Volume I Part 4 (1/2)
”I returned yesterday from Mauch Chunk; after all, there is nothing perfect but _primitiveness_, and my efforts at copying nature, like all other things attempted by us poor mortals, fall far short of the originals. Few better than myself can appreciate this with more despondency than I do.”
Very shortly after this date Audubon left for Louisiana, crossed the Alleghanies to Pittsburg, down the Ohio by boat to Louisville, where he saw Victor and John. ”Dear boys!” he says; ”I had not seen Victor for nearly five years, and so much had he changed I hardly knew him, but he recognized me at once. Johnny too had much grown and improved.”
Remaining with his sons a few days, he again took the boat for Bayou Sara, where he landed in the middle of the night. The journal says: ”It was dark, sultry, and I was quite alone. I was aware yellow fever was still raging at St. Francisville, but walked thither to procure a horse. Being only a mile distant, I soon reached it, and entered the open door of a house I knew to be an inn; all was dark and silent. I called and knocked in vain, it was the abode of Death alone! The air was putrid; I went to another house, another, and another; everywhere the same state of things existed; doors and windows were all open, but the living had fled. Finally I reached the home of Mr. Nubling, whom I knew. He welcomed me, and lent me his horse, and I went off at a gallop. It was so dark that I soon lost my way, but I cared not, I was about to rejoin my wife, I was in the woods, the woods of Louisiana, my heart was bursting with joy! The first glimpse of dawn set me on my road, at six o'clock I was at Mr. Johnson's house;[44] a servant took the horse, I went at once to my wife's apartment; her door was ajar, already she was dressed and sitting by her piano, on which a young lady was playing. I p.r.o.nounced 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.”
Audubon remained in Louisiana with his wife till January, 1830, when together they went to Louisville, Was.h.i.+ngton, Philadelphia, and New York, whence they sailed for England in April. All his former friends welcomed them on their arrival, and the kindness the naturalist had received on his first visit was continued to his wife as well as himself. Finding many subscribers had not paid, and others had lapsed, he again painted numerous pictures for sale, and journeyed hither and yon for new subscribers as well as to make collections.
Mrs. Audubon, meanwhile, had taken lodgings in London, but that city being no more to her taste than to her husband's, she joined him, and they travelled together till October, when to Audubon's joy he found himself at his old lodgings at 26 George St., Edinburgh, where he felt truly at home with Mrs. d.i.c.kie; and here he began the ”Ornithological Biography,” with many misgivings, as the journal bears witness: ”Oct.
16, 1830. I know that I am a poor writer, that I scarcely can manage to scribble a tolerable English letter, and not a much better one in French, though that is easier to me. I know I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds; no man living has studied them as much as I have done, and with the a.s.sistance of my old journals and memorandum-books which were written on the spot, I can at least put down plain truths, which may be useful and perhaps interesting, so I shall set to at once. I cannot, however, give _scientific_ descriptions, and here must have a.s.sistance.”
His choice of an a.s.sistant would have been his friend Mr. William Swainson, but this could not be arranged, and Mr. James Wilson recommended Mr. William MacGillivray.[45] Of this gentleman Mr. D. G.
Elliot says:[46] ”No better or more fortunate choice could have been made. Audubon worked incessantly, MacGillivray keeping abreast of him, and Mrs. Audubon re-wrote the entire ma.n.u.script to send to America, and secure the copyright there.” The happy result of this a.s.sociation of two great men, so different in most respects as Audubon and MacGillivray, is characterized by Dr. Coues in the following terms (”Key to North American Birds,” 2d ed., 1884, p. xxii): ”Vivid and ardent was his genius, matchless he was both with pen and pencil in giving life and spirit to the beautiful objects he delineated with pa.s.sionate love; but there was a strong and patient worker by his side,--William MacGillivray, the countryman of Wilson, destined to lend the st.u.r.dy Scotch fibre to an Audubonian epoch.[47] The brilliant French-American Naturalist was little of a 'scientist'. Of his work the magical beauties of form and color and movement are all his; his page is redolent of Nature's fragrance; but MacGillivray's are the bone and sinew, the hidden anatomical parts beneath the lovely face, the nomenclature, the cla.s.sification,--in a word, the technicalities of the science.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. AUDUBON.
FROM THE MINIATURE BY F. CRUIKSHANK, 1835.]
Though somewhat discouraged at finding that no less than three editions of Alexander Wilson's ”American Ornithology” were about to be published, Audubon went bravely on. My grandmother wrote to her sons: ”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. Mr.
MacGillivray breakfasts at nine each morning, attends the Museum four days in the week, has several works on hand besides ours, and is moreover engaged as a lecturer in a new seminary on botany and natural history. His own work[48] progresses slowly, but surely, for he writes until far into the night.”
The first volume of ”Ornithological Biography” was finished, but no publisher could be found to take it, so Audubon published it himself in March, 1831.[49] During this winter an agreement had been made with Mr. J. B. Kidd to copy some of the birds, put in backgrounds, sell them, and divide the proceeds. Eight were finished and sold immediately, and the agreement continued till May, 1, 1831, when Audubon was so annoyed by Mr. Kidd's lack of industry that the copying was discontinued. Personally, I have no doubt that many of the paintings which are said to be by Audubon are these copies. They are all on mill-board,--a material, however, which grandfather used himself, so that, as he rarely signed an oil painting,[50] the mill-board is no proof of ident.i.ty one way or the other.
On April 15, 1831, Mr. and Mrs. Audubon left Edinburgh for London, then went on to Paris, where there were fourteen subscribers. They were in France from May until the end of July, when London again received them. On August 2d they sailed for America, and landed on September 4th. They went to Louisville at once, where Mrs. Audubon remained with her sons, and the naturalist went south, his wish being to visit Florida and the adjacent islands. It was on this trip that, stopping at Charleston, S.C., he made the acquaintance of the Rev.
John Bachman[51] in October, 1831. The two soon became the closest friends, and this friends.h.i.+p was only severed by death. Never were men more dissimilar in character, but both were enthusiastic and devoted naturalists; and herein was the bond, which later was strengthened by the marriages of Victor and John to Dr. Bachman's two eldest daughters.[52]
The return from Florida in the spring of 1832 was followed by a journey to New Brunswick and Maine, when, for the first time in many years, the whole family travelled together. They journeyed in the most leisurely manner, stopping where there were birds, going on when they found none, everywhere welcomed, everywhere finding those willing to render a.s.sistance to the ”American backwoodsman” in his researches.
Audubon had the simplicity and charm of manner which interested others at once, and his old friend Dr. Bachman understood this when he wrote: ”Audubon has _given_ to him what n.o.body else can _buy_.” On this Maine journey, the friends.h.i.+p between the Lincolns at Dennysville, begun in the wanderer's earlier years, was renewed, and with this hospitable family Mrs. Audubon remained while her husband and sons made their woodland researches.
In October of 1832, Victor sailed for England, to superintend the publis.h.i.+ng of the work; his father remained in America drawing and re-drawing, much of the time in Boston, where, as everywhere, many friends were made, and where he had a short, but severe illness--an unusual experience with him. In the spring of 1833, the long proposed trip to Labrador was planned and undertaken.
The schooner ”Ripley,” Captain Emery commanding, was chartered.
Audubon was accompanied by five young men, all under twenty-four years of age, namely: Joseph Coolidge, George C. Shattuck, William Ingalls, Thomas Lincoln and John Woodhouse, the naturalist's younger son. On June 6 they sailed for the rocky coasts and storm-beaten islands, which are so fully described in the Labrador Journal, now first published entire in the present work.
Victor was still in England, and to him his father wrote, on May 16, 1833, a long letter filled with careful directions as to the completion of the work now so far accomplished, and which was so dear--as it is to-day--to all the family. The entire letter is too long and too personal to give beyond a few extracts: ”Should the Author of all things deprive us of our lives, work for and comfort the dear being who gave you birth. Work for her, my son, as long as it may be the pleasure of G.o.d to grant her life; never neglect her a moment; in a word, prove to her that you are truly _a son_! Continue the publication of our work to the last; you have in my journals all necessary facts, and in yourself sufficient ability to finish the letter-press, with the a.s.sistance of our worthy friend John Bachman, as well as MacGillivray. If you should 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_. I entreat you to be careful, industrious, and persevering; pay every one most punctually, and never permit your means to be over-reached. May the blessings of those who love you be always with you, supported by those of Almighty G.o.d.”
During the Labrador voyage, which was both arduous and expensive, many bird-skins (seventy-three) were prepared and brought back, besides the drawings made, a large collection of plants, and other curiosities.
Rough as the experience was, it was greatly enjoyed, especially by the young men. Only one of these[53] is now living (1897), and he bears this testimony to the character of the naturalist, with whom he spent three months in the closest companions.h.i.+p. In a letter to me dated Oct. 9, 1896, he says: ”You had only to meet him to love him; and when you had conversed with him for a moment, you looked upon him as an old friend, rather than a stranger.... To this day I can see him, a magnificent gray-haired man, childlike in his simplicity, kind-hearted, n.o.ble-souled, lover of nature and lover of youth, friend of humanity, and one whose religion was the golden rule.”
The Labrador expedition ended with summer, and Mr. and Mrs. Audubon went southward by land, John going by water to meet them at Charleston, S.C.,--Victor meanwhile remaining in London. In the ever hospitable home of the Bachmans part of the winter of 1833-34 was spent, and many a tale is told of hunting parties, of camping in the Southern forests, while the drawings steadily increased in number.
Leaving Charleston, the travels were continued through North and South Carolina and northward to New York, when the three sailed for Liverpool April 16, and joined Victor in London, in May, 1834.
It has been erroneously stated that Audubon kept no journals during this second visit to England and Scotland, for the reasons that his family--for whom he wrote--was with him, and also that he worked so continuously for the ”Ornithological Biography;” but this is a mistake. Many allusions to the diaries of these two years from April, 1834, until August, 1836, are found, and conclusive proof is that Victor writes: ”On the 19th of July last, 1845, the copper-plates from which the ”Birds of America” had been printed were ruined by fire,[54]
though not entirely destroyed, as were many of my fathers journals,--most unfortunately those which he had written during his residence in London and Edinburgh while writing and publis.h.i.+ng the letter-press.”
It was at this time that Victor and John went to the Continent for five months, being with their parents the remainder of the time, both studying painting in their respective branches, Victor working at landscapes, John at portraits and birds.
In July, 1836, Audubon and John returned to America, to find that nearly everything in the way of books, papers, the valuable and curious things collected both at home and abroad, had been destroyed in New York in the fire of 1835, Mr. Berthoud's warehouse being one of those blown up with gunpowder to stay the spread of the fire. Mrs.
Audubon and Victor remained in London, in the house where they had lived some time, 4 Wimpole St., Cavendish Square. After a few weeks in New York, father and son went by land to Charleston, pausing at Was.h.i.+ngton and other cities; and being joined by Mr. Edward Harris in the spring of 1837, they left Dr. Bachman's where they had spent the winter, for the purpose of exploring part of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. This expedition they were a.s.sisted in making by Col. John Abert,[55] who procured them the Revenue cutter ”Campbell.” Fire having afterward (in 1845) destroyed the journals of this period, only a few letters remain to tell us of the coasting voyage to Galveston Bay, Texas, though the ornithological results of this journey are all in the ”Birds of America.” It was during this visit to Charleston that the plans were begun which led to the ”Quadrupeds of North America,”