Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

(88 miles) was all after dark. The blind driving did not bother me until I was past Holland.; Aug 8 (Tues.) – Sketching Trip ; To Emporium country –; My subject was one I had discovered last week, about fifteen miles below Emporium, – two old iron railroad bridges at the foot of a long wooded hill. The hill seemed to embody for me, the essential mood of a fragment I set down several years ago, which I called “Old August Hill” (and ancient time – warm hill brooding in the mystic August sunshine.); I arrived a little before noon. – The sun was too far to the left for my purpose, so I drove on for three miles to a point where I could park the car on the edge of a high embankment. Here I ate my lunch. Afterwards I made a pencil study of a range of hills to the west. It was interesting how the receding planes of the hills were revealed by the tops of the trees, which necessarily seen at a more acute angle, were more closely set together, revealing none of the sides of the trees, and therefore presenting a lighter, yellower streak. ; Worked until 5:30 on the two bridges & hill, without much real accomplishment. Tired out from my long drive and afterwards work, I set out for Emporium, first changing my clothes in a wooded glade, so as to make myself more presentable at the hotel. ; A gas-station attendant directed me to the Hotel harper,