INTRODUCTION 21 



admire most — the mighty determination which enabled him to 

 carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or 

 the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout 

 shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children. 

 He was more like a child at the mother's knee, than a husband 

 at the hearth — so free was the prattle, so thorough the confi- 

 dence. Mrs. Audubon appears to have been a wife in every 

 respect worthy of such a man ; willing to sacrifice her personal 

 comfort at any moment for the furtherance of his great 

 schemes ; ever ready to kiss and counsel when such were most 

 needed ; never failing for a moment in her faith that Audubon 

 was destined to be one of the great workers of the earth. 13 



No one will deny, however, that Buchanan was right 

 in saying that in order to get a man like Audubon under- 

 stood, all domestic partiality, the bane of much biogra- 

 phy, must be put aside; but it is equally important to 

 make such allowances as the manifold circumstances of 

 time and place demand, and to be a reasoner rather than 

 a fancier. This work abounds in errors, but it is not 

 clear to what extent they were due to carelessness on 

 Buchanan's part. 



It was certainly a mistake to attribute Buchanan's 

 attitude to partiality for Alexander Wilson, who, like 

 himself, was a Scotchman. It was a case of tempera- 

 ment only, for gloom and poverty had embittered his 

 life. As his sister-in-law and biographer 14 said of him, 

 "he was doomed to much ignoble pot-boiling. . . . He 

 had few friends and many enemies," and "had received 

 from the world many cruel blows," while "no man 

 needed kindness so much and received so little." Per- 



13 Robert Buchanan, The Life of Audubon (Bibl. No. 72), p. vi. 



14 See Harriet Jay, Robert Buchanan: Some Account of His Life, 

 His Life's Work, and His Literary Friendships (London, 1903). Robert 

 Williams Buchanan was born at Caverswell, Lancashire, August 18, 1841, 

 and died in London, June 10, 1901. 



