114 LIFE OF AUDUBON. 



Duke of Northumberland, who has promised to subscribe for 

 my work. I have taken to dressing again, and now dress twice 

 a-day, and wear silk stockings and pumps. I wear my hair as 

 long as usual. Ilelieve it does as much for me as my paintings* 

 One hundred subscribers for my book will pay all expenses. 

 Some persons are terrified at the sum of one hundred and eighty 

 guineas for a work ; but this amount is to be spread over eight 

 years, during which time the volumes will be gradually com- 

 pleted. I am feted, feasted, elected honorary member of societies, 

 making money by my exhibition and by my paintings. It is 

 Mr. Audubon here and Mr. Audubon there, and I can only hope 

 that Mr. Audubon will not be made a conceited fool at last. 



"December 23. The exhibition of my birds more crowded 

 than ever. This day I summed up the receipts, and they 

 amounted to eight hundred dollars. I have presented my 

 painting of the American Turkeys to the Eoyal Institution for 

 the use of their rooms. A dealer valued the picture at one 

 hundred guineas. 



" December 25, Christmas. Bought a brooch for Mrs. Audubon, 

 Astonished that the Scotch have no religious ceremony on the 

 Christmas Day. 



" December 27. Went to Dalmahoy, to the Earl of Morton's - 

 seat, eight miles from Edinburgh. The countess kindly received 

 me, and introduced me to the earl, a small slender man, tottering 

 on his feet and weaker than a newly-hatched partridge. He 

 welcomed me with tears in his eyes. The countess is about 

 forty, not handsome, but fine-looking, fair, fresh complexioned, 

 dark flashing eyes, superior intellect and cultivation. She was 

 dressed in a rich crimson silk, and her mother in heavy black 

 satin. 



" My bedroom was a superb parlour with yellow furniture and 

 yellow hangings. After completing my toilet, dinner is announced, 

 and I enter the dining-room, where the servants in livery attend, 

 and one in plain clothes hands about the plates in a napkin, so 

 that his hand may not touch them. In the morning I visited 

 the stables, and saw four splendid Abyssinian horses with tails 

 reaching to the ground. I saw in the aviary the falcon-hawks 

 used of old for hunting with, and which were to be brought to 

 * Italics are our own. Ed. 



