Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, June 17, 1938

“It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only the pensive air was transparently pure and soft with a woman’s look and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long strong lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep.

Hither & thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but too and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.

Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as a bride to a groom.  And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion – most seen here at the Equator – denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.” (Melville— Moby-Dick Chap CXXXII – The Symphony)

Nowhere, I believe, but in the Bible, is there such fine writing as that.

The last three days on the Elevators picture - It has become a prison at last, from which I seek in vain to escape. I thought today I had come to the end, but at late afternoon, the foreground suddenly reveals itself as out of harmony with the rest— it will require another day’s work. As I near the end, much as I long to be quit of it (albeit only with honor) it is not without sadness and regret – it is the end of a long-drawn out dream; and the whistle of a tug in the distant harbor brings a pang: - the season has advanced, true summer is upon us, the lush green meadows of May are but a memory, and my dream too, will soon be but a memory.

Jim in at noon to look at the picture – he thinks it my best work – and said it gave him a queer feeling it impressed him so; also that if he owned November evening, Winter Bouquet & Pussy-Willows, he would willingly exchange all three for this one.

Rev. Neeb & Mr. Berlin out at late afternoon.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, June 17, 1938