Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

93. my muscles ache and glow hotly – a delightful sensation –

June 18, 1935 (Tuesday)

     A cool gray day after yesterday’s rain, with wind from the N.E.

     Played some of Stokowski’s Bach records. The Tocatta (sic) & Fugue title should be changed to read “The awful and terrifying Majesty of God”

  P.M.  Sketching in valley of Buffalo Creek by Winspear Rd. An afternoon so full of infinite joy and beauty that it seems a desecration almost to try to write about it. Low-flying loose misty clouds sweep endlessly out of the northeast, driven by a cool wind that was like a rarefied cold–shower. I lay on a little bank awhile, reveling in the rich lushness of the country-side. I did not realize how starved I was for the simple unaffected delights of purely natural things –

     Painted all afternoon and evening almost without break on a little group of trees near the water’s edge. I was so happy doing it that it did not seem possible for if to be a good thing; yet after I got it home, it seemed one of my better sketches.

     A fine rain began to fall in the evening just as I was thru; I went to the car and ate my lunch, after