Balance-Sheet of the Great Work. 207 



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

 hundred 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 

 m}' 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- 

 cuniaiy 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 



