2l6 AUDUBON 



easily as men are caught. For a wonder I have done 

 no work to-day. 



March 5. As a lad I had a great aversion to anything 

 English or Scotch, and I remember when travelling with 

 my father to Rochefort in January, 1800, I mentioned this 

 to him, for to him, thank God, I always told all my 

 thoughts and expressed all my ideas. How well I re- 

 member his reply : " Laforest, thy blood will cool in 

 time, and thou wilt be surprised to see how gradually pre- 

 judices are obliterated, and friendships acquired, towards 

 those that at one time we held in contempt. Thou hast 

 not been in England ; I have, and it is a fine country." 

 What has since taken place? I have admired and esteemed 

 many English and Scotch, and therefore do I feel proud 

 to tell thee that I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh. My day has been rather dull, though I painted 

 assiduously. This evening I went to the Society of Arts, 

 where beautiful experiments were shown by the inventors 

 themselves ; a steam coach moved with incomprehensible 

 regularity. I am undetermined whether to go to Glasgow 

 on my way to Dublin, or proceed overland to Newcastle, 

 Liverpool, Oxford, Cambridge, and so on to London, but 

 I shall move soon. 



MarcJi 7. This evening I was introduced to Sydney 

 Smith, the famous preacher of last Sunday, and his fair 

 daughters, and heard them sing most sweetly. I offered 

 to show them some of my drawings and they appointed 

 Saturday at one o'clock. The wind is blowing as if intent 

 to destroy the fair city of Edinburgh. 



March 8. The weather was dreadful last night and still 

 continues so ; the snow is six feet deep in some parts of 

 the great roads, and I was told at the Post Office that 

 horsemen sent with the mail to London had been obliged 

 to abandon their horses, and proceed on foot. Wrote a 

 letter to Sir Walter Scott requesting a letter of introduc- 

 tion, or shall I say endorsement, and his servant brought me 



