A site was chosen on the side of Richmond Hill, three miles from Asheville.
Clifford returned to Alabama, after seeing the tents pitched and floored,
and Mrs. Lanier came with her infant to take her place as nurse
for the invalid. Early in July Mr. Lanier the father, with his wife,
joined them in the encampment. As the passing weeks
brought no improvement to the sufferer he started, August 4th,
on a carriage journey across the mountains with his wife,
to test the climate of Lynn, Polk County, N. C. There a deadly illness
attacked him. No return was possible, and Clifford was summoned by telegraph,
and assisted his father in removing the encampment to Lynn. Deceived by hope,
and pressed by business cares, Clifford went home August 24th,
and the father and his wife five days later, expecting to return soon.
Mrs. Lanier's own words, as written in the brief "annals" of his life
furnished me, will tell the end:

==
"We are left alone" (August 29th) "with one another.
On the last night of the summer comes a change. His love and immortal will
hold off the destroyer of our summer yet one more week,
until the forenoon of September 7th, and then falls the frost,
and that unfaltering will renders its supreme submission
to the adored will of God."
==

So the tragedy ended, the manly struggle carried on
with indomitable resolution against illness and want and care.
Just when he seemed to have conquered success enough
to assure him a little leisure to write his poems,
then his feeble but resolute hold upon earth was exhausted.
What he left behind him was written with his life-blood.