Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

of such an effect from the back-end of our lot—I lay alternately making mental notes, and bemoaning the fate that keeps me bedridden at this time. Eventually, (almost 11 o’clock) the sun rode clear, and seemed to move rapidly westward, just above the curling white topped masses of cloud, which were dark blue black below. It was very pleasant to lie here, and feel the warm sunlight pouring over me, thru the window. With the aid of my imagination, I conjured up to my mind’s eye, the whole northern landscape (as I thought it might be) from Northern Russia & Finland, to Northern Canada and Alaska,-- I conceived it as a vast upland country with hilly pastures, deep wooded hills, and barren rocky mountains, lit up by the low southern December sun, whose light it shut off from the bleak Arctic ice-wastes beyond—Lying on my bed here, I felt as tho I were sitting on the extreme southern edge of this vast ledge, and not merely in a little village in a localized flat country; the sun and spreading southern sky, therefore took on an elemental grim dun it would not otherwise have had. After dinner, the sky again became overcast, and the landscape lies quilt and brooding—Since coming home from New York, I have had the usual trouble adjusting myself to my daily life. On the one hand were the confused disturbing impressions of