He with a few others now founded the National Academy of Design. He took lodgings in the Catskills in the summer of 1826, and worked diligently. He studied nature like a lover; now he sketched a peculiar sunset, now a wild storm, now an exquisite waterfall. "Why do not the younger landscape painters walk--walk alone, and endlessly?" he used to say. "How I have walked, day after day, and all alone, to see if there was not something among the old things which was new!" He knew every chasm, every velvety bank, every dainty flower growing in some tanglewood for miles around. American scenery, with its untamed wilderness, lake, and mountain, was his chief passion. He found no pleasure, however, in hunting or fishing; for his kind heart could not bear to inflict the slightest injury. The following spring he exhibited at the National Academy the "Garden of Eden and the Expulsion," rich in poetic conception; and in the fall sketched in the White Mountains, especially near North Conway, which the lamented Starr King loved so well. In the winter he was very happy, finishing his "Chocorua Peak." A visitor said, "Your clouds, sir, appear to move." "That," replied the artist, "is precisely the effect I desire." He was now eager to visit Europe to study art; but first he must see Niagara, of which he made several sketches. He had learned the secret, that all poets and artists finally learn,--that they must identify themselves with some great event in history, something grand in nature, or some immortal name. Milton chose a sublime subject, Homer a great war, just as some one will make our civil war a famous epic two centuries hence. In June, 1829, he sailed for Europe, and there, for two years, studied faithfully. In London, he saw much of Turner, of whom he said, "I consider him as one of the greatest landscape painters that ever lived, and his 'Temple of Jupiter' as fine as anything the world has produced. In landscapes, my favorites are Claude Lorraine, and Gaspar Poussin." Some of Cole's work was exhibited at the British Gallery, but the autumn coloring was generally condemned as false to nature! How little we know about that which we have not seen! Paris he enjoyed greatly for its clear skies and sunny weather,--essentials usually to those of poetic temperament, though he was not over pleased with the Venuses and Psyches of modern French art. For nine months he found the "galleries of Florence a paradise to a painter." He thought our skies more gorgeous than the Italian, though theirs have "a peculiar softness and beauty." At Rome, some of his friends said, "Cole works like a crazy man." He usually rose at five o'clock, worked till noon, taking an hour for eating and rest, and then sketched again till night. There was a reason for this. The support of the family came upon him, besides the payment of debts incurred by his father.