Page:John James Audubon (Burroughs).djvu/166

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
134
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

God that it was not my destiny to waste and pine among those noisome congregations of the city.' "

Another visitor to Audubon during his last days writes: "In my interview with the naturalist, there were several things that stamped themselves indelibly on my mind. The wonderful simplicity of the man was perhaps the most remarkable. His enthusiasm for facts made him unconscious of himself. To make him happy you had only to give him a new fact in natural history, or introduce him to a rare bird. His self-forgetfulness was very impressive. I felt that I had found a man who asked homage for God and Nature, and not for himself.

"The unconscious greatness of the man seemed only equalled by his child-like tenderness. The sweet unity between his wife and himself, as they turned over the original drawings of his birds, and recalled the circumstances of the drawings,