212 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



almost all his friends he had occasionally, arising from 

 a collision of opinion, some slight misunderstanding, 

 which was soon passed over, leaving no disagreeable 

 impression. But an act of disrespect he could ill brook, 

 and a wilful injury he would seldom forgive." 



In 1801, while teaching and studying German at 

 Milestown, Pennsylvania, Wilson had another unfor- 

 tunate love affair, in this instance with a woman already 

 married. To this he alluded in letters written in the 

 summer of that year to his friend Orr, with whom he 

 later quarreled. On August 7, 1801, he wrote: "The 

 world is lost forever to me and I to the world. No time 

 nor distance can ever banish her image from my mind. 

 It is forever present with me, and my heart is broken 

 with the most melancholy reflections." 



At Gray's Ferry, however, Wilson soon found in the 

 estimable William Bartram, then in his sixty-first year, 

 the sympathetic adviser, kind teacher, and judicious 

 friend that he most needed, for though Wilson took the 

 initiative in his ornithological plans, it was the kindly 

 Bartram who eventually extended a helping hand. Both 

 Bartram and Lawson, the engraver, urged him to devote 

 his leisure to drawing, as a foil to his melancholic tenden- 

 cies. Wilson did not hesitate long, for on June 1, 1803, 

 he confided to a friend in Scotland that he had begun to 

 make a "collection of our finest birds." Early in 1804 

 his purpose was clearly fixed, and on March 12 of that 

 year he wrote to Alexander Lawson: "I am most 

 earnestly bent on pursuing my plan of making a collec- 

 tion of all the birds in this part of North America . . . 

 I have been so long accustomed to the building of airy 

 castles and brain windmills, that it has become one of 

 my earthly comforts, a sort of rough bone, that amuses 

 me when sated with the dull drudgery of life." A 





