Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

my first re-action, was that of envy of other artists home, and increased dissatisfaction with Gardenville. There was the visit to the home of Thornton Oakley (old Colonial Mansion & fine studio fashioned from a huge barn, beautiful grounds servants etc.) – then the Sunday trip up the Hudson with Frank & Peggy, where the sleeply [sic] dreamy world of eastern New York, with its proximity to the City, charmed me so much that I felt it should be my home. Yes, I belonged in New York; but gradually my feeling changed, and I began to long to get home; Coming home, I was, I must confess, assailed anew by the old doubts; and there seemed no solution. Perhaps Edna Ferber in her “A Peculiar Treasure” (which I have just finished, helped me (for her assertion that her life in the little Nebraska town, bitter as it was, meant more to her than her gay happy life in New York) –; At any rate, I now have reached the point in my readjustment to my life here, that I am aghast at the shallowness of my mental state in the past few years; what I deplored in other artists, I was indulging in feeling myself – I now feel that here it’s the one shot for me; and now the appointed time to work. ; Here, like today, where the raw November wind sweeps over the little village – life seems fresh