Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, July 21, 1923

Last night in the middle of the night I woke up.  We had gone to bed late; Frances had come over from Cleveland and we talked a lot, and the baby had been restless.  I had tossed about a lot before going to sleep – hot & stuffy. Outside the maple tree looked different – I was only partly awake, and it looked like the pine trees did at night in Camp Jackson – It seemed to typify to me the chasteness of solitude, and there flooded to my mind all the despised sensations of my daily work – the heavy material cocksure salesmen, the commonplace work that [passes] for art & the squabbles & colossal energy that must be put into it; and this pine  tree outside, how it filled me full of peace & consolation – some day I would find it again –.  The impression that it was really a South Carolinian pine tree lasted until daybreak when thunder commenced to boom in the west.
--Charles E. Burchfield, July 21, 1923