Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

75. the wooded hills with the strongest light - Robins are singing and a boy is going along a dirt road to his home near a group of cottonwoods.

     Another scene is a momentary one, a rolling landscape to the east - a storm had just passed, the thunder still to be heard -

     The second movement has a strong mood of religion - of resignation, coupled with an infinite melancholy.

     Both the first, and the last movements have a strong heroic feeling, in the manner of the victory music of the early 19th century symphonies (for which Beethoven set the style)

     Each time I play it it is new.

July 1 - P.M.  All of us but Sally to south Boston for a picnic. Up the hill road, park just north of the black walnut tree. We all enter a pasture with an old orchard in it, the youngsters running on ahead, towards a wooded ravine. Two cows under a tree by the road. Shortly after, a farmer coming up toward the cows. We though it best to ask his permission to eat there, and he agreed pleasantly. He told me that the two cows were all that were left of a herd of 42 - that the owner had died recently, and an auction had been held, netting $7500 - forty cows sold, some of them for $150.

     A strange, beautiful day - a thick mist fills the air and sky - the sun is a pale ineffectual glow high in the west. The hills to the east were filmed over with a thick bluish white veil, the furthest ones, hardly visible at all - I had the feeling of being in a vast room, as tho one could almost reach up