His Last Days, 439 



that men can consent to swelter and fret their lives away 

 amid those hot bricks and pestilent vapors, when the 

 icvoods and fields are all so near ? It would kill me soon 

 to be confined in such a prison-house ; and when I am 

 forced to make an occasional visit there, it fills me with 

 loathing and sadness. Ah ! how often when I have been 

 abroad on the mountains has my heart risen in grateful 

 praise to God that it was not my destiny to waste and 

 pine among those noisome congregations of the city.' " 



Another visitor to the naturalist's happy home has 

 left the following admirable description of the sunset of 

 Audubon's life : " In my interview with the naturalist, 

 there were several things that stamped themselves indel- 

 ibly upon my mind. The wonderful simplicity of the man 

 was perhaps the most remarkable. His enthusiasm for 

 facts made him unconscious of himself. To make him hap- 

 py, you had only to give him a new fact in natural history, 

 or introduce him to a rare bird. His self-forgetfulness 

 was very impressive. I felt that I had found a man 

 who asked homage for God and Nature, and not for 

 himself 



"The unconscious greatness of the man seemed only 

 equalled by his child-like tenderness. The sweet unity 

 between his wife and himself, as they turned over the 

 original drawings of his birds, and recalled the circum- 

 stances of the drawings, some of which had been made 

 when she was with him ; her quickness of perception, and 

 their mutual enthusiasm regarding these works of his 

 heart and hand, and the tenderness with which they un- 

 consciously treated each other, all was impressed upon 

 my memory. Ever since, I have been convinced that 

 Audubon owed more to his wife than the world knew, or 

 ever would know. That she was always a reliance, often 

 a help, and ever a sympathising sister-soul to her noble 

 husband, was fully apparent to me. I was deeply im- 



