The Audubon Magazine. 



Vol. I. 



OCTOBER, 1887. 



No. 9. 



THE CHARACTER OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, 



IN preceding numbers our readers have 

 been made acquainted with the Hfe 

 history and labors of the great naturalist. 

 They have followed him through all his 

 vicissitudes from the cradle to the grave, 

 through twenty years of wanderings in the 

 woods, in which he was sustained only by 

 an enthusiastic love for nature, and a desire 

 to render his life's work a monument which 

 should command the admiration of his own 

 and succeeding generations. They have 

 seen him again and again crippled for want 

 of means, and becoming in turn portrait- 

 painter, dancing-master, school-teacher, but 

 only that he might raise the necessary funds 

 for the pursuit of his grand passion. They 

 have seen him regarded by his neighbors as 

 little better than a talented, shiftless vaga- 

 bond, but amid all this, toiling steadfastly 

 onward to the goal which he reached to be 

 crowned with honor, to take his place 

 among the great ones of the earth, and to 

 enter on the well won heritage of his labors. 

 But all this is not enough. We have the 

 man's life history, and the nature and meas- 

 ure of the work he did, but something still 

 is wanting to our estimate of the man — we 

 want to know what manner of man he was, 

 what were the salient traits of his charac- 

 ter, the mainsprings of his actions. 



On this point an eloquent and apprecia- 

 tive writer says: "For sixty years or more 

 he followed, with more than religious devo- 



tion, a beautiful and elevated pursuit, enr* 

 larging its boundaries by his discoveries, 

 and illustrating its objects by his art. In 

 all climates and in all weathers; scorched 

 by burning suns, drenched by piercing rains, 

 frozen by the fiercest colds; now diving 

 fearlessly into the densest forest, now wan- 

 dering alone over the most savage regions; 

 in perils, in difficulties, and in doubts; with 

 no companion to cheer his way, far from 

 the smiles and applause of society; listen- 

 ing only to the sweet music of birds, or ta 

 the sweeter music of his own thoughts, he 

 faithfully -kept his path. The records of 

 man's life contain few nobler examples of 

 strength of purpose and indefatigable en- 

 ergy. Led on solely by his pure, lofty, 

 kindling enthusiasm, no thirst for wealth, 

 no desire of distinction, no restless ambi- 

 tion of eccentric character, could have in- 

 duced him to undergo as many sacrifices, 

 or sustained him under so many trials. 

 Higher principles and worthier motives 

 alone enabled him to meet such discour- 

 agements and accomplish such miracles of 

 achievement." 



Another writer on the same subject, and in 

 a similar generous strain, says: "Audubon 

 was a man of genius, with the courage of a 

 lion and the simplicity of a child. One 

 scarcely knows which to admire most — the 

 mighty determination which enabled him 

 to carry out his great work in the face of 



