Face to face with the problem of making a living, and hoping to gain useful experience, he joined a government exploring expedition to the West. But the party suffered terrible hardships, to which Wyant’s physique succumbed. He was put upon the train to return East, and might have stopped at his mother’s home to be nursed and cared for. And much he needed tending, for he was helpless, stricken with paralysis; but the mind in his poor body was still active; he argued that to be taken off at a far western station was to become stranded, to lose all touch with the painter’s life, on which his determination was still fixed. So he let himself be carried past his home and reached New York. No words can add to the pathetic heroism of this decision. But in our admiration of the delicate poetry which belongs
From the collection of George A. Hearn, Esq.
THE MOHAWK VALLEY.
By Alexander H. Wyant.
From the collection of Samuel Untermeyer, Esq.
THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.