"As we were straightened to the very utmost, I undertook to draw portraits at the low price of five dollars per head, in black chalk. I drew a few gratis, and succeeded so well that ere many days had elapsed I had an abundance of work."
His fame spread, his orders increased. A settler came for him in the middle of the night from a considerable distance to have the portrait of his mother taken while she was on the eve of death, and a clergyman had his child's body exhumed that the artist might restore to him the lost features.
Money flowed in and he was soon again established with his family in a house in Louisville. His drawings of birds still continued and, he says, became at times almost a mania with him; he would frequently give up a head, the profits of which would have supplied the wants of his family a week or more, "to represent a little citizen of the feathered tribe."
In 1819 he was offered the position of taxidermist in the museum at Cincinnati, and soon moved there with his family. His pay not being forthcoming from the museum, he started a drawing school there, and again returned to his portraits. Without these resources, he says, he would have been upon the starving list. But food was plentiful and cheap. He writes in his journal: "Our living here is extremely moderate; the markets are well supplied and cheap, beef only two and one half cents a pound, and I am able to supply a good deal myself. Partridges are frequently in the streets, and I can shoot wild turkeys within a mile or so. Squirrels and Woodcock are very abundant in the season, and fish always easily caught."
In October, 1820, we again find him adrift, apparently with thought of having his bird drawings published, after he shall have further added to them by going through many of the southern and western states.
Leaving his family behind him, he started for New Orleans on a flatboat. He tarried long at Natchez, and did not reach the Crescent City till midwinter. Again he found himself destitute of means, and compelled to resort to portrait painting. He went on with his bird collecting and bird painting; in the meantime penetrating the swamps and bayous around the city.
At this time he seems to have heard of the publication of Wilson's "Ornithology," and tried in vain to get sight of a copy of it.
In the spring he made an attempt to get an appointment as draughtsman and naturalist to a government expedition that was to leave the next year to survey the new territory ceded to the United States by Spain. He wrote to President Monroe upon the subject, but the appointment never came to him.
In March he called upon Vanderlyn, the historical painter, and took with him a portfolio of his drawings in hopes of getting a recommendation.
Vanderlyn at first treated him as a mendicant and ordered him to leave his portfolio in the entry. After some delay, in company with a government official, he consented to see the pictures.
"The perspiration ran down my face," says Audubon, "as I showed him my drawings and laid them on the floor." He was thinking of the expedition to Mexico just referred to, and wanted to make a good impression upon Vanderlyn and the officer. This he succeeded in doing, and obtained from the artist a very complimentary note, as he did also from Governor Robertson of Louisiana.
In June, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, to rejoin his wife and boys, but somewhere on the journey engaged himself to a Mrs. Perrie who lived at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach her daughter drawing during the summer, at sixty dollars per month, leaving him half of each day to follow his own pursuits. He continued in this position till October when he took steamer for New Orleans. "My long, flowing hair, and loose yellow nankeen dress, and the unfortunate cut of my features, attracted much attention, and made me desire to be dressed like other people as soon as possible."
He now rented a house in New Orleans on Dauphine street, and determined to send for his family. Since he had left Cincinnati the previous autumn, he had finished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two snakes, fifty portraits of all sorts, and had lived by his talents, not having had a dollar when he started. "I sent a draft to my wife, and began life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much eagerness to pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America."
His family, after strong persuasion, joined him in December, 1821, and his former life of drawing portraits, giving lessons, painting birds, and wandering about the country, began again. His earnings proving inadequate to support the family, his wife took a position as governess in the family of a Mr. Brand.
In the spring, acting upon the judgment of his wife, he concluded to leave New Orleans again, and to try his fortunes elsewhere. He paid all his bills and took steamer for Natchez, paying his passage by drawing a crayon portrait of the captain and his wife.
On the trip up the Mississippi, two hundred of his bird portraits were sorely damaged by the breaking of a bottle of gunpowder in the chest in which they were being conveyed.
Three times in his career he met with disasters to his drawings. On the occasion of his leaving Hendersonville to go to Philadelphia, he had put two hundred of his original drawings in a wooden box and had left them in charge of a friend. On his return, several months later, he pathetically recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken possession of the whole, and reared a young family among gnawed bits of paper, which but a month previous, represented nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"
This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in the head; for several days he seemed like one stunned, but his youth and health stood him in hand, he rallied, and, undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with dog and gun. In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.
The third catastrophe to some of his drawings was caused by a fire in a New York building in which his treasures were kept during his sojourn in Europe.
Audubon had an eye for the picturesque in his fellow-men as well as for the picturesque in Nature. On the Levee in New Orleans, he first met a painter whom he thus describes: "His head was covered by a straw hat, the brim of which might cope with those worn by the fair sex in 1830; his neck was exposed to the weather; the broad frill of a shirt, then fashionable, flopped about his breast, whilst an extraordinary collar, carefully arranged, fell over the top of his coat. The latter was of a light green colour, harmonising well with a pair of flowing yellow nankeen trousers, and a pink waistcoat, from the bosom of which, amidst a large bunch of the splendid flowers of the magnolia, protruded part of a young alligator, which seemed more anxious to glide through the muddy waters of a swamp than to spend its life swinging to and fro amongst folds of the finest lawn. The gentleman held in one hand a cage full of richly-plumed nonpareils, whilst in the other he sported a silk umbrella, on which I could plainly read 'Stolen from I,' these words being painted in large white characters. He walked as if conscious of his own importance; that is, with a good deal of pomposity, singing, 'My love is but a lassie yet'; and that with such thorough imitation of the Scotch emphasis that had not his physiognomy suggested another parentage, I should have believed him to be a genuine Scot. A narrower acquaintance proved him to be a Yankee; and anxious to make his acquaintance, I desired to see his birds. He retorted, 'What the devil did I know about birds?' I explained to him that I was a naturalist, whereupon he requested me to examine his birds. I did so with much interest, and was preparing to leave, when he bade me come to his lodgings and see the remainder of his collection. This I willingly did, and was struck with amazement at the appearance of his studio. Several cages were hung about the walls, containing specimens of birds, all of which I examined at my leisure. On a large easel before me stood an unfinished portrait, other pictures hung about, and in the room were two young pupils; and at a glance I discovered that the eccentric stranger was, like myself, a naturalist and an artist. The artist, as modest as he was odd, showed me how he laid on the paint on his pictures, asked after my own pursuits, and showed a friendly spirit which enchanted me. With a ramrod for a rest, he prosecuted his work vigorously, and afterwards asked me to examine a percussion lock on his gun, a novelty to me at the time. He snapped some caps, and on my remarking that he would frighten his birds, he exclaimed, 'Devil take the birds, there are more of them in the market.' He then loaded his gun, and wishing to show me that he was a marksman, fired at one of the pins on his easel. This he smashed to pieces, and afterward put a rifle bullet exactly through the hole into which the pin fitted."
Audubon reached Natchez on March 24, 1822, and remained there and in the vicinity till the spring of 1823, teaching drawing and French to private pupils and in the college at Washington, nine miles distant, hunting, and painting the birds, and completing his collection. Among other things he painted the "Death of Montgomery" from a print. His friends persuaded him to raffle the picture off. This he did, and taking one number himself, won the picture, while his finances were improved by three hundred dollars received for the tickets. Early in the autumn his wife again joined him, and presently we find her acting as governess in the home of a clergyman named Davis.
In December, there arrived in Natchez a wandering portrait painter named Stein, who gave Audubon his first lessons in the use of oil colours, and was instructed by Audubon in turn in chalk drawing.
There appear to have been no sacrifices that Mrs. Audubon was not willing and ready to make to forward the plans of her husband. "My best friends,"
he says at this time, "solemnly regarded me as a mad man, and my wife and family alone gave me encouragement. My wife determined that my genius should prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist should be triumphant."
She wanted him to go to Europe, and, to assist toward that end, she entered into an engagement with a Mrs. Percy of Bayou Sara, to instruct her children, together with her own, and a limited number of outside pupils.
Audubon, in the meantime, with his son Victor, and his new artist friend, Stein, started off in a wagon, seeking whom they might paint, on a journey through the southern states. They wandered as far as New Orleans, but Audubon appears to have returned to his wife again in May, and to have engaged in teaching her pupils music and drawing. But something went wrong, there was a misunderstanding with the Percys, and Audubon went back to Natchez, revolving various schemes in his head, even thinking of again entering upon mercantile pursuits in Louisville.
He had no genius for accumulating money nor for keeping it after he had gotten it. One day when his affairs were at a very low ebb, he met a squatter with a tame black wolf which took Audubon's fancy. He says that he offered the owner a hundred dollar bill for it on the spot, but was refused. He probably means to say that he would have offered it had he had it. Hundred dollar bills, I fancy, were rarer than tame black wolves in that pioneer country in those days.
About this time he and his son Victor were taken with yellow fever, and Mrs. Audubon was compelled to dismiss her school and go to nurse them. They both recovered, and, in October (1823), set out for Louisville, making part of the journey on foot. The following winter was passed at Shipping Port, near Louisville, where Audubon painted birds, landscapes, portraits and even signs. In March he left Shipping Port for Philadelphia, leaving his son Victor in the counting house of a Mr. Berthoud. He reached Philadelphia on April 5, and remained there till the following August, studying painting, exhibiting his birds, making many new acquaintances, among them Charles Lucien Bonaparte, giving lessons in drawing at thirty dollars per month, all the time casting wistful eyes toward Europe, whither he hoped soon to be able to go with his drawings. In July he made a pilgrimage to Mill Grove where he had passed so many happy years. The sight of the old familiar scenes filled him with the deepest emotions.
In August he left Philadelphia for New York, hoping to improve his finances, and, may be, publish his drawings in that city. At this time he had two hundred sheets, and about one thousand birds. While there he again met Vanderlyn and examined his pictures, but says that he was not impressed with the idea that Vanderlyn was a great painter.
The birds that he saw in the museum in New York appeared to him to be set up in unnatural and constrained attitudes. With Dr. De Kay he visited the Lyceum, and his drawings were examined by members of the Institute. Among them he felt awkward and uncomfortable. "I feel that I am strange to all but the birds of America," he said. As most of the persons to whom he had letters of introduction were absent, and as his spirits soon grew low, he left on the fifteenth for Albany. Here he found his money low also.
Abandoning the idea of visiting Boston, he took passage on a canal boat for Rochester. His fellow-passengers on the boat were doubtful whether he was a government officer, commissioner, or spy. At that time Rochester had only five thousand inhabitants. After a couple of days he went on to Buffalo and, he says, wrote under his name at the hotel this sentence: "Who, like Wilson, will ramble, but never, like that great man, die under the lash of a bookseller."
He visited Niagara, and gives a good account of the impressions which the cataract made upon him. He did not cross the bridge to Goat Island on account of the low state of his funds. In Buffalo he obtained a good dinner of bread and milk for twelve cents, and went to bed cheering himself with thoughts of other great men who had encountered greater hardships and had finally achieved fame.
He soon left Buffalo, taking a deck passage on a schooner bound for Erie, furnishing his own bed and provisions and paying a fare of one dollar and a half. From Erie he and a fellow-traveller hired a man and cart to take them to Meadville, paying their entertainers over night with music and portrait drawing. Reaching Meadville, they had only one dollar and a half between them, but soon replenished their pockets by sketching some of the leading citizens.
Audubon's belief in himself helped him wonderfully. He knew that he had talents, he insisted on using them. Most of his difficulties came from trying to do the things he was not fitted to do. He did not hesitate to use his talents in a humble way, when nothing else offered--portraits, landscapes, birds and animals he painted, but he would paint the cabin walls of the ship to pay his passage, if he was short of funds, or execute crayon portraits of a shoemaker and his wife, to pay for shoes to enable him to continue his journeys. He could sleep on a steamer's deck, with a few shavings for a bed, and, wrapped in a blanket, look up at the starlit sky, and give thanks to a Providence that he believed was ever guarding and guiding him.
Early in September he left for Pittsburg where he spent one month scouring the country for birds and continuing his drawings. In October, he was on his way down the Ohio in a skiff, in company with "a doctor, an artist and an Irishman." The weather was rainy, and at Wheeling his companions left the boat in disgust. He sold his skiff and continued his voyage to Cincinnati in a keel boat. Here he obtained a loan of fifteen dollars and took deck passage on a boat to Louisville, going thence to Shipping Port to see his son Victor. In a few days he was off for Bayou Sara to see his wife, and with a plan to open a school there.
"I arrived at Bayou Sara with rent and wasted clothes, and uncut hair, and altogether looking like the Wandering Jew."
In his haste to reach his wife and child at Mr. Percy's, a mile or more distant through the woods, he got lost in the night, and wandered till daylight before he found the house.
He found his wife had prospered in his absence, and was earning nearly three thousand dollars a year, with which she was quite ready to help him in the publication of his drawings. He forthwith resolved to see what he could do to increase the amount by his own efforts. Receiving an offer to teach dancing, he soon had a class of sixty organised. But the material proved so awkward and refractory that the master in his first lesson broke his bow and nearly ruined his violin in his excitement and impatience. Then he danced to his own music till the whole room came down in thunders of applause. The dancing lessons brought him two thousand dollars; this sum, together with his wife's savings, enabled him to foresee a successful issue to his great ornithological work.
On May, 1826, he embarked at New Orleans on board the ship _Delos_ for Liverpool. His journal kept during this voyage abounds in interesting incidents and descriptions. He landed at Liverpool, July 20, and delivered some of his letters of introduction. He soon made the acquaintance of Mr.
Rathbone, Mr. Roscoe, Mr. Baring, and Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley said in looking over his drawings: "This work is unique, and deserves the patronage of the Crown." In a letter to his wife at this time, Audubon said: "I am cherished by the most notable people in and around Liverpool, and have obtained letters of introduction to Baron Humboldt, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Hannah More, Miss Edgeworth, and your distinguished cousin, Robert Bakewell." Mark his courtesy to his wife in this gracious mention of her relative--a courtesy which never forsook him-- a courtesy which goes far toward retaining any woman's affection.
His paintings were put on exhibition in the rooms of the Royal Institution, an admittance of one shilling being charged. From this source he soon realised a hundred pounds.
He then went to Edinburgh, carrying letters of introduction to many well known literary and scientific men, among them Francis Jeffrey and "Christopher North."
Professor Jameson, the Scotch naturalist, received him coldly, and told him, among other things, that there was no chance of his seeing Sir Walter Scott--he was too busy. "_Not see Sir Walter Scott_?" thought I; "I SHALL, if I have to crawl on all fours for a mile." On his way up in the stage coach he had passed near Sir Walter's seat, and had stood up and craned his neck in vain to get a glimpse of the home of a man to whom, he says, he was indebted for so much pleasure. He and Scott were in many ways kindred spirits, men native to the open air, inevitable sportsmen, copious and romantic lovers and observers of all forms and conditions of life. Of course he will want to see Scott, and Scott will want to see him, if he once scents his real quality.
Later, Professor Jameson showed Audubon much kindness and helped to introduce him to the public.
In January, the opportunity to see Scott came to him.
"_January 22, Monday_. I was painting diligently when Captain Hall came in, and said: 'Put on your coat, and come with me to Sir Walter Scott; he wishes to see you _now_.' In a moment I was ready, for I really believe my coat and hat came to me instead of my going to them. My heart trembled; I longed for the meeting, yet wished it over. Had not his wondrous pen penetrated my soul with the consciousness that here was a genius from God's hand? I felt overwhelmed at the thought of meeting Sir Walter, the Great Unknown. We reached the house, and a powdered waiter was asked if Sir Walter were in. We were shown forward at once, and entering a very small room Captain Hall said: 'Sir Walter, I have brought Mr.
Audubon.' Sir Walter came forward, pressed my hand warmly, and said he was 'glad to have the honour of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks struck me; he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of Benjamin West; he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him and a kindness most prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at him, my eyes feasted on his countenance. I watched his movements as I would those of a celestial being; his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me forcibly. His little room was tidy, though it partook a good deal of the character of a laboratory. He was wrapped in a quilted morning-gown of light purple silk; he had been at work writing on the 'Life of Napoleon.' He writes close lines, rather curved as they go from left to right, and puts an immense deal on very little paper. After a few minutes had elapsed, he begged Captain Hall to ring a bell; a servant came and was asked to bid Miss Scott come to see Mr. Audubon. Miss Scott came, black haired and black-dressed, not handsome but said to be highly accomplished, and she is the daughter of Sir Walter Scott. There was much conversation. I talked but little, but, believe me, I listened and observed, careful if ignorant. I cannot write more now. I have just returned from the Royal Society. Knowing that I was a candidate for the electorate of the society, I felt very uncomfortable and would gladly have been hunting on Tawapatee Bottom."
It may be worth while now to see what Scott thought of Audubon. Under the same date, Sir Walter writes in his journal as follows: "_January_ 22, 1827. A visit from Basil Hall, with Mr. Audubon, the ornithologist, who has followed the pursuit by many a long wandering in the American forests. He is an American by naturalisation, a Frenchman by birth; but less of a Frenchman than I have ever seen--no dust or glimmer, or shine about him, but great simplicity of manners and behaviour; slight in person and plainly dressed; wears long hair, which time has not yet tinged; his countenance acute, handsome, and interesting, but still simplicity is the predominant characteristic. I wish I had gone to see his drawings; but I had heard so much about them that I resolved not to see them--'a crazy way of mine, your honour.'"
Two days later Audubon again saw Scott, and writes in his journal as follows: "_January 24_. My second visit to Sir Walter Scott was much more agreeable than my first. My portfolio and its contents were matters on which I could speak substantially, and I found him so willing to level himself with me for awhile that the time spent at his home was agreeable and valuable. His daughter improved in looks the moment she spoke, having both vivacity and good sense."
Scott's impressions of the birds as recorded in his journal, was that the drawings were of the first order, but he thought that the aim at extreme correctness and accuracy made them rather stiff.
In February Audubon met Scott again at the opening of the Exhibition at the rooms of the Royal Institution.
"_Tuesday, February 13_. This was the grand, long promised, and much wished-for day of the opening of the Exhibition at the rooms of the Royal Institution. At one o'clock I went, the doors were just opened, and in a few minutes the rooms were crowded. Sir Walter Scott was present; he came towards me, shook my hand cordially, and pointing to Landseer's picture said: 'Many such scenes, Mr. Audubon, have I witnessed in my younger days.'
We talked much of all about us, and I would gladly have joined him in a glass of wine, but my foolish habits prevented me, and after inquiring of his daughter's health, I left him, and shortly afterwards the rooms; for I had a great appetite, and although there were tables loaded with delicacies, and I saw the ladies particularly eating freely, I must say to my shame I dared not lay my fingers on a single thing. In the evening I went to the theatre where I was much amused by 'The Comedy of Errors,' and afterwards, 'The Green Room.' I admire Miss Neville's singing very much; and her manners also; there is none of the actress about her, but much of the lady."