A RULING PASSION. 45 



In process of time our enthusiast married, and 

 became a family man. He relates that for a long 

 period (of nearly twenty years) his life was a 

 succession of vicissitudes. He tried various branches 

 of commerce, but they all proved unprofitable 

 doubtless, as he himself acknowledges, because his 

 mind was filled constantly with a passion for ram- 

 bling in search of those objects from which his 

 taste derived the highest gratification ; and the 

 result was that he proceeded, in opposition to the 

 advice and remonstrances of his friends, to break 

 through all bonds, and give himself up wholly to 

 his favourite pursuit. Any one, he says, who had 

 then watched his course, would have pronounced 

 him callous to every sense of duty ; and regardless 

 of the interests of his wife and children, he un- 

 dertook long and tedious journeys, ransacked the 

 woods, the lakes, the prairies, and the shores of the 

 Atlantic, and spent years away from his family; and 

 all this, as he distinctly states, simply to enjoy the 

 sight of nature, for at that time he had formed no 

 intention of communicating his observations to the 

 world. 



An acquaintance accidentally formed with Prince 

 Lucien Bonaparte, the distinguished naturalist, 

 was the means of directing Mr Audubon's thoughts 

 to the publication of his great work, and deter- 

 mined him, for that purpose, to carry his collection 



