Chapter II: Preface (2)

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!