2l6 AUDUBON 



easily — as men are caught. For a wonder I have done 

 no work to-day. 



March 5. As a lad I had a great aversion to anything 

 English or Scotch, and I remember when travelling with 

 my father to Rochefort in January, 1 800, I mentioned this 

 to him, for to him, thank God, I always told all my 

 thoughts and expressed all my ideas. How well I re- 

 member his reply : " Laforest, thy blood will cool in 

 time, and thou wilt be surprised to see how gradually pre- 

 judices are obliterated, and friendships acquired, towards 

 those that at one time we held in contempt. Thou hast 

 not been in England ; I have, and it is a fine country." 

 What has since taken place? I have admired and esteemed 

 many English and Scotch, and therefore do I feel proud 

 to tell thee that) I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh. • My day has been rather dull, though I painted 

 assiduously. This evening I went to the Society of Arts, 

 where beautiful experiments were shown by the inventors 

 themselves; a steam coach moved with incomprehensible 

 regularity. I am undetermined whether to go to Glasgow ' 

 on my way to Dublin, or proceed overland to Newcastle, 

 Liverpool, Oxford, Cambridge, and so on to London, but 

 I shall move soon. 



March 7. This evening I was introduced to Sydney 

 Smith, the famous preacher of last Sunday, and his fair 

 daughters, and heard them sing most sweetly. I offered 

 to show them some of my drawings and they appointed 

 Saturday at one o'clock. The wind is blowing as if intent 

 to destroy the fair city of Edi nburgh . 



March 8. The weather was dreadful last night and still 

 continues so ; the snow is six feet deep in some parts of 

 the great roads, and I was told at the Post Office that 

 horsemen sent with the mail to London had been obliged 

 to abandon their horses, and proceed on foot. Wrote a 

 letter to Sir Walter Scott requesting a letter of introduc- 

 tion, or shall I say endorsement, and his servant brought me 



