114 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



many lands. Poor, a cripple, a factory boy, a poet, his 

 heart went forth into nature — would his feet follow it? 



Says an essayist of the impulse that suddenly took pos- 

 session of his soul: 



" He took a decisive resolution; it was to abandon 

 everything, his trade, his country; to go where he might 

 see nature with his own eyes, observe, describe, and paint; 

 to exile himself in the solitudes of America; to shipwreck 

 life, that he might become a Robinson Crusoe." 



But he did not know how to draw and paint; he did 

 not know how to write. He could make rhymes, but he 

 could not put them on paper. 



What of that? He could learn how to draw, to paint 

 and write, and resolved to do it. He can who thinks he 

 can. Truth lies in the intuition, and in potency that has 

 no chart. 



He found his way to America and plunged into the 

 deep forests and miasmatic savannas. He lived on wild 

 fruits and slept in the coverts of bears. 



To meet a wild bird and a rare one was to him the 

 charm of his life. He was free. He had no house or 

 family to call him away from his mission. To injure a 

 bird was to injure him. To wound a bird was to hurt his 

 heart. It is said that his face grew to look like a bird. He 

 became a bird man. He, like Audubon, did much of his 

 work so that it will never need to be done again. 



When he reached America the first thing that he wished 



