excuse to spend a few more
+days with his bride.
+
+After a voyage of nineteen days the vessel entered the Loire, and anchored
+in the lower harbour of Nantes, and Audubon was soon welcomed by his father
+and fond foster-mother.
+
+His first object was to have the man Da Costa disposed of, which he soon
+accomplished; the second, to get his father's consent to his marriage with
+Lucy Bakewell, which was also brought about in due time, although the
+parents of both agreed that they were "owre young to marry yet."
+
+Audubon now remained two years in France, indulging his taste for hunting,
+rambling, and drawing birds and other objects of Natural History.
+
+This was probably about the years 1805 and 1806. France was under the sway
+of Napoleon, and conscriptions were the order of the day. The elder Audubon
+became uneasy lest his son be drafted into the French army; hence he
+resolved to send him back to America. In the meantime, he interested one
+Rozier in the lead mine and had formed a partnership between him and his
+son, to run for nine years. In due course the two young men sailed for New
+York, leaving France at a time when thousands would have been glad to have
+followed their footsteps.
+
+On this voyage their vessel was pursued and overhauled by a British
+privateer, the _Rattlesnake_, and nearly all their money and eatables
+were carried off, besides two of the ship's best sailors. Audubon and
+Rozier saved their gold by hiding it under a cable in the bow of the ship.
+
+On returning to Mill Grove, Audubon resumed his former habits of life
+there. We hear no more of the lead mine, but more of his bird studies and
+drawings, the love of which was fast becoming his ruling passion. "Before I
+sailed for France, I had begun a series of drawings of the birds of
+America, and had also begun a study of their habits. I at first drew my
+subject dead, by which I mean to say that after procuring a specimen, I
+hung it up, either by the head, wing, or foot, and copied it as closely as
+I could." Even the hateful Da Costa had praised his bird pictures and had
+predicted great things for him in this direction. His words had given
+Audubon a great deal of pleasure.
+
+Mr. William Bakewell, the brother of his Lucy, has given us a glimpse of
+Audubon and his surroundings at this time. "Audubon took me to his house,
+where he and his companion, Rozier, resided, with Mrs. Thomas for an
+attendant. On entering his room, I was astonished and delighted that it was
+turned into a museum. The walls were festooned with all sorts of birds'
+eggs, carefully blown out and strung on a thread. The chimney piece was
+covered with stuffed squirrels, raccoons and opossums; and the shelves
+around were likewise crowded with specimens, among which were fishes,
+frogs, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. Besides these stuffed
+varieties, many paintings were arrayed upon the walls, chiefly of birds. He
+had great skill in stuffing and preserving animals of all sorts. He had
+also a trick of training dogs with great perfection, of which art his
+famous dog Zephyr was a wonderful example. He was an admirable marksman, an
+expert swimmer, a clever rider, possessed great activity, prodigious
+strength, and was notable for the elegance of his figure, and the beauty of
+his features, and he aided Nature by a careful attendance to his dress.
+Besides other accomplishments, he was musical, a good fencer, danced well,
+had some acquaintance with legerdemain tricks, worked in hair, and could
+plait willow baskets." He adds that Audubon once swam across the Schuylkill
+with him on his back.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Audubon was now eager to marry, but Mr. Bakewell advised him first to study
+the mercantile business. This he accordingly set out to do by entering as a
+clerk the commercial house of Benjamin Bakewell in New York, while his
+friend Rozier entered a French house in Philadelphia.
+
+But Audubon was not cut out for business; his first venture was in indigo,
+and cost him several hundred pounds. Rozier succeeded no better; his first
+speculation was a cargo of hams shipped to the West Indies which did not
+return one fifth of the cost. Audubon's want of business habits is shown by
+the statement that at this time he one day posted a letter containing eight
+thousand dollars without sealing it. His heart was in the fields and woods
+with the birds. His room was filled with drying bird skins, the odour from
+which, it is said, became so strong that his neighbours sent a constable to
+him with a message to abate the nuisance.
+
+Despairing of becoming successful business men in either New York or
+Philadelphia, he and Rozier soon returned to Mill Grove. During some of
+their commercial enterprises they had visited Kentucky and thought so well
+of the outlook there that now their thoughts turned thitherward.
+
+Here we get the first date from Audubon; on April 8, 1808, he and Lucy
+Bakewell were married. The plantation of Mill Grove had been previously
+sold, and the money invested in goods with which to open a store in
+Louisville, Kentucky. The day after the marriage, Audubon and his wife and
+Mr. Rozier started on their journey. In crossing the mountains to Pittsburg
+the coach in which they were travelling upset, and Mrs. Audubon was
+severely bruised. From Pittsburg they floated down the Ohio in a flatboat
+in company with several other young emigrant families. The voyage occupied
+twelve days and was no doubt made good use of by Audubon in observing the
+wild nature along shore.
+
+In Louisville, he and Rozier opened a large store which promised well. But
+Audubon's heart was more and more with the birds, and his business more and
+more neglected. Rozier attended to the counter, and, Audubon says, grew
+rich, but he himself spent most of the time in the woods or hunting with
+the planters settled about Louisville, between whom and himself a warm
+attachment soon sprang up. He was not growing rich, but he was happy. "I
+shot, I drew, I looked on Nature only," he says, "and my days were happy
+beyond human conception, and beyond this I really cared not."
+
+He says that the only part of the commercial business he enjoyed was the
+ever engaging journeys which he made to New York and Philadelphia to
+purchase goods.
+
+These journeys led him through the "beautiful, the darling forests of Ohio,
+Kentucky, and Pennsylvania," and on one occasion he says he lost sight of
+the pack horses carrying his goods and his dollars, in his preoccupation
+with a new warbler.
+
+During his residence in Louisville, Alexander Wilson, his great rival in
+American ornithology, called upon him. This is Audubon's account of the
+meeting: "One fair morning I was surprised by the sudden entrance into our
+counting room at Louisville of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author
+of the American Ornithology, of whose existence I had never until that
+moment been apprised. This happened in March, 1810. How well do I remember
+him as he then walked up to me. His long, rather hooked nose, the keenness
+of his eyes, and his prominent cheek bones, stamped his countenance with a
+peculiar character. His dress, too, was of a kind not usually seen in that
+part of the country; a short coat, trousers and a waistcoat of grey cloth.
+His stature was not above the middle size. He had two volumes under his
+arm, and as he approached the table at which I was working, I thought I
+discovered something like astonishment in his countenance. He, however,
+immediately proceeded to disclose the object of his visit, which was to
+procure subscriptions for his work. He opened his books, explained the
+nature of his occupations, and requested my patronage. I felt surprised and
+gratified at the sight of his volumes, turned over a few of the plates, and
+had already taken my pen to write my name in his favour, when my partner
+rather abruptly said to me in French: 'My dear Audubon, what induces you to
+subscribe to this work! Your drawings are certainly far better; and again,
+you must know as much of the habits of American birds as this gentleman.'
+Whether Mr. Wilson understood French or not, or if the suddenness with
+which I paused disappointed him, I cannot tell; but I clearly perceived he
+was not pleased. Vanity, and the encomiums of my friend, prevented me from
+subscribing. Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many drawings of birds, I rose,
+took down a large portfolio, laid it on the table, and showed him as I
+would show you, kind reader, or any other person fond of such subjects, the
+whole of the contents, with the same patience, with which he had showed me
+his own engravings. His surprise appeared great, as he told me he had never
+had the most distant idea that any other individual than himself had been
+engaged in forming such a collection. He asked me if it was my intention to
+publish, and when I answered in the negative, his surprise seemed to
+increase. And, truly, such was not my intention; for, until long after,
+when I met the Prince of Musignano in Philadelphia, I had not the least
+idea of presenting the fruits of my labours to the world. Mr. Wilson now
+examined my drawings with care, asked if I should have any objection to
+lending him a few during his stay, to which I replied that I had none. He
+then bade me good morning, not, however, until I had made an arrangement to
+explore the woods in the vicinity along with him, and had promised to
+procure for him some birds, of which I had drawings in my collection, but
+which he had never seen. It happened that he lodged in the same house with
+us, but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited a strong feeling of
+discontent, or a decided melancholy. The Scotch airs which he played
+sweetly on his flute made me melancholy, too, and I felt for him. I
+presented him to my wife and friends, and seeing that he was all
+enthusiasm, exerted myself as much as was in my power to procure for him
+the specimens which he wanted.
+
+"We hunted together and obtained birds which he had never before seen; but,
+reader, I did not subscribe to his work, for, even at that time, my
+collection was greater than his.
+
+"Thinking that perhaps he might be pleased to publish the results of my
+researches, I offered them to him, merely on condition that what I had
+drawn, or might afterward draw and send to him, should be mentioned in his
+work as coming from my pencil. I at the same time offered to open a
+correspondence with him, which I thought might prove beneficial to us both.
+He made no reply to either proposal, and before many days had elapsed, left
+Louisville on his way to New Orleans, little knowing how much his talents
+were appreciated in our little town, at least by myself and my friends."
+
+Wilson's account of this meeting is in curious contrast to that of Audubon.
+It is meagre and unsatisfactory. Under date of March 19, he writes in his
+diary at Louisville: "Rambled around the town with my gun. Examined
+Mr. ----'s [Audubon's] drawings in crayons--very good. Saw two new birds
+he had, both _Motacillae_."
+
+_March_ 21. "Went out this afternoon shooting with Mr. A. Saw a number
+of Sandhill cranes. Pigeons numerous."
+
+Finally, in winding up the record of his visit to Louisville, he says, with
+palpable inconsistency, not to say falsehood, that he did not receive one
+act of civility there, nor see one new bird, and found no naturalist to
+keep him company.
+
+Some years afterward, Audubon hunted him up in Philadelphia, and found him
+drawing a white headed eagle. He was civil, and showed Audubon some
+attention, but "spoke not of birds or drawings."
+
+Wilson was of a nature far less open and generous than was Audubon. It is
+evident that he looked upon the latter as his rival, and was jealous of his
+superior talents; for superior they were in many ways. Audubon's drawings
+have far more spirit and artistic excellence, and his text shows far more
+enthusiasm and hearty affiliation with Nature. In accuracy of observation,
+Wilson is fully his equal, if not his superior.
+
+As Audubon had deserted his business, his business soon deserted him; he
+and his partner soon became discouraged (we hear no more about the riches
+Rozier had acquired), and resolved upon moving their goods to
+Hendersonville, Kentucky, over one hundred miles further down the Ohio.
+Mrs. Audubon and her baby son were sent back to her father's at Fatland
+Ford where they remained upwards of a year.
+
+Business at Hendersonville proved dull; the country was but thinly
+inhabited and only the coarsest goods were in demand. To procure food the
+merchants had to resort to fishing and hunting. They employed a clerk who
+proved a good shot; he and Audubon supplied the table while Rozier again
+stood behind the counter.
+
+How long the Hendersonville enterprise lasted we do not know. Another
+change was finally determined upon, and the next glimpse we get of Audubon,
+we see him with his clerk and partner and their remaining stock in trade,
+consisting of three hundred barrels of whiskey, sundry dry goods and
+powder, on board a keel boat making their way down the Ohio, in a severe
+snow storm, toward St. Geneviève, a settlement on the Mississippi River,
+where they proposed to try again. The boat is steered by a long oar, about
+sixty feet in length, made of the trunk of a slender tree, and shaped at
+its outer extremity like the fin of a dolphin; four oars in the bow
+propelled her, and with the current they made about five miles an hour.
+
+Mrs. Audubon, who seems to have returned from her father's, with her baby,
+or babies, was left behind at Hendersonville with a friend, until the
+result of the new venture should be determined.
+
+In the course of six weeks, after many delays, and adventures with the ice
+and the cold, the party reached St. Geneviève.
+
+Audubon has given in his journal a very vivid and interesting account of
+this journey. At St. Geneviève, the whiskey was in great demand, and what
+had cost them twenty-five cents a gallon, was sold for two dollars. But
+Audubon soon became discouraged with the place and longed to be back in
+Hendersonville with his family. He did not like the low bred
+French-Canadians, who made up most of the population of the settlement. He
+sold out his interest in the business to his partner, who liked the place
+and the people, and here the two parted company. Audubon purchased a fine
+horse and started over the prairies on his return trip to Hendersonville.
+
+On this journey he came near being murdered by a woman and her two
+desperate sons who lived in a cabin on the prairies, where the traveller
+put up for the night. He has given a minute and graphic account of this
+adventure in his journal.
+
+The cupidity of the woman had been aroused by the sight of Audubon's gold
+watch and chain. A wounded Indian, who had also sought refuge in the shanty
+had put Audubon upon his guard. It was midnight, Audubon lay on some bear
+skins in one corner of the room, feigning sleep. He had previously slipped
+out of the cabin and had loaded his gun, which lay close at hand. Presently
+he saw the woman sharpen a huge carving knife, and thrust it into the hand
+of her drunken son, with the injunction to kill yon stranger and secure the
+watch. He was just on the point of springing up to shoot his would-be
+murderers, when the door burst open, and two travellers, each with a long
+knife, appeared. Audubon jumped up and told them his situation. The drunken
+sons and the woman were bound, and in the morning they were taken out into
+the woods and were treated as the Regulators treated delinquents in those
+days. They were shot. Whether Audubon did any of the shooting or not, he
+does not say. But he aided and abetted, and his Spanish blood must have
+tingled in his veins. Then the cabin was set on fire, and the travellers
+proceeded on their way.
+
+It must be confessed that this story sounds a good deal like an episode in
+a dime novel, and may well be taken with a grain of allowance. Did remote
+prairie cabins in those days have grindstones and carving knives? And why
+should the would-be murderers use a knife when they had guns?
+
+Audubon reached Hendersonville in early March, and witnessed the severe
+earthquake which visited that part of Kentucky the following November,
+1812. Of this experience we also have a vivid account in his journals.
+
+Audubon continued to live at Hendersonville, his pecuniary means much
+reduced. He says that he made a pedestrian tour back to St. Geneviève to
+collect money due him from Rozier, walking the one hundred and sixty-five
+miles, much of the time nearly ankle-deep in mud and water, in a little
+over three days. Concerning the accuracy of this statement one also has his
+doubts. Later he bought a "wild horse," and on its back travelled over
+Tennessee and a portion of Georgia, and so around to Philadelphia, later
+returning to Hendersonville.
+
+He continued his drawings of birds and animals, but, in the meantime,
+embarked in another commercial venture, and for a time prospered. Some
+years previously he had formed a co-partnership with his wife's brother,
+and a commercial house in charge of Bakewell had been opened in New
+Orleans. This turned out disastrously and was a constant drain upon his
+resources.
+
+This partner now appears upon the scene at Hendersonville and persuades
+Audubon to erect, at a heavy outlay, a steam grist and saw mill, and to
+take into the firm an Englishman by the name of Pease.
+
+This enterprise brought fresh disaster. "How I laboured at this infernal
+mill, from dawn till dark, nay, at times all night."
+
+They also purchased a steamboat which was so much additional weight to drag
+them down. This was about the year 1817. From this date till 1819,
+Audubon's pecuniary difficulties increased daily. He had no business talent
+whatever; he was a poet and an artist; he cared not for money, he wanted to
+be alone with Nature. The forests called to him, the birds haunted his
+dreams.
+
+His father dying in 1818, left him a valuable estate in France, and
+seventeen thousand dollars, deposited with a merchant in Richmond,
+Virginia; but Audubon was so dilatory in proving his identity and his legal
+right to this cash, that the merchant finally died insolvent, and the
+legatee never received a cent of it. The French estate he transferred in
+after years to his sister Rosa.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Finally, Audubon gave up the struggle of trying to be a business man. He
+says: "I parted with every particle of property I had to my creditors,
+keeping only the clothes I wore on that day, my original drawings, and my
+gun, and without a dollar in my pocket, walked to Louisville alone."
+
+This he speaks of as the saddest of all his journeys--"the only time in my
+life when the wild turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thousands
+of lesser birds that enlivened the woods and the prairies, all looked like
+enemies, and I turned my eyes from them, as if I could have wished that
+they had never existed."
+
+But the thought of his beloved Lucy and her children soon spurred him to
+action. He was a good draughtsman, he had been a pupil of David, he would
+turn his talents to account.
+
+"As we were straightened to the very utmost, I undertook to draw portraits
+at the low price of five dollars per head, in black chalk. I drew a few
+gratis, and succeeded so well that ere many days had elapsed I had an
+abundance of work."
+
+His fame spread, his orders increased. A settler came for him in the middle
+of the night from a considerable distance to have the portrait of his
+mother taken while she was on the eve of death, and a clergyman had his
+child's body exhumed that the artist might restore to him the lost
+features.
+
+Money flowed in and he was soon again established with his family in a
+house in Louisville. His drawings of birds still continued and, he says,
+became at times almost a mania with him; he would frequently give up a
+head, the profits of which would have supplied the wants of his family a
+week or more, "to represent a little citizen of the feathered tribe."
+
+In 1819 he was offered the position of taxidermist in the museum at
+Cincinnati, and soon moved there with his family. His pay not being
+forthcoming from the museum, he started a drawing school there, and again
+returned to his portraits. Without these resources, he says, he would have
+been upon the starving list. But food was plentiful and cheap. He writes in
+his journal: "Our living here is extremely moderate; the markets are well
+supplied and cheap, beef only two and one half cents a pound, and I am able
+to supply a good deal myself. Partridges are frequently in the streets, and
+I can shoot wild turkeys within a mile or so. Squirrels and Woodcock are
+very abundant in the season, and fish always easily caught."
+
+In October, 1820, we again find him adrift, apparently with thought of
+having his bird drawings published, after he shall have further added to
+them by going through many of the southern and western states.
+
+Leaving his family behind him, he started for New Orleans on a flatboat. He
+tarried long at Natchez, and did not reach the Crescent City till
+midwinter. Again he found himself destitute of means, and compelled to
+resort to portrait painting. He went on with his bird collecting and bird
+painting; in the meantime penetrating the swamps and bayous around the
+city.
+
+At this time he seems to have heard of the publication of Wilson's
+"Ornithology," and tried in vain to get sight of a copy of it.
+
+In the spring he made an attempt to get an appointment as draughtsman and
+naturalist to a government expedition that was to leave the next year to
+survey the new territory ceded to the United States by Spain. He wrote to
+President Monroe upon the subject, but the appointment never came to him.
+In March he called upon Vanderlyn, the historical painter, and took with
+him a portfolio of his drawings in hopes of getting a recommendation.
+Vanderlyn at first treated him as a mendicant and ordered him to leave his
+portfolio in the entry. After some delay, in company with a government
+official, he consented to see the pictures.
+
+"The perspiration ran down my face," says Audubon, "as I showed him my
+drawings and laid them on the floor." He was thinking of the expedition to
+Mexico just referred to, and wanted to make a good impression upon
+Vanderlyn and the officer. This he succeeded in doing, and obtained from
+the artist a very complimentary note, as he did also from Governor
+Robertson of Louisiana.
+
+In June, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, to rejoin his wife and
+boys, but somewhere on the journey engaged himself to a Mrs. Perrie who
+lived at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach her daughter drawing during the
+summer, at sixty dollars per month, leaving him half of each day to follow
+his own pursuits. He continued in this position till October when he took
+steamer for New Orleans. "My long, flowing hair, and loose yellow nankeen
+dress, and the unfortunate cut of my features, attracted much attention,
+and made me desire to be dressed like other people as soon as possible."
+
+He now rented a house in New Orleans on Dauphine street, and determined to
+send for his family. Since he had left Cincinnati the previous autumn, he
+had finished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two
+snakes, fifty portraits of all sorts, and had lived by his talents, not
+having had a dollar when he started. "I sent a draft to my wife, and began
+life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much eagerness to
+pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America."
+
+His family, after strong persuasion, joined him in December, 1821, and his
+former life of drawing portraits, giving lessons, painting birds, and
+wandering about the country, began again. His earnings proving inadequate
+to support the family, his wife took a position as governess in the family
+of a Mr. Brand.
+
+In the spring, acting upon the judgment of his wife, he concluded to leave
+New Orleans again, and to try his fortunes elsewhere. He paid all his bills
+and took steamer for Natchez, paying his passage by drawing a crayon
+portrait of the captain and his wife.
+
+On the trip up the Mississippi, two hundred of his bird portraits were
+sorely damaged by the breaking of a bottle of gunpowder in the chest in
+which they were being conveyed.
+
+Three times in his career he met with disasters to his drawings. On the
+occasion of his leaving Hendersonville to go to Philadelphia, he had put
+two hundred of his original drawings in a wooden box and had left them in
+charge of a friend. On his return, several months later, he pathetically
+recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken possession of
+the whole, and reared a young family among gnawed bits of paper, which but
+a month previous, represented nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"
+
+This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in the head; for
+several days he seemed like one stunned, but his youth and health stood him
+in hand, he rallied, and, undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with
+dog and gun. In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.
+
+The third catastrophe to some of his drawings was caused by a fire in a New
+York building in which his treasures were kept during his sojourn in
+Europe.
+
+Audubon had an eye for the picturesque in his fellow-men as well as for the
+picturesque in Nature. On the Levee in New Orleans, he first met a painter
+whom he thus describes: "His head was covered by a straw hat, the brim of
+which might cope with those worn by the fair sex in 1830; his neck was
+exposed to the weather; the broad frill of a shirt, then fashionable,
+flopped about his breast, whilst an extraordinary collar, carefully
+arranged, fell over the top of his coat. The latter was of a light green
+colour, harmonising well with a pair of flowing yellow nankeen trousers,
+and a pink waistcoat, from the bosom of which, amidst a large bunch of the
+splendid flowers of the magnolia, protruded part of a young alligator,
+which seemed more anxious to glide through the muddy waters of a swamp than
+to spend its life swinging to and fro amongst folds of the finest lawn. The
+gentleman held in one hand a cage full of richly-plumed nonpareils, whilst
+in the other he sported a silk umbrella, on which I could plainly read
+'Stolen from I,' these words being painted in large white characters. He
+walked as if conscious of his own importance; that is, with a good deal of
+pomposity, singing, 'My love is but a lassie yet'; and that with such
+thorough imitation of the Scotch emphasis that had not his physiognomy
+suggested another parentage, I should have believed him to be a genuine
+Scot. A narrower acquaintance proved him to be a Yankee; and anxious to
+make his acquaintance, I desired to see his birds. He retorted, 'What the
+devil did I know about birds?' I explained to him that I was a naturalist,
+whereupon he requested me to examine his birds. I did so with much
+interest, and was preparing to leave, when he bade me come to his lodgings
+and see the remainder of his collection. This I willingly did, and was
+struck with amazement at the appearance of his studio. Several cages were
+hung about the walls, containing specimens of birds, all of which I
+examined at my leisure. On a large easel before me stood an unfinished
+portrait, other pictures hung about, and in the room were two young pupils;
+and at a glance I discovered that the eccentric stranger was, like myself,
+a naturalist and an artist. The artist, as modest as he was odd, showed me
+how he laid on the paint on his pictures, asked after my own pursuits, and
+showed a friendly spirit which enchanted me. With a ramrod for a rest, he
+prosecuted his work vigorously, and afterwards asked me to examine a
+percussion lock on his gun, a novelty to me at the time. He snapped some
+caps, and on my remarking that he would frighten his birds, he exclaimed,
+'Devil take the birds, there are more of them in the market.' He then
+loaded his gun, and wishing to show me that he was a marksman, fired at one
+of the pins on his easel. This he smashed to pieces, and afterward put a
+rifle bullet exactly through the hole into which the pin fitted."
+
+Audubon reached Natchez on March 24, 1822, and remained there and in the
+vicinity till the spring of 1823, teaching drawing and French to private
+pupils and in the college at Washington, nine miles distant, hunting, and
+painting the birds, and completing his collection. Among other things he
+painted the "Death of Montgomery" from a print. His friends persuaded him
+to raffle the picture off. This he did, and taking one number himself, won
+the picture, while his finances were improved by three hundred dollars
+received for the tickets. Early in the autumn his wife again joined him,
+and presently we find her acting as governess in the home of a clergyman
+named Davis.
+
+In December, there arrived in Natchez a wandering portrait painter named
+Stein, who gave Audubon his first lessons in the use of oil colours, and
+was instructed by Audubon in turn in chalk drawing.
+
+There appear to have been no sacrifices that Mrs. Audubon was not willing
+and ready to make to forward the plans of her husband. "My best friends,"
+he says at this time, "solemnly regarded me as a mad man, and my wife and
+family alone gave me encouragement. My wife determined that my genius
+should prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist should be
+triumphant."
+
+She wanted him to go to Europe, and, to assist toward that end, she entered
+into an engagement with a Mrs. Percy of Bayou Sara, to instruct her
+children, together with her own, and a limited number of outside pupils.
+
+Audubon, in the meantime, with his son Victor, and his new artist friend,
+Stein, started off in a wagon, seeking whom they might paint, on a journey
+through the southern states. They wandered as far as New Orleans, but
+Audubon appears to have returned to his wife again in May, and to have
+engaged in teaching her pupils music and drawing. But something went wrong,
+there was a misunderstanding with the Percys, and Audubon went back to
+Natchez, revolving various schemes in his head, even thinking of again
+entering upon mercantile pursuits in Louisville.
+
+He had no genius for accumulating money nor for keeping it after he had
+gotten it. One day when his affairs were at a very low ebb, he met a
+squatter with a tame black wolf which took Audubon's fancy. He says that he
+offered the owner a hundred dollar bill for it on the spot, but was
+refused. He probably means to say that he would have offered it had he had
+it. Hundred dollar bills, I fancy, were rarer than tame black wolves in
+that pioneer country in those days.
+
+About this time he and his son Victor were taken with yellow fever, and
+Mrs. Audubon was compelled to dismiss her school and go to nurse them. They
+both recovered, and, in October (1823), set out for Louisville, making part
+of the journey on foot. The following winter was passed at Shipping Port,
+near Louisville, where Audubon painted birds, landscapes, portraits and
+even signs. In March he left Shipping Port for Philadelphia, leaving his
+son Victor in the counting house of a Mr. Berthoud. He reached Philadelphia
+on April 5, and remained there till the following August, studying
+painting, exhibiting his birds, making many new acquaintances, among them
+Charles Lucien Bonaparte, giving lessons in drawing at thirty dollars per
+month, all the time casting wistful eyes toward Europe, whither he hoped
+soon to be able to go with his drawings. In July he made a pilgrimage to
+Mill Grove where he had passed so many happy years. The sight of the old
+familiar scenes filled him with the deepest emotions.
+
+In August he left Philadelphia for New York, hoping to improve his
+finances, and, may be, publish his drawings in that city. At this time he
+had two hundred sheets, and about one thousand birds. While there he again
+met Vanderlyn and examined his pictures, but says that he was not impressed
+with the idea that Vanderlyn was a great painter.
+
+The birds that he saw in the museum in New York appeared to him to be set
+up in unnatural and constrained attitudes. With Dr. De Kay he visited the
+Lyceum, and his drawings were examined by members of the Institute. Among
+them he felt awkward and uncomfortable. "I feel that I am strange to all
+but the birds of America," he said. As most of the persons to whom he had
+letters of introduction were absent, and as his spirits soon grew low, he
+left on the fifteenth for Albany. Here he found his money low also.
+Abandoning the idea of visiting Boston, he took passage on a canal boat for
+Rochester. His fellow-passengers on the boat were doubtful whether he was a
+government officer, commissioner, or spy. At that time Rochester had only
+five thousand inhabitants. After a couple of days he went on to Buffalo
+and, he says, wrote under his name at the hotel this sentence: "Who, like
+Wilson, will ramble, but never, like that great man, die under the lash of
+a bookseller."
+
+He visited Niagara, and gives a good account of the impressions which the
+cataract made upon him. He did not cross the bridge to Goat Island on
+account of the low state of his funds. In Buffalo he obtained a good dinner
+of bread and milk for twelve cents, and went to bed cheering himself with
+thoughts of other great men who had encountered greater hardships and had
+finally achieved fame.
+
+He soon left Buffalo, taking a deck passage on a schooner bound for Erie,
+furnishing his own bed and provisions and paying a fare of one dollar and a
+half. From Erie he and a fellow-traveller hired a man and cart to take them
+to Meadville, paying their entertainers over night with music and portrait
+drawing. Reaching Meadville, they had only one dollar and a half between
+them, but soon replenished their pockets by sketching some of the leading
+citizens.
+
+Audubon's belief in himself helped him wonderfully. He knew that he had
+talents, he insisted on using them. Most of his difficulties came from
+trying to do the things he was not fitted to do. He did not hesitate to use
+his talents in a humble way, when nothing else offered--portraits,
+landscapes, birds and animals he painted, but he would paint the cabin
+walls of the ship to pay his passage, if he was short of funds, or execute
+crayon portraits of a shoemaker and his wife, to pay for shoes to enable
+him to continue his journeys. He could sleep on a steamer's deck, with a
+few shavings for a bed, and, wrapped in a blanket, look up at the starlit
+sky, and give thanks to a Providence that he believed was ever guarding and
+guiding him.
+
+Early in September he left for Pittsburg where he spent one month scouring
+the country for birds and continuing his drawings. In October, he was on
+his way down the Ohio in a skiff, in company with "a doctor, an artist and
+an Irishman." The weather was rainy, and at Wheeling his companions left
+the boat in disgust. He sold his skiff and continued his voyage to
+Cincinnati in a keel boat. Here he obtained a loan of fifteen dollars and
+took deck passage on a boat to Louisville, going thence to Shipping Port to
+see his son Victor. In a few days he was off for Bayou Sara to see his
+wife, and with a plan to open a school there.
+
+"I arrived at Bayou Sara with rent and wasted clothes, and uncut hair, and
+altogether looking like the Wandering Jew."
+
+In his haste to reach his wife and child at Mr. Percy's, a mile or more
+distant through the woods, he got lost in the night, and wandered till
+daylight before he found the house.
+
+He found his wife had prospered in his absence, and was earning nearly
+three thousand dollars a year, with which she was quite ready to help him
+in the publication of his drawings. He forthwith resolved to see what he
+could do to increase the amount by his own efforts. Receiving an offer to
+teach dancing, he soon had a class of sixty organised. But the material
+proved so awkward and refractory that the master in his first lesson broke
+his bow and nearly ruined his violin in his excitement and impatience. Then
+he danced to his own music till the whole room came down in thunders of
+applause. The dancing lessons brought him two thousand dollars; this sum,
+together with his wife's savings, enabled him to foresee a successful issue
+to his great ornithological work.
+
+On May, 1826, he embarked at New Orleans on board the ship _Delos_ for
+Liverpool. His journal kept during this voyage abounds in interesting
+incidents and descriptions. He landed at Liverpool, July 20, and delivered
+some of his letters of introduction. He soon made the acquaintance of Mr.
+Rathbone, Mr. Roscoe, Mr. Baring, and Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley said in
+looking over his drawings: "This work is unique, and deserves the patronage
+of the Crown." In a letter to his wife at this time, Audubon said: "I am
+cherished by the most notable people in and around Liverpool, and have
+obtained letters of introduction to Baron Humboldt, Sir Walter Scott, Sir
+Humphry Davy, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Hannah More, Miss Edgeworth, and your
+distinguished cousin, Robert Bakewell." Mark his courtesy to his wife in
+this gracious mention of her relative--a courtesy which never forsook him--
+a courtesy which goes far toward retaining any woman's affection.
+
+His paintings were put on exhibition in the rooms of the Royal Institution,
+an admittance of one shilling being charged. From this source he soon
+realised a hundred pounds.
+
+He then went to Edinburgh, carrying letters of introduction to many well
+known literary and scientific men, among them Francis Jeffrey and
+"Christopher North."
+
+Professor Jameson, the Scotch naturalist, received him coldly, and told
+him, among other things, that there was no chance of his seeing Sir Walter
+Scott--he was too busy. "_Not see Sir Walter Scott_?" thought I; "I
+SHALL, if I have to crawl on all fours for a mile." On his way up in the
+stage coach he had passed near Sir Walter's seat, and had stood up and
+craned his neck in vain to get a glimpse of the home of a man to whom, he
+says, he was indebted for so much pleasure. He and Scott were in many ways
+kindred spirits, men native to the open air, inevitable sportsmen, copious
+and romantic lovers and observers of all forms and conditions of life. Of
+course he will want to see Scott, and Scott will want to see him, if he
+once scents his real quality.
+
+Later, Professor Jameson showed Audubon much kindness and helped to
+introduce him to the public.
+
+In January, the opportunity to see Scott came to him.
+
+"_January 22, Monday_. I was painting diligently when Captain Hall
+came in, and said: 'Put on your coat, and come with me to Sir Walter Scott;
+he wishes to see you _now_.' In a moment I was ready, for I really
+believe my coat and hat came to me instead of my going to them. My heart
+trembled; I longed for the meeting, yet wished it over. Had not his
+wondrous pen penetrated my soul with the consciousness that here was a
+genius from God's hand? I felt overwhelmed at the thought of meeting Sir
+Walter, the Great Unknown. We reached the house, and a powdered waiter was
+asked if Sir Walter were in. We were shown forward at once, and entering a
+very small room Captain Hall said: 'Sir Walter, I have brought Mr.
+Audubon.' Sir Walter came forward, pressed my hand warmly, and said he was
+'glad to have the honour of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks
+struck me; he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of
+Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him and
+a kindness most prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at him, my eyes
+feasted on his countenance. I watched his movements as I would those of a
+celestial being; his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me forcibly. His
+little room was tidy, though it partook a good deal of the character of a
+laboratory. He was wrapped in a quilted morning-gown of light purple silk;
+he had been at work writing on the 'Life of Napoleon.' He writes close
+lines, rather curved as they go from left to right, and puts an immense
+deal on very little paper. After a few minutes had elapsed, he begged
+Captain Hall to ring a bell; a servant came and was asked to bid Miss Scott
+come to see Mr. Audubon. Miss Scott came, black haired and black-dressed,
+not handsome but said to be highly accomplished, and she is the daughter of
+Sir Walter Scott. There was much conversation. I talked but little, but,
+believe me, I listened and observed, careful if ignorant. I cannot write
+more now. I have just returned from the Royal Society. Knowing that I was a
+candidate for the electorate of the society, I felt very uncomfortable and
+would gladly have been hunting on Tawapatee Bottom."
+
+It may be worth while now to see what Scott thought of Audubon. Under the
+same date, Sir Walter writes in his journal as follows: "_January_ 22,
+1827. A visit from Basil Hall, with Mr. Audubon, the ornithologist, who has
+followed the pursuit by many a long wandering in the American forests. He
+is an American by naturalisation, a Frenchman by birth; but less of a
+Frenchman than I have ever seen--no dust or glimmer, or shine about him,
+but great simplicity of manners and behaviour; slight in person and plainly
+dressed; wears long hair, which time has not yet tinged; his countenance
+acute, handsome, and interesting, but still simplicity is the predominant
+characteristic. I wish I had gone to see his drawings; but I had heard so
+much about them that I resolved not to see them--'a crazy way of mine, your
+honour.'"
+
+Two days later Audubon again saw Scott, and writes in his journal as
+follows: "_January 24_. My second visit to Sir Walter Scott was much
+more agreeable than my first. My portfolio and its contents were matters on
+which I could speak substantially, and I found him so willing to level
+himself with me for awhile that the time spent at his home was agreeable
+and valuable. His daughter improved in looks the moment she spoke, having
+both vivacity and good sense."
+
+Scott's impressions of the birds as recorded in his journal, was that the
+drawings were of the first order, but he thought that the aim at extreme
+correctness and accuracy made them rather stiff.
+
+In February Audubon met Scott again at the opening of the Exhibition at the
+rooms of the Royal Institution.
+
+"_Tuesday, February 13_. This was the grand, long promised, and much
+wished-for day of the opening of the Exhibition at the rooms of the Royal
+Institution. At one o'clock I went, the doors were just opened, and in a
+few minutes the rooms were crowded. Sir Walter Scott was present; he came
+towards me, shook my hand cordially, and pointing to Landseer's picture
+said: 'Many such scenes, Mr. Audubon, have I witnessed in my younger days.'
+We talked much of all about us, and I would gladly have joined him in a
+glass of wine, but my foolish habits prevented me, and after inquiring of
+his daughter's health, I left him, and shortly afterwards the rooms; for I
+had a great appetite, and although there were tables loaded with
+delicacies, and I saw the ladies particularly eating freely, I must say to
+my shame I dared not lay my fingers on a single thing. In the evening I
+went to the theatre where I was much amused by 'The Comedy of Errors,' and
+afterwards, 'The Green Room.' I admire Miss Neville's singing very much;
+and her manners also; there is none of the actress about her, but much of
+the lady."
+
+Audubon somewhere says of himself that he was "temperate to an intemperate
+degree"--the accounts in later years show that he became less strict in
+this respect. He would not drink with Sir Walter Scott at this time, but he
+did with the Texan Houston and with President Andrew Jackson, later on.
+
+In September we find him exhibiting his pictures in Manchester, but without
+satisfactory results. In the lobby of the exchange where his pictures were
+on exhibition, he overheard one man say to another: "Pray, have you seen
+Mr. Audubon's collection of birds? I am told it is well worth a shilling;
+suppose we go now."
+
+"Pah! it is all a hoax; save your shilling for better use. I have seen
+them; the fellow ought to be drummed out of town."
+
+In 1827, in Edinburgh, he seems to have issued a prospectus for his work,
+and to have opened books of subscription, and now a publisher, Mr. Lizars,
+offers to bring out the first number of "Birds of America," and on November
+28, the first proof of the first engraving was shown him, and he was
+pleased with it.
+
+With a specimen number he proposed to travel about the country in quest of
+subscribers until he had secured three hundred. In his journal under date
+of December 10, he says: "My success in Edinburgh borders on the
+miraculous. My book is to be published in numbers containing four [in
+another place he says five] birds in each, the size of life, in a style
+surpassing anything now existing, at two guineas a number. The engravings
+are truly beautiful; some of them have been coloured, and are now on
+exhibition."
+
+Audubon's journal, kept during his stay in Edinburgh, is copious, graphic,
+and entertaining. It is a mirror of everything he saw and felt.
+
+Among others he met George Combe, the phrenologist, author of the once
+famous _Constitution of Man_, and he submitted to having his head
+"looked at." The examiner said: "There cannot exist a moment of doubt that
+this gentleman is a painter, colourist, and compositor, and, I would add,
+an amiable though quick tempered man."
+
+Audubon was invited to the annual feast given by the Antiquarian Society at
+the Waterloo Hotel, at which Lord Elgin presided. After the health of many
+others had been drunk, Audubon's was proposed by Skene, a Scottish
+historian. "Whilst he was engaged in a handsome panegyric, the perspiration
+poured from me. I thought I should faint." But he survived the ordeal and
+responded in a few appropriate words. He was much dined and wined, and
+obliged to keep late hours--often getting no more than four hours sleep,
+and working hard painting and writing all the next day. He often wrote in
+his journals for his wife to read later, bidding her Good-night, or rather
+Good-morning, at three A.M.
+
+Audubon had the bashfulness and awkwardness of the backwoodsman, and
+doubtless the naiveté and picturesqueness also; these traits and his very
+great merits as a painter of wild life, made him a favourite in Edinburgh
+society. One day he went to read a paper on the Crow to Dr. Brewster, and
+was so nervous and agitated that he had to pause for a moment in the midst
+of it. He left the paper with Dr. Brewster and when he got it back again
+was much shocked: "He had greatly improved the style (for I had none), but
+he had destroyed the matter."
+
+During these days Audubon was very busy writing, painting, receiving
+callers, and dining out. He grew very tired of it all at times, and longed
+for the solitude of his native woods. Some days his room was a perfect
+levee. "It is Mr. Audubon here, and Mr. Audubon there; I only hope they
+will not make a conceited fool of Mr. Audubon at last." There seems to have
+been some danger of this, for he says: "I seem in a measure to have gone
+back to my early days of society and fine dressing, silk stockings and
+pumps, and all the finery with which I made a popinjay of myself in my
+youth.... I wear my hair as long as usual, I believe it does as much for
+me as my paintings."
+
+He wrote to Thomas Sully of Philadelphia, promising to send him his first
+number, to be presented to the Philadelphia Society--"an institution which
+thought me unworthy to be a member," he writes.
+
+About this time he was a guest for a day or two of Earl Morton, at his
+estate Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh. He had expected to see an imposing
+personage in the great Chamberlain to the late queen Charlotte. What was
+his relief and surprise, then, to see a "small, slender man, tottering on
+his feet, weaker than a newly hatched partridge," who welcomed him with
+tears in his eyes. The countess, "a fair, fresh-complexioned woman, with
+dark, flashing eyes," wrote her name in his subscription book, and offered
+to pay the price in advance. The next day he gave her a lesson in drawing.
+
+On his return to Edinburgh he dined with Captain Hall, to meet Francis
+Jeffrey. "Jeffrey is a little man," he writes, "with a serious face and
+dignified air. He looks both shrewd and cunning, and talks with so much
+volubility he is rather displeasing.... Mrs. Jeffrey was nervous and very
+much dressed."
+
+Early in January he painted his "Pheasant attacked by a Fox." This was his
+method of proceeding: "I take one [a fox] neatly killed, put him up with
+wires, and when satisfied with the truth of the position, I take my palette
+and work as rapidly as possible; the same with my birds. If practicable, I
+finish the bird at one sitting,--often, it is true, of fourteen hours,--so
+that I think they are correct, both in detail and in composition."
+
+In pictures by Landseer and other artists which he saw in the galleries of
+Edinburgh, he saw the skilful painter, "the style of men who know how to
+handle a brush, and carry a good effect," but he missed that closeness and
+fidelity to Nature which to him so much outweighed mere technique.
+Landseer's "Death of a Stag" affected him like a farce. It was pretty, but
+not real and true. He did not feel that way about the sermon he heard
+Sydney Smith preach: "It was a sermon to _me_. He made me smile and he
+made me think deeply. He pleased me at times by painting my foibles with
+due care, and again I felt the colour come to my cheeks as he portrayed my
+sins." Later, he met Sydney Smith and his "fair daughter," and heard the
+latter sing. Afterwards he had a note from the famous divine upon which he
+remarks: "The man should study economy; he would destroy more paper in a
+day than Franklin would in a week; but all great men are more or less
+eccentric. Walter Scott writes a diminutive hand, very difficult to read,
+Napoleon a large scrawling one, still more difficult, and Sydney Smith goes
+up hill all the way with large strides."
+
+Having decided upon visiting London, he yielded to the persuasions of his
+friends and had his hair cut before making the trip. He chronicles the
+event in his journal as a very sad one, in which "the will of God was
+usurped by the wishes of man." Shorn of his locks he probably felt humbled
+like the stag when he loses his horns.
+
+Quitting Edinburgh on April 5, he visited, in succession, Newcastle, Leeds,
+York, Shrewsbury, and Manchester, in quest of subscribers to his great
+work. A few were obtained at each place at two hundred pounds per head. At
+Newcastle he first met Bewick, the famous wood engraver, and conceived a
+deep liking for him.
+
+We find him in London on May 21, 1827, and not in a very happy frame of
+mind: "To me London is just like the mouth of an immense monster, guarded
+by millions of sharp-edged teeth, from which, if I escape unhurt, it must
+be called a miracle." It only filled him with a strong desire to be in his
+beloved woods again. His friend, Basil Hall, had insisted upon his
+procuring a black suit of clothes. When he put this on to attend his first
+dinner party, he spoke of himself as "attired like a mournful raven," and
+probably more than ever wished himself in the woods.
+
+He early called upon the great portrait painter, Sir Thomas Lawrence, who
+inspected his drawings, pronounced them "very clever," and, in a few days,
+brought him several purchasers for some of his animal paintings, thus
+replenishing his purse with nearly one hundred pounds.
+
+Considering Audubon's shy disposition, and his dread of persons in high
+places, it is curious that he should have wanted to call upon the King, and
+should have applied to the American Minister, Mr. Gallatin, to help him to
+do so. Mr. Gallatin laughed and said: "It is impossible, my dear sir, the
+King sees nobody; he has the gout, is peevish, and spends his time playing
+whist at a shilling a rubber. I had to wait six weeks before I was
+presented to him in my position of ambassador." But his work was presented
+to the King who called it fine, and His Majesty became a subscriber on the
+usual terms. Other noble persons followed suit, yet Audubon was despondent.
+He had removed the publication of his work from Edinburgh to London, from
+the hands of Mr. Lizars into those of Robert Havell. But the enterprise did
+not prosper, his agents did not attend to business, nor to his orders, and
+he soon found himself at bay for means to go forward with the work. At this
+juncture he determined to make a sortie for the purpose of collecting his
+dues and to add to his subscribers. He visited Leeds, York, and other
+towns. Under date of October 9, at York, he writes in his journal: "How
+often I thought during these visits of poor Alexander Wilson. Then
+travelling as I am now, to procure subscribers he, as well as myself, was
+received with rude coldness, and sometimes with that arrogance which
+belongs to _parvenus."_
+
+A week or two later we find him again in Edinburgh where he breakfasted
+with Professor Wilson ("Christopher North"), whom he greatly enjoyed, a man
+without stiffness or ceremonies: "No cravat, no waistcoat, but a fine frill
+of his own profuse beard, his hair flowing uncontrolled, and his speech
+dashing at once at the object in view, without circumlocution.... He gives
+me comfort by being comfortable himself."
+
+In early November he took the coach for Glasgow, he and three other
+passengers making the entire journey without uttering a single word: "We
+sat like so many owls of different species, as if afraid of one another."
+Four days in Glasgow and only one subscriber.
+
+Early in January he is back in London arranging with Mr. Havell for the
+numbers to be engraved in 1828. One day on looking up to the new moon he
+saw a large flock of wild ducks passing over, then presently another flock
+passed. The sight of these familiar objects made him more homesick than
+ever. He often went to Regent's Park to see the trees, and the green grass,
+and to hear the sweet notes of the black birds and starlings.
+
+The black birds' note revived his drooping spirits: to his wife he writes,
+"it carries my mind to the woods around thee, my Lucy."
+
+Now and then a subscriber withdrew his name, which always cut him to the
+quick, but did not dishearten him.
+
+"_January 28_. I received a letter from D. Lizars to-day announcing to
+me the loss of four subscribers; but these things do not dampen my spirits
+half so much as the smoke of London. I am as dull as a beetle."
+
+In February he learned that it was Sir Thomas Lawrence who prevented the
+British Museum from subscribing to his work: "He considered the drawings
+so-so, and the engraving and colouring bad; when I remember how he praised
+these same drawings _in my presence,_ I wonder--that is all."
+
+The rudest man he met in England was the Earl of Kinnoul: "A small man with
+a face like the caricature of an owl." He sent for Audubon to tell him that
+all his birds were alike, and that he considered his work a swindle. "He
+may really think this, his knowledge is probably small; but it is not the
+custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's own house." Audubon
+heard his words, bowed and left him without speaking.
+
+In March he went to Cambridge and met and was dined by many learned men.
+The University, through its Librarian, subscribed for his work. Other
+subscriptions followed. He was introduced to a judge who wore a wig that
+"might make a capital bed for an Osage Indian during the whole of a cold
+winter on the Arkansas River."
+
+On his way to Oxford he saw them turn a stag from a cart "before probably a
+hundred hounds and as many huntsmen. A curious land, and a curious custom,
+to catch an animal and then set it free merely to catch it again." At
+Oxford he received much attention, but complains that not one of the
+twenty-two colleges subscribed for his work, though two other institutions
+did.
+
+Early in April we find him back in London lamenting over his sad fate in
+being compelled to stay in so miserable a place. He could neither write nor
+draw to his satisfaction amid the "bustle, filth, and smoke." His mind and
+heart turned eagerly toward America, and to his wife and boys, and he began
+seriously to plan for a year's absence from England. He wanted to renew and
+to improve about fifty of his drawings. During this summer of 1828, he was
+very busy in London, painting, writing, and superintending the colouring of
+his plates. Under date of August 9, he writes in his journal: "I have been
+at work from four every morning until dark; I have kept up my large
+correspondence. My publication goes on well and regularly, and this very
+day seventy sets have been distributed, yet the number of my subscribers
+has not increased; on the contrary, I have lost some." He made the
+acquaintance of Swainson, and the two men found much companionship in each
+other, and had many long talks about birds: "Why, Lucy, thou wouldst think
+that birds were all that we cared for in this world, but thou knowest this
+is not so."
+
+Together he and Mr. and Mrs. Swainson planned a trip to Paris, which they
+carried out early in September. It tickled Audubon greatly to find that the
+Frenchman at the office in Calais, who had never seen him, had described
+his complexion in his passport as copper red, because he was an American,
+all Americans suggesting aborigines. In Paris they early went to call upon
+Baron Cuvier. They were told that he was too busy to be seen: "Being
+determined to look at the Great Man, we waited, knocked again, and with a
+certain degree of firmness, sent in our names. The messenger returned,
+bowed, and led the way up stairs, where in a minute Monsieur le Baron, like
+an excellent good man, came to us. He had heard much of my friend Swainson,
+and greeted him as he deserves to be greeted; he was polite and kind to me,
+though my name had never made its way to his ears. I looked at him and here
+follows the result: Age about sixty-five; size corpulent, five feet five
+English measure; head large, face wrinkled and brownish; eyes grey,
+brilliant and sparkling; nose aquiline, large and red; mouth large with
+good lips; teeth few, blunted by age, excepting one on the lower jaw,
+_measuring nearly three-quarters of an inch square._" The italics are
+not Audubon's. The great naturalist invited his callers to dine with him at
+six on the next Saturday.
+
+They next presented their letter to Geoffroy de St. Hilaire, with whom they
+were particularly pleased. Neither had he ever heard of Audubon's work. The
+dinner with Cuvier gave him a nearer view of the manners and habits of the
+great man. "There was not the show of opulence at this dinner that is seen
+in the same rank of life in England, no, not by far, but it was a good
+dinner served _à la Française._" Neither was it followed by the
+"drinking matches" of wine, so common at English tables.
+
+During his stay in Paris Audubon saw much of Cuvier, and was very kindly
+and considerately treated by him. One day he accompanied a portrait painter
+to his house and saw him sit for his portrait: "I see the Baron now, quite
+as plainly as I did this morning,--an old green surtout about him, a
+neckcloth that would have wrapped his whole body if unfolded, loosely tied
+about his chin, and his silver locks looking like those of a man who loves
+to study books better than to visit barbers."
+
+Audubon remained in Paris till near the end of October, making the
+acquaintance of men of science and of artists, and bringing his work to the
+attention of those who were likely to value it. Baron Cuvier reported
+favourably upon it to the Academy of Sciences, pronouncing it "the most
+magnificent monument which has yet been erected to ornithology." He
+obtained thirteen subscribers in France and spent forty pounds.
+
+On November 9, he is back in London, and soon busy painting, and pressing
+forward the engraving and colouring of his work. The eleventh number was
+the first for the year 1829.
+
+The winter was largely taken up in getting ready for his return trip to
+America. He found a suitable agent to look after his interests, collected
+some money, paid all his debts, and on April 1 sailed from Portsmouth in
+the packet ship _Columbia_. He was sea-sick during the entire voyage,
+and reached New York May 5. He did not hasten to his family as would have
+been quite natural after so long an absence, but spent the summer and part
+of the fall in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prosecuting his studies and
+drawings of birds, making his headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. He spent
+six weeks in the Great Pine Forest, and much time at Great Egg Harbor, and
+has given delightful accounts of these trips in his journals. Four hours'
+sleep out of the twenty-four was his allotted allowance.
+
+One often marvels at Audubon's apparent indifference to his wife and his
+home, for from the first he was given to wandering. Then, too, his
+carelessness in money matters, and his improvident ways, necessitating his
+wife's toiling to support the family, put him in a rather unfavourable
+light as a "good provider," but a perusal of his journal shows that he was
+keenly alive to all the hardships and sacrifices of his wife, and from
+first to last in his journeyings he speaks of his longings for home and
+family. "Cut off from all dearest me," he says in one of his youthful
+journeys, and in his latest one he speaks of himself as being as happy as
+one can be who is "three thousand miles from the dearest friend on earth."
+Clearly some impelling force held him to the pursuit of this work,
+hardships or no hardships. Fortunately for him, his wife shared his belief
+in his talents and in their ultimate recognition.
+
+Under date of October 11, 1829, he writes: "I am at work and have done
+much, but I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the
+specimens; still I am delighted at what I have accumulated in drawings this
+season. Forty-two drawings in four months, eleven large, eleven middle
+size, and twenty-two small, comprising ninety-five birds, from eagles
+downwards, with plants, nests, flowers, and sixty different kinds of eggs.
+I live alone, see scarcely anyone besides those belonging to the house
+where I lodge. I rise long before day, and work till nightfall, when I take
+a walk and to bed."
+
+Audubon's capacity for work was extraordinary. His enthusiasm and
+perseverance were equally extraordinary. His purposes and ideas fairly
+possessed him. Never did a man consecrate himself more fully to the
+successful completion of the work of his life, than did Audubon to the
+finishing of his "American Ornithology."
+
+During this month Audubon left Camden and turned his face toward his wife
+and children, crossing the mountains to Pittsburg in the mail coach with
+his dog and gun, thence down the Ohio in a steamboat to Louisville, where
+he met his son Victor, whom he had not seen for five years. After a few
+days here with his two boys, he started for Bayou Sara to see his wife.
+Beaching Mr. Johnson's house in the early morning, he went at once to his
+wife's apartment: "Her door was ajar, already she was dressed and sitting
+by her piano, on which a young lady was playing. I pronounced her name
+gently, she saw me, and the next moment I held her in my arms. Her emotion
+was so great I feared I had acted rashly, but tears relieved our hearts,
+once more we were together."
+
+Mrs. Audubon soon settled up her affairs at Bayou Sara, and the two set out
+early in January, 1830, for Louisville, thence to Cincinnati, thence to
+Wheeling, and so on to Washington, where Audubon exhibited his drawings to
+the House of Representatives and received their subscriptions as a body. In
+Washington, he met the President, Andrew Jackson, and made the acquaintance
+of Edward Everett. Thence to Baltimore where he obtained three more
+subscribers, thence to New York from which port he sailed in April with his
+wife on the packet ship Pacific, for England, and arrived at Liverpool in
+twenty-five days.
+
+This second sojourn in England lasted till the second of August, 1831. The
+time was occupied in pushing the publication of his "Birds," canvassing the
+country for new subscribers, painting numerous pictures for sale, writing
+his "Ornithological Biography," living part of the time in Edinburgh, and
+part of the time in London, with two or three months passed in France,
+where there were fourteen subscribers. While absent in America, he had been
+elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and on May 6 took his seat
+in the great hall.
+
+He needed some competent person to assist him in getting his manuscript
+ready for publication and was so fortunate as to obtain the services of
+MacGillivray, the biographer of British Birds.
+
+Audubon had learned that three editions of Wilson's "Ornithology" were
+soon to be published in Edinburgh, and he set to work vigorously to get his
+book out before them. Assisted by MacGillivray, he worked hard at his
+biography of the birds, writing all day, and Mrs. Audubon making a copy of
+the work to send to America to secure copyright there. Writing to her sons
+at this time, Mrs. Audubon says: "Nothing is heard but the steady movement
+of the pen; your father is up and at work before dawn, and writes without
+ceasing all day."
+
+When the first volume was finished, Audubon offered it to two publishers,
+both of whom refused it, so he published it himself in March, 1831.
+
+In April on his way to London he travelled "on that Extraordinary road
+called the railway, at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour."
+
+The first volume of his bird pictures was completed this summer, and, in
+bringing it out, forty thousand dollars had passed through his hands. It
+had taken four years to bring that volume before the world, during which
+time no less than fifty of his subscribers, representing the sum of
+fifty-six thousand dollars, had abandoned him, so that at the end of that
+time, he had only one hundred and thirty names standing on his list.
+
+It was no easy thing to secure enough men to pledge themselves to $1,000
+for a work, the publication of which must of necessity extend over eight or
+ten years.
+
+Few enterprises, involving such labour and expense, have ever been carried
+through against such odds.
+
+The entire cost of the "Birds" exceeded one hundred thousand dollars, yet
+the author never faltered in this gigantic undertaking.
+
+On August 2, Audubon and his wife sailed for America, and landed in New
+York on September 4. They at once went to Louisville where the wife
+remained with her sons, while the husband went to Florida where the winter
+of 1831-2 was spent, prosecuting his studies of our birds. His adventures
+and experiences in Florida, he has embodied in his Floridian Episodes, "The
+Live Oakers," "Spring Garden," "Deer Hunting," "Sandy Island," "The
+Wreckers," "The Turtles," "Death of a Pirate," and other sketches. Stopping
+at Charleston, South Carolina, on this southern trip, he made the
+acquaintance of the Reverend John Bachman, and a friendship between these
+two men was formed that lasted as long as they both lived. Subsequently,
+Audubon's sons, Victor and John, married Dr. Bachman's two eldest
+daughters.
+
+In the summer of 1832, Audubon, accompanied by his wife and two sons, made
+a trip to Maine and New Brunswick, going very leisurely by private
+conveyance through these countries, studying the birds, the people, the
+scenery, and gathering new material for his work. His diaries give minute
+accounts of these journeyings. He was impressed by the sobriety of the
+people of Maine; they seem to have had a "Maine law" at that early date;
+"for on asking for brandy, rum, or whiskey, not a drop could I obtain." He
+saw much of the lumbermen and was a deeply interested spectator of their
+ways and doings. Some of his best descriptive passages are contained in
+these diaries.
+
+In October he is back in Boston planning a trip to Labrador, and intent on
+adding more material to his "Birds" by another year in his home country.
+
+That his interests abroad in the meantime might not suffer by being
+entirely in outside hands, he sent his son Victor, now a young man of
+considerable business experience, to England to represent him there. The
+winter of 1832 and 1833 Audubon seems to have spent mainly in Boston,
+drawing and re-drawing and there he had his first serious illness.
+
+In the spring of 1833, a schooner was chartered and, accompanied by five
+young men, his youngest son, John Woodhouse, among them, Audubon started on
+his Labrador trip, which lasted till the end of summer. It was an expensive
+and arduous trip, but was greatly enjoyed by all hands, and was fruitful in
+new material for his work. Seventy-three bird skins were prepared, many
+drawings made, and many new plants collected.
+
+The weather in Labrador was for the most part rainy, foggy, cold, and
+windy, and his drawings were made in the cabin of his vessel, often under
+great difficulties. He makes this interesting observation upon the Eider
+duck: "In one nest of the Eider ten eggs were found; this is the most we
+have seen as yet in any one nest. The female draws the down from her
+abdomen as far toward her breast as her bill will allow her to do, but the
+feathers are not pulled, and on examination of several specimens, I found
+these well and regularly planted, and cleaned from their original down, as
+a forest of trees is cleared of its undergrowth. In this state the female
+is still well clothed, and little or no difference can be seen in the
+plumage, unless examined."
+
+He gives this realistic picture of salmon fishermen that his party saw in
+Labrador: "On going to a house on the shore, we found it a tolerably good
+cabin, floored, containing a good stove, a chimney, and an oven at the
+bottom of this, like the ovens of the French peasants, three beds, and a
+table whereon the breakfast of the family was served. This consisted of
+coffee in large bowls, good bread, and fried salmon. Three Labrador dogs
+came and sniffed about us, and then returned under the table whence they
+had issued, with no appearance of anger. Two men, two women, and a babe
+formed the group, which I addressed in French. They were French-Canadians
+and had been here several years, winter and summer, and are agents for the
+Fur and Fish Co., who give them food, clothes, and about $80 per annum.
+They have a cow and an ox, about an acre of potatoes planted in sand, seven
+feet of snow in winter, and two-thirds less salmon than was caught here ten
+years since. Then, three hundred barrels was a fair season; now one hundred
+is the maximum; this is because they will catch the fish both ascending and
+descending the river. During winter the men hunt Foxes, Martens, and
+Sables, and kill some bear of the black kind, but neither Deer nor other
+game is to be found without going a great distance in the interior, where
+Reindeer are now and then procured. One species of Grouse, and one of
+Ptarmigan, the latter white at all seasons; the former, I suppose to be,
+the Willow Grouse. The men would neither sell nor give us a single salmon,
+saying, that so strict were their orders that, should they sell _one,_
+the place might be taken from them. If this should prove the case
+everywhere, I shall not purchase many for my friends. The furs which they
+collect are sent off to Quebec at the first opening of the waters in
+spring, and not a skin of any sort was here for us to look at."
+
+He gives a vivid picture of the face of Nature in Labrador on a fine day,
+under date of July 2: "A beautiful day for Labrador. Drew another _M.
+articus._ Went on shore, and was most pleased with what I saw. The
+country, so wild and grand, is of itself enough to interest any one in its
+wonderful dreariness. Its mossy, grey-clothed rocks, heaped and thrown
+together as if by chance, in the most fantastical groups imaginable, huge
+masses hanging on minor ones as if about to roll themselves down from their
+doubtful-looking situations, into the depths of the sea beneath. Bays
+without end, sprinkled with rocky islands of all shapes and sizes, where in
+every fissure a Guillemot, a Cormorant, or some other wild bird retreats to
+secure its egg, and raise its young, or save itself from the hunter's
+pursuit. The peculiar cast of the sky, which never seems to be certain,
+butterflies flitting over snowbanks, probing beautiful dwarf flowerets of
+many hues, pushing their tender, stems from the thick bed of moss which
+everywhere covers the granite rocks. Then the morasses, wherein you plunge
+up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery,
+making one think that as he goes he treads down the _forests_ of
+Labrador. The unexpected Bunting, or perhaps Sylvia, which, perchance, and
+indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or
+hear singing from the creeping plants on the ground. The beautiful
+freshwater lakes, on the rugged crests of greatly elevated islands, wherein
+the Red and Black-necked Divers swim as proudly as swans do in other
+latitudes, and where the fish appear to have been cast as strayed beings
+from the surplus food of the ocean. All--all is wonderfully grand, wild--
+aye, and terrific. And yet how beautiful it is now, when one sees the wild
+bee, moving from one flower to another in search of food, which doubtless
+is as sweet to it, as the essence of the magnolia is to those of favoured
+Louisiana. The little Ring Plover rearing its delicate and tender young,
+the Eider Duck swimming man-of-war-like amid her floating brood, like the
+guardship of a most valuable convoy; the White-crowned Bunting's sonorous
+note reaching the ear ever and anon; the crowds of sea birds in search of
+places wherein to repose or to feed--how beautiful is all this in this
+wonderful rocky desert at this season, the beginning of July, compared with
+the horrid blasts of winter which here predominate by the will of God, when
+every rock is rendered smooth with snows so deep that every step the
+traveller takes is as if entering into his grave; for even should he escape
+an avalanche, his eye dreads to search the horizon, for full well he knows
+that snow--snow is all that can be seen. I watched the Ring Plover for some
+time; the parents were so intent on saving their young that they both lay
+on the rocks as if shot, quivering their wings and dragging their bodies as
+if quite disabled. We left them and their young to the care of the Creator.
+I would not have shot one of the old ones, or taken one of the young for
+any consideration, and I was glad my young men were as forbearing. The
+_L. marinus_ is extremely abundant here; they are forever harassing
+every other bird, sucking their eggs, and devouring their young; they take
+here the place of Eagles and Hawks; not an Eagle have we seen yet, and only
+two or three small Hawks, and one small Owl; yet what a harvest they would
+have here, were there trees for them to rest upon."
+
+On his return from Labrador in September, Audubon spent three weeks in New
+York, after which with his wife, he started upon another southern trip,
+pausing at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond. In Washington
+he made some attempts to obtain permission to accompany a proposed
+expedition to the Rocky Mountains, under Government patronage. But the cold
+and curt manner in which Cass, then Secretary of War, received his
+application, quite disheartened him. But he presently met Washington
+Irving, whose friendly face and cheering words revived his spirits. How one
+would like a picture of that meeting in Washington between Audubon and
+Irving--two men who in so many ways were kindred spirits!
+
+Charleston, South Carolina, was reached late in October, and at the home of
+their friend Bachman the Audubons seem to have passed the most of the
+winter of 1833-4: "My time was well employed; I hunted for new birds or
+searched for more knowledge of old. I drew, I wrote many long pages. I
+obtained a few new subscribers, and made some collections on account of my
+work."
+
+His son Victor wrote desiring the presence of his father in England, and on
+April 16, we find him with his wife and son John, again embarked for
+Liverpool. In due time they are in London where they find Victor well, and
+the business of publication going on prosperously. One of the amusing
+incidents of this sojourn, narrated in the diaries, is Audubon's and his
+son's interview with the Baron Rothschild, to whom he had a letter of
+introduction from a distinguished American banking house. The Baron was not
+present when they entered his private office, but "soon a corpulent man
+appeared, hitching up his trousers, and a face red with the exertion of
+walking, and without noticing anyone present, dropped his fat body into a
+comfortable chair, as if caring for no one else in this wide world but
+himself. While the Baron sat, we stood, with our hats held respectfully in
+our hands. I stepped forward, and with a bow tendered my credentials.
+'Pray, sir,' said the man of golden consequence, 'is this a letter of
+business, or is it a mere letter of introduction?' This I could not well
+answer, for I had not read the contents of it, and I was forced to answer
+rather awkwardly, that I could not tell. The banker then opened the letter,
+read it with the manner of one who was looking only at the temporal side of
+things, and after reading it said, 'This is only a letter of introduction,
+and I expect from its contents that you are the publisher of some book or
+other and need my subscription.'
+
+"Had a man the size of a mountain spoken to me in that arrogant style in
+America, I should have indignantly resented it; but where I then was it
+seemed best to swallow and digest it as well as I could. So in reply to the
+offensive arrogance of the banker, I said I should be _honoured_ by
+his subscription to the "Birds of America." 'Sir,' he said, 'I never sign
+my name to any subscription list, but you may send in your work and I will
+pay for a copy of it. Gentlemen, I am busy. I wish you good morning.' We
+were busy men, too, and so bowing respectfully, we retired, pretty well
+satisfied with the small slice of his opulence which our labour was likely
+to obtain.
+
+"A few days afterwards I sent the first volume of my work half bound, and
+all the numbers besides, then published. On seeing them we were told that
+he ordered the bearer to take them to his house, which was done directly.
+Number after number was sent and delivered to the Baron, and after eight or
+ten months my son made out his account and sent it by Mr. Havell, my
+engraver, to his banking-house. The Baron looked at it with amazement, and
+cried out, 'What, a hundred pounds for birds! Why, sir, I will give you
+five pounds and not a farthing more!' Representations were made to him of
+the magnificence and expense of the work, and how pleased his Baroness and
+wealthy children would be to have a copy; but the great financier was
+unrelenting. The copy of the work was actually sent back to Mr. Havell's
+shop, and as I found that instituting legal proceedings against him would
+cost more than it would come to, I kept the work, and afterwards sold it to
+a man with less money but a nobler heart. What a distance there is between
+two such men as the Baron Rothschild of London, and the merchant of
+Savannah!"
+
+Audubon remained in London during the summer of 1834, and in the fall
+removed to Edinburgh, where he hired a house and spent a year and a half at
+work on his "Ornithological Biography," the second and third volumes of
+which were published during that time.
+
+In the summer of 1836, he returned to London, where he settled his family
+in Cavendish Square, and in July, with his son John, took passage at
+Portsmouth for New York, desiring to explore more thoroughly the southern
+states for new material for his work. On his arrival in New York, Audubon,
+to his deep mortification, found that all his books, papers, and valuable
+and curious things, which he had collected both at home and abroad, had
+been destroyed in the great fire in New York, in 1835.
+
+In September he spent some time in Boston where he met Brewer and Nuttall,
+and made the acquaintance of Daniel Webster, Judge Story, and others.
+
+Writing to his son in England, at this time, admonishing him to carry on
+the work, should he himself be taken away prematurely, he advises him thus:
+"Should you deem it wise to remove the publication of the work to this
+country, I advise you to settle in Boston; _I have faith in the
+Bostonians."_
+
+In Salem he called upon a wealthy young lady by the name of Silsby, who had
+the eyes of a gazelle, but "when I mentioned subscription it seemed to fall
+on her ears, not as the cadence of the wood thrush, or of the mocking bird
+does on mine, but as a shower bath in cold January."
+
+From Boston Audubon returned in October to New York, and thence went
+southward through Philadelphia to Washington, carrying with him letters
+from Washington Irving to Benjamin F. Butler, then the Attorney General of
+the United States, and to Martin Van Buren who had just been elected to the
+presidency. Butler was then quite a young man: "He read Washington Irving's
+letter, laid it down, and began a long talk about his talents, and after a
+while came round to my business, saying that the Government allows so
+little money to the departments, that he did not think it probable that
+their subscription could be obtained without a law to that effect from
+Congress."
+
+At this time he also met the President, General Jackson: "He was very kind,
+and as soon as he heard that we intended departing to-morrow evening for
+Charleston, invited us to dine with him _en famille._ At the hour
+named we went to the White House, and were taken into a room, where the
+President soon joined us, I sat close to him; we spoke of olden times, and
+touched slightly on politics, and I found him very averse to the Cause of
+the Texans.... The dinner was what might be called plain and substantial in
+England; I dined from a fine young turkey, shot within twenty miles of
+Washington. The General drank no wine, but his health was drunk by us more
+than once; and he ate very moderately; his last dish consisting of bread
+and milk."
+
+In November Audubon is again at the house of his friend Dr. Bachman, in
+Charleston, South Carolina. Here he passed the winter of 1836-7, making
+excursions to various points farther south, going as far as Florida. It was
+at this time that he seems to have begun, in connection with Dr. Bachman,
+his studies in Natural History which resulted in the publication, a few
+years later, of the "Quadrupeds of North America."
+
+In the spring he left Charleston and set out to explore the Gulf of Mexico,
+going to Galveston and thence well into Texas, where he met General Sam
+Houston. Here is one of his vivid, realistic pen pictures of the famous
+Texan: "We walked towards the President's house, accompanied by the
+Secretary of the Navy, and as soon as we rose above the bank, we saw before
+us a level of far-extending prairie, destitute of timber, and rather poor
+soil. Houses half finished, and most of them without roofs, tents, and a
+liberty pole, with the capitol, were all exhibited to our view at once. We
+approached the President's mansion, however, wading through water above our
+ankles. This abode of President Houston is a small log house, consisting of
+two rooms, and a passage through, after the southern fashion. The moment we
+stepped over the threshold, on the right hand of the passage we found
+ourselves ushered into what in other countries would be called the
+antechamber; the ground floor, however, was muddy and filthy, a large fire
+was burning, a small table covered with paper and writing materials, was in
+the centre, camp-beds, trunks, and different materials, were strewed about
+the room. We were at once presented to several members of the cabinet, some
+of whom bore the stamp of men of intellectual ability, simple, though bold,
+in their general appearance. Here we were presented to Mr. Crawford, an
+agent of the British Minister to Mexico, who has come here on some secret
+mission.
+
+"The President was engaged in the opposite room on some national business,
+and we could not see him for some time. Meanwhile we amused ourselves by
+walking to the capitol, which was yet without a roof, and the floors,
+benches, and tables of both houses of Congress were as well saturated with
+water as our clothes had been in the morning. Being invited by one of the
+great men of the place to enter a booth to take a drink of grog with him,
+we did so; but I was rather surprised that he offered his name, instead of
+the cash to the bar-keeper.
+
+"We first caught sight of President Houston as he walked from one of the
+grog shops, where he had been to prevent the sale of ardent spirits. He was
+on his way to his house, and wore a large grey coarse hat; and the bulk of
+his figure reminded me of the appearance of General Hopkins of Virginia,
+for like him he is upwards of six feet high, and strong in proportion. But
+I observed a scowl in the expression of his eyes, that was forbidding and
+disagreeable. We reached his abode before him, but he soon came, and we
+were presented to his excellency. He was dressed in a fancy velvet coat,
+and trousers trimmed with broad gold lace; around his neck was tied a
+cravat somewhat in the style of seventy-six. He received us kindly, was
+desirous of retaining us for awhile, and offered us every facility within
+his power. He at once removed us from the ante-room to his private chamber,
+which, by the way, was not much cleaner than the former. We were severally
+introduced by him to the different members of his cabinet and staff, and at
+once asked to drink grog with him, which we did, wishing success to his new
+republic. Our talk was short: but the impression which was made on my mind
+at the time by himself, his officers, and his place of abode, can never be
+forgotten."
+
+Late in the summer of 1837, Audubon, with his son John and his new wife--
+the daughter of Dr. Bachman, returned to England for the last time. He
+finally settled down again in Edinburgh and prepared the fourth volume of
+his "Ornithological Biography." This work seems to have occupied him a
+year. The volume was published in November, 1838. More drawings for his
+"Birds of America" were finished the next winter, and also the fifth volume
+of the "Biography" which was published in May, 1839.
+
+In the fall of that year the family returned to America and settled in New
+York City, at 86 White street. His great work, the "Birds of America," had
+been practically completed, incredible difficulties had been surmounted,
+and the goal of his long years of striving had been reached. About one
+hundred and seventy-five copies of his "Birds" had been delivered to
+subscribers, eighty of the number in this country.
+
+In a copy of the "Ornithological Biography" given in 1844 by Audubon to J.
+Prescott Hall, the following note, preserved in the _Magazine of American
+History_ (1877) was written by Mr. Hall. It is reproduced here in spite
+of its variance from statements now accepted:--
+
+"Mr. Audubon told me in the year 184- that he did not sell more than 40
+copies of his great work in England, Ireland, Scotland and France, of which
+Louis Philippe took 10.
+
+"The following received their copies but never paid for them: George IV.,
+Duchess of Clarence, Marquis of Londonderry, Princess of Hesse Homburg.
+
+"An Irish lord whose name he would not give, took two copies and paid for
+neither. Rothschild paid for his copy, but with great reluctance.
+
+"He further said that he sold 75 copies in America, 26 in New York and 24
+in Boston; that the work cost him £27,000 and that he lost $25,000 by it.
+
+"He said that Louis Philippe offered to subscribe for 100 copies if he
+would publish the work in Paris. This he found could not be done, as it
+would have required 40 years to finish it as things were then in Paris. Of
+this conversation I made a memorandum at the time which I read over to Mr.
+Audubon and he pronounced it correct.
+
+"J. PRESCOTT HALL."
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+About the very great merit of this work, there is but one opinion among
+competent judges. It is, indeed, a monument to the man's indomitable energy
+and perseverance, and it is a monument to the science of ornithology. The
+drawings of the birds are very spirited and life like, and their
+biographies copious, picturesque, and accurate, and, taken in connection
+with his many journals, they afford glimpses of the life of the country
+during the early part of the century, that are of very great interest and
+value.
+
+In writing the biography of the birds he wrote his autobiography as well;
+he wove his doings and adventures into his natural history observations.
+This gives a personal flavour to his pages, and is the main source of their
+charm.
+
+His account of the Rosebreasted Grosbeak is a good sample of his work in
+this respect:
+
+"One year, in the month of August, I was trudging along the shores of the
+Mohawk river, when night overtook me. Being little acquainted with that
+part of the country, I resolved to camp where I was; the evening was calm
+and beautiful, the sky sparkled with stars which were reflected by the
+smooth waters, and the deep shade of the rocks and trees of the opposite
+shore fell on the bosom of the stream, while gently from afar came on the
+ear the muttering sound of the cataract. My little fire was soon lighted
+under a rock, and, spreading out my scanty stock of provisions, I reclined
+on my grassy couch. As I looked on the fading features of the beautiful
+landscape, my heart turned towards my distant home, where my friends were
+doubtless wishing me, as I wish them, a happy night and peaceful slumbers.
+Then were heard the barkings of the watch dog, and I tapped my faithful
+companion to prevent his answering them. The thoughts of my worldly mission
+then came over my mind, and having thanked the Creator of all for his
+never-failing mercy, I closed my eyes, and was passing away into the world
+of dreaming existence, when suddenly there burst on my soul the serenade of
+the Rosebreasted bird, so rich, so mellow, so loud in the stillness of the
+night, that sleep fled from my eyelids. Never did I enjoy music more: it
+thrilled through my heart, and surrounded me with an atmosphere of bliss.
+One might easily have imagined that even the Owl, charmed by such
+delightful music, remained reverently silent. Long after the sounds ceased
+did I enjoy them, and when all had again become still, I stretched out my
+wearied limbs, and gave myself up to the luxury of repose."
+
+Probably most of the seventy-five or eighty copies of "Birds" which were
+taken by subscribers in this country are still extant, held by the great
+libraries, and learned institutions. The Lenox Library in New York owns
+three sets. The Astor Library owns one set. I have examined this work
+there; there are four volumes in a set; they are elephant folio size--more
+than three feet long, and two or more feet wide. They are the heaviest
+books I ever handled. It takes two men to carry one volume to the large
+racks which hold them for the purpose of examination. The birds, of which
+there are a thousand and fifty-five specimens in four hundred and
+thirty-five plates, are all life size, even the great eagles, and appear to
+be unfaded. This work, which cost the original subscribers one thousand
+dollars, now brings four thousand dollars at private sale.
+
+Of the edition with reduced figures and with the bird biographies, many
+more were sold, and all considerable public libraries in this country
+possess the work. It consists of seven imperial octavo volumes. Five
+hundred dollars is the average price which this work brings. This was a
+copy of the original English publication, with the figures reduced and
+lithographed. In this work, his sons, John and Victor, greatly assisted
+him, the former doing the reducing by the aid of the camera-lucida, and the
+latter attending to the printing and publishing. The first volume of this
+work appeared in 1840, and the last in 1844.
+
+Audubon experimented a long time before he hit upon a satisfactory method
+of drawing his birds. Early in his studies he merely drew them in outline.
+Then he practised using threads to raise the head, wing or tail of his
+specimen. Under David he had learned to draw the human figure from a
+manikin. It now occurred to him to make a manikin of a bird, using cork or
+wood, or wires for the purpose. But his bird manikin only excited the
+laughter and ridicule of his friends. Then he conceived the happy thought
+of setting up the body of the dead bird by the aid of wires, very much as a
+taxidermist mounts them. This plan worked well and enabled him to have his
+birds permanently before him in a characteristic attitude: "The bird fixed
+with wires on squares I studied as a lay figure before me, its nature
+previously known to me as far as habits went, and its general form having
+been perfectly observed."
+
+His bird pictures reflect his own temperament, not to say his nationality;
+the birds are very demonstrative, even theatrical and melodramatic at
+times. In some cases this is all right, in others it is all wrong. Birds
+differ in this respect as much as people do--some are very quiet and
+sedate, others pose and gesticulate like a Frenchman. It would not be easy
+to exaggerate, for instance, the flashings and evolutions of the redstart
+when it arrives in May, or the acting and posing of the catbird, or the
+gesticulations of the yellow breasted chat, or the nervous and emphatic
+character of the large-billed water thrush, or the many pretty attitudes of
+the great Carolina wren; but to give the same dramatic character to the
+demure little song sparrow, or to the slow moving cuckoo, or to the
+pedestrian cowbird, or to the quiet Kentucky warbler, as Audubon has done,
+is to convey a wrong impression of these birds.
+
+Wilson errs, if at all, in the other direction. His birds, on the other
+hand, reflect his cautious, undemonstrative Scotch nature. Few of them are
+shown in violent action like Audubon's cuckoo; their poses for the most
+part are easy and characteristic. His drawings do not show the mastery of
+the subject and the versatility that Audubon's do;--they have not the
+artistic excellence, but they less frequently do violence to the bird's
+character by exaggerated activity.
+
+The colouring in Audubon's birds is also often exaggerated. His purple
+finch is as brilliant as a rose, whereas at its best, this bird is a dull
+carmine.
+
+Either the Baltimore oriole has changed its habits of nest-building since
+Audubon's day, or else he was wrong in his drawing of the nest of that
+bird, in making the opening on the side near the top. I have never seen an
+oriole's nest that was not open at the top.
+
+In his drawings of a group of robins, one misses some of the most
+characteristic poses of that bird, while some of the attitudes that are
+portrayed are not common and familiar ones.
+
+But in the face of all that he accomplished, and against such odds, and
+taking into consideration also the changes that may have crept in through
+engraver and colourists, it ill becomes us to indulge in captious
+criticisms. Let us rather repeat Audubon's own remark on realising how far
+short his drawings came of representing the birds themselves: "After all,
+there's nothing perfect but _primitiveness_."
+
+Finding that he could not live in the city, in 1842 Audubon removed with
+his family to "Minnie's Land," on the banks of the Hudson, now known as
+Audubon Park, and included in the city limits; this became his final home.
+
+In the spring of 1843 he started on his last long journey, his trip to the
+Yellow-stone River, of which we have a minute account in his "Missouri
+River Journals"--documents that lay hidden in the back of an old secretary
+from 1843 to the time when they were found by his grand-daughters in 1896,
+and published by them in 1897.
+
+This trip was undertaken mainly in the interests of the "Quadrupeds and
+Biography of American Quadrupeds," and much of what he saw and did is woven
+into those three volumes. The trip lasted eight months, and the hardships
+and exposures seriously affected Audubon's health. He returned home in
+October, 1843.
+
+He was now sixty-four or five years of age, and the infirmities of his
+years began to steal upon him.
+
+The first volume of his "Quadrupeds" was published about two years later,
+and this was practically his last work. The second and third volumes were
+mainly the work of his sons, John and Victor.
+
+The "Quadrupeds" does not take rank with his "Birds." It was not his first
+love. It was more an after thought to fill up his time. Neither the drawing
+nor the colouring of the animals, largely the work of his son John,
+approaches those of the birds.
+
+"Surely no man ever had better helpers" says his grand-daughter, and a
+study of his life brings us to the same conclusion--his devoted wife, his
+able and willing sons, were his closest helpers, nor do we lose sight of
+the assistance of the scientific and indefatigable MacGillivray, and the
+untiring and congenial co-worker, Dr. Bachman.
+
+Audubon's last years were peaceful and happy, and were passed at his home
+on the Hudson, amid his children and grandchildren, surrounded by the
+scenes that he loved.
+
+After his eyesight began to fail him, his devoted wife read to him, she
+walked with him, and toward the last she fed him. "Bread and milk were his
+breakfast and supper, and at noon he ate a little fish or game, never
+having eaten animal food if he could avoid it."
+
+One visiting at the home of our naturalist during his last days speaks of
+the tender way in which he said to his wife: "Well, sweetheart, always
+busy. Come sit thee down a few minutes and rest."
+
+Parke Godwin visited Audubon in 1846, and gives this account of his visit:
+
+"The house was simple and unpretentious in its architecture, and
+beautifully embowered amid elms and oaks. Several graceful fawns, and a
+noble elk, were stalking in the shade of the trees, apparently unconscious
+of the presence of a few dogs, and not caring for the numerous turkeys,
+geese, and other domestic animals that gabbled and screamed around them.
+Nor did my own approach startle the wild, beautiful creatures, that seemed
+as docile as any of their tame companions.
+
+"'Is the master at home?' I asked of a pretty maid servant, who answered my
+tap at the door; and who, after informing me that he was, led me into a
+room on the left side of the broad hall. It was not, however, a parlour, or
+an ordinary reception room that I entered, but evidently a room for work.
+In one corner stood a painter's easel, with the half-finished sketch of a
+beaver on the paper; in the other lay the skin of an American panther. The
+antlers of elks hung upon the walls; stuffed birds of every description of
+gay plumage ornamented the mantel-piece; and exquisite drawings of field
+mice, orioles, and woodpeckers, were scattered promiscuously in other parts
+of the room, across one end of which a long, rude table was stretched to
+hold artist materials, scraps of drawing paper, and immense folio volumes,
+filled with delicious paintings of birds taken in their native haunts.
+
+"'This,' said I to myself, 'is the studio of the naturalist,' but hardly
+had the thought escaped me when the master himself made his appearance. He
+was a tall thin man, with a high-arched and serene forehead, and a bright
+penetrating grey eye; his white locks fell in clusters upon his shoulders,
+but were the only signs of age, for his form was erect, and his step as
+light as that of a deer. The expression of his face was sharp, but noble
+and commanding, and there was something in it, partly derived from the
+aquiline nose and partly from the shutting of the mouth, which made you
+think of the imperial eagle.
+
+"His greeting as he entered, was at once frank and cordial, and showed you
+the sincere true man. 'How kind it is,' he said, with a slight French
+accent and in a pensive tone, 'to come to see me; and how wise, too, to
+leave that crazy city.' He then shook me warmly by the hand. 'Do you know,'
+he continued, 'how I wonder that men can consent to swelter and fret their
+lives away amid those hot bricks and pestilent vapours, when the woods and
+fields are all so near? It would kill me soon to be confined in such a
+prison house; and when I am forced to make an occasional visit there, it
+fills me with loathing and sadness. Ah! how often, when I have been abroad
+on the mountains, has my heart risen in grateful praise to God that it was
+not my destiny to waste and pine among those noisome congregations of the
+city.'"
+
+Another visitor to Audubon during his last days writes: "In my interview
+with the naturalist, there were several things that stamped themselves
+indelibly on my mind. The wonderful simplicity of the man was perhaps the
+most remarkable. His enthusiasm for facts made him unconscious of himself.
+To make him happy you had only to give him a new fact in natural history,
+or introduce him to a rare bird. His self-forgetfulness was very
+impressive. I felt that I had found a man who asked homage for God and
+Nature, and not for himself.
+
+"The unconscious greatness of the man seemed only equalled by his
+child-like tenderness. The sweet unity between his wife and himself, as
+they turned over the original drawings of his birds, and recalled the
+circumstances of the drawings, some of which had been made when she was
+with him; her quickness of perception, and their mutual enthusiasm
+regarding these works of his heart and hand, and the tenderness with which
+they unconsciously treated each other, all was impressed upon my memory.
+Ever since, I have been convinced that Audubon owed more to his wife than
+the world knew, or ever would know. That she was always a reliance, often a
+help, and ever a sympathising sister-soul to her noble husband, was fully
+apparent to me."
+
+One notes much of the same fire and vigour in the later portraits of
+Audubon, that are so apparent in those of him in his youthful days. What a
+resolute closing of the mouth in his portrait taken of him in his old age--
+"the magnificent grey-haired man!"
+
+In 1847, Audubon's mind began to fail him; like Emerson in his old age, he
+had difficulty in finding the right word.
+
+In May, 1848, Dr. Bachman wrote of him: "My poor friend Audubon! The
+outlines of his beautiful face and form are there, but his noble mind is
+all in ruins."
+
+His feebleness increased (there was no illness), till at sunset, January
+27, 1851, in his seventy-sixth year, the "American Woodsman," as he was
+wont to call himself, set out on his last long journey to that bourne
+whence no traveller returns.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+As a youth Audubon was an unwilling student of books; as a merchant and
+mill owner in Kentucky he was an unwilling man of business, but during his
+whole career, at all times and in all places, he was more than a willing
+student of ornithology--he was an eager and enthusiastic one. He brought to
+the pursuit of the birds, and to the study of open air life generally, the
+keen delight of the sportsman, united to the ardour of the artist moved by
+beautiful forms.
+
+He was not in the first instance a man of science, like Cuvier, or Agassiz,
+or Darwin--a man seeking exact knowledge; but he was an artist and a
+backwoodsman, seeking adventure, seeking the gratification of his tastes,
+and to put on record his love of the birds. He was the artist of the birds
+before he was their historian; the writing of their biographies seems to
+have been only secondary with him.
+
+He had the lively mercurial temperament of the Latin races from which he
+sprang. He speaks of himself as "warm, irascible, and at times violent."
+
+His perceptive powers, of course, led his reflective. His sharpness and
+quickness of eye surprised even the Indians. He says: "My _observatory
+nerves_ never gave way."
+
+His similes and metaphors were largely drawn from the animal world. Thus he
+says, "I am as dull as a beetle," during his enforced stay in London. While
+he was showing his drawings to Mr. Rathbone, he says: "I was panting like
+the winged pheasant." At a dinner in some noble house in England he said
+that the men servants "moved as quietly as killdeers." On another occasion,
+when the hostess failed to put him at his ease: "There I stood, motionless
+as a Heron."
+
+With all his courage and buoyancy, Audubon was subject to fits of
+depression, probably the result largely of his enforced separation from his
+family. On one occasion in Edinburgh he speaks of these attacks, and refers
+pathetically to others he had had: "But that was in beloved America, where
+the ocean did not roll between me and my wife and sons."
+
+Never was a more patriotic American. He loved his adopted country above all
+other lands in which he had journeyed.
+
+Never was a more devoted husband, and never did wife more richly deserve
+such devotion than did Mrs. Audubon. He says of her: "She felt the pangs of
+our misfortune perhaps more heavily than I, but never for an hour lost her
+courage; her brave and cheerful spirit accepted all, and no reproaches from
+her beloved lips ever wounded my heart. With her was I not always rich?"
+
+"The waiting time, my brother, is the hardest time of all."
+
+While Audubon was waiting for better luck, or for worse, he was always
+listening to the birds and studying them--storing up the knowledge that he
+turned to such good account later: but we can almost hear his neighbours
+and acquaintances calling him an "idle, worthless fellow." Not so his wife;
+she had even more faith in him than he had in himself.
+
+His was a lovable nature--he won affection and devotion easily, and he
+loved to be loved; he appreciated the least kindness shown him.
+
+He was always at ease and welcome in the squatter's cabin or in elegantly
+appointed homes, like that of his friends, the Rathbones, though he does
+complain of an awkwardness and shyness sometimes when in high places. This,
+however, seemed to result from the pomp and ceremony found there, and not
+because of the people themselves.
+
+"Chivalrous, generous, and courteous to his heart's core," says his
+granddaughter, "he could not believe others less so, till painful
+experiences taught him; then he was grieved, hurt, but never embittered;
+and, more marvellous yet, with his faith in his fellows as strong as ever,
+again and again he subjected himself to the same treatment."
+
+On one occasion when his pictures were on exhibition in England, some one
+stole one of his paintings, and a warrant was issued against a deaf mute.
+"Gladly would I have painted a bird for the poor fellow," said Audubon,
+"and I certainly did not want him arrested."
+
+He was never, even in his most desperate financial straits, too poor to
+help others more poor than himself.
+
+He had a great deal of the old-fashioned piety of our fathers, which crops
+out abundantly in his pages. While he was visiting a Mr. Bently in
+Manchester, and after retiring to his room for the night, he was surprised
+by a knock at his door. It appeared that his host in passing thought he
+heard Audubon call to him to ask for something: "I told him I prayed aloud
+every night, as had been my habit from a child at my mother's knees in
+Nantes. He said nothing for a moment, then again wished me good night and
+was gone."
+
+Audubon belonged to the early history of the country, to the pioneer times,
+to the South and the West, and was, on the whole, one of the most winsome,
+interesting, and picturesque characters that have ever appeared in our
+annals.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+[Footnote: Publisher's Note: This bibliography is that of the original 1902
+edition. Many books on Audubon have been published since then.]
+
+
+The works of Audubon are mentioned in the chronology at the beginning of
+the volume and in the text. Of the writings about him the following--apart
+from the obvious books of reference in American biography--are the main
+sources of information:--
+
+I. PROSE WRITINGS OF AMERICA. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. (Philadelphia,
+1847: Carey & Hart.)
+
+II. BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. By Samuel Smiles. (Boston, 1861: Ticknor & Fields.)
+
+III. AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST OF THE NEW WORLD: His ADVENTURES AND
+DISCOVERIES. By Mrs. Horace Roscoe Stebbing St. John. (Revised, with
+additions. Boston, 1864: Crosby & Nichols. New York, 1875: The World
+Publishing House.)
+
+IV. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST. Edited,
+from materials supplied by his widow, by Robert Buchanan. (London, 1868: S.
+Low, son & Marston.)
+
+V. THE LIFE OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. Edited by his widow, with an
+Introduction by James Grant Wilson. (New York, 1869: Putnams.)
+
+VI. FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE. By Sarah Knowles Bolton. (Boston, 1889: T. Y.
+Crowell & Co.)
+
+VII. AUDUBON AND HIS JOURNALS. By Maria R. Audubon. With Zoological and
+Other Notes by Elliott Coues. (New York, 1897: Charles Scribner's Sons. Two
+volumes.) This is by far the most interesting and authentic of any of the
+sources of information.
+
+
+
+
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+<H1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of John James Audubon, by John Burroughs</H1>
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
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+Title: John James Audubon
+
+Author: John Burroughs
+
+Release Date: February, 2005  [EBook #7404]
+[This file was first posted on April 24, 2003]
+[Most recently updated: May 4, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON ***
+
+
+
+
+Eric Eldred, Robert Connal, David Garcia, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+</PRE>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p><br>
+    <br>
+     
+    <h1>
+      JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
+    </h1>
+    <center>
+      <b><i>John Burroughs</i><br></b> 
+      <p>
+        &nbsp;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &nbsp;
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        &nbsp;
+      </p>
+	<b>TO C. B.</b>
+    </center>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The pioneer in American ornithology was Alexander Wilson, a
+      Scotch weaver and poet, who emigrated to this country in
+      1794, and began the publication of his great work upon our
+      birds in 1808. He figured and described three hundred and
+      twenty species, fifty-six of them new to science. His death
+      occurred in 1813, before the publication of his work had been
+      completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the chief of American ornithologists was John James
+      Audubon. Audubon did not begin where Wilson left off. He was
+      also a pioneer, beginning his studies and drawings of the
+      birds probably as early as Wilson did his, but he planned
+      larger and lived longer. He spent the greater part of his
+      long life in the pursuit of ornithology, and was of a more
+      versatile, flexible, and artistic nature than was Wilson. He
+      was collecting the material for his work at the same time
+      that Wilson was collecting his, but he did not begin the
+      publication of it till fourteen years after Wilson's death.
+      Both men went directly to Nature and underwent incredible
+      hardships in exploring the woods and marshes in quest of
+      their material. Audubon's rambles were much wider, and
+      extended over a much longer period of time. Wilson, too,
+      contemplated a work upon our quadrupeds, but did not live to
+      begin it. Audubon was blessed with good health, length of
+      years, a devoted and self-sacrificing wife, and a buoyant,
+      sanguine, and elastic disposition. He had the heavenly gift
+      of enthusiasm&#8212;a passionate love for the work he set out
+      to do. He was a natural hunter, roamer, woodsman; as
+      unworldly as a child, and as simple and transparent. We have
+      had better trained and more scientific ornithologists since
+      his day, but none with his abandon and poetic fervour in the
+      study of our birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both men were famous pedestrians and often walked hundreds of
+      miles at a stretch. They were natural explorers and voyagers.
+      They loved Nature at first hand, and not merely as she
+      appears in books and pictures. They both kept extensive
+      journals of their wanderings and observations. Several of
+      Audubon's (recording his European experiences) seem to have
+      been lost or destroyed, but what remain make up the greater
+      part of two large volumes recently edited by his
+      grand-daughter, Maria R. Audubon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish here to express my gratitude both to Miss Audubon, and
+      to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, for permitting me to draw
+      freely from the "Life and Journals" just mentioned. The
+      temptation is strong to let Audubon's graphic and glowing
+      descriptions of American scenery, and of his tireless
+      wanderings, speak for themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is from these volumes, and from the life by his widow,
+      published in 1868, that I have gathered the material for this
+      brief biography.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon's life naturally divides itself into three periods:
+      his youth, which was on the whole a gay and happy one, and
+      which lasted till the time of his marriage at the age of
+      twenty-eight; his business career which followed, lasting ten
+      or more years, and consisting mainly in getting rid of the
+      fortune his father had left him; and his career as an
+      ornithologist which, though attended with great hardships and
+      privations, brought him much happiness and, long before the
+      end, substantial pecuniary rewards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His ornithological tastes and studies really formed the main
+      current of his life from his teens onward. During his
+      business ventures in Kentucky and elsewhere this current came
+      to the surface more and more, absorbed more and more of his
+      time and energies, and carried him further and further from
+      the conditions of a successful business career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br>
+      J. B.<br>
+      WEST PARK, NEW YORK, January, 1902.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHRONOLOGY
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      1780
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <i>May 4</i>. John James La Forest Audubon was born at
+      Mandeville, Louisiana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (Paucity of dates and conflicting statements make it
+      impossible to insert dates to show when the family moved to
+      St. Domingo, and thence to France.)
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1797 (?)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Returned to America from France. Here followed life at Mill
+      Grove Farm, near Philadelphia.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1805 or 6
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Again in France for about two years. Studied under David, the
+      artist. Then returned to America.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1808
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <i>April</i> 8. Married Lucy Bakewell, and journeyed to
+      Louisville, Kentucky, to engage in business with one Rozier.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1810
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <i>March</i>. First met Wilson, the ornithologist.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1812
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Dissolved partnership with Rozier.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1808-1819
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Various business ventures in Louisville, Hendersonville, and
+      St. Genevi&egrave;ve, Kentucky, again at Hendersonville,
+      thence again to Louisville.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1819
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Abandoned business career. Became taxidermist in Cincinnati.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1820
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Left Cincinnati. Began to form definite plans for the
+      publication of his drawings. Returned to New Orleans.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1822
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Went to Natchez by steamer. Gunpowder ruined two hundred of
+      his drawings on this trip. Obtained position of
+      Drawing-master in the college at Washington, Mississippi. At
+      the close of this year took his first lessons in oils.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1824
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Went to Philadelphia to get his drawings published. Thwarted.
+      There met Sully, and Prince Canino.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1826
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sailed for Europe to introduce his drawings.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1827
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Issued prospectus of his "Birds."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1828
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Went to Paris to canvass. Visited Cuvier.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1829
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Returned to the United States, scoured the woods for more
+      material for his biographies.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1830
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Returned to London with his family.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1830-1839
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Elephant folio, <i>The Birds of North America</i>, published.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1831-39
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <i>American Ornithological Biography</i> published in
+      Edinburgh.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1831
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Again in America for nearly three years.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1832-33
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In Florida, South Carolina, and the Northern States,
+      Labrador, and Canada.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1834
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Completion of second volume of "Birds," also second volume of
+      <i>American Ornithological Biography</i>.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1835
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In Edinburgh.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1836
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      To New York again&#8212;more exploring; found books, papers
+      and drawings had been destroyed by fire, the previous year.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1837
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Went to London.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1838
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Published fourth volume of <i>American Ornithological
+      Biography</i>.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1839
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Published fifth volume of "Biography."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1840
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Left England for the last time.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1842
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Built house in New York on "Minnie's Land," now Audubon Park.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1843
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Yellowstone River Expedition.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1840-44
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Published the reduced edition of his "Bird Biographies."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1846
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Published first volume of "Quadrupeds."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1848
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Completed <i>Quadrupeds and Biography of American
+      Quadrupeds</i>. (The last volume was not published till 1854,
+      after his death.)
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1851
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <i>January 27</i>. John James Audubon died in New York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There is a hopeless confusion as to certain important dates
+      in Audubon's life. He was often careless and unreliable in
+      his statements of matters of fact, which weakness during his
+      lifetime often led to his being accused of falsehood. Thus he
+      speaks of the "memorable battle of Valley Forge" and of two
+      brothers of his, both officers in the French army, as having
+      perished in the French Revolution, when he doubtless meant
+      uncles. He had previously stated that his only two brothers
+      died in infancy. He confessed that he had no head for
+      mathematics, and he seems always to have been at sea in
+      regard to his own age. In his letters and journals there are
+      several references to his age, but they rarely agree. The
+      date of his birth usually given, May 4, 1780, is probably
+      three or four years too early, as he speaks of himself as
+      being nearly seventeen when his mother had him confirmed in
+      the Catholic Church, and this was about the time that his
+      father, then an officer in the French navy, was sent to
+      England to effect a change of prisoners, which time is given
+      as 1801.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two race strains that mingle in him probably account for
+      this illogical habit of mind, as well as for his romantic and
+      artistic temper and tastes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father was a sea-faring man and a Frenchman; his mother
+      was a Spanish Creole of Louisiana&#8212;the old chivalrous
+      Castilian blood modified by new world conditions. The father,
+      through commercial channels, accumulated a large property in
+      the island of St. Domingo. In the course of his trading he
+      made frequent journeys to Louisiana, then the property of the
+      French government. On one of these trips, probably, he
+      married one of the native women, who is said to have
+      possessed both wealth and beauty. The couple seem to have
+      occupied for a time a plantation belonging to a French
+      Marquis, situated at Mandeville on the North shore of Lake
+      Pontchartrain. Here three sons were born to them, of whom
+      John James La Forest was the third. The daughter seems to
+      have been younger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His own mother perished in a slave insurrection in St.
+      Domingo, where the family had gone to live on the Audubon
+      estate at Aux Cayes, when her child was but a few months old.
+      Audubon says that his father with his plate and money and
+      himself, attended by a few faithful servants, escaped to New
+      Orleans. What became of his sister he does not say, though
+      she must have escaped with them, since we hear of her
+      existence years later. Not long after, how long we do not
+      know, the father returned to France, where he married a
+      second time, giving the son, as he himself says, the only
+      mother he ever knew. This woman proved a rare exception among
+      stepmothers&#8212;but she was too indulgent, and, Audubon
+      says, completely spoiled him, bringing him up to live like a
+      gentleman, ignoring his faults and boasting of his merits,
+      and leading him to believe that fine clothes and a full
+      pocket were the most desirable things in life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This she was able to do all the more effectively because the
+      father soon left the son in her charge and returned to the
+      United States in the employ of the French government, and
+      before long became attached to the army under La Fayette.
+      This could not have been later than 1781, the year of
+      Cornwallis' surrender, and Audubon would then have been
+      twenty-one, but this does not square with his own statements.
+      After the war the father still served some years in the
+      French navy, but finally retired from active service and
+      lived at La Gerb&eacute;ti&egrave;re in France, where he died
+      at the age of ninety-five, in 1818.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon says of his mother: "Let no one speak of her as my
+      step-mother. I was ever to her as a son of her own flesh and
+      blood and she was to me a true mother." With her he lived in
+      the city of Nantes, France, where he appears to have gone to
+      school. It was, however, only from his private tutors that he
+      says he got any benefit. His father desired him to follow in
+      his footsteps, and he was educated accordingly, studying
+      drawing, geography, mathematics, fencing, and music.
+      Mathematics he found hard dull work, as have so many men of
+      like temperament, before and since, but music and fencing and
+      geography were more to his liking. He was an ardent,
+      imaginative youth, and chafed under all drudgery and routine.
+      His foster-mother, in the absence of his father, suffered him
+      to do much as he pleased, and he pleased to "play hookey"
+      most of the time, joining boys of his own age and
+      disposition, and deserting the school for the fields and
+      woods, hunting birds' nests, fishing and shooting and
+      returning home at night with his basket filled with various
+      natural specimens and curiosities. The collecting fever is
+      not a bad one to take possession of boys at this age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his autobiography Audubon relates an incident that
+      occurred when he was a child, which he thinks first kindled
+      his love for birds. It was an encounter between a pet parrot
+      and a tame monkey kept by his mother. One morning the parrot,
+      Mignonne, asked as usual for her breakfast of bread and milk,
+      whereupon the monkey, being in a bad humour, attacked the
+      poor defenceless bird, and killed it. Audubon screamed at the
+      cruel sight, and implored the servant to interfere and save
+      the bird, but without avail. The boy's piercing screams
+      brought the mother, who succeeded in tranquillising the
+      child. The monkey was chained, and the parrot buried, but the
+      tragedy awakened in him a lasting love for his feathered
+      friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon's father seems to have been the first to direct his
+      attention to the study of birds, and to the observance of
+      Nature generally. Through him he learned to notice the
+      beautiful colourings and markings of the birds, to know their
+      haunts, and to observe their change of plumage with the
+      changing seasons; what he learned of their mysterious
+      migrations fired his imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He speaks of this early intimacy with Nature as a feeling
+      which bordered on frenzy. Watching the growth of a bird from
+      the egg he compares to the unfolding of a flower from the
+      bud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pain which he felt in seeing the birds die and decay was
+      very acute, but, fortunately, about this time some one showed
+      him a book of illustrations, and henceforth "a new life ran
+      in my veins," he says. To copy Nature was thereafter his one
+      engrossing aim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That he realised how crude his early efforts were is shown by
+      his saying: "My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples."
+      His steady progress, too, is shown in his custom, on every
+      birthday, of burning these 'Crippled' drawings, then setting
+      to work to make better, truer ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father returning from a sea voyage, probably when the son
+      was about twenty years old, was not well pleased with the
+      progress that the boy was making in his studies. One morning
+      soon after, Audubon found himself with his trunk and his
+      belongings in a private carriage, beside his father, on his
+      way to the city of Rochefort. The father occupied himself
+      with a book and hardly spoke to his son during the several
+      days of the journey, though there was no anger in his face.
+      After they were settled in their new abode, he seated his son
+      beside him and taking one of his hands in his, calmly said:
+      "My beloved boy, thou art now safe. I have brought thee here
+      that I may be able to pay constant attention to thy studies;
+      thou shalt have ample time for pleasures, but the remainder
+      <i>must</i> be employed with industry and care."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the father soon left him on some foreign mission for his
+      government and the boy chafed as usual under his tasks and
+      confinement. One day, too much mathematics drove him into
+      making his escape by leaping from the window, and making off
+      through the gardens attached to the school where he was
+      confined. A watchful corporal soon overhauled him, however,
+      and brought him back, where he was confined on board some
+      sort of prison ship in the harbour. His father soon returned,
+      when he was released, not without a severe reprimand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We next find him again in the city of Nantes struggling with
+      more odious mathematics, and spending all his leisure time in
+      the fields and woods, studying the birds. About this time he
+      began a series of drawings of the French birds, which grew to
+      upwards of two hundred, all bad enough, he says, but yet real
+      representations of birds, that gave him a certain pleasure.
+      They satisfied his need of expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At about this time, too, though the year we do not know, his
+      father concluded to send him to the United States, apparently
+      to occupy a farm called Mill Grove, which the father had
+      purchased some years before, on the Schuylkill river near
+      Philadelphia. In New York he caught the yellow fever: he was
+      carefully nursed by two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding
+      house in Morristown, New Jersey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In due time his father's agent, Miers Fisher, also a Quaker,
+      removed him to his own villa near Philadelphia, and here
+      Audubon seems to have remained some months. But the gay and
+      ardent youth did not find the atmosphere of the place
+      congenial. The sober Quaker grey was not to his taste. His
+      host was opposed to music of all kinds, and to dancing,
+      hunting, fishing and nearly all other forms of amusement.
+      More than that, he had a daughter between whom and Audubon he
+      apparently hoped an affection would spring up. But Audubon
+      took an unconquerable dislike to her. Very soon, therefore,
+      he demanded to be put in possession of the estate to which
+      his father had sent him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the month and year in which he entered upon his life at
+      Mill Grove, we are ignorant. We know that he fell into the
+      hands of another Quaker, William Thomas, who was the tenant
+      on the place, but who, with his worthy wife, seems to have
+      made life pleasant for him. He soon became attached to Mill
+      Grove, and led a life there just suited to his temperament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hunting, fishing, drawing, music, occupied my every moment;
+      cares I knew not and cared naught about them. I purchased
+      excellent and beautiful horses, visited all such neighbours
+      as I found congenial spirits, and was as happy as happy could
+      be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near him there lived an English family by the name of
+      Bakewell, but he had such a strong antipathy to the English
+      that he postponed returning the call of Mr. Bakewell, who had
+      left his card at Mill Grove during one of Audubon's
+      excursions to the woods. In the late fall or early winter,
+      however, he chanced to meet Mr. Bakewell while out hunting
+      grouse, and was so pleased with him and his well-trained
+      dogs, and his good marksmanship, that he apologised for his
+      discourtesy in not returning his call, and promised to do so
+      forthwith. Not many mornings thereafter he was seated in his
+      neighbour's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well do I recollect the morning," he says in the
+      autobiographical sketch which he prepared for his sons, "and
+      may it please God that I never forget it, when for the first
+      time I entered Mr. Bakewell's dwelling. It happened that he
+      was absent from home, and I was shown into a parlour where
+      only one young lady was snugly seated at her work by the
+      fire. She rose on my entrance, offered me a seat, assured me
+      of the gratification her father would feel on his return,
+      which, she added, would be in a few moments, as she would
+      despatch a servant for him. Other ruddy cheeks and bright
+      eyes made their transient appearance, but, like spirits gay,
+      soon vanished from my sight; and there I sat, my gaze
+      riveted, as it were, on the young girl before me, who, half
+      working, half talking, essayed to make the time pleasant to
+      me. Oh! may God bless her! It was she, my dear sons, who
+      afterwards became my beloved wife, and your mother. Mr.
+      Bakewell soon made his appearance, and received me with the
+      manner and hospitality of a true English gentleman. The other
+      members of the family were soon introduced to me, and Lucy
+      was told to have luncheon produced. She now rose from her
+      seat a second time, and her form, to which I had paid but
+      partial attention, showed both grace and beauty; and my heart
+      followed every one of her steps. The repast over, dogs and
+      guns were made ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lucy, I was pleased to believe, looked upon me with some
+      favour, and I turned more especially to her on leaving. I
+      felt that certain '<i>Je ne sais quoi</i>' which intimated
+      that, at least, she was not indifferent to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The winter that followed was a gay and happy one at Mill
+      Grove; shooting parties, skating parties, house parties with
+      the Bakewell family, were of frequent occurrence. It was
+      during one of these skating excursions upon the Perkiomen in
+      quest of wild ducks, that Audubon had a lucky escape from
+      drowning. He was leading the party down the river in the dusk
+      of the evening, with a white handkerchief tied to a stick,
+      when he came suddenly upon a large air hole into which, in
+      spite of himself, his impetus carried him. Had there not
+      chanced to be another air hole a few yards below, our hero's
+      career would have ended then and there. The current quickly
+      carried him beneath the ice to this other opening where he
+      managed to seize hold of the ice and to crawl out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friendship with the Bakewell family deepened. Lucy taught
+      Audubon English, he taught her drawing, and their friendship
+      very naturally ripened into love, which seems to have run its
+      course smoothly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon was happy. He had ample means, and his time was
+      filled with congenial pursuits. He writes in his journal: "I
+      had no vices, but was thoughtless, pensive, loving, fond of
+      shooting, fishing, and riding, and had a passion for raising
+      all sorts of fowls, which sources of interest and amusement
+      fully occupied my time. It was one of my fancies to be
+      ridiculously fond of dress; to hunt in black satin breeches,
+      wear pumps when shooting, and to dress in the finest ruffled
+      shirts I could obtain from France."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evidences of vanity regarding his looks and apparel,
+      sometimes found in his journal, are probably traceable to his
+      foster-mother's unwise treatment of him in his youth. We have
+      seen how his father's intervention in the nick of time
+      exercised a salutary influence upon him at this point in his
+      career, directing his attention to the more solid
+      attainments. Whatever traces of this self-consciousness and
+      apparent vanity remained in after life, seem to have been
+      more the result of a na&iuml;ve character delighting in
+      picturesqueness in himself as well as in Nature, than they
+      were of real vanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In later years he was assuredly nothing of the dandy; he
+      himself ridicules his youthful fondness for dress, while
+      those who visited him during his last years speak of him as
+      particularly lacking in self-consciousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although he affected the dress of the dandies of his time, he
+      was temperate and abstemious. "I ate no butcher's meat, lived
+      chiefly on fruits, vegetables, and fish, and never drank a
+      glass of spirits or wine until my wedding day." "All this
+      time I was fair and rosy, strong and active as one of my age
+      and sex could be, and as active and agile as a buck."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That he was energetic and handy and by no means the mere
+      dandy that his extravagance in dress might seem to indicate,
+      is evidenced from the fact that about this time he made a
+      journey on foot to New York and accomplished the ninety miles
+      in three days in mid-winter. But he was angry, and anger is
+      better than wine to walk on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cause of his wrath was this; a lead mine had been
+      discovered upon the farm of Mill Grove, and Audubon had
+      applied to his father for counsel in regard to it. In
+      response, the elder Audubon had sent over a man by the name
+      of Da Costa who was to act as his son's partner and partial
+      guardian&#8212; was to teach him mineralogy and mining
+      engineering, and to look after his finances generally. But
+      the man, Audubon says, knew nothing of the subjects he was
+      supposed to teach, and was, besides, "a covetous wretch, who
+      did all he could to ruin my father, and, indeed, swindled
+      both of us to a large amount." Da Costa pushed his authority
+      so far as to object to Audubon's proposed union with Lucy
+      Bakewell, as being a marriage beneath him, and finally
+      plotted to get the young man off to India. These things very
+      naturally kindled Audubon's quick temper, and he demanded of
+      his tutor and guardian money enough to take him to France to
+      consult with his father. Da Costa gave him a letter of credit
+      on a sort of banker-broker residing in New York. To New York
+      he accordingly went, as above stated, and found that the
+      banker-broker was in the plot to pack him off to India. This
+      disclosure kindled his wrath afresh. He says that had he had
+      a weapon about him the banker's heart must have received the
+      result of his wrath. His Spanish blood began to declare
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he sought out a brother of Mr. Bakewell and the uncle of
+      his sweetheart, and of him borrowed the money to take him to
+      France. He took passage on a New Bedford brig bound for
+      Nantes. The captain had recently been married and when the
+      vessel reached the vicinity of New Bedford, he discovered
+      some dangerous leaks which necessitated a week's delay to
+      repair damages. Audubon avers that the captain had caused
+      holes to be bored in the vessel's sides below the water line,
+      to gain an excuse to spend a few more days with his bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a voyage of nineteen days the vessel entered the Loire,
+      and anchored in the lower harbour of Nantes, and Audubon was
+      soon welcomed by his father and fond foster-mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His first object was to have the man Da Costa disposed of,
+      which he soon accomplished; the second, to get his father's
+      consent to his marriage with Lucy Bakewell, which was also
+      brought about in due time, although the parents of both
+      agreed that they were "owre young to marry yet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon now remained two years in France, indulging his taste
+      for hunting, rambling, and drawing birds and other objects of
+      Natural History.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was probably about the years 1805 and 1806. France was
+      under the sway of Napoleon, and conscriptions were the order
+      of the day. The elder Audubon became uneasy lest his son be
+      drafted into the French army; hence he resolved to send him
+      back to America. In the meantime, he interested one Rozier in
+      the lead mine and had formed a partnership between him and
+      his son, to run for nine years. In due course the two young
+      men sailed for New York, leaving France at a time when
+      thousands would have been glad to have followed their
+      footsteps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this voyage their vessel was pursued and overhauled by a
+      British privateer, the <i>Rattlesnake</i>, and nearly all
+      their money and eatables were carried off, besides two of the
+      ship's best sailors. Audubon and Rozier saved their gold by
+      hiding it under a cable in the bow of the ship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On returning to Mill Grove, Audubon resumed his former habits
+      of life there. We hear no more of the lead mine, but more of
+      his bird studies and drawings, the love of which was fast
+      becoming his ruling passion. "Before I sailed for France, I
+      had begun a series of drawings of the birds of America, and
+      had also begun a study of their habits. I at first drew my
+      subject dead, by which I mean to say that after procuring a
+      specimen, I hung it up, either by the head, wing, or foot,
+      and copied it as closely as I could." Even the hateful Da
+      Costa had praised his bird pictures and had predicted great
+      things for him in this direction. His words had given Audubon
+      a great deal of pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. William Bakewell, the brother of his Lucy, has given us a
+      glimpse of Audubon and his surroundings at this time.
+      "Audubon took me to his house, where he and his companion,
+      Rozier, resided, with Mrs. Thomas for an attendant. On
+      entering his room, I was astonished and delighted that it was
+      turned into a museum. The walls were festooned with all sorts
+      of birds' eggs, carefully blown out and strung on a thread.
+      The chimney piece was covered with stuffed squirrels,
+      raccoons and opossums; and the shelves around were likewise
+      crowded with specimens, among which were fishes, frogs,
+      snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. Besides these stuffed
+      varieties, many paintings were arrayed upon the walls,
+      chiefly of birds. He had great skill in stuffing and
+      preserving animals of all sorts. He had also a trick of
+      training dogs with great perfection, of which art his famous
+      dog Zephyr was a wonderful example. He was an admirable
+      marksman, an expert swimmer, a clever rider, possessed great
+      activity, prodigious strength, and was notable for the
+      elegance of his figure, and the beauty of his features, and
+      he aided Nature by a careful attendance to his dress. Besides
+      other accomplishments, he was musical, a good fencer, danced
+      well, had some acquaintance with legerdemain tricks, worked
+      in hair, and could plait willow baskets." He adds that
+      Audubon once swam across the Schuylkill with him on his back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Audubon was now eager to marry, but Mr. Bakewell advised him
+      first to study the mercantile business. This he accordingly
+      set out to do by entering as a clerk the commercial house of
+      Benjamin Bakewell in New York, while his friend Rozier
+      entered a French house in Philadelphia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Audubon was not cut out for business; his first venture
+      was in indigo, and cost him several hundred pounds. Rozier
+      succeeded no better; his first speculation was a cargo of
+      hams shipped to the West Indies which did not return one
+      fifth of the cost. Audubon's want of business habits is shown
+      by the statement that at this time he one day posted a letter
+      containing eight thousand dollars without sealing it. His
+      heart was in the fields and woods with the birds. His room
+      was filled with drying bird skins, the odour from which, it
+      is said, became so strong that his neighbours sent a
+      constable to him with a message to abate the nuisance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despairing of becoming successful business men in either New
+      York or Philadelphia, he and Rozier soon returned to Mill
+      Grove. During some of their commercial enterprises they had
+      visited Kentucky and thought so well of the outlook there
+      that now their thoughts turned thitherward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here we get the first date from Audubon; on April 8, 1808, he
+      and Lucy Bakewell were married. The plantation of Mill Grove
+      had been previously sold, and the money invested in goods
+      with which to open a store in Louisville, Kentucky. The day
+      after the marriage, Audubon and his wife and Mr. Rozier
+      started on their journey. In crossing the mountains to
+      Pittsburg the coach in which they were travelling upset, and
+      Mrs. Audubon was severely bruised. From Pittsburg they
+      floated down the Ohio in a flatboat in company with several
+      other young emigrant families. The voyage occupied twelve
+      days and was no doubt made good use of by Audubon in
+      observing the wild nature along shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Louisville, he and Rozier opened a large store which
+      promised well. But Audubon's heart was more and more with the
+      birds, and his business more and more neglected. Rozier
+      attended to the counter, and, Audubon says, grew rich, but he
+      himself spent most of the time in the woods or hunting with
+      the planters settled about Louisville, between whom and
+      himself a warm attachment soon sprang up. He was not growing
+      rich, but he was happy. "I shot, I drew, I looked on Nature
+      only," he says, "and my days were happy beyond human
+      conception, and beyond this I really cared not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He says that the only part of the commercial business he
+      enjoyed was the ever engaging journeys which he made to New
+      York and Philadelphia to purchase goods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These journeys led him through the "beautiful, the darling
+      forests of Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania," and on one
+      occasion he says he lost sight of the pack horses carrying
+      his goods and his dollars, in his preoccupation with a new
+      warbler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During his residence in Louisville, Alexander Wilson, his
+      great rival in American ornithology, called upon him. This is
+      Audubon's account of the meeting: "One fair morning I was
+      surprised by the sudden entrance into our counting room at
+      Louisville of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of
+      the American Ornithology, of whose existence I had never
+      until that moment been apprised. This happened in March,
+      1810. How well do I remember him as he then walked up to me.
+      His long, rather hooked nose, the keenness of his eyes, and
+      his prominent cheek bones, stamped his countenance with a
+      peculiar character. His dress, too, was of a kind not usually
+      seen in that part of the country; a short coat, trousers and
+      a waistcoat of grey cloth. His stature was not above the
+      middle size. He had two volumes under his arm, and as he
+      approached the table at which I was working, I thought I
+      discovered something like astonishment in his countenance.
+      He, however, immediately proceeded to disclose the object of
+      his visit, which was to procure subscriptions for his work.
+      He opened his books, explained the nature of his occupations,
+      and requested my patronage. I felt surprised and gratified at
+      the sight of his volumes, turned over a few of the plates,
+      and had already taken my pen to write my name in his favour,
+      when my partner rather abruptly said to me in French: 'My
+      dear Audubon, what induces you to subscribe to this work!
+      Your drawings are certainly far better; and again, you must
+      know as much of the habits of American birds as this
+      gentleman.' Whether Mr. Wilson understood French or not, or
+      if the suddenness with which I paused disappointed him, I
+      cannot tell; but I clearly perceived he was not pleased.
+      Vanity, and the encomiums of my friend, prevented me from
+      subscribing. Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many drawings of
+      birds, I rose, took down a large portfolio, laid it on the
+      table, and showed him as I would show you, kind reader, or
+      any other person fond of such subjects, the whole of the
+      contents, with the same patience, with which he had showed me
+      his own engravings. His surprise appeared great, as he told
+      me he had never had the most distant idea that any other
+      individual than himself had been engaged in forming such a
+      collection. He asked me if it was my intention to publish,
+      and when I answered in the negative, his surprise seemed to
+      increase. And, truly, such was not my intention; for, until
+      long after, when I met the Prince of Musignano in
+      Philadelphia, I had not the least idea of presenting the
+      fruits of my labours to the world. Mr. Wilson now examined my
+      drawings with care, asked if I should have any objection to
+      lending him a few during his stay, to which I replied that I
+      had none. He then bade me good morning, not, however, until I
+      had made an arrangement to explore the woods in the vicinity
+      along with him, and had promised to procure for him some
+      birds, of which I had drawings in my collection, but which he
+      had never seen. It happened that he lodged in the same house
+      with us, but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited a
+      strong feeling of discontent, or a decided melancholy. The
+      Scotch airs which he played sweetly on his flute made me
+      melancholy, too, and I felt for him. I presented him to my
+      wife and friends, and seeing that he was all enthusiasm,
+      exerted myself as much as was in my power to procure for him
+      the specimens which he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We hunted together and obtained birds which he had never
+      before seen; but, reader, I did not subscribe to his work,
+      for, even at that time, my collection was greater than his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thinking that perhaps he might be pleased to publish the
+      results of my researches, I offered them to him, merely on
+      condition that what I had drawn, or might afterward draw and
+      send to him, should be mentioned in his work as coming from
+      my pencil. I at the same time offered to open a
+      correspondence with him, which I thought might prove
+      beneficial to us both. He made no reply to either proposal,
+      and before many days had elapsed, left Louisville on his way
+      to New Orleans, little knowing how much his talents were
+      appreciated in our little town, at least by myself and my
+      friends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson's account of this meeting is in curious contrast to
+      that of Audubon. It is meagre and unsatisfactory. Under date
+      of March 19, he writes in his diary at Louisville: "Rambled
+      around the town with my gun. Examined Mr. &#8212;&#8212;'s
+      [Audubon's] drawings in crayons&#8212;very good. Saw two new
+      birds he had, both <i>Motacillae</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>March</i> 21. "Went out this afternoon shooting with Mr.
+      A. Saw a number of Sandhill cranes. Pigeons numerous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, in winding up the record of his visit to Louisville,
+      he says, with palpable inconsistency, not to say falsehood,
+      that he did not receive one act of civility there, nor see
+      one new bird, and found no naturalist to keep him company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some years afterward, Audubon hunted him up in Philadelphia,
+      and found him drawing a white headed eagle. He was civil, and
+      showed Audubon some attention, but "spoke not of birds or
+      drawings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson was of a nature far less open and generous than was
+      Audubon. It is evident that he looked upon the latter as his
+      rival, and was jealous of his superior talents; for superior
+      they were in many ways. Audubon's drawings have far more
+      spirit and artistic excellence, and his text shows far more
+      enthusiasm and hearty affiliation with Nature. In accuracy of
+      observation, Wilson is fully his equal, if not his superior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Audubon had deserted his business, his business soon
+      deserted him; he and his partner soon became discouraged (we
+      hear no more about the riches Rozier had acquired), and
+      resolved upon moving their goods to Hendersonville, Kentucky,
+      over one hundred miles further down the Ohio. Mrs. Audubon
+      and her baby son were sent back to her father's at Fatland
+      Ford where they remained upwards of a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Business at Hendersonville proved dull; the country was but
+      thinly inhabited and only the coarsest goods were in demand.
+      To procure food the merchants had to resort to fishing and
+      hunting. They employed a clerk who proved a good shot; he and
+      Audubon supplied the table while Rozier again stood behind
+      the counter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How long the Hendersonville enterprise lasted we do not know.
+      Another change was finally determined upon, and the next
+      glimpse we get of Audubon, we see him with his clerk and
+      partner and their remaining stock in trade, consisting of
+      three hundred barrels of whiskey, sundry dry goods and
+      powder, on board a keel boat making their way down the Ohio,
+      in a severe snow storm, toward St. Genevi&egrave;ve, a
+      settlement on the Mississippi River, where they proposed to
+      try again. The boat is steered by a long oar, about sixty
+      feet in length, made of the trunk of a slender tree, and
+      shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a dolphin; four
+      oars in the bow propelled her, and with the current they made
+      about five miles an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Audubon, who seems to have returned from her father's,
+      with her baby, or babies, was left behind at Hendersonville
+      with a friend, until the result of the new venture should be
+      determined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of six weeks, after many delays, and adventures
+      with the ice and the cold, the party reached St.
+      Genevi&egrave;ve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon has given in his journal a very vivid and interesting
+      account of this journey. At St. Genevi&egrave;ve, the whiskey
+      was in great demand, and what had cost them twenty-five cents
+      a gallon, was sold for two dollars. But Audubon soon became
+      discouraged with the place and longed to be back in
+      Hendersonville with his family. He did not like the low bred
+      French-Canadians, who made up most of the population of the
+      settlement. He sold out his interest in the business to his
+      partner, who liked the place and the people, and here the two
+      parted company. Audubon purchased a fine horse and started
+      over the prairies on his return trip to Hendersonville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this journey he came near being murdered by a woman and
+      her two desperate sons who lived in a cabin on the prairies,
+      where the traveller put up for the night. He has given a
+      minute and graphic account of this adventure in his journal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cupidity of the woman had been aroused by the sight of
+      Audubon's gold watch and chain. A wounded Indian, who had
+      also sought refuge in the shanty had put Audubon upon his
+      guard. It was midnight, Audubon lay on some bear skins in one
+      corner of the room, feigning sleep. He had previously slipped
+      out of the cabin and had loaded his gun, which lay close at
+      hand. Presently he saw the woman sharpen a huge carving
+      knife, and thrust it into the hand of her drunken son, with
+      the injunction to kill yon stranger and secure the watch. He
+      was just on the point of springing up to shoot his would-be
+      murderers, when the door burst open, and two travellers, each
+      with a long knife, appeared. Audubon jumped up and told them
+      his situation. The drunken sons and the woman were bound, and
+      in the morning they were taken out into the woods and were
+      treated as the Regulators treated delinquents in those days.
+      They were shot. Whether Audubon did any of the shooting or
+      not, he does not say. But he aided and abetted, and his
+      Spanish blood must have tingled in his veins. Then the cabin
+      was set on fire, and the travellers proceeded on their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must be confessed that this story sounds a good deal like
+      an episode in a dime novel, and may well be taken with a
+      grain of allowance. Did remote prairie cabins in those days
+      have grindstones and carving knives? And why should the
+      would-be murderers use a knife when they had guns?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon reached Hendersonville in early March, and witnessed
+      the severe earthquake which visited that part of Kentucky the
+      following November, 1812. Of this experience we also have a
+      vivid account in his journals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon continued to live at Hendersonville, his pecuniary
+      means much reduced. He says that he made a pedestrian tour
+      back to St. Genevi&egrave;ve to collect money due him from
+      Rozier, walking the one hundred and sixty-five miles, much of
+      the time nearly ankle-deep in mud and water, in a little over
+      three days. Concerning the accuracy of this statement one
+      also has his doubts. Later he bought a "wild horse," and on
+      its back travelled over Tennessee and a portion of Georgia,
+      and so around to Philadelphia, later returning to
+      Hendersonville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued his drawings of birds and animals, but, in the
+      meantime, embarked in another commercial venture, and for a
+      time prospered. Some years previously he had formed a
+      co-partnership with his wife's brother, and a commercial
+      house in charge of Bakewell had been opened in New Orleans.
+      This turned out disastrously and was a constant drain upon
+      his resources.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This partner now appears upon the scene at Hendersonville and
+      persuades Audubon to erect, at a heavy outlay, a steam grist
+      and saw mill, and to take into the firm an Englishman by the
+      name of Pease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This enterprise brought fresh disaster. "How I laboured at
+      this infernal mill, from dawn till dark, nay, at times all
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They also purchased a steamboat which was so much additional
+      weight to drag them down. This was about the year 1817. From
+      this date till 1819, Audubon's pecuniary difficulties
+      increased daily. He had no business talent whatever; he was a
+      poet and an artist; he cared not for money, he wanted to be
+      alone with Nature. The forests called to him, the birds
+      haunted his dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father dying in 1818, left him a valuable estate in
+      France, and seventeen thousand dollars, deposited with a
+      merchant in Richmond, Virginia; but Audubon was so dilatory
+      in proving his identity and his legal right to this cash,
+      that the merchant finally died insolvent, and the legatee
+      never received a cent of it. The French estate he transferred
+      in after years to his sister Rosa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Finally, Audubon gave up the struggle of trying to be a
+      business man. He says: "I parted with every particle of
+      property I had to my creditors, keeping only the clothes I
+      wore on that day, my original drawings, and my gun, and
+      without a dollar in my pocket, walked to Louisville alone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This he speaks of as the saddest of all his
+      journeys&#8212;"the only time in my life when the wild
+      turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thousands of
+      lesser birds that enlivened the woods and the prairies, all
+      looked like enemies, and I turned my eyes from them, as if I
+      could have wished that they had never existed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the thought of his beloved Lucy and her children soon
+      spurred him to action. He was a good draughtsman, he had been
+      a pupil of David, he would turn his talents to account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As we were straightened to the very utmost, I undertook to
+      draw portraits at the low price of five dollars per head, in
+      black chalk. I drew a few gratis, and succeeded so well that
+      ere many days had elapsed I had an abundance of work."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fame spread, his orders increased. A settler came for him
+      in the middle of the night from a considerable distance to
+      have the portrait of his mother taken while she was on the
+      eve of death, and a clergyman had his child's body exhumed
+      that the artist might restore to him the lost features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Money flowed in and he was soon again established with his
+      family in a house in Louisville. His drawings of birds still
+      continued and, he says, became at times almost a mania with
+      him; he would frequently give up a head, the profits of which
+      would have supplied the wants of his family a week or more,
+      "to represent a little citizen of the feathered tribe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1819 he was offered the position of taxidermist in the
+      museum at Cincinnati, and soon moved there with his family.
+      His pay not being forthcoming from the museum, he started a
+      drawing school there, and again returned to his portraits.
+      Without these resources, he says, he would have been upon the
+      starving list. But food was plentiful and cheap. He writes in
+      his journal: "Our living here is extremely moderate; the
+      markets are well supplied and cheap, beef only two and one
+      half cents a pound, and I am able to supply a good deal
+      myself. Partridges are frequently in the streets, and I can
+      shoot wild turkeys within a mile or so. Squirrels and
+      Woodcock are very abundant in the season, and fish always
+      easily caught."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In October, 1820, we again find him adrift, apparently with
+      thought of having his bird drawings published, after he shall
+      have further added to them by going through many of the
+      southern and western states.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving his family behind him, he started for New Orleans on
+      a flatboat. He tarried long at Natchez, and did not reach the
+      Crescent City till midwinter. Again he found himself
+      destitute of means, and compelled to resort to portrait
+      painting. He went on with his bird collecting and bird
+      painting; in the meantime penetrating the swamps and bayous
+      around the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time he seems to have heard of the publication of
+      Wilson's "Ornithology," and tried in vain to get sight of a
+      copy of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spring he made an attempt to get an appointment as
+      draughtsman and naturalist to a government expedition that
+      was to leave the next year to survey the new territory ceded
+      to the United States by Spain. He wrote to President Monroe
+      upon the subject, but the appointment never came to him. In
+      March he called upon Vanderlyn, the historical painter, and
+      took with him a portfolio of his drawings in hopes of getting
+      a recommendation. Vanderlyn at first treated him as a
+      mendicant and ordered him to leave his portfolio in the
+      entry. After some delay, in company with a government
+      official, he consented to see the pictures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The perspiration ran down my face," says Audubon, "as I
+      showed him my drawings and laid them on the floor." He was
+      thinking of the expedition to Mexico just referred to, and
+      wanted to make a good impression upon Vanderlyn and the
+      officer. This he succeeded in doing, and obtained from the
+      artist a very complimentary note, as he did also from
+      Governor Robertson of Louisiana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In June, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, to rejoin his
+      wife and boys, but somewhere on the journey engaged himself
+      to a Mrs. Perrie who lived at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach
+      her daughter drawing during the summer, at sixty dollars per
+      month, leaving him half of each day to follow his own
+      pursuits. He continued in this position till October when he
+      took steamer for New Orleans. "My long, flowing hair, and
+      loose yellow nankeen dress, and the unfortunate cut of my
+      features, attracted much attention, and made me desire to be
+      dressed like other people as soon as possible."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now rented a house in New Orleans on Dauphine street, and
+      determined to send for his family. Since he had left
+      Cincinnati the previous autumn, he had finished sixty-two
+      drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two snakes,
+      fifty portraits of all sorts, and had lived by his talents,
+      not having had a dollar when he started. "I sent a draft to
+      my wife, and began life in New Orleans with forty-two
+      dollars, health, and much eagerness to pursue my plan of
+      collecting all the birds of America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His family, after strong persuasion, joined him in December,
+      1821, and his former life of drawing portraits, giving
+      lessons, painting birds, and wandering about the country,
+      began again. His earnings proving inadequate to support the
+      family, his wife took a position as governess in the family
+      of a Mr. Brand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spring, acting upon the judgment of his wife, he
+      concluded to leave New Orleans again, and to try his fortunes
+      elsewhere. He paid all his bills and took steamer for
+      Natchez, paying his passage by drawing a crayon portrait of
+      the captain and his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the trip up the Mississippi, two hundred of his bird
+      portraits were sorely damaged by the breaking of a bottle of
+      gunpowder in the chest in which they were being conveyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three times in his career he met with disasters to his
+      drawings. On the occasion of his leaving Hendersonville to go
+      to Philadelphia, he had put two hundred of his original
+      drawings in a wooden box and had left them in charge of a
+      friend. On his return, several months later, he pathetically
+      recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken
+      possession of the whole, and reared a young family among
+      gnawed bits of paper, which but a month previous, represented
+      nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in
+      the head; for several days he seemed like one stunned, but
+      his youth and health stood him in hand, he rallied, and,
+      undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with dog and gun.
+      In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third catastrophe to some of his drawings was caused by a
+      fire in a New York building in which his treasures were kept
+      during his sojourn in Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon had an eye for the picturesque in his fellow-men as
+      well as for the picturesque in Nature. On the Levee in New
+      Orleans, he first met a painter whom he thus describes: "His
+      head was covered by a straw hat, the brim of which might cope
+      with those worn by the fair sex in 1830; his neck was exposed
+      to the weather; the broad frill of a shirt, then fashionable,
+      flopped about his breast, whilst an extraordinary collar,
+      carefully arranged, fell over the top of his coat. The latter
+      was of a light green colour, harmonising well with a pair of
+      flowing yellow nankeen trousers, and a pink waistcoat, from
+      the bosom of which, amidst a large bunch of the splendid
+      flowers of the magnolia, protruded part of a young alligator,
+      which seemed more anxious to glide through the muddy waters
+      of a swamp than to spend its life swinging to and fro amongst
+      folds of the finest lawn. The gentleman held in one hand a
+      cage full of richly-plumed nonpareils, whilst in the other he
+      sported a silk umbrella, on which I could plainly read
+      'Stolen from I,' these words being painted in large white
+      characters. He walked as if conscious of his own importance;
+      that is, with a good deal of pomposity, singing, 'My love is
+      but a lassie yet'; and that with such thorough imitation of
+      the Scotch emphasis that had not his physiognomy suggested
+      another parentage, I should have believed him to be a genuine
+      Scot. A narrower acquaintance proved him to be a Yankee; and
+      anxious to make his acquaintance, I desired to see his birds.
+      He retorted, 'What the devil did I know about birds?' I
+      explained to him that I was a naturalist, whereupon he
+      requested me to examine his birds. I did so with much
+      interest, and was preparing to leave, when he bade me come to
+      his lodgings and see the remainder of his collection. This I
+      willingly did, and was struck with amazement at the
+      appearance of his studio. Several cages were hung about the
+      walls, containing specimens of birds, all of which I examined
+      at my leisure. On a large easel before me stood an unfinished
+      portrait, other pictures hung about, and in the room were two
+      young pupils; and at a glance I discovered that the eccentric
+      stranger was, like myself, a naturalist and an artist. The
+      artist, as modest as he was odd, showed me how he laid on the
+      paint on his pictures, asked after my own pursuits, and
+      showed a friendly spirit which enchanted me. With a ramrod
+      for a rest, he prosecuted his work vigorously, and afterwards
+      asked me to examine a percussion lock on his gun, a novelty
+      to me at the time. He snapped some caps, and on my remarking
+      that he would frighten his birds, he exclaimed, 'Devil take
+      the birds, there are more of them in the market.' He then
+      loaded his gun, and wishing to show me that he was a
+      marksman, fired at one of the pins on his easel. This he
+      smashed to pieces, and afterward put a rifle bullet exactly
+      through the hole into which the pin fitted."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon reached Natchez on March 24, 1822, and remained there
+      and in the vicinity till the spring of 1823, teaching drawing
+      and French to private pupils and in the college at
+      Washington, nine miles distant, hunting, and painting the
+      birds, and completing his collection. Among other things he
+      painted the "Death of Montgomery" from a print. His friends
+      persuaded him to raffle the picture off. This he did, and
+      taking one number himself, won the picture, while his
+      finances were improved by three hundred dollars received for
+      the tickets. Early in the autumn his wife again joined him,
+      and presently we find her acting as governess in the home of
+      a clergyman named Davis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In December, there arrived in Natchez a wandering portrait
+      painter named Stein, who gave Audubon his first lessons in
+      the use of oil colours, and was instructed by Audubon in turn
+      in chalk drawing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There appear to have been no sacrifices that Mrs. Audubon was
+      not willing and ready to make to forward the plans of her
+      husband. "My best friends," he says at this time, "solemnly
+      regarded me as a mad man, and my wife and family alone gave
+      me encouragement. My wife determined that my genius should
+      prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist should
+      be triumphant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wanted him to go to Europe, and, to assist toward that
+      end, she entered into an engagement with a Mrs. Percy of
+      Bayou Sara, to instruct her children, together with her own,
+      and a limited number of outside pupils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon, in the meantime, with his son Victor, and his new
+      artist friend, Stein, started off in a wagon, seeking whom
+      they might paint, on a journey through the southern states.
+      They wandered as far as New Orleans, but Audubon appears to
+      have returned to his wife again in May, and to have engaged
+      in teaching her pupils music and drawing. But something went
+      wrong, there was a misunderstanding with the Percys, and
+      Audubon went back to Natchez, revolving various schemes in
+      his head, even thinking of again entering upon mercantile
+      pursuits in Louisville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no genius for accumulating money nor for keeping it
+      after he had gotten it. One day when his affairs were at a
+      very low ebb, he met a squatter with a tame black wolf which
+      took Audubon's fancy. He says that he offered the owner a
+      hundred dollar bill for it on the spot, but was refused. He
+      probably means to say that he would have offered it had he
+      had it. Hundred dollar bills, I fancy, were rarer than tame
+      black wolves in that pioneer country in those days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time he and his son Victor were taken with yellow
+      fever, and Mrs. Audubon was compelled to dismiss her school
+      and go to nurse them. They both recovered, and, in October
+      (1823), set out for Louisville, making part of the journey on
+      foot. The following winter was passed at Shipping Port, near
+      Louisville, where Audubon painted birds, landscapes,
+      portraits and even signs. In March he left Shipping Port for
+      Philadelphia, leaving his son Victor in the counting house of
+      a Mr. Berthoud. He reached Philadelphia on April 5, and
+      remained there till the following August, studying painting,
+      exhibiting his birds, making many new acquaintances, among
+      them Charles Lucien Bonaparte, giving lessons in drawing at
+      thirty dollars per month, all the time casting wistful eyes
+      toward Europe, whither he hoped soon to be able to go with
+      his drawings. In July he made a pilgrimage to Mill Grove
+      where he had passed so many happy years. The sight of the old
+      familiar scenes filled him with the deepest emotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In August he left Philadelphia for New York, hoping to
+      improve his finances, and, may be, publish his drawings in
+      that city. At this time he had two hundred sheets, and about
+      one thousand birds. While there he again met Vanderlyn and
+      examined his pictures, but says that he was not impressed
+      with the idea that Vanderlyn was a great painter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The birds that he saw in the museum in New York appeared to
+      him to be set up in unnatural and constrained attitudes. With
+      Dr. De Kay he visited the Lyceum, and his drawings were
+      examined by members of the Institute. Among them he felt
+      awkward and uncomfortable. "I feel that I am strange to all
+      but the birds of America," he said. As most of the persons to
+      whom he had letters of introduction were absent, and as his
+      spirits soon grew low, he left on the fifteenth for Albany.
+      Here he found his money low also. Abandoning the idea of
+      visiting Boston, he took passage on a canal boat for
+      Rochester. His fellow-passengers on the boat were doubtful
+      whether he was a government officer, commissioner, or spy. At
+      that time Rochester had only five thousand inhabitants. After
+      a couple of days he went on to Buffalo and, he says, wrote
+      under his name at the hotel this sentence: "Who, like Wilson,
+      will ramble, but never, like that great man, die under the
+      lash of a bookseller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He visited Niagara, and gives a good account of the
+      impressions which the cataract made upon him. He did not
+      cross the bridge to Goat Island on account of the low state
+      of his funds. In Buffalo he obtained a good dinner of bread
+      and milk for twelve cents, and went to bed cheering himself
+      with thoughts of other great men who had encountered greater
+      hardships and had finally achieved fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He soon left Buffalo, taking a deck passage on a schooner
+      bound for Erie, furnishing his own bed and provisions and
+      paying a fare of one dollar and a half. From Erie he and a
+      fellow-traveller hired a man and cart to take them to
+      Meadville, paying their entertainers over night with music
+      and portrait drawing. Reaching Meadville, they had only one
+      dollar and a half between them, but soon replenished their
+      pockets by sketching some of the leading citizens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon's belief in himself helped him wonderfully. He knew
+      that he had talents, he insisted on using them. Most of his
+      difficulties came from trying to do the things he was not
+      fitted to do. He did not hesitate to use his talents in a
+      humble way, when nothing else offered&#8212;portraits,
+      landscapes, birds and animals he painted, but he would paint
+      the cabin walls of the ship to pay his passage, if he was
+      short of funds, or execute crayon portraits of a shoemaker
+      and his wife, to pay for shoes to enable him to continue his
+      journeys. He could sleep on a steamer's deck, with a few
+      shavings for a bed, and, wrapped in a blanket, look up at the
+      starlit sky, and give thanks to a Providence that he believed
+      was ever guarding and guiding him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in September he left for Pittsburg where he spent one
+      month scouring the country for birds and continuing his
+      drawings. In October, he was on his way down the Ohio in a
+      skiff, in company with "a doctor, an artist and an Irishman."
+      The weather was rainy, and at Wheeling his companions left
+      the boat in disgust. He sold his skiff and continued his
+      voyage to Cincinnati in a keel boat. Here he obtained a loan
+      of fifteen dollars and took deck passage on a boat to
+      Louisville, going thence to Shipping Port to see his son
+      Victor. In a few days he was off for Bayou Sara to see his
+      wife, and with a plan to open a school there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I arrived at Bayou Sara with rent and wasted clothes, and
+      uncut hair, and altogether looking like the Wandering Jew."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his haste to reach his wife and child at Mr. Percy's, a
+      mile or more distant through the woods, he got lost in the
+      night, and wandered till daylight before he found the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found his wife had prospered in his absence, and was
+      earning nearly three thousand dollars a year, with which she
+      was quite ready to help him in the publication of his
+      drawings. He forthwith resolved to see what he could do to
+      increase the amount by his own efforts. Receiving an offer to
+      teach dancing, he soon had a class of sixty organised. But
+      the material proved so awkward and refractory that the master
+      in his first lesson broke his bow and nearly ruined his
+      violin in his excitement and impatience. Then he danced to
+      his own music till the whole room came down in thunders of
+      applause. The dancing lessons brought him two thousand
+      dollars; this sum, together with his wife's savings, enabled
+      him to foresee a successful issue to his great ornithological
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On May, 1826, he embarked at New Orleans on board the ship
+      <i>Delos</i> for Liverpool. His journal kept during this
+      voyage abounds in interesting incidents and descriptions. He
+      landed at Liverpool, July 20, and delivered some of his
+      letters of introduction. He soon made the acquaintance of Mr.
+      Rathbone, Mr. Roscoe, Mr. Baring, and Lord Stanley. Lord
+      Stanley said in looking over his drawings: "This work is
+      unique, and deserves the patronage of the Crown." In a letter
+      to his wife at this time, Audubon said: "I am cherished by
+      the most notable people in and around Liverpool, and have
+      obtained letters of introduction to Baron Humboldt, Sir
+      Walter Scott, Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Hannah
+      More, Miss Edgeworth, and your distinguished cousin, Robert
+      Bakewell." Mark his courtesy to his wife in this gracious
+      mention of her relative&#8212;a courtesy which never forsook
+      him&#8212; a courtesy which goes far toward retaining any
+      woman's affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His paintings were put on exhibition in the rooms of the
+      Royal Institution, an admittance of one shilling being
+      charged. From this source he soon realised a hundred pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then went to Edinburgh, carrying letters of introduction
+      to many well known literary and scientific men, among them
+      Francis Jeffrey and "Christopher North."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Professor Jameson, the Scotch naturalist, received him
+      coldly, and told him, among other things, that there was no
+      chance of his seeing Sir Walter Scott&#8212;he was too busy.
+      "<i>Not see Sir Walter Scott</i>?" thought I; "I SHALL, if I
+      have to crawl on all fours for a mile." On his way up in the
+      stage coach he had passed near Sir Walter's seat, and had
+      stood up and craned his neck in vain to get a glimpse of the
+      home of a man to whom, he says, he was indebted for so much
+      pleasure. He and Scott were in many ways kindred spirits, men
+      native to the open air, inevitable sportsmen, copious and
+      romantic lovers and observers of all forms and conditions of
+      life. Of course he will want to see Scott, and Scott will
+      want to see him, if he once scents his real quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later, Professor Jameson showed Audubon much kindness and
+      helped to introduce him to the public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In January, the opportunity to see Scott came to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>January 22, Monday</i>. I was painting diligently when
+      Captain Hall came in, and said: 'Put on your coat, and come
+      with me to Sir Walter Scott; he wishes to see you
+      <i>now</i>.' In a moment I was ready, for I really believe my
+      coat and hat came to me instead of my going to them. My heart
+      trembled; I longed for the meeting, yet wished it over. Had
+      not his wondrous pen penetrated my soul with the
+      consciousness that here was a genius from God's hand? I felt
+      overwhelmed at the thought of meeting Sir Walter, the Great
+      Unknown. We reached the house, and a powdered waiter was
+      asked if Sir Walter were in. We were shown forward at once,
+      and entering a very small room Captain Hall said: 'Sir
+      Walter, I have brought Mr. Audubon.' Sir Walter came forward,
+      pressed my hand warmly, and said he was 'glad to have the
+      honour of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks struck
+      me; he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me
+      of Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of William
+      Roscoe about him and a kindness most prepossessing. I could
+      not forbear looking at him, my eyes feasted on his
+      countenance. I watched his movements as I would those of a
+      celestial being; his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me
+      forcibly. His little room was tidy, though it partook a good
+      deal of the character of a laboratory. He was wrapped in a
+      quilted morning-gown of light purple silk; he had been at
+      work writing on the 'Life of Napoleon.' He writes close
+      lines, rather curved as they go from left to right, and puts
+      an immense deal on very little paper. After a few minutes had
+      elapsed, he begged Captain Hall to ring a bell; a servant
+      came and was asked to bid Miss Scott come to see Mr. Audubon.
+      Miss Scott came, black haired and black-dressed, not handsome
+      but said to be highly accomplished, and she is the daughter
+      of Sir Walter Scott. There was much conversation. I talked
+      but little, but, believe me, I listened and observed, careful
+      if ignorant. I cannot write more now. I have just returned
+      from the Royal Society. Knowing that I was a candidate for
+      the electorate of the society, I felt very uncomfortable and
+      would gladly have been hunting on Tawapatee Bottom."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be worth while now to see what Scott thought of
+      Audubon. Under the same date, Sir Walter writes in his
+      journal as follows: "<i>January</i> 22, 1827. A visit from
+      Basil Hall, with Mr. Audubon, the ornithologist, who has
+      followed the pursuit by many a long wandering in the American
+      forests. He is an American by naturalisation, a Frenchman by
+      birth; but less of a Frenchman than I have ever seen&#8212;no
+      dust or glimmer, or shine about him, but great simplicity of
+      manners and behaviour; slight in person and plainly dressed;
+      wears long hair, which time has not yet tinged; his
+      countenance acute, handsome, and interesting, but still
+      simplicity is the predominant characteristic. I wish I had
+      gone to see his drawings; but I had heard so much about them
+      that I resolved not to see them&#8212;'a crazy way of mine,
+      your honour.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later Audubon again saw Scott, and writes in his
+      journal as follows: "<i>January 24</i>. My second visit to
+      Sir Walter Scott was much more agreeable than my first. My
+      portfolio and its contents were matters on which I could
+      speak substantially, and I found him so willing to level
+      himself with me for awhile that the time spent at his home
+      was agreeable and valuable. His daughter improved in looks
+      the moment she spoke, having both vivacity and good sense."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scott's impressions of the birds as recorded in his journal,
+      was that the drawings were of the first order, but he thought
+      that the aim at extreme correctness and accuracy made them
+      rather stiff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In February Audubon met Scott again at the opening of the
+      Exhibition at the rooms of the Royal Institution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Tuesday, February 13</i>. This was the grand, long
+      promised, and much wished-for day of the opening of the
+      Exhibition at the rooms of the Royal Institution. At one
+      o'clock I went, the doors were just opened, and in a few
+      minutes the rooms were crowded. Sir Walter Scott was present;
+      he came towards me, shook my hand cordially, and pointing to
+      Landseer's picture said: 'Many such scenes, Mr. Audubon, have
+      I witnessed in my younger days.' We talked much of all about
+      us, and I would gladly have joined him in a glass of wine,
+      but my foolish habits prevented me, and after inquiring of
+      his daughter's health, I left him, and shortly afterwards the
+      rooms; for I had a great appetite, and although there were
+      tables loaded with delicacies, and I saw the ladies
+      particularly eating freely, I must say to my shame I dared
+      not lay my fingers on a single thing. In the evening I went
+      to the theatre where I was much amused by 'The Comedy of
+      Errors,' and afterwards, 'The Green Room.' I admire Miss
+      Neville's singing very much; and her manners also; there is
+      none of the actress about her, but much of the lady."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon somewhere says of himself that he was "temperate to
+      an intemperate degree"&#8212;the accounts in later years show
+      that he became less strict in this respect. He would not
+      drink with Sir Walter Scott at this time, but he did with the
+      Texan Houston and with President Andrew Jackson, later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In September we find him exhibiting his pictures in
+      Manchester, but without satisfactory results. In the lobby of
+      the exchange where his pictures were on exhibition, he
+      overheard one man say to another: "Pray, have you seen Mr.
+      Audubon's collection of birds? I am told it is well worth a
+      shilling; suppose we go now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pah! it is all a hoax; save your shilling for better use. I
+      have seen them; the fellow ought to be drummed out of town."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1827, in Edinburgh, he seems to have issued a prospectus
+      for his work, and to have opened books of subscription, and
+      now a publisher, Mr. Lizars, offers to bring out the first
+      number of "Birds of America," and on November 28, the first
+      proof of the first engraving was shown him, and he was
+      pleased with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a specimen number he proposed to travel about the
+      country in quest of subscribers until he had secured three
+      hundred. In his journal under date of December 10, he says:
+      "My success in Edinburgh borders on the miraculous. My book
+      is to be published in numbers containing four [in another
+      place he says five] birds in each, the size of life, in a
+      style surpassing anything now existing, at two guineas a
+      number. The engravings are truly beautiful; some of them have
+      been coloured, and are now on exhibition."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon's journal, kept during his stay in Edinburgh, is
+      copious, graphic, and entertaining. It is a mirror of
+      everything he saw and felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among others he met George Combe, the phrenologist, author of
+      the once famous <i>Constitution of Man</i>, and he submitted
+      to having his head "looked at." The examiner said: "There
+      cannot exist a moment of doubt that this gentleman is a
+      painter, colourist, and compositor, and, I would add, an
+      amiable though quick tempered man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon was invited to the annual feast given by the
+      Antiquarian Society at the Waterloo Hotel, at which Lord
+      Elgin presided. After the health of many others had been
+      drunk, Audubon's was proposed by Skene, a Scottish historian.
+      "Whilst he was engaged in a handsome panegyric, the
+      perspiration poured from me. I thought I should faint." But
+      he survived the ordeal and responded in a few appropriate
+      words. He was much dined and wined, and obliged to keep late
+      hours&#8212;often getting no more than four hours sleep, and
+      working hard painting and writing all the next day. He often
+      wrote in his journals for his wife to read later, bidding her
+      Good-night, or rather Good-morning, at three A.M.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon had the bashfulness and awkwardness of the
+      backwoodsman, and doubtless the naivet&eacute; and
+      picturesqueness also; these traits and his very great merits
+      as a painter of wild life, made him a favourite in Edinburgh
+      society. One day he went to read a paper on the Crow to Dr.
+      Brewster, and was so nervous and agitated that he had to
+      pause for a moment in the midst of it. He left the paper with
+      Dr. Brewster and when he got it back again was much shocked:
+      "He had greatly improved the style (for I had none), but he
+      had destroyed the matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these days Audubon was very busy writing, painting,
+      receiving callers, and dining out. He grew very tired of it
+      all at times, and longed for the solitude of his native
+      woods. Some days his room was a perfect levee. "It is Mr.
+      Audubon here, and Mr. Audubon there; I only hope they will
+      not make a conceited fool of Mr. Audubon at last." There
+      seems to have been some danger of this, for he says: "I seem
+      in a measure to have gone back to my early days of society
+      and fine dressing, silk stockings and pumps, and all the
+      finery with which I made a popinjay of myself in my youth....
+      I wear my hair as long as usual, I believe it does as much
+      for me as my paintings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote to Thomas Sully of Philadelphia, promising to send
+      him his first number, to be presented to the Philadelphia
+      Society&#8212;"an institution which thought me unworthy to be
+      a member," he writes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time he was a guest for a day or two of Earl
+      Morton, at his estate Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh. He had
+      expected to see an imposing personage in the great
+      Chamberlain to the late queen Charlotte. What was his relief
+      and surprise, then, to see a "small, slender man, tottering
+      on his feet, weaker than a newly hatched partridge," who
+      welcomed him with tears in his eyes. The countess, "a fair,
+      fresh-complexioned woman, with dark, flashing eyes," wrote
+      her name in his subscription book, and offered to pay the
+      price in advance. The next day he gave her a lesson in
+      drawing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his return to Edinburgh he dined with Captain Hall, to
+      meet Francis Jeffrey. "Jeffrey is a little man," he writes,
+      "with a serious face and dignified air. He looks both shrewd
+      and cunning, and talks with so much volubility he is rather
+      displeasing.... Mrs. Jeffrey was nervous and very much
+      dressed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in January he painted his "Pheasant attacked by a Fox."
+      This was his method of proceeding: "I take one [a fox] neatly
+      killed, put him up with wires, and when satisfied with the
+      truth of the position, I take my palette and work as rapidly
+      as possible; the same with my birds. If practicable, I finish
+      the bird at one sitting,&#8212;often, it is true, of fourteen
+      hours,&#8212;so that I think they are correct, both in detail
+      and in composition."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In pictures by Landseer and other artists which he saw in the
+      galleries of Edinburgh, he saw the skilful painter, "the
+      style of men who know how to handle a brush, and carry a good
+      effect," but he missed that closeness and fidelity to Nature
+      which to him so much outweighed mere technique. Landseer's
+      "Death of a Stag" affected him like a farce. It was pretty,
+      but not real and true. He did not feel that way about the
+      sermon he heard Sydney Smith preach: "It was a sermon to
+      <i>me</i>. He made me smile and he made me think deeply. He
+      pleased me at times by painting my foibles with due care, and
+      again I felt the colour come to my cheeks as he portrayed my
+      sins." Later, he met Sydney Smith and his "fair daughter,"
+      and heard the latter sing. Afterwards he had a note from the
+      famous divine upon which he remarks: "The man should study
+      economy; he would destroy more paper in a day than Franklin
+      would in a week; but all great men are more or less
+      eccentric. Walter Scott writes a diminutive hand, very
+      difficult to read, Napoleon a large scrawling one, still more
+      difficult, and Sydney Smith goes up hill all the way with
+      large strides."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having decided upon visiting London, he yielded to the
+      persuasions of his friends and had his hair cut before making
+      the trip. He chronicles the event in his journal as a very
+      sad one, in which "the will of God was usurped by the wishes
+      of man." Shorn of his locks he probably felt humbled like the
+      stag when he loses his horns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quitting Edinburgh on April 5, he visited, in succession,
+      Newcastle, Leeds, York, Shrewsbury, and Manchester, in quest
+      of subscribers to his great work. A few were obtained at each
+      place at two hundred pounds per head. At Newcastle he first
+      met Bewick, the famous wood engraver, and conceived a deep
+      liking for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We find him in London on May 21, 1827, and not in a very
+      happy frame of mind: "To me London is just like the mouth of
+      an immense monster, guarded by millions of sharp-edged teeth,
+      from which, if I escape unhurt, it must be called a miracle."
+      It only filled him with a strong desire to be in his beloved
+      woods again. His friend, Basil Hall, had insisted upon his
+      procuring a black suit of clothes. When he put this on to
+      attend his first dinner party, he spoke of himself as
+      "attired like a mournful raven," and probably more than ever
+      wished himself in the woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He early called upon the great portrait painter, Sir Thomas
+      Lawrence, who inspected his drawings, pronounced them "very
+      clever," and, in a few days, brought him several purchasers
+      for some of his animal paintings, thus replenishing his purse
+      with nearly one hundred pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering Audubon's shy disposition, and his dread of
+      persons in high places, it is curious that he should have
+      wanted to call upon the King, and should have applied to the
+      American Minister, Mr. Gallatin, to help him to do so. Mr.
+      Gallatin laughed and said: "It is impossible, my dear sir,
+      the King sees nobody; he has the gout, is peevish, and spends
+      his time playing whist at a shilling a rubber. I had to wait
+      six weeks before I was presented to him in my position of
+      ambassador." But his work was presented to the King who
+      called it fine, and His Majesty became a subscriber on the
+      usual terms. Other noble persons followed suit, yet Audubon
+      was despondent. He had removed the publication of his work
+      from Edinburgh to London, from the hands of Mr. Lizars into
+      those of Robert Havell. But the enterprise did not prosper,
+      his agents did not attend to business, nor to his orders, and
+      he soon found himself at bay for means to go forward with the
+      work. At this juncture he determined to make a sortie for the
+      purpose of collecting his dues and to add to his subscribers.
+      He visited Leeds, York, and other towns. Under date of
+      October 9, at York, he writes in his journal: "How often I
+      thought during these visits of poor Alexander Wilson. Then
+      travelling as I am now, to procure subscribers he, as well as
+      myself, was received with rude coldness, and sometimes with
+      that arrogance which belongs to <i>parvenus."</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week or two later we find him again in Edinburgh where he
+      breakfasted with Professor Wilson ("Christopher North"), whom
+      he greatly enjoyed, a man without stiffness or ceremonies:
+      "No cravat, no waistcoat, but a fine frill of his own profuse
+      beard, his hair flowing uncontrolled, and his speech dashing
+      at once at the object in view, without circumlocution.... He
+      gives me comfort by being comfortable himself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In early November he took the coach for Glasgow, he and three
+      other passengers making the entire journey without uttering a
+      single word: "We sat like so many owls of different species,
+      as if afraid of one another." Four days in Glasgow and only
+      one subscriber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in January he is back in London arranging with Mr.
+      Havell for the numbers to be engraved in 1828. One day on
+      looking up to the new moon he saw a large flock of wild ducks
+      passing over, then presently another flock passed. The sight
+      of these familiar objects made him more homesick than ever.
+      He often went to Regent's Park to see the trees, and the
+      green grass, and to hear the sweet notes of the black birds
+      and starlings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The black birds' note revived his drooping spirits: to his
+      wife he writes, "it carries my mind to the woods around thee,
+      my Lucy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then a subscriber withdrew his name, which always cut
+      him to the quick, but did not dishearten him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>January 28</i>. I received a letter from D. Lizars to-day
+      announcing to me the loss of four subscribers; but these
+      things do not dampen my spirits half so much as the smoke of
+      London. I am as dull as a beetle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In February he learned that it was Sir Thomas Lawrence who
+      prevented the British Museum from subscribing to his work:
+      "He considered the drawings so-so, and the engraving and
+      colouring bad; when I remember how he praised these same
+      drawings <i>in my presence,</i> I wonder&#8212;that is all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rudest man he met in England was the Earl of Kinnoul: "A
+      small man with a face like the caricature of an owl." He sent
+      for Audubon to tell him that all his birds were alike, and
+      that he considered his work a swindle. "He may really think
+      this, his knowledge is probably small; but it is not the
+      custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's own
+      house." Audubon heard his words, bowed and left him without
+      speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In March he went to Cambridge and met and was dined by many
+      learned men. The University, through its Librarian,
+      subscribed for his work. Other subscriptions followed. He was
+      introduced to a judge who wore a wig that "might make a
+      capital bed for an Osage Indian during the whole of a cold
+      winter on the Arkansas River."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his way to Oxford he saw them turn a stag from a cart
+      "before probably a hundred hounds and as many huntsmen. A
+      curious land, and a curious custom, to catch an animal and
+      then set it free merely to catch it again." At Oxford he
+      received much attention, but complains that not one of the
+      twenty-two colleges subscribed for his work, though two other
+      institutions did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in April we find him back in London lamenting over his
+      sad fate in being compelled to stay in so miserable a place.
+      He could neither write nor draw to his satisfaction amid the
+      "bustle, filth, and smoke." His mind and heart turned eagerly
+      toward America, and to his wife and boys, and he began
+      seriously to plan for a year's absence from England. He
+      wanted to renew and to improve about fifty of his drawings.
+      During this summer of 1828, he was very busy in London,
+      painting, writing, and superintending the colouring of his
+      plates. Under date of August 9, he writes in his journal: "I
+      have been at work from four every morning until dark; I have
+      kept up my large correspondence. My publication goes on well
+      and regularly, and this very day seventy sets have been
+      distributed, yet the number of my subscribers has not
+      increased; on the contrary, I have lost some." He made the
+      acquaintance of Swainson, and the two men found much
+      companionship in each other, and had many long talks about
+      birds: "Why, Lucy, thou wouldst think that birds were all
+      that we cared for in this world, but thou knowest this is not
+      so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Together he and Mr. and Mrs. Swainson planned a trip to
+      Paris, which they carried out early in September. It tickled
+      Audubon greatly to find that the Frenchman at the office in
+      Calais, who had never seen him, had described his complexion
+      in his passport as copper red, because he was an American,
+      all Americans suggesting aborigines. In Paris they early went
+      to call upon Baron Cuvier. They were told that he was too
+      busy to be seen: "Being determined to look at the Great Man,
+      we waited, knocked again, and with a certain degree of
+      firmness, sent in our names. The messenger returned, bowed,
+      and led the way up stairs, where in a minute Monsieur le
+      Baron, like an excellent good man, came to us. He had heard
+      much of my friend Swainson, and greeted him as he deserves to
+      be greeted; he was polite and kind to me, though my name had
+      never made its way to his ears. I looked at him and here
+      follows the result: Age about sixty-five; size corpulent,
+      five feet five English measure; head large, face wrinkled and
+      brownish; eyes grey, brilliant and sparkling; nose aquiline,
+      large and red; mouth large with good lips; teeth few, blunted
+      by age, excepting one on the lower jaw, <i>measuring nearly
+      three-quarters of an inch square.</i>" The italics are not
+      Audubon's. The great naturalist invited his callers to dine
+      with him at six on the next Saturday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They next presented their letter to Geoffroy de St. Hilaire,
+      with whom they were particularly pleased. Neither had he ever
+      heard of Audubon's work. The dinner with Cuvier gave him a
+      nearer view of the manners and habits of the great man.
+      "There was not the show of opulence at this dinner that is
+      seen in the same rank of life in England, no, not by far, but
+      it was a good dinner served <i>&agrave; la
+      Fran&ccedil;aise.</i>" Neither was it followed by the
+      "drinking matches" of wine, so common at English tables.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During his stay in Paris Audubon saw much of Cuvier, and was
+      very kindly and considerately treated by him. One day he
+      accompanied a portrait painter to his house and saw him sit
+      for his portrait: "I see the Baron now, quite as plainly as I
+      did this morning,&#8212;an old green surtout about him, a
+      neckcloth that would have wrapped his whole body if unfolded,
+      loosely tied about his chin, and his silver locks looking
+      like those of a man who loves to study books better than to
+      visit barbers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon remained in Paris till near the end of October,
+      making the acquaintance of men of science and of artists, and
+      bringing his work to the attention of those who were likely
+      to value it. Baron Cuvier reported favourably upon it to the
+      Academy of Sciences, pronouncing it "the most magnificent
+      monument which has yet been erected to ornithology." He
+      obtained thirteen subscribers in France and spent forty
+      pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On November 9, he is back in London, and soon busy painting,
+      and pressing forward the engraving and colouring of his work.
+      The eleventh number was the first for the year 1829.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The winter was largely taken up in getting ready for his
+      return trip to America. He found a suitable agent to look
+      after his interests, collected some money, paid all his
+      debts, and on April 1 sailed from Portsmouth in the packet
+      ship <i>Columbia</i>. He was sea-sick during the entire
+      voyage, and reached New York May 5. He did not hasten to his
+      family as would have been quite natural after so long an
+      absence, but spent the summer and part of the fall in New
+      Jersey and Pennsylvania, prosecuting his studies and drawings
+      of birds, making his headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. He
+      spent six weeks in the Great Pine Forest, and much time at
+      Great Egg Harbor, and has given delightful accounts of these
+      trips in his journals. Four hours' sleep out of the
+      twenty-four was his allotted allowance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One often marvels at Audubon's apparent indifference to his
+      wife and his home, for from the first he was given to
+      wandering. Then, too, his carelessness in money matters, and
+      his improvident ways, necessitating his wife's toiling to
+      support the family, put him in a rather unfavourable light as
+      a "good provider," but a perusal of his journal shows that he
+      was keenly alive to all the hardships and sacrifices of his
+      wife, and from first to last in his journeyings he speaks of
+      his longings for home and family. "Cut off from all dearest
+      me," he says in one of his youthful journeys, and in his
+      latest one he speaks of himself as being as happy as one can
+      be who is "three thousand miles from the dearest friend on
+      earth." Clearly some impelling force held him to the pursuit
+      of this work, hardships or no hardships. Fortunately for him,
+      his wife shared his belief in his talents and in their
+      ultimate recognition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under date of October 11, 1829, he writes: "I am at work and
+      have done much, but I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and
+      another body to shoot the specimens; still I am delighted at
+      what I have accumulated in drawings this season. Forty-two
+      drawings in four months, eleven large, eleven middle size,
+      and twenty-two small, comprising ninety-five birds, from
+      eagles downwards, with plants, nests, flowers, and sixty
+      different kinds of eggs. I live alone, see scarcely anyone
+      besides those belonging to the house where I lodge. I rise
+      long before day, and work till nightfall, when I take a walk
+      and to bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon's capacity for work was extraordinary. His enthusiasm
+      and perseverance were equally extraordinary. His purposes and
+      ideas fairly possessed him. Never did a man consecrate
+      himself more fully to the successful completion of the work
+      of his life, than did Audubon to the finishing of his
+      "American Ornithology."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this month Audubon left Camden and turned his face
+      toward his wife and children, crossing the mountains to
+      Pittsburg in the mail coach with his dog and gun, thence down
+      the Ohio in a steamboat to Louisville, where he met his son
+      Victor, whom he had not seen for five years. After a few days
+      here with his two boys, he started for Bayou Sara to see his
+      wife. Beaching Mr. Johnson's house in the early morning, he
+      went at once to his wife's apartment: "Her door was ajar,
+      already she was dressed and sitting by her piano, on which a
+      young lady was playing. I pronounced her name gently, she saw
+      me, and the next moment I held her in my arms. Her emotion
+      was so great I feared I had acted rashly, but tears relieved
+      our hearts, once more we were together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Audubon soon settled up her affairs at Bayou Sara, and
+      the two set out early in January, 1830, for Louisville,
+      thence to Cincinnati, thence to Wheeling, and so on to
+      Washington, where Audubon exhibited his drawings to the House
+      of Representatives and received their subscriptions as a
+      body. In Washington, he met the President, Andrew Jackson,
+      and made the acquaintance of Edward Everett. Thence to
+      Baltimore where he obtained three more subscribers, thence to
+      New York from which port he sailed in April with his wife on
+      the packet ship Pacific, for England, and arrived at
+      Liverpool in twenty-five days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This second sojourn in England lasted till the second of
+      August, 1831. The time was occupied in pushing the
+      publication of his "Birds," canvassing the country for new
+      subscribers, painting numerous pictures for sale, writing his
+      "Ornithological Biography," living part of the time in
+      Edinburgh, and part of the time in London, with two or three
+      months passed in France, where there were fourteen
+      subscribers. While absent in America, he had been elected a
+      fellow of the Royal Society of London, and on May 6 took his
+      seat in the great hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He needed some competent person to assist him in getting his
+      manuscript ready for publication and was so fortunate as to
+      obtain the services of MacGillivray, the biographer of
+      British Birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon had learned that three editions of Wilson's
+      "Ornithology" were soon to be published in Edinburgh, and he
+      set to work vigorously to get his book out before them.
+      Assisted by MacGillivray, he worked hard at his biography of
+      the birds, writing all day, and Mrs. Audubon making a copy of
+      the work to send to America to secure copyright there.
+      Writing to her sons at this time, Mrs. Audubon says: "Nothing
+      is heard but the steady movement of the pen; your father is
+      up and at work before dawn, and writes without ceasing all
+      day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the first volume was finished, Audubon offered it to two
+      publishers, both of whom refused it, so he published it
+      himself in March, 1831.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In April on his way to London he travelled "on that
+      Extraordinary road called the railway, at the rate of
+      twenty-four miles an hour."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first volume of his bird pictures was completed this
+      summer, and, in bringing it out, forty thousand dollars had
+      passed through his hands. It had taken four years to bring
+      that volume before the world, during which time no less than
+      fifty of his subscribers, representing the sum of fifty-six
+      thousand dollars, had abandoned him, so that at the end of
+      that time, he had only one hundred and thirty names standing
+      on his list.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was no easy thing to secure enough men to pledge
+      themselves to $1,000 for a work, the publication of which
+      must of necessity extend over eight or ten years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Few enterprises, involving such labour and expense, have ever
+      been carried through against such odds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The entire cost of the "Birds" exceeded one hundred thousand
+      dollars, yet the author never faltered in this gigantic
+      undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On August 2, Audubon and his wife sailed for America, and
+      landed in New York on September 4. They at once went to
+      Louisville where the wife remained with her sons, while the
+      husband went to Florida where the winter of 1831-2 was spent,
+      prosecuting his studies of our birds. His adventures and
+      experiences in Florida, he has embodied in his Floridian
+      Episodes, "The Live Oakers," "Spring Garden," "Deer Hunting,"
+      "Sandy Island," "The Wreckers," "The Turtles," "Death of a
+      Pirate," and other sketches. Stopping at Charleston, South
+      Carolina, on this southern trip, he made the acquaintance of
+      the Reverend John Bachman, and a friendship between these two
+      men was formed that lasted as long as they both lived.
+      Subsequently, Audubon's sons, Victor and John, married Dr.
+      Bachman's two eldest daughters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the summer of 1832, Audubon, accompanied by his wife and
+      two sons, made a trip to Maine and New Brunswick, going very
+      leisurely by private conveyance through these countries,
+      studying the birds, the people, the scenery, and gathering
+      new material for his work. His diaries give minute accounts
+      of these journeyings. He was impressed by the sobriety of the
+      people of Maine; they seem to have had a "Maine law" at that
+      early date; "for on asking for brandy, rum, or whiskey, not a
+      drop could I obtain." He saw much of the lumbermen and was a
+      deeply interested spectator of their ways and doings. Some of
+      his best descriptive passages are contained in these diaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In October he is back in Boston planning a trip to Labrador,
+      and intent on adding more material to his "Birds" by another
+      year in his home country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That his interests abroad in the meantime might not suffer by
+      being entirely in outside hands, he sent his son Victor, now
+      a young man of considerable business experience, to England
+      to represent him there. The winter of 1832 and 1833 Audubon
+      seems to have spent mainly in Boston, drawing and re-drawing
+      and there he had his first serious illness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spring of 1833, a schooner was chartered and,
+      accompanied by five young men, his youngest son, John
+      Woodhouse, among them, Audubon started on his Labrador trip,
+      which lasted till the end of summer. It was an expensive and
+      arduous trip, but was greatly enjoyed by all hands, and was
+      fruitful in new material for his work. Seventy-three bird
+      skins were prepared, many drawings made, and many new plants
+      collected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather in Labrador was for the most part rainy, foggy,
+      cold, and windy, and his drawings were made in the cabin of
+      his vessel, often under great difficulties. He makes this
+      interesting observation upon the Eider duck: "In one nest of
+      the Eider ten eggs were found; this is the most we have seen
+      as yet in any one nest. The female draws the down from her
+      abdomen as far toward her breast as her bill will allow her
+      to do, but the feathers are not pulled, and on examination of
+      several specimens, I found these well and regularly planted,
+      and cleaned from their original down, as a forest of trees is
+      cleared of its undergrowth. In this state the female is still
+      well clothed, and little or no difference can be seen in the
+      plumage, unless examined."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gives this realistic picture of salmon fishermen that his
+      party saw in Labrador: "On going to a house on the shore, we
+      found it a tolerably good cabin, floored, containing a good
+      stove, a chimney, and an oven at the bottom of this, like the
+      ovens of the French peasants, three beds, and a table whereon
+      the breakfast of the family was served. This consisted of
+      coffee in large bowls, good bread, and fried salmon. Three
+      Labrador dogs came and sniffed about us, and then returned
+      under the table whence they had issued, with no appearance of
+      anger. Two men, two women, and a babe formed the group, which
+      I addressed in French. They were French-Canadians and had
+      been here several years, winter and summer, and are agents
+      for the Fur and Fish Co., who give them food, clothes, and
+      about $80 per annum. They have a cow and an ox, about an acre
+      of potatoes planted in sand, seven feet of snow in winter,
+      and two-thirds less salmon than was caught here ten years
+      since. Then, three hundred barrels was a fair season; now one
+      hundred is the maximum; this is because they will catch the
+      fish both ascending and descending the river. During winter
+      the men hunt Foxes, Martens, and Sables, and kill some bear
+      of the black kind, but neither Deer nor other game is to be
+      found without going a great distance in the interior, where
+      Reindeer are now and then procured. One species of Grouse,
+      and one of Ptarmigan, the latter white at all seasons; the
+      former, I suppose to be, the Willow Grouse. The men would
+      neither sell nor give us a single salmon, saying, that so
+      strict were their orders that, should they sell <i>one,</i>
+      the place might be taken from them. If this should prove the
+      case everywhere, I shall not purchase many for my friends.
+      The furs which they collect are sent off to Quebec at the
+      first opening of the waters in spring, and not a skin of any
+      sort was here for us to look at."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gives a vivid picture of the face of Nature in Labrador on
+      a fine day, under date of July 2: "A beautiful day for
+      Labrador. Drew another <i>M. articus.</i> Went on shore, and
+      was most pleased with what I saw. The country, so wild and
+      grand, is of itself enough to interest any one in its
+      wonderful dreariness. Its mossy, grey-clothed rocks, heaped
+      and thrown together as if by chance, in the most fantastical
+      groups imaginable, huge masses hanging on minor ones as if
+      about to roll themselves down from their doubtful-looking
+      situations, into the depths of the sea beneath. Bays without
+      end, sprinkled with rocky islands of all shapes and sizes,
+      where in every fissure a Guillemot, a Cormorant, or some
+      other wild bird retreats to secure its egg, and raise its
+      young, or save itself from the hunter's pursuit. The peculiar
+      cast of the sky, which never seems to be certain, butterflies
+      flitting over snowbanks, probing beautiful dwarf flowerets of
+      many hues, pushing their tender, stems from the thick bed of
+      moss which everywhere covers the granite rocks. Then the
+      morasses, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking
+      over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, making one think that
+      as he goes he treads down the <i>forests</i> of Labrador. The
+      unexpected Bunting, or perhaps Sylvia, which, perchance, and
+      indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying
+      before you, or hear singing from the creeping plants on the
+      ground. The beautiful freshwater lakes, on the rugged crests
+      of greatly elevated islands, wherein the Red and Black-necked
+      Divers swim as proudly as swans do in other latitudes, and
+      where the fish appear to have been cast as strayed beings
+      from the surplus food of the ocean. All&#8212;all is
+      wonderfully grand, wild&#8212; aye, and terrific. And yet how
+      beautiful it is now, when one sees the wild bee, moving from
+      one flower to another in search of food, which doubtless is
+      as sweet to it, as the essence of the magnolia is to those of
+      favoured Louisiana. The little Ring Plover rearing its
+      delicate and tender young, the Eider Duck swimming
+      man-of-war-like amid her floating brood, like the guardship
+      of a most valuable convoy; the White-crowned Bunting's
+      sonorous note reaching the ear ever and anon; the crowds of
+      sea birds in search of places wherein to repose or to
+      feed&#8212;how beautiful is all this in this wonderful rocky
+      desert at this season, the beginning of July, compared with
+      the horrid blasts of winter which here predominate by the
+      will of God, when every rock is rendered smooth with snows so
+      deep that every step the traveller takes is as if entering
+      into his grave; for even should he escape an avalanche, his
+      eye dreads to search the horizon, for full well he knows that
+      snow&#8212;snow is all that can be seen. I watched the Ring
+      Plover for some time; the parents were so intent on saving
+      their young that they both lay on the rocks as if shot,
+      quivering their wings and dragging their bodies as if quite
+      disabled. We left them and their young to the care of the
+      Creator. I would not have shot one of the old ones, or taken
+      one of the young for any consideration, and I was glad my
+      young men were as forbearing. The <i>L. marinus</i> is
+      extremely abundant here; they are forever harassing every
+      other bird, sucking their eggs, and devouring their young;
+      they take here the place of Eagles and Hawks; not an Eagle
+      have we seen yet, and only two or three small Hawks, and one
+      small Owl; yet what a harvest they would have here, were
+      there trees for them to rest upon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his return from Labrador in September, Audubon spent three
+      weeks in New York, after which with his wife, he started upon
+      another southern trip, pausing at Philadelphia, Baltimore,
+      Washington, and Richmond. In Washington he made some attempts
+      to obtain permission to accompany a proposed expedition to
+      the Rocky Mountains, under Government patronage. But the cold
+      and curt manner in which Cass, then Secretary of War,
+      received his application, quite disheartened him. But he
+      presently met Washington Irving, whose friendly face and
+      cheering words revived his spirits. How one would like a
+      picture of that meeting in Washington between Audubon and
+      Irving&#8212;two men who in so many ways were kindred
+      spirits!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charleston, South Carolina, was reached late in October, and
+      at the home of their friend Bachman the Audubons seem to have
+      passed the most of the winter of 1833-4: "My time was well
+      employed; I hunted for new birds or searched for more
+      knowledge of old. I drew, I wrote many long pages. I obtained
+      a few new subscribers, and made some collections on account
+      of my work."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His son Victor wrote desiring the presence of his father in
+      England, and on April 16, we find him with his wife and son
+      John, again embarked for Liverpool. In due time they are in
+      London where they find Victor well, and the business of
+      publication going on prosperously. One of the amusing
+      incidents of this sojourn, narrated in the diaries, is
+      Audubon's and his son's interview with the Baron Rothschild,
+      to whom he had a letter of introduction from a distinguished
+      American banking house. The Baron was not present when they
+      entered his private office, but "soon a corpulent man
+      appeared, hitching up his trousers, and a face red with the
+      exertion of walking, and without noticing anyone present,
+      dropped his fat body into a comfortable chair, as if caring
+      for no one else in this wide world but himself. While the
+      Baron sat, we stood, with our hats held respectfully in our
+      hands. I stepped forward, and with a bow tendered my
+      credentials. 'Pray, sir,' said the man of golden consequence,
+      'is this a letter of business, or is it a mere letter of
+      introduction?' This I could not well answer, for I had not
+      read the contents of it, and I was forced to answer rather
+      awkwardly, that I could not tell. The banker then opened the
+      letter, read it with the manner of one who was looking only
+      at the temporal side of things, and after reading it said,
+      'This is only a letter of introduction, and I expect from its
+      contents that you are the publisher of some book or other and
+      need my subscription.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Had a man the size of a mountain spoken to me in that
+      arrogant style in America, I should have indignantly resented
+      it; but where I then was it seemed best to swallow and digest
+      it as well as I could. So in reply to the offensive arrogance
+      of the banker, I said I should be <i>honoured</i> by his
+      subscription to the "Birds of America." 'Sir,' he said, 'I
+      never sign my name to any subscription list, but you may send
+      in your work and I will pay for a copy of it. Gentlemen, I am
+      busy. I wish you good morning.' We were busy men, too, and so
+      bowing respectfully, we retired, pretty well satisfied with
+      the small slice of his opulence which our labour was likely
+      to obtain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A few days afterwards I sent the first volume of my work
+      half bound, and all the numbers besides, then published. On
+      seeing them we were told that he ordered the bearer to take
+      them to his house, which was done directly. Number after
+      number was sent and delivered to the Baron, and after eight
+      or ten months my son made out his account and sent it by Mr.
+      Havell, my engraver, to his banking-house. The Baron looked
+      at it with amazement, and cried out, 'What, a hundred pounds
+      for birds! Why, sir, I will give you five pounds and not a
+      farthing more!' Representations were made to him of the
+      magnificence and expense of the work, and how pleased his
+      Baroness and wealthy children would be to have a copy; but
+      the great financier was unrelenting. The copy of the work was
+      actually sent back to Mr. Havell's shop, and as I found that
+      instituting legal proceedings against him would cost more
+      than it would come to, I kept the work, and afterwards sold
+      it to a man with less money but a nobler heart. What a
+      distance there is between two such men as the Baron
+      Rothschild of London, and the merchant of Savannah!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon remained in London during the summer of 1834, and in
+      the fall removed to Edinburgh, where he hired a house and
+      spent a year and a half at work on his "Ornithological
+      Biography," the second and third volumes of which were
+      published during that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the summer of 1836, he returned to London, where he
+      settled his family in Cavendish Square, and in July, with his
+      son John, took passage at Portsmouth for New York, desiring
+      to explore more thoroughly the southern states for new
+      material for his work. On his arrival in New York, Audubon,
+      to his deep mortification, found that all his books, papers,
+      and valuable and curious things, which he had collected both
+      at home and abroad, had been destroyed in the great fire in
+      New York, in 1835.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In September he spent some time in Boston where he met Brewer
+      and Nuttall, and made the acquaintance of Daniel Webster,
+      Judge Story, and others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Writing to his son in England, at this time, admonishing him
+      to carry on the work, should he himself be taken away
+      prematurely, he advises him thus: "Should you deem it wise to
+      remove the publication of the work to this country, I advise
+      you to settle in Boston; <i>I have faith in the
+      Bostonians."</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Salem he called upon a wealthy young lady by the name of
+      Silsby, who had the eyes of a gazelle, but "when I mentioned
+      subscription it seemed to fall on her ears, not as the
+      cadence of the wood thrush, or of the mocking bird does on
+      mine, but as a shower bath in cold January."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Boston Audubon returned in October to New York, and
+      thence went southward through Philadelphia to Washington,
+      carrying with him letters from Washington Irving to Benjamin
+      F. Butler, then the Attorney General of the United States,
+      and to Martin Van Buren who had just been elected to the
+      presidency. Butler was then quite a young man: "He read
+      Washington Irving's letter, laid it down, and began a long
+      talk about his talents, and after a while came round to my
+      business, saying that the Government allows so little money
+      to the departments, that he did not think it probable that
+      their subscription could be obtained without a law to that
+      effect from Congress."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time he also met the President, General Jackson: "He
+      was very kind, and as soon as he heard that we intended
+      departing to-morrow evening for Charleston, invited us to
+      dine with him <i>en famille.</i> At the hour named we went to
+      the White House, and were taken into a room, where the
+      President soon joined us, I sat close to him; we spoke of
+      olden times, and touched slightly on politics, and I found
+      him very averse to the Cause of the Texans.... The dinner was
+      what might be called plain and substantial in England; I
+      dined from a fine young turkey, shot within twenty miles of
+      Washington. The General drank no wine, but his health was
+      drunk by us more than once; and he ate very moderately; his
+      last dish consisting of bread and milk."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In November Audubon is again at the house of his friend Dr.
+      Bachman, in Charleston, South Carolina. Here he passed the
+      winter of 1836-7, making excursions to various points farther
+      south, going as far as Florida. It was at this time that he
+      seems to have begun, in connection with Dr. Bachman, his
+      studies in Natural History which resulted in the publication,
+      a few years later, of the "Quadrupeds of North America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spring he left Charleston and set out to explore the
+      Gulf of Mexico, going to Galveston and thence well into
+      Texas, where he met General Sam Houston. Here is one of his
+      vivid, realistic pen pictures of the famous Texan: "We walked
+      towards the President's house, accompanied by the Secretary
+      of the Navy, and as soon as we rose above the bank, we saw
+      before us a level of far-extending prairie, destitute of
+      timber, and rather poor soil. Houses half finished, and most
+      of them without roofs, tents, and a liberty pole, with the
+      capitol, were all exhibited to our view at once. We
+      approached the President's mansion, however, wading through
+      water above our ankles. This abode of President Houston is a
+      small log house, consisting of two rooms, and a passage
+      through, after the southern fashion. The moment we stepped
+      over the threshold, on the right hand of the passage we found
+      ourselves ushered into what in other countries would be
+      called the antechamber; the ground floor, however, was muddy
+      and filthy, a large fire was burning, a small table covered
+      with paper and writing materials, was in the centre,
+      camp-beds, trunks, and different materials, were strewed
+      about the room. We were at once presented to several members
+      of the cabinet, some of whom bore the stamp of men of
+      intellectual ability, simple, though bold, in their general
+      appearance. Here we were presented to Mr. Crawford, an agent
+      of the British Minister to Mexico, who has come here on some
+      secret mission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The President was engaged in the opposite room on some
+      national business, and we could not see him for some time.
+      Meanwhile we amused ourselves by walking to the capitol,
+      which was yet without a roof, and the floors, benches, and
+      tables of both houses of Congress were as well saturated with
+      water as our clothes had been in the morning. Being invited
+      by one of the great men of the place to enter a booth to take
+      a drink of grog with him, we did so; but I was rather
+      surprised that he offered his name, instead of the cash to
+      the bar-keeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We first caught sight of President Houston as he walked from
+      one of the grog shops, where he had been to prevent the sale
+      of ardent spirits. He was on his way to his house, and wore a
+      large grey coarse hat; and the bulk of his figure reminded me
+      of the appearance of General Hopkins of Virginia, for like
+      him he is upwards of six feet high, and strong in proportion.
+      But I observed a scowl in the expression of his eyes, that
+      was forbidding and disagreeable. We reached his abode before
+      him, but he soon came, and we were presented to his
+      excellency. He was dressed in a fancy velvet coat, and
+      trousers trimmed with broad gold lace; around his neck was
+      tied a cravat somewhat in the style of seventy-six. He
+      received us kindly, was desirous of retaining us for awhile,
+      and offered us every facility within his power. He at once
+      removed us from the ante-room to his private chamber, which,
+      by the way, was not much cleaner than the former. We were
+      severally introduced by him to the different members of his
+      cabinet and staff, and at once asked to drink grog with him,
+      which we did, wishing success to his new republic. Our talk
+      was short: but the impression which was made on my mind at
+      the time by himself, his officers, and his place of abode,
+      can never be forgotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Late in the summer of 1837, Audubon, with his son John and
+      his new wife&#8212; the daughter of Dr. Bachman, returned to
+      England for the last time. He finally settled down again in
+      Edinburgh and prepared the fourth volume of his
+      "Ornithological Biography." This work seems to have occupied
+      him a year. The volume was published in November, 1838. More
+      drawings for his "Birds of America" were finished the next
+      winter, and also the fifth volume of the "Biography" which
+      was published in May, 1839.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the fall of that year the family returned to America and
+      settled in New York City, at 86 White street. His great work,
+      the "Birds of America," had been practically completed,
+      incredible difficulties had been surmounted, and the goal of
+      his long years of striving had been reached. About one
+      hundred and seventy-five copies of his "Birds" had been
+      delivered to subscribers, eighty of the number in this
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a copy of the "Ornithological Biography" given in 1844 by
+      Audubon to J. Prescott Hall, the following note, preserved in
+      the <i>Magazine of American History</i> (1877) was written by
+      Mr. Hall. It is reproduced here in spite of its variance from
+      statements now accepted:&#8212;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Audubon told me in the year 184- that he did not sell
+      more than 40 copies of his great work in England, Ireland,
+      Scotland and France, of which Louis Philippe took 10.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The following received their copies but never paid for them:
+      George IV., Duchess of Clarence, Marquis of Londonderry,
+      Princess of Hesse Homburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An Irish lord whose name he would not give, took two copies
+      and paid for neither. Rothschild paid for his copy, but with
+      great reluctance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He further said that he sold 75 copies in America, 26 in New
+      York and 24 in Boston; that the work cost him &pound;27,000
+      and that he lost $25,000 by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He said that Louis Philippe offered to subscribe for 100
+      copies if he would publish the work in Paris. This he found
+      could not be done, as it would have required 40 years to
+      finish it as things were then in Paris. Of this conversation
+      I made a memorandum at the time which I read over to Mr.
+      Audubon and he pronounced it correct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br>
+      "J. PRESCOTT HALL."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      About the very great merit of this work, there is but one
+      opinion among competent judges. It is, indeed, a monument to
+      the man's indomitable energy and perseverance, and it is a
+      monument to the science of ornithology. The drawings of the
+      birds are very spirited and life like, and their biographies
+      copious, picturesque, and accurate, and, taken in connection
+      with his many journals, they afford glimpses of the life of
+      the country during the early part of the century, that are of
+      very great interest and value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In writing the biography of the birds he wrote his
+      autobiography as well; he wove his doings and adventures into
+      his natural history observations. This gives a personal
+      flavour to his pages, and is the main source of their charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His account of the Rosebreasted Grosbeak is a good sample of
+      his work in this respect:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One year, in the month of August, I was trudging along the
+      shores of the Mohawk river, when night overtook me. Being
+      little acquainted with that part of the country, I resolved
+      to camp where I was; the evening was calm and beautiful, the
+      sky sparkled with stars which were reflected by the smooth
+      waters, and the deep shade of the rocks and trees of the
+      opposite shore fell on the bosom of the stream, while gently
+      from afar came on the ear the muttering sound of the
+      cataract. My little fire was soon lighted under a rock, and,
+      spreading out my scanty stock of provisions, I reclined on my
+      grassy couch. As I looked on the fading features of the
+      beautiful landscape, my heart turned towards my distant home,
+      where my friends were doubtless wishing me, as I wish them, a
+      happy night and peaceful slumbers. Then were heard the
+      barkings of the watch dog, and I tapped my faithful companion
+      to prevent his answering them. The thoughts of my worldly
+      mission then came over my mind, and having thanked the
+      Creator of all for his never-failing mercy, I closed my eyes,
+      and was passing away into the world of dreaming existence,
+      when suddenly there burst on my soul the serenade of the
+      Rosebreasted bird, so rich, so mellow, so loud in the
+      stillness of the night, that sleep fled from my eyelids.
+      Never did I enjoy music more: it thrilled through my heart,
+      and surrounded me with an atmosphere of bliss. One might
+      easily have imagined that even the Owl, charmed by such
+      delightful music, remained reverently silent. Long after the
+      sounds ceased did I enjoy them, and when all had again become
+      still, I stretched out my wearied limbs, and gave myself up
+      to the luxury of repose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Probably most of the seventy-five or eighty copies of "Birds"
+      which were taken by subscribers in this country are still
+      extant, held by the great libraries, and learned
+      institutions. The Lenox Library in New York owns three sets.
+      The Astor Library owns one set. I have examined this work
+      there; there are four volumes in a set; they are elephant
+      folio size&#8212;more than three feet long, and two or more
+      feet wide. They are the heaviest books I ever handled. It
+      takes two men to carry one volume to the large racks which
+      hold them for the purpose of examination. The birds, of which
+      there are a thousand and fifty-five specimens in four hundred
+      and thirty-five plates, are all life size, even the great
+      eagles, and appear to be unfaded. This work, which cost the
+      original subscribers one thousand dollars, now brings four
+      thousand dollars at private sale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the edition with reduced figures and with the bird
+      biographies, many more were sold, and all considerable public
+      libraries in this country possess the work. It consists of
+      seven imperial octavo volumes. Five hundred dollars is the
+      average price which this work brings. This was a copy of the
+      original English publication, with the figures reduced and
+      lithographed. In this work, his sons, John and Victor,
+      greatly assisted him, the former doing the reducing by the
+      aid of the camera-lucida, and the latter attending to the
+      printing and publishing. The first volume of this work
+      appeared in 1840, and the last in 1844.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon experimented a long time before he hit upon a
+      satisfactory method of drawing his birds. Early in his
+      studies he merely drew them in outline. Then he practised
+      using threads to raise the head, wing or tail of his
+      specimen. Under David he had learned to draw the human figure
+      from a manikin. It now occurred to him to make a manikin of a
+      bird, using cork or wood, or wires for the purpose. But his
+      bird manikin only excited the laughter and ridicule of his
+      friends. Then he conceived the happy thought of setting up
+      the body of the dead bird by the aid of wires, very much as a
+      taxidermist mounts them. This plan worked well and enabled
+      him to have his birds permanently before him in a
+      characteristic attitude: "The bird fixed with wires on
+      squares I studied as a lay figure before me, its nature
+      previously known to me as far as habits went, and its general
+      form having been perfectly observed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His bird pictures reflect his own temperament, not to say his
+      nationality; the birds are very demonstrative, even
+      theatrical and melodramatic at times. In some cases this is
+      all right, in others it is all wrong. Birds differ in this
+      respect as much as people do&#8212;some are very quiet and
+      sedate, others pose and gesticulate like a Frenchman. It
+      would not be easy to exaggerate, for instance, the flashings
+      and evolutions of the redstart when it arrives in May, or the
+      acting and posing of the catbird, or the gesticulations of
+      the yellow breasted chat, or the nervous and emphatic
+      character of the large-billed water thrush, or the many
+      pretty attitudes of the great Carolina wren; but to give the
+      same dramatic character to the demure little song sparrow, or
+      to the slow moving cuckoo, or to the pedestrian cowbird, or
+      to the quiet Kentucky warbler, as Audubon has done, is to
+      convey a wrong impression of these birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson errs, if at all, in the other direction. His birds, on
+      the other hand, reflect his cautious, undemonstrative Scotch
+      nature. Few of them are shown in violent action like
+      Audubon's cuckoo; their poses for the most part are easy and
+      characteristic. His drawings do not show the mastery of the
+      subject and the versatility that Audubon's do;&#8212;they
+      have not the artistic excellence, but they less frequently do
+      violence to the bird's character by exaggerated activity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The colouring in Audubon's birds is also often exaggerated.
+      His purple finch is as brilliant as a rose, whereas at its
+      best, this bird is a dull carmine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Either the Baltimore oriole has changed its habits of
+      nest-building since Audubon's day, or else he was wrong in
+      his drawing of the nest of that bird, in making the opening
+      on the side near the top. I have never seen an oriole's nest
+      that was not open at the top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his drawings of a group of robins, one misses some of the
+      most characteristic poses of that bird, while some of the
+      attitudes that are portrayed are not common and familiar
+      ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in the face of all that he accomplished, and against such
+      odds, and taking into consideration also the changes that may
+      have crept in through engraver and colourists, it ill becomes
+      us to indulge in captious criticisms. Let us rather repeat
+      Audubon's own remark on realising how far short his drawings
+      came of representing the birds themselves: "After all,
+      there's nothing perfect but <i>primitiveness</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finding that he could not live in the city, in 1842 Audubon
+      removed with his family to "Minnie's Land," on the banks of
+      the Hudson, now known as Audubon Park, and included in the
+      city limits; this became his final home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spring of 1843 he started on his last long journey,
+      his trip to the Yellow-stone River, of which we have a minute
+      account in his "Missouri River Journals"&#8212;documents that
+      lay hidden in the back of an old secretary from 1843 to the
+      time when they were found by his grand-daughters in 1896, and
+      published by them in 1897.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This trip was undertaken mainly in the interests of the
+      "Quadrupeds and Biography of American Quadrupeds," and much
+      of what he saw and did is woven into those three volumes. The
+      trip lasted eight months, and the hardships and exposures
+      seriously affected Audubon's health. He returned home in
+      October, 1843.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now sixty-four or five years of age, and the
+      infirmities of his years began to steal upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first volume of his "Quadrupeds" was published about two
+      years later, and this was practically his last work. The
+      second and third volumes were mainly the work of his sons,
+      John and Victor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The "Quadrupeds" does not take rank with his "Birds." It was
+      not his first love. It was more an after thought to fill up
+      his time. Neither the drawing nor the colouring of the
+      animals, largely the work of his son John, approaches those
+      of the birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely no man ever had better helpers" says his
+      grand-daughter, and a study of his life brings us to the same
+      conclusion&#8212;his devoted wife, his able and willing sons,
+      were his closest helpers, nor do we lose sight of the
+      assistance of the scientific and indefatigable MacGillivray,
+      and the untiring and congenial co-worker, Dr. Bachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon's last years were peaceful and happy, and were passed
+      at his home on the Hudson, amid his children and
+      grandchildren, surrounded by the scenes that he loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his eyesight began to fail him, his devoted wife read
+      to him, she walked with him, and toward the last she fed him.
+      "Bread and milk were his breakfast and supper, and at noon he
+      ate a little fish or game, never having eaten animal food if
+      he could avoid it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One visiting at the home of our naturalist during his last
+      days speaks of the tender way in which he said to his wife:
+      "Well, sweetheart, always busy. Come sit thee down a few
+      minutes and rest."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Parke Godwin visited Audubon in 1846, and gives this account
+      of his visit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The house was simple and unpretentious in its architecture,
+      and beautifully embowered amid elms and oaks. Several
+      graceful fawns, and a noble elk, were stalking in the shade
+      of the trees, apparently unconscious of the presence of a few
+      dogs, and not caring for the numerous turkeys, geese, and
+      other domestic animals that gabbled and screamed around them.
+      Nor did my own approach startle the wild, beautiful
+      creatures, that seemed as docile as any of their tame
+      companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Is the master at home?' I asked of a pretty maid servant,
+      who answered my tap at the door; and who, after informing me
+      that he was, led me into a room on the left side of the broad
+      hall. It was not, however, a parlour, or an ordinary
+      reception room that I entered, but evidently a room for work.
+      In one corner stood a painter's easel, with the half-finished
+      sketch of a beaver on the paper; in the other lay the skin of
+      an American panther. The antlers of elks hung upon the walls;
+      stuffed birds of every description of gay plumage ornamented
+      the mantel-piece; and exquisite drawings of field mice,
+      orioles, and woodpeckers, were scattered promiscuously in
+      other parts of the room, across one end of which a long, rude
+      table was stretched to hold artist materials, scraps of
+      drawing paper, and immense folio volumes, filled with
+      delicious paintings of birds taken in their native haunts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'This,' said I to myself, 'is the studio of the naturalist,'
+      but hardly had the thought escaped me when the master himself
+      made his appearance. He was a tall thin man, with a
+      high-arched and serene forehead, and a bright penetrating
+      grey eye; his white locks fell in clusters upon his
+      shoulders, but were the only signs of age, for his form was
+      erect, and his step as light as that of a deer. The
+      expression of his face was sharp, but noble and commanding,
+      and there was something in it, partly derived from the
+      aquiline nose and partly from the shutting of the mouth,
+      which made you think of the imperial eagle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His greeting as he entered, was at once frank and cordial,
+      and showed you the sincere true man. 'How kind it is,' he
+      said, with a slight French accent and in a pensive tone, 'to
+      come to see me; and how wise, too, to leave that crazy city.'
+      He then shook me warmly by the hand. 'Do you know,' he
+      continued, 'how I wonder that men can consent to swelter and
+      fret their lives away amid those hot bricks and pestilent
+      vapours, when the woods and fields are all so near? It would
+      kill me soon to be confined in such a prison house; and when
+      I am forced to make an occasional visit there, it fills me
+      with loathing and sadness. Ah! how often, when I have been
+      abroad on the mountains, has my heart risen in grateful
+      praise to God that it was not my destiny to waste and pine
+      among those noisome congregations of the city.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another visitor to Audubon during his last days writes: "In
+      my interview with the naturalist, there were several things
+      that stamped themselves indelibly on my mind. The wonderful
+      simplicity of the man was perhaps the most remarkable. His
+      enthusiasm for facts made him unconscious of himself. To make
+      him happy you had only to give him a new fact in natural
+      history, or introduce him to a rare bird. His
+      self-forgetfulness was very impressive. I felt that I had
+      found a man who asked homage for God and Nature, and not for
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The unconscious greatness of the man seemed only equalled by
+      his child-like tenderness. The sweet unity between his wife
+      and himself, as they turned over the original drawings of his
+      birds, and recalled the circumstances of the drawings, some
+      of which had been made when she was with him; her quickness
+      of perception, and their mutual enthusiasm regarding these
+      works of his heart and hand, and the tenderness with which
+      they unconsciously treated each other, all was impressed upon
+      my memory. Ever since, I have been convinced that Audubon
+      owed more to his wife than the world knew, or ever would
+      know. That she was always a reliance, often a help, and ever
+      a sympathising sister-soul to her noble husband, was fully
+      apparent to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One notes much of the same fire and vigour in the later
+      portraits of Audubon, that are so apparent in those of him in
+      his youthful days. What a resolute closing of the mouth in
+      his portrait taken of him in his old age&#8212; "the
+      magnificent grey-haired man!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1847, Audubon's mind began to fail him; like Emerson in
+      his old age, he had difficulty in finding the right word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In May, 1848, Dr. Bachman wrote of him: "My poor friend
+      Audubon! The outlines of his beautiful face and form are
+      there, but his noble mind is all in ruins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His feebleness increased (there was no illness), till at
+      sunset, January 27, 1851, in his seventy-sixth year, the
+      "American Woodsman," as he was wont to call himself, set out
+      on his last long journey to that bourne whence no traveller
+      returns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As a youth Audubon was an unwilling student of books; as a
+      merchant and mill owner in Kentucky he was an unwilling man
+      of business, but during his whole career, at all times and in
+      all places, he was more than a willing student of
+      ornithology&#8212;he was an eager and enthusiastic one. He
+      brought to the pursuit of the birds, and to the study of open
+      air life generally, the keen delight of the sportsman, united
+      to the ardour of the artist moved by beautiful forms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not in the first instance a man of science, like
+      Cuvier, or Agassiz, or Darwin&#8212;a man seeking exact
+      knowledge; but he was an artist and a backwoodsman, seeking
+      adventure, seeking the gratification of his tastes, and to
+      put on record his love of the birds. He was the artist of the
+      birds before he was their historian; the writing of their
+      biographies seems to have been only secondary with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had the lively mercurial temperament of the Latin races
+      from which he sprang. He speaks of himself as "warm,
+      irascible, and at times violent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His perceptive powers, of course, led his reflective. His
+      sharpness and quickness of eye surprised even the Indians. He
+      says: "My <i>observatory nerves</i> never gave way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His similes and metaphors were largely drawn from the animal
+      world. Thus he says, "I am as dull as a beetle," during his
+      enforced stay in London. While he was showing his drawings to
+      Mr. Rathbone, he says: "I was panting like the winged
+      pheasant." At a dinner in some noble house in England he said
+      that the men servants "moved as quietly as killdeers." On
+      another occasion, when the hostess failed to put him at his
+      ease: "There I stood, motionless as a Heron."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With all his courage and buoyancy, Audubon was subject to
+      fits of depression, probably the result largely of his
+      enforced separation from his family. On one occasion in
+      Edinburgh he speaks of these attacks, and refers pathetically
+      to others he had had: "But that was in beloved America, where
+      the ocean did not roll between me and my wife and sons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never was a more patriotic American. He loved his adopted
+      country above all other lands in which he had journeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never was a more devoted husband, and never did wife more
+      richly deserve such devotion than did Mrs. Audubon. He says
+      of her: "She felt the pangs of our misfortune perhaps more
+      heavily than I, but never for an hour lost her courage; her
+      brave and cheerful spirit accepted all, and no reproaches
+      from her beloved lips ever wounded my heart. With her was I
+      not always rich?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The waiting time, my brother, is the hardest time of all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Audubon was waiting for better luck, or for worse, he
+      was always listening to the birds and studying
+      them&#8212;storing up the knowledge that he turned to such
+      good account later: but we can almost hear his neighbours and
+      acquaintances calling him an "idle, worthless fellow." Not so
+      his wife; she had even more faith in him than he had in
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His was a lovable nature&#8212;he won affection and devotion
+      easily, and he loved to be loved; he appreciated the least
+      kindness shown him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was always at ease and welcome in the squatter's cabin or
+      in elegantly appointed homes, like that of his friends, the
+      Rathbones, though he does complain of an awkwardness and
+      shyness sometimes when in high places. This, however, seemed
+      to result from the pomp and ceremony found there, and not
+      because of the people themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Chivalrous, generous, and courteous to his heart's core,"
+      says his granddaughter, "he could not believe others less so,
+      till painful experiences taught him; then he was grieved,
+      hurt, but never embittered; and, more marvellous yet, with
+      his faith in his fellows as strong as ever, again and again
+      he subjected himself to the same treatment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On one occasion when his pictures were on exhibition in
+      England, some one stole one of his paintings, and a warrant
+      was issued against a deaf mute. "Gladly would I have painted
+      a bird for the poor fellow," said Audubon, "and I certainly
+      did not want him arrested."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was never, even in his most desperate financial straits,
+      too poor to help others more poor than himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a great deal of the old-fashioned piety of our
+      fathers, which crops out abundantly in his pages. While he
+      was visiting a Mr. Bently in Manchester, and after retiring
+      to his room for the night, he was surprised by a knock at his
+      door. It appeared that his host in passing thought he heard
+      Audubon call to him to ask for something: "I told him I
+      prayed aloud every night, as had been my habit from a child
+      at my mother's knees in Nantes. He said nothing for a moment,
+      then again wished me good night and was gone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Audubon belonged to the early history of the country, to the
+      pioneer times, to the South and the West, and was, on the
+      whole, one of the most winsome, interesting, and picturesque
+      characters that have ever appeared in our annals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      [Footnote: Publisher's Note: This bibliography is that of the
+      original 1902 edition. Many books on Audubon have been
+      published since then.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The works of Audubon are mentioned in the chronology at the
+      beginning of the volume and in the text. Of the writings
+      about him the following&#8212;apart from the obvious books of
+      reference in American biography&#8212;are the main sources of
+      information:&#8212;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I. PROSE WRITINGS OF AMERICA. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold.
+      (Philadelphia, 1847: Carey &amp; Hart.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II. BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. By Samuel Smiles. (Boston, 1861:
+      Ticknor &amp; Fields.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III. AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST OF THE NEW WORLD: His ADVENTURES
+      AND DISCOVERIES. By Mrs. Horace Roscoe Stebbing St. John.
+      (Revised, with additions. Boston, 1864: Crosby &amp; Nichols.
+      New York, 1875: The World Publishing House.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IV. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, THE
+      NATURALIST. Edited, from materials supplied by his widow, by
+      Robert Buchanan. (London, 1868: S. Low, son &amp; Marston.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      V. THE LIFE OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. Edited by his widow, with
+      an Introduction by James Grant Wilson. (New York, 1869:
+      Putnams.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VI. FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE. By Sarah Knowles Bolton. (Boston,
+      1889: T. Y. Crowell &amp; Co.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VII. AUDUBON AND HIS JOURNALS. By Maria R. Audubon. With
+      Zoological and Other Notes by Elliott Coues. (New York, 1897:
+      Charles Scribner's Sons. Two volumes.) This is by far the
+      most interesting and authentic of any of the sources of
+      information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<PRE>
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