The brave but disillusioned protagonist of the Charles Frazier Civil War novel, Cold Mountain, Inman is recuperating in a hospital bed when the novel begins. He is recovering from a severe neck wound suffered during the terrible siege of Petersburg, and he spends a great deal of time peering from the hospital window at the "sweep of fields and piney woods that stretched to the western horizon." But on this new day, things are slightly different. He would normally be reading to pass the time, but he has burned all of his candles, and the light is too dim to read. So he dressed early and stared outside.

The window was as tall as a door, and he had imagined many times that it would open onto some other place and let him walk through and be there.

Later, he opened a book he had been reading; it was Bartram's Travels. Like the field and woods toward the horizon, he envisioned that "other place," and saw himself once again on Cold Mountain.