182 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



starved, they would starve together. Being asked 

 to join in painting a panorama of the city, he said, 

 " My birds, my beloved birds of America, occupy 

 all my time, and nearly all my thoughts, and I do 

 not wish to see any other perspective than the last 

 specimen of these drawings." He was now forty- 

 two, and life was none too long, at the best. No 

 wonder he was anxious about his book. 



During the first months of 1822, after his family 

 came, there are no records of his life. He was too 

 poor to buy a journal. Mrs. Audubon had found a 

 situation as governess in a family. Audubon was 

 depressed in spirits, and poor health was the result. 

 If some person with wealth had only been wise 

 enough to have helped the man of talent ! We 

 build colleges and churches, and this is well ; but 

 often neglect the brilliant man or woman near our 

 own d'.or, who might bless the world. Brains do 

 not always win pecuniary success. We sometimes 

 go to extremes in America by advocating self- 

 dependence, and let a refined and sensitive soul 

 break because it cannot breast the world. We for- 

 get that on earth we are to be our brother's keeper. 

 Perchance we shall remember it beyond ! 



Finally Audubon left New Orleans, procuring 

 passage on a boat to Natchez, by a crayon portrait 

 of the captain and his wife. In the family of a 

 Portuguese gentleman in that city, he taught 

 drawing^ music, and French, and also drawing in 

 a college nine miles from Natchez, but he was still 

 depressed. " While work flowed in upon me," he 



