One of the most interesting passages in modern literary history
is that in which Audubon, the naturalist, met the sudden
destruction, by the voracity of rats, of the treasures he had
accumulated in fifteen years of incessant exploration. At the
shock of what seemed the irremediable disaster, he was thrown
into a fever, which had well-nigh proved fatal. “A burning
heat,” as he described it, “rushed through my brain; and my
days were oblivion.” But as consciousness returned, and the
rally of nature fought back the sudden incursion of disease,
there sang again through his wakening thoughts the wild notes
he had heard in the bayous of Louisiana, the everglades of
Florida, the savannahs of the Carolinas, and the forests that
fringe the sides of the Alleghanies. He saw again the Washington
eagle, as it soared and screamed from its far rocky eery. He
startled again, from her perch on the firs, the brown warbler of
Labrador. He traced in thought the magic hues on crest and wing
that so often had shone before the dip of his rifle. And the
passion for new expeditions and discoveries, arising afresh, was
more to him than medicine. In three years more, passed far from
home, he had filled once more the despoiled portfolios; and at
every step, as he told his biographer, “it was not the desire
of fame that prompted him; it was his exceeding enjoyment of
nature!”--RICHARD S. STORRS.
(2159)
=Nature Malleable=--See CONQUEST BY MAN.
=Nature Merciless=--See GOD, NOT NATURE.