A damp wind brings a blizzard out of the S.W.  a fine powdery snow –
     The day spent in writing a letter to Rev. Walker, who would convert me to Lutheranism.  After being drawn into such arguments and compelled to make a definite statement, there is always a sense of shame for having spent the time and mental effort to do it – But one thing it did for me – it forced me to take stock of myself and made me realize with greater force, the joy of my freedom.
     It was colder yesterday at 30 than today at 20 – A fine invigorating day – the sky is gray, but I feel suppressed sunshine on all sides which makes the snow brilliant.
     On my walk tonight I thought of the Sibelius 2^nd Symphony, and reflected that it was a pleasure to love a work of art, as I do that.  I wondered what Sibelius would think of the painting that his music inspired.  I wondered what he would think of me.  Perhaps not much – and perhaps I would not him himself – so much at variance is a man and his work –
     I came upon this paragraph in Henri’s “the art spirit”.
     The art student that should be, and is so rare is the one whose life is spent in the love and culture of his personal sensations, the cherishing of his emotions, never undervaluing them the pleasure of exclaiming them to others and an eager search for the clearest expression.  He never studies drawing because it will come in useful later when he is an artist – He has not time for that.  He is an artist in the beginning and is busy finding the lines and forms to express the pleasures and emotions with which nature has already charged him.
     The closeness with which that takes with my own early experience makes it startlingly beautiful to me.  When I think of the useless hours I spent at school brooding because I could not learn to draw [1]