A MEETING OF RIVALS 231 
To return again to the story of Wilson’s diary, it 
is evident that Wilson would never have published his 
sentiments in the form in which they later appeared. 
They were perfectly characterized by a just critic of an 
early day,”° who said that Wilson’s words were without 
doubt written in a moment of keen depression and disap- 
pointment and were an exact description of his feelings, 
though, as we should also add, not of the facts. “A 
man who has given his heart to the accomplishment of 
an object, believing that he has no rival, must be some- 
what more than human, if he be delighted to find that 
another is engaged in the same purpose, with equal 
energy and advantages far greater than his own.” Bar- 
ring his usual inaccuracies, it must be admitted that Au- 
dubon’s account bears the thumbmarks of truth. He 
could not have known the bitter struggles of the proud 
spirit whose history we have briefly told; he saw only a 
stranger, an ardent devotee of nature, it is true, but a 
man of unbending disposition, who with a little more 
suavity of address could probably have won his friend- 
ship, if not his subscription. Of the literary quality of 
Wilson’s work, now so well appreciated, he could have 
known nothing at all; after turning its pages in his 
Louisville store for the first time in 1810, he probably 
did not see it again for over ten years. 
That Wilson was jealous of Audubon as a future 
rival is probable, but the real “rivalry” between these two 
pioneers was of later growth. It was fostered in this 
country chiefly by George Ord and some of his friends, 
together with others who were interested in the sale of 
Wilson’s work. Ord, who seems to have felt that the 
mantle of this naturalist had fallen on his own shoul- 
2°In 1840, by W. B. O. Peabody, naturalist; author of a Life of Wilson; 
see Bibliography, No. 105. 
