Had a man the size of a mountain spoken to me in that arrogant style in America I should have indignantly resented it; but where I then was it seemed best to swallow and digest it as well as I could. So in reply ... I said I should be honored by his subscription to the "Birds of America." "Sir," he said, "I never sign my name to any subscription list, but you may send in your work and I will pay for a copy of it. Gentlemen, I am busy, I wish you good morning." We were busy men, too, and so bowing respectfully, we retired, pretty well satisfied with the small slice of his opulence which our labor was likely to obtain.
A few days afterwards I sent the first volume of my work half bound, and all the numbers besides, then published. On seeing them we were told that he ordered the bearer to take them to his house, which was done directly. Number after number was sent and delivered to the Baron, and after eight or ten months my son made out his account and sent it by Mr. Havell, my engraver, to his banking-house. The Baron looked at it with amazement, and cried out, "What, a hundred pounds for birds! Why, sir, I will give you five pounds, and not a farthing more!" Representations were made to him of the magnificence and expense of the work, and how pleased his Baroness and wealthy children would be to have a copy; but the great financier was unrelenting. The copy of the work was actually sent back to Mr. Havell's shop, and as I found that instituting legal proceedings against him would cost more than it would come to, I kept the work, and afterwards sold it to a man with less money but a nobler heart. What a distance there is between two such men as Baron Rothschild of London and the merchant of Savannah!
CHAPTER XXXIII
NEW ENTERPRISES AND LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND"
Settlement in New York—The Birds in miniature, and work on the Quadrupeds—Marriage of Victor Audubon—Coöperation of Bachman in the Quadrupeds secured—Prospectuses—History of the octavo edition of the Birds—Baird's enthusiasm and efficient aid—Parkman's wren—Baird's visit to Audubon in New York—"Look out for Martens!" and wildcats—New home on the Hudson—Godwin's pilgrimage to "Minnie's Land" in 1842.
After thirteen years of unmitigated labor, Audubon could have basked in a fame already secure, and could have enjoyed, for a time at least, a leisure handsomely earned. But no sooner had he settled in New York than he entered upon two formidable tasks: one of these was the complete revision of his Birds of America, to be issued with its text in "miniature," as its reduced form was sometimes described; the other, which he did not live to see brought to completion, was an elaborate work on the Quadrupeds of North America, eventually carried forward in collaboration with the Reverend John Bachman.
In his confident and characteristic manner, Audubon at once issued a "Prospectus" of both these undertakings. The more cautious Bachman, in writing on September 13, 1839, to congratulate him upon their safe return, "in spite of storms, calms, and hurricane," said:
I am glad that you are about to do something with regard to the "Small Edition of Birds." But are you not too fast in issuing your prospectus of The Birds and Quadrupeds, without having numbers of both works, by which the public can judge of their merits? My idea, in regard to the latter, is that you should carefully get up, in your best style, a volume about the size of "Holbrook's Reptiles." This would enable you to decide on the terms of the book, I think that two thousand subscribers at $1.00 for each number, might be obtained. But it must be no half-way affair.
The animals have never been carefully described, and you will find difficulties at every step. Books cannot aid you much. Long journeys will have to be undertaken. Several species remain to be added and their habits ascertained. The drawings you can easily make, if you can procure the specimens. I wish I had you here, if only for two days. I think that I have studied the subject more than you have. You will be bothered with the Wolves and the Foxes, to begin with. I have two new species of Bats and Shrews to add. The Western Deer are no joke, and the ever varying Squirrels seem sent by Satan himself, to puzzle the Naturalists.