He was never, even in his most desperate financial straits, too poor to help others more poor than himself.
He had a great deal of the old-fashioned piety of our fathers, which crops out abundantly in his pages. While he was visiting a Mr. Bently in Manchester, and after retiring to his room for the night, he was surprised by a knock at his door. It appeared that his host in pa.s.sing thought he heard Audubon call to him to ask for something: "I told him I prayed aloud every night, as had been my habit from a child at my mother"s knees in Nantes. He said nothing for a moment, then again wished me good night and was gone."
Audubon belonged to the early history of the country, to the pioneer times, to the South and the West, and was, on the whole, one of the most winsome, interesting, and picturesque characters that have ever appeared in our annals.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
[Footnote: Publisher"s Note: This bibliography is that of the original 1902 edition. Many books on Audubon have been published since then.]
The works of Audubon are mentioned in the chronology at the beginning of the volume and in the text. Of the writings about him the following--apart from the obvious books of reference in American biography--are the main sources of information:--
I. PROSE WRITINGS OF AMERICA. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. (Philadelphia, 1847: Carey & Hart.)
II. BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. By Samuel Smiles. (Boston, 1861: Ticknor & Fields.)
III. AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST OF THE NEW WORLD: His ADVENTURES AND DISCOVERIES. By Mrs. Horace Roscoe Stebbing St. John. (Revised, with additions. Boston, 1864: Crosby & Nichols. New York, 1875: The World Publishing House.)
IV. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST. Edited, from materials supplied by his widow, by Robert Buchanan. (London, 1868: S.
Low, son & Marston.)
V. THE LIFE OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. Edited by his widow, with an Introduction by James Grant Wilson. (New York, 1869: Putnams.)
VI. FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE. By Sarah Knowles Bolton. (Boston, 1889: T. Y.
Crowell & Co.)
VII. AUDUBON AND HIS JOURNALS. By Maria R. Audubon. With Zoological and Other Notes by Elliott Coues. (New York, 1897: Charles Scribner"s Sons. Two volumes.) This is by far the most interesting and authentic of any of the sources of information.