THE GENIUS THAT SEES 57 



art. His friends, too, saw in his giving up the legacy the 

 gravitation of an honest purpose. 



The principle of keeping his conscience free for its own 

 sake and for the sake of the power it gave him as an artist 

 continued through life. 



In Henderson, Ky., he entered into a business that 

 proved disastrous. He failed. He could have kept some 

 part of his property by evasions. 



To do so would be to lower his self-respect and be 

 unjust to the morale of his art. He might be empty- 

 handed, but he must have a clear vision. He must see 

 nature without any obscurity. He must do just right, or 

 fail to rise to the highest interpretation of the natural 

 world. 



If my reader is an artist or desiring to be one, he should 

 note this principle, as illustrated by Audubon. 



The following paragraphs from his own journal give a 

 view of that inner obedience to spiritual law which alone 

 can make a man great: 



" From this date my pecuniary difficulties daily in- 

 creased. I had heavy bills to pay which I could not meet 

 or take up. The moment that this became known to the 

 world around me, that moment I was assailed by thousands 

 of invectives; the once wealthy man was now nothing. I 

 parted with every particle of property I had to my credit- 

 ors, keeping only the clothes that I wore, my original draw- 

 ings, and my gun. 



