A bitterly cold gale from the S.W. (with a little snow) that made driving difficult. To keep straight, I had to pull on the wheel as hard as tho turning a corner. Houses broke the force of the gale enough so that it was difficult to keep from pulling over into the ditch; the resulting momentary lull in the gale, was like a gust of wind, in reverse.
P.M. The Philharmonic Concert – “all-Tchaikovsky” program. It was all fine – even the violin concerto captured me, the violinist’s virtuosity thrilling me in spite of my prejudice. The last number was the great “Fifth”. The first and last movements move me the most – the first for its sullen pessimism, and the latter for its stormy triumph.
Last night I opened the “Elevators” – In spite of its reception, I still feel it is potentially a fine picture. But I let it go away too soon. I tried subduing the boat with charcoal and it improves at once, I see too, where the right hand sky is too dark, and too “busy”, and that somehow the eye must be centered on the right-middle foreground.
Charles E. Burchfield, January 22, 1939