Olson declares this day to be Sunday and in honor of the day he gave me a cup of milk for junket. And in honor of the day, whatever it is, I worked so hard that now I’m tired out. The day began with snow and continued with it. It blustered and blew much as a day in March and the bay looked wild. And now to-night it is clear and starlight. Will the north wind begin to blow again to-morrow? The chances are that it will and Seward and the sending of my mail will be as far away as ever. I painted with some success for the snow makes the cabin lighter. Really my picture looks well. Eight canvases are far along so that I’m proud of them. We cut wood to-day of course; it would be great fun if only we’d more minutes of daylight to spare. Steamer must be due in Seward now. We’ve seen none for two weeks or longer.
Monday, November twenty-fifth.
It rages from the northeast! The bay is a wild expanse of breakers. They bear into our cove and thunder on the beach. A mad day and a wild night. And Seward is as far off as ever! It is now my hope that a steamer will go to Seward before me. Olson finds by his diary that none has been seen to go there for two weeks. I began two new pictures to-day trying for the first time to paint after dark. My lamp is so inadequate in this dark interior—it burns only a three-quarter inch wick—that I can work only in black and white. But I’ve laid in the whole picture in that way. Rockwell spends several hours a day out-of-doors exploring the woods, searching out porcupine trails and caves. It is weeks since I have stopped my work even for a walk. In this “out-of-doors life” I see little of out-of-doors. It’s a blessing to me to have to saw wood every day.
“GO TO BED”
I finished Coomeraswamy’s “Indian Essays” to-day, an illuminating and inspiring book. Coomeraswamy defines mysticism as a belief in the unity of life. The creed of an artist concerns us only when we mean by it the tendency of his spirit. (How hard it is to speak of these intangible things and not use words loosely and without exact meaning.) I think that whatever of the mystic is in a man is essentially inseparable from him; it is his by the grace of God. After all, the qualities by which all of us become known are those of which we are ourselves least conscious. The best of me is what is quite impulsive; and, looking at myself for a moment with a critic’s eye, the forms that occur in my art, the gestures, the spirit of the whole of it is in fact nothing but an exact pictorial record of my unconscious living idealism.
Tuesday, November twenty-sixth.
After a terribly stormy and cold night the day was fair with the wind comfortably settled in the north as if he meant to stay there. Only at night has it been calm. To-night again is so and if I had not Rockwell on my hands to make me timid I’d go at night to Seward. Olson was a real Santa Claus to-day. First he gave us Schmier Kase, then a good salt salmon—two years old which he said we’d “better try”—and to-night a lot of butter churned by him from goat’s milk. It looks like good butter and, with the added coloring matter, more palatable than the natural white butter of the goat. We felled two trees to-day—fairly small ones. We consume a vast amount of wood with our all-night fire. Well—to-morrow, let us say again, we’ll be off to Seward.
Wednesday, November twenty-seventh.
To-day, if we had known how the weather would turn, we should have started. It was lovely, cold but fair with the wind in the south-west. It had in the morning all appearances of a heavy blow and we failed to get in shape to take advantage of its calming as the afternoon advanced. At any rate I have a little picture of it with the soft haze of the day and the loose clouds. I painted besides on the large canvas of Superman begun a few days ago. Olson lent me his “grub-box” to use, a wooden box of small grocery size with a cover fastened with a strap and buckle. Such a box is part of the outfit of every man on the Yukon. My emergency grub is now in it, my letters, Christmas presents, and all that’s bound for Seward. Rockwell took Squirlie out for an airing to-day, wrapping him with tender care in a sweater. They went for a long way into the woods like good companions. Then Rockwell drew a portrait of his muffled pet which is destined for Clara’s Christmas.