Balance-Sheet of the Great Work, 207 



ume of the 'Birds of America/ I would pay him one 

 hmidred pounds. 



'■^ April 15. We left Edinburgh this day, and proceed- 

 ed towards London by the way of Newcastle, York, Leeds, 

 Manchester, and Liverpool. At the latter place we spent 

 a few days, and travelled on that extraordinary road 

 called the railway, at the rate of twenty-four miles an 

 hour. On arriving at London I found it urgent for me 

 to visit Paris, to collect monies due me by my agent 

 (Pitois) there. 



" Several reviews of my work have appeared ; one in 

 * Blackwood's Magazine ' is particularly favorable. The 

 editor, John Wilson of Edinburgh, is a clever good fellow, 

 and I wrote to thank him. Dr. Tuke, an Irishman of lively 

 manners, brought the editors of the * Atlas ' to see my 

 Birds, and they have praised also. We have received 

 letters from America of a cheering kind, and which raised 

 my dull spirits, but in spite of all this I feel dull, rough 

 in temper, and long for nothing so much as my dear 

 woods. I have balanced my accounts with the 'Birds 

 of America,' and the whole business is really wonderful ; 

 forty thousand dollars have passed through my hands for 

 the completion of the first volume. Who would believe 

 that a lonely individual, who landed in England without 

 a friend in the whole country, and with only sufficient pe- 

 cuniary means to travel through it as a visitor, could have 

 accomplished such a task as this publication ? Who 

 would believe that once in London Audubon had only 

 one sovereign left in his pocket, and did not know of a 

 single individual to whom he could apply to borrow an- 

 other, when he was on the verge of failure in the very 

 beginning of his undertaking ; and above all, who would 

 believe that he extricated himself from all his difficulties^ 

 not by borrowing money, but by rising at four o'clock in 

 the morning, working hard all day, and disposing of his 



