Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, November 5, 1947

Low-hanging skies and some drizzling rain.

The Belscher Rd. Country is wild and densely wooded. Before lunch a short walk in a woods. The tall somber trees, deep-glowering hemlocks, a little rain falling – the rich wet leaves on the floor of the woods, a feeling of a vast out door room --- the white violet, which I dug up for B --- Smooth-barked hickory, a few of which I picked up. The exciting acrid odor of the hills.

After lunch, set up my sketching outfit and soon at work painting (a tall gloom-filled hemlock and surrounding trees) -  How good it was to be painting again, after more than three months. I felt surrounded by the goodness and kindness of god. All afternoon a jay kept up his scolding – a fine but unusual sound – once a nuthatch.

Finish at later afternoon, when a break occurred in the clouds, and the whole woods was bathed in a rich warm yellow light.

A brief excursion out a ravine, then start for home. On the Trevett Rd. up the hill, stop by a woods and go in. Deep twilight – the majestic gloom was at once, both awe-inspiring and frightening. All at once I felt that I was the most lonely person on earth, and it seemed to me I would not endure the solitude, and yet it was so overpowering I could not leave it. I was, as it were, a prisoner who loved and hated his isolation. A wood-pecker busily concerned about finding his food,, tapping on an ancient beech. Beyond the woods a farmer calling his cows, in a strange sing-song high pitched voice, somehow an unpleasant sound, born of necessity and not his love of life.

Charles E. Burchfield, November 5, 1947