Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, May 2, 1915

Awake – feeling of contentment –
To Shaker Lakes Territory sketching – Dropping from the noisy car to hear the subtle notes of the seemingly countless birds was a delight – Clear sky, few booming white clouds – cold wind – Thrasher + wrens (their songs are kindred) make the air sparkle – meadowlarks – yellowbirds streak of yellow in white-apple medley of YG trees – emerald fields of yellow. Spattered – Birdsongs drench the noon sunny air – some faint + some near like walking along a high bank listening to the changings of a noisy brook – songsparrow – wind rippling the bristling blue shadowed grass –
Evening to Austins – Music – when listening to Wagner’s music, I thought how little a genius’ every day actions had to do with the real man – This music was Wagner – all else of him was on an accessory. After a man is dead a thousand will rise up to interpret him, to explain how events of his life influenced his art, to bring for petty faults of him to show him not so great after all – yet thru his art, the genius rises sublimely above these cheap squabbling as an oak perhaps above the quarrels of some ants in the roots.
The biographer sees the physical side of the man wheras the mind is all. a man may be devoid of all so-called morals, virtue, many commit all manner of excesses, and yet, having been inspired in a brief moment to create only one work of art, has proven himself a real man –
Charles E. Burchfield, May 2, 1915