Science Quote by John James Audubon

Audubon frames his life not as a career but as a compulsion: a “tendency” that has been there “during all these years,” steady as a pulse. The phrasing is almost disarmingly modest. He doesn’t claim genius or destiny; he claims a habit of attention. That humility is strategic. In the early 19th century, natural history still wore the mixed reputation of gentlemanly pastime and serious inquiry, and Audubon - an outsider to formal scientific institutions - needed to present obsession as vocation rather than eccentricity.

The key move is the personification: “Nature in her walks.” Nature becomes a woman moving through landscapes, and Audubon casts himself as follower, not conqueror. It’s a rhetorical softening that makes pursuit sound courtly, even devotional, while quietly justifying what his work actually required: relentless travel, collecting, and the taking of specimens. The romance helps launder the violence. It also signals the era’s dominant sensibility, where “nature” is aesthetic and moral theater, not an ecosystem with feedback loops.

Subtextually, he’s claiming legitimacy through intimacy. To “follow” suggests proximity, apprenticeship, time spent in the field - the one credential no academy can grant. That’s Audubon’s bid for authority: he knows because he has walked behind Nature long enough to recognize her. The sentence reads like a self-portrait: solitary, restless, and convinced that seeing carefully is a form of truth-making.