LIFE OF WILSON. 
xliii 
outlines, tints, and gradations of lights and shades, that baffle all 
description, will soon be spread before us by that great master, our 
most benevolent friend and father. Let us cheerfully participate 
in the feast he is preparing for all our senses. Let us survey those 
millions of green strangers, just peeping into day, as so many happy 
messengers come to proclaim the power and munificence of the 
Creator. I confess that I was always an enthusiast in my admii a- 
tion of the rural scenery of Nature; but, since your example and 
encouragement have set me to attempt to imitate her productions, 
I see new beauties in every bird, plant or flower, I contemplate; and 
find my ideas of the incomprehensible first cause still more exalted, 
the more minutely I examine his works. 
“I sometimes smile to think that while others are immersed 
in deep schemes of speculation and aggrandizement — in building 
towns, and purchasing plantations, I am entranced in contempla- 
tion over the plumage of a lark, or gazing, like a despairing lover, 
on the lineaments of an owl. While others are hoarding up their 
bags of money, without the power of enjoying it, I am collecting, 
without injuring my conscience, or wounding my peace of mind, 
those beautiful specimens of Nature’s works that are for ever pleas- 
ing, I have had live crows, hawks and owls — opossums, squirrels, 
snakes, lizards, &c., so that my room has sometimes reminded me 
of Noah’s ark ; but Noah had a wife in one corner of it, and in this 
particular our parallel does not altogether tally. I receive every 
subject of natural history that is brought to me, and though they 
do not march into my ark, from all quarters, as they did into that 
of our great ancestor, yet I find means, by the distribution of a few 
five penny hits, to make them find the way fast enough. A boy, 
not long ago, brought me a large basket full of crows. I expect 
his next load will be bull-frogs, if I don’t soon issue orders to the 
contrary. One of my boys caught a mouse in school, a few days 
ago, and directly marched up to me with his prisoner. 1 set about 
drawing it that same evening, and all the while the panlings of its 
