THE GENIUS THAT SEES 59 



far letter than I had ever done before misfortune intensi- 

 fied, or at least developed, my abilities." 



Genius grows through moral power, and is diminished 

 by anything that weakens force of character. 



Audubon was laughed at. 



" No one but my wife and sons believed in me," he 

 says in his journals. 



When he came to a cabin or an inn and told his story 

 of painting winks went around. 



" Hunting for nothing," said the hunters. " Catching 

 birds that one can not eat," said the farmers. Men made 

 merry over him when he came to the stores to buy powder 

 and supplies for his long journeys. 



It was at the close of a long summer day and the set- 

 ting sun was burning through the trees. 



A party of farmers had gathered on the steps of the 

 grocery store of the Forest Inn, under the oaks, when Cal- 

 vert looked up the high hill near the store and said to the 

 others: 



"There comes Audubon down the hill; been out 

 to hunt a chickadee or a wren. Of all the lazy, shiftless, 

 no-account men that I ever saw or heard of, he is the 

 beater! " 



The men looked up the hill. 



" Look at him now ! " continued Calvert. " He is bring- 

 ing home one little bird, and that a live one. He has failed 

 in business in Kentucky, and they say that he gave up his 



