Page:John James Audubon (Burroughs).djvu/49

Rh In later years he was assuredly nothing of the dandy; he himself ridicules his youthful fondness for dress, while those who visited him during his last years speak of him as particularly lacking in self-consciousness.

Although he affected the dress of the dandies of his time, he was temperate and abstemious. "I ate no butcher's meat, lived chiefly on fruits, vegetables, and fish, and never drank a glass of spirits or wine until my wedding day" "All this time I was fair and rosy, strong and active as one of my age and sex could be, and as active and agile as a buck."

That he was energetic and handy and by no means the mere dandy that his extravagance in dress might seem to indicate, is evidenced from the fact that about this time he made a journey on foot to New York and accomplished the ninety miles in three days in mid-winter. But he was angry, and anger is better than wine to walk on.