Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Mar. 31, (Wed) –
I had intended driving to the Zoar Valley today, after stopping off at the Chestnut Ridge Park Ravine for a few studies. Once I was in the ravine however, I decided to spend the whole day there.
It was a clean, brisk day, a few scattered clouds, and with a sharp tang to the air. I spent the whole day tramping up and down the main ravine, making studies, and saturating myself with the “feel” of the banks, and the rushing water. Yesterdays [sic] rain had convened the usually quiet little brooklet into a very gay rushing torrent. So completely did the personality of the stream enter into my consciousness, that at night when I lay down to sleep, my pillow seemed to be full of the sound, and closing my eyes, I saw endless frothy cataracts, and little waterfalls, that came from an infinity above, and vanished downwards, thru a succession of ravines, that likewise extended to another, and lower infinitely. In retrospection, the banks became steeper, the downward progressions more abrupt, and dangerous; as I lay in bed, growing drowsier, my whole being seemed submerged in this noisy headlong torrent, until I took was rushing downward, a part of it.
When I ascended to the “Upper world” to eat my lunch, a strong warm current of air, with a strong heady odor as of hepaticas, rushed toward me, and a glare of light from the brilliant sky enfolded me. I parked my car at a point where I could look out of the vast lowland to the northwest, where lay Buffalo, and the lake (the latter was visible only by a glare of light from its surface, that penetrated the mists.