6 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
finally, that though at times he wrote a graphic and 
charming style and showed occasional glimpses of pro- 
phetic insight, he cannot be trusted; besides, he might 
have been greatly indebted to unacknowledged aid re- 
ceived from others. 
These or similar charges were brought against 
Audubon during his lifetime, as they have been made 
against many another who has emerged quickly from 
obscurity into world-wide renown. Many attacks upon 
his character were assiduously repelled by his friends, 
though seldom noticed publicly by himself; as if con- 
scious of his own integrity, he was content to await the 
verdict of time, and time in America has not been recre- 
ant to his trust. Some of these charges it may be neces- 
sary to examine at length, if found to be justified in 
any degree, while others may be brushed aside as un- 
worthy of even passing consideration. Evidence of 
every sort is now ample, as it seems, to enable us to do 
justice to all concerned, to penetrate the veil that has 
hidden much of the real Audubon from the world, and 
to place the worker and the man in the fuller light of 
day. 
The reader who follows this history may expect to 
find certain blemishes in Audubon’s character, for the 
most admirable of men have possessed faults, whether 
conscious of them or not. The lights in any picture 
would lose all value were the shadows wholly with- 
drawn. If we blinded ourselves to every fault and foi- 
ble of such a man, we might produce a sketch more 
pleasing to certain readers, but it would lack the vitality 
which truth alone can supply. The more carefully his 
character is studied, however, as Macaulay said of Addi- 
son, the more it will appear, in the language of the old 
anatomists, “sound in the noble parts, free from all 
