Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

mankind.; At the Emporium, I inquired of a gas dealer have to get up into the hills. He directed me to a road that went southward up the mountain side, winding endlessly around thru interminable woods. I was hoping for a bare-hill top, but found none. I stopped at a point where I could at least, by climbing a high road-side bank, see out over the hills – Here I ate my lunch.; My mind kept I kept thinking as I ate, of Thomas Gibbs, and of how much my encounter with him meant to me. I have mentioned before my opinion that the ideal age of boyhood is around 11 to 13; and I recalled the various encounters I have had with boys of that age, and of how they won me over completely by their radiant spirit of innocence, frankness, and sturdiness. In fact, I find it difficult to put into words, the charm they exercise on me. It is as if I’m a boy, who stands midway between childhood, and adolescence, is embodied the best and purest traits of the human spirit. They are not on thin ground with you because they have not yet learned that it is necessary to be so, with most human beings. They are innocent, yet not childish; they are frank, because they believe of their inexperience they have not yet learned that many humans are base. They have a bloom about them, which is as fragile and ephemeral as the bloom on a peach, which is destroyed at the touch of the finger. Eternal shame to the one who