With the utmost care of himself, going in a closed carriage
and sitting during his lecture, his strength was so exhausted
that the struggle for breath in the carriage on his return
seemed each time to threaten the end. Those who heard him
listened with a sort of fascinated terror, as in doubt
whether the hoarded breath would suffice to the end of the hour.

It was in December of this winter, when too feeble to raise his food
to his mouth, with a fever temperature of 104 degrees,
that he pencilled his last and greatest poem, "Sunrise",
one of his projected series of the "Hymns of the Marshes".
It seemed as if he were in fear that he would die with it unuttered.

At the end of April, 1881, he made his last visit to New York,
to complete arrangements with Charles Scribner's Sons
for the publication of other books of the King Arthur series.
But in a day or two aggravated illness compelled his wife to join him,
and his medical adviser pronounced tent-life in a pure, high climate
to be the last hope. His brother Clifford was summoned from Alabama
to assist in carrying out the plans for encamping near Asheville, N.C.,
whither the brothers went soon after the middle of May.
By what seemed a hopeful coincidence he was tendered a commission
to write an account of the region in a railroad interest,
as he had done six years before with Florida. This provided a monthly salary,
which was to be the dependence of himself and family.
The materials for this book were collected, and the book thoroughly shaped
in the author's mind when July ended; but his increasing anguish
kept him from dictating, often from all speech for hours,
and he carried the plan away with him.