126 THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA. 
friendly and family intimacy. Would that we knew the men with 
whom we transact business as well as Wilson knew the bird qua, 
or the heron of the Carolinas ! 
It is easily understood, and not difficult to imagine, that when 
this bird-mun returned among men, he met with none that could 
comprehend him. His peculiarly novel originality, his marvellous 
exactness, his unique faculty of individualization (the only means 
of re-making of re-creating the living being), were the chief obstacles 
to his success. Neither publishers nor public cared for more than 
noble, lofty, and vague generalities, in faithful observance of Buffon’s 
precept: To generalize is to ennoble; therefore, adopt the word 
“ ceneral.”’ 
It required time, and, more than all, it required that this fertile 
genius should after his death inspire a similar genius, the accurate and 
patient Audubon, whose colossal work has astonished and subjugated 
the public, by demonstrating that the true and living in representa- 
tion of individuality is nobler and more majestic than the forced pro- 
ducts of the generalizing art. 
Wilson’s sweetness of disposition, so unworthily misunderstood, 
shines forth in his beautiful preface. To some it may appear 
infantine, but no innocent heart can be otherwise than moved 
by it. 
“On a visit to a friend, I found that his young son, about eight 
or nine years of age, who had been brought up in the town, but was 
then living in the country, had just collected, while wandering in the 
fields, a fine nosegay of wild-flowers of every hue. He presented it 
to his mother, with the greatest animation, saying: ‘ Dear mamma, 
see what beautiful flowers I have gathered! Oh, I could pluck a 
host of others which grow in our woods, and are still more lovely ! 
Shall I not bring you some more, mamma?’ She took the nosegay 
with a smile of tenderness, silently admired the simple and touching 
beauty of nature, and said to him, ‘Yes, my son.’ The child started 
off on the wings of happiness. 
“T saw myself in that child, and was struck with the resemblance 
