Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, between May 20 and May 27, 1923

To be a strong courageous healthy spirit— delighting in the natural world, seeing it with the innocence of a child to whom each commonplace stone, blade of grass & sapling is a miracle. That is the secret of eternal youth, the secret that Beethoven had. Happy is the man who can go out into the fields & woods and hills, a free innocent being, unburdened by the world’s smartness & sophistication, its smug acceptance of fleshly indulgences, to whom life & nature are eternal mysteries.
Charles E. Burchfield, between May 20-27, 1923