JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 89 
Four hours’ sleep out of the twenty- 
four was his allotted allowance. 
One often marvels at Audubon’s ap- 
parent indifference to his wife and his 
home, for from the first he was given to 
wandering. Then, too, his carelessness 
in money matters, and his improvident 
ways, necessitating his wife’s toiling to 
support the family, put him in a rather 
unfavourable light as a ‘‘ good provider,”’ 
but a perusal of his journal shows that 
he was keenly alive to all the hardships 
and sacrifices of his wife, and from first 
to last in his journeyings he speaks of his 
longings for home and family. ‘‘Cut 
off from all dearest me,’’ he says in one 
of his youthful journeys, and in his 
latest one he speaks of himself as being 
as happy as one can be who is ‘‘three 
thousand miles from the dearest friend 
on earth.’? Clearly some impelling 
force held him to the pursuit of this 
work, hardships or no hardships. Fort- 
tunately for him, his wife shared his be- 
