6 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



finally, that though at times he wrote a graphic and 

 charming style and showed occasional glimpses of pro- 

 phetic insight, he cannot be trusted; besides, he might 

 have been greatly indebted to unacknowledged aid re- 

 ceived from others. 



These or similar charges were brought against 

 Audubon during his lifetime, as they have been made 

 against many another who has emerged quickly from 

 obscurity into world-wide renown. Many attacks upon 

 his character were assiduously repelled by his friends, 

 though seldom noticed publicly by himself; as if con- 

 scious of his own integrity, he was content to await the 

 verdict of time, and time in America has not been recre- 

 ant to his trust. Some of these charges it may be neces- 

 sary to examine at length, if found to be justified in 

 any degree, while others may be brushed aside as un- 

 worthy of even passing consideration. Evidence of 

 every sort is now ample, as it seems, to enable us to do 

 justice to all concerned, to penetrate the veil that has 

 hidden much of the real Audubon from the world, and 

 to place the worker and the man in the fuller light of 

 day. 



The reader who follows this history may expect to 

 find certain blemishes in Audubon's character, for the 

 most admirable of men have possessed faults, whether 

 conscious of them or not. The lights in any picture 

 would lose all value were the shadows wholly with- 

 drawn. If we blinded ourselves to every fault and foi- 

 ble of such a man, we might produce a sketch more 

 pleasing to certain readers, but it would lack the vitality 

 which truth alone can supply. The more carefully his 

 character is studied, however, as Macaulay said of Addi- 

 son, the more it will appear, in the language of the old 

 anatomists, "sound in the noble parts, free from all 



