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Updated: May 7, 2025
The publication of Audubon's great work, The Birds of America, commenced in 1827, and was completed in 1839, forming 4 vols. in the largest folio size, and containing 435 plates. It shows the indomitable courage of the author, that even when the work was completed, he had only 161 subscribers, 82 of whom were in America. The price of the book was two guineas for each part with 5 coloured plates.
He did not return to the chair which he had arisen from, but took another much nearer her own. "Poetry!" she said. "Is it something that you have written?" He smiled. "I have merely copied it. I saw the poem for the first time an hour or so ago at Mr. Audubon's. It is new and has never been printed.
More recent writers and explorers have added to Audubon's list over three hundred new species, the greater number of which belong to the northern and western parts of the continent. Audubon's observations were confined mainly to the Atlantic and Gulf States and the adjacent islands; hence the Western or Pacific birds were but little known to him, and are only briefly mentioned in his works.
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."
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.
Of course illustrated books are now the chief attraction to them in the library, and yesterday, when father went there with the boys, he supplied Ian, as usual, with "The Uncivilized Races of Man," which always opens of itself at the Mumbo Jumbo picture, and as a great treat for Richard, took down the three quarto volumes of Audubon's "Quadrupeds," and ranged them on a low stand with a stool in front of it.
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.
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.
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."
Not life, but beauty is his quest. He does not reproduce Nature, he imposes upon her a standard. And so it is with every art, including the art of life itself. Life as such is neither good nor bad, and, Audubon's undistinguishing censure is surely as much out of place as Coryat's undistinguishing approval.
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