Under a Wild Sky (52 page)

  
15
   
Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, a fellow French
Ibid., page 143.

  
15
   
Admission to the academy Minutes of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1824.
Audubon was the only person nominated but not elected that year.

  
15
   
When the vote for Audubon
Ibid. The academy still has in its archives a voting box, into which members dropped either a white (for) or black (against) marble in balloting for membership. Thus, being
blackballed
was a literal expression.

  
15
   
Audubon was, by then
Ford,
John James Audubon
, pages 147–48. Evidently, Audubon anticipated his rejection in Philadelphia well ahead of its actuality, heading off for New York nearly a full month before he was denied membership in the academy when the vote took place on August 31.

  
15
   
His work was so admired there
Ibid., page 148.

  
15
   
But he continued to feel uncomfortable
Buchanan,
The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon
, page 90.

  
15
   
Audubon entertained the contradictory thought
Ibid.

  
15
   
He took his time
Ford,
John James Audubon
, pages 149–50.

  
16
   
Unshaven and wearing moccasins
Ibid., pages 153–54.

  
16
   
On the long way back
Audubon,
Ornithological Biography
, vol. I, page XI.

  
16
   
Audubon began to imagine
Ibid.

2. COMING ACROSS

  
18
   
At the end of the eighteenth century
Stoddard,
The French Revolution in San Domingo
, pages 1–5.

  
18
   
On April 26, 1785
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 14.

  
19
   
Audubon's mulatto housekeeper
Ibid., pages 13–15.

  
19
   
They called the little boy
Ibid., pages 14–17.

  
19
   
Young Jean's eyes
Ibid., page 17.

  
19
   
Pelicans, sandpipers, frigate birds
Wetmore and Lincoln, “Additional Notes on the Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic,” pages 13–14.

  
19
   
In winter months they were joined
Personal communication with Nate Rice, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, January 22, 2003.

  
19
   
Jean Audubon continued
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 4.

  
19
   
Seeking his fortune
Ibid., pages 4–9.

  
19
   
In the spring of 1789
Ibid., pages 18–19.

  
20
   
With only 35,000 French colonists
Stoddard,
The French Revolution in San Domingo
, pages 21, 50.

  
20
   
They blamed the sudden instability
Ibid., page 82.

  
20
   
Those who didn't leave
Ibid., pages 349–50.

  
20
   
Finally, he arranged passage
Ford,
John James Audubon
, pages 22–23.

  
20
   
Three years later
Ibid., page 29.

  
20
   
He was sent to school
Herrick,
Audubon the Naturalist
, pages 93–96.

  
20
   
In March 1803
Ford,
John James Audubon
, page 36.

  
20
   
Audubon dispatched an agent
Ibid., pages 36–37.

  
21
   
When he walked down
Ibid., page 37.

  
21
   
Despite a modest first printing
Burns,
Poems in Scots and English
(Introduction by Donald A. Low), pages xix–xxxi.

  
21
   
One of them was
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 15.

  
21
   
It seemed that everyone in Paisley
Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, page 31.

  
21
   
Now a suburb of Glasgow
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, pages 15–16.

  
21
   
It was also a hub
Ibid.

  
21
   
As much as half the tea
Ibid., page 34.

  
21
   
But it was cloth making
Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, pages 16–17.

  
21
   
Many of them belonged to
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 16.

  
22
   
As a boy, Wilson was called Sandy
Ibid., pages 15–16.

  
22
   
He was thin, but grew tall
Ibid., pages 16–17.

  
22
   
The Wilson family fortunes
Ibid., pages 23–24.

  
22
   
Young Sandy, who was bright
Ibid., page 21.

  
22
   
His father quickly remarried
Ibid., page 27.

  
22
   
He much preferred reading
Ibid.

  
22
   
At thirteen, Wilson accepted
Ibid., page 28.

  
22
   
When his father renewed
Ibid., pages 28–29.

  
22
   
Nobody knew for sure
Ibid., page 30.

  
22
   
Wilson visited his family
Ibid., page 29.

  
22
   
He took up hunting
Ibid., page 31.

  
22
   
He developed a love of poetry
Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, pages 29–31; and Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 43.

  
22
   
He took a job in a weaving shop
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 44.

  
22
   
When business was good
Ibid., page 45.

  
23
   
Respected Sir
Wilson to David Brodie, December 31, 1788. In Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, pages 123–25. As is true of much of the Wilson and Audubon correspondence, this letter begat numerous subsequent reproductions. The original is in the Paisley Museum and Art Galleries in Scotland. A transcription is in the Houghton Library at Harvard. In addition to Clark Hunter's published version, cited here, there is also Alexander Grosart's in
The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson
, from 1876. Infrequent discrepancies, mostly minor adjustments to spelling and punctuation, exist among the various forms of all the letters I examined
from Wilson, Audubon, and others. Hunter also reports that the transcript of this letter at Harvard, which I did not look at, is missing the second verse. However, such a notable error strikes me as unusual. In direct comparisons of hundreds of original documents alongside their published counterparts, I found the different versions scarcely different at all.

  
23
   
When Wilson was broke
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 45.

  
23
   
Wilson was an eager sightseer
Ibid.

  
24
   
The Wintry West extends his blast
Burns, “Winter, A Dirge,”
Poems in Scots and English
, page 89.

  
24
   
Unlike Burns, his vocabulary
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 46.

  
24
   
The way a drop of water
Wilson to David Brodie, December 31, 1788. In Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, pages 123–25.

  
24
   
He fell in love with a woman
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, pages 52–53.

  
24
   
In Wilson's mind
Ibid., page 59.

  
25
   
Encouraged to publish
Ibid., pages 57–58.

  
25
   
Wilson had to beg forgiveness
Ibid., page 58.

  
25
   
But he complained
Wilson to David Brodie, January 5, 1791. In Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson.

  
25
   
He fell ill
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 60.

  
25
   
Weavers in Scotland were beginning
Ibid., page 65.

  
25
   
One of these poems resulted in
Ibid.

  
25
   
He placed second in a speech contest
Ibid., page 63.

  
25
   
Wilson then did something
Ibid., pages 64–72. This peculiar episode, including the clumsiness of Wilson's attempted extortion and the murky details of his subsequent imprisonments, has puzzled Wilson scholars for two centuries. But Alexander Grosart—along with George Ord, a sympathetic Wilson biographer—argued that Wilson was neither a blackmailer nor a seditionist, but was instead guilty only of living in politically charged times. Brushing aside Wilson's admission of extortion, Grosart insisted that Wilson's satirical attacks on Paisley loom owners were entirely justified, as the lot of them were “local self-importances and petty tyrants,” whose exploitation of their workers warranted exposure. Wilson, he said, had merely given voice to “truisms of civil and religious freedom” that were held then to be threats to the monarchy.

  
26
   
Over the course of many months
Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, pages 53–60.

  
26
   
Ironically, it was at this time
Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 75.

  
26
   
Jail, he said
Wilson to David Brodie, May 21, 1793. In Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson
, page 147.

  
27
   
During one of his releases
Ibid., pages 59–61.

  
27
   
“
I must get out of my mind”
Quoted in Cantwell,
Alexander Wilson
, page 79.

  
27
   
They'd gone first to Belfast
Wilson to his parents, July 25, 1794. In Hunter,
The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson.
This long, action-packed letter was written home shortly after Wilson's arrival in Philadelphia. It proclaimed, emphatically, the start of a new life in the New World.

  
27
   
After fifty days at sea
Ibid.

  
28
   
Mulling what to do next
Ibid.