Read Online Hundreds and Thousands by Emily Carr - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Emily Carr
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squatting immovable, unperturbed, staring, guarding their precious secrets till something happens. At ’em again, old girl, they’re worth the big struggle.
JULY 28TH
A long spiel in the paper tonight, my name figuring in the headline — quite unnecessary. I am mentioned in connection withtwo watercolour exhibits now travelling abroad. Why then do I go to bed heavy and heartachy? Write-ups depress me horribly. I feel as if somebody was making a mistake, especially after a day of wrestling with that mountain. The dismal failure I have made of it makes my spirit sick and bedraggled. I must get that lifting strength, but how?
The women’s clubs are sending “Vanquished” to Amsterdam for the Convention of the Confederation of Women Something-or-Other. Three women selected it today. Goodness, when I brought it out I felt maybe I’d gone back since I painted that three or four years ago. I believe it
is
stronger, and my heart is sick. Perhaps I’m approaching my dotage and my best is done. Oh, I must look up and pray!
I have wiped out the village at the foot of the mountain. Now I shall paint the little cowed hollow that the village sits in and maybe toss the huts in last of all. It is the mountain I
must
express, all else subservient to that great dominating strength and spirit brooding there.
JULY 29TH
Oh, my mountain! I am like a tiny rowboat trying to tow it into port and the sea is rough.
JULY 30TH
I have contraried my usual custom and ignored my painting this whole Sabbath. The day was perfect and the garden delicious; so the dogs, monk and I sat there and
lived.
Lizzie came to supper, and Henry who was alone tonight. I read Fred Housser’s
Whitman to America.
It’s wonderful, a splendid book to nourish the soul. Fred knows his Whitman and Whitman knew life from thesoul’s standpoint. What glorious excursions he made into the unknown! He wrote, “Darest thou now, O soul, Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region, Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow”; and he
dared.
We, Henry and I, went to the beach after and lit a fire and watched the moon rise across the water. There was absolute peace down there.
OH, TODAY I AM akin to the worm, the caterpillar and the grub! Where are the high places? I can’t reach anything, even the low middle.
The sketch should make the mouth water, but the finished picture should fill and satisfy with a sense of completeness. My sketches move people, not my pictures. I’m a
frost!
AUGUST 7TH
Two visitors today, one male, inflated and bloated with conceit like a drowned pup, one female, a writer, rather interesting, the mother of a fifteen-year-old boy yet ogling the “bloated pup” as if his sex made him
wonderful.
I toted out canvases and took the opportunity to scan them closely for any sign of falling below par. They do; they are indefinite and weak. I have wrestled again with my mountain. It is much like a great corsetless woman or a sitting pillow. I wish I could sit before it again and realize it fiercely, vitally.
I AM HAPPY . At last I have found a use for those fool newspaper write-ups I detest so. I found it in the Lunatic Asylum. I went out to Wilkinson Road Mental Home to see Harold. He was unusually clear-headed and happy. He gets the keepers and patients to cut out any notes about my painting and hoards them and rejoicesover them. “I just danced round the ward for joy when I read they’d sent your picture to Amsterdam,” he said. “Oh, I was so glad.” Poor lad, he begged me to do him a sketch of Kispiax Village where he lived with the missionaries. It is amongst his poor bits of treasures. He has ceased fighting against the bars now and is happy and contented. They let him come with me into the grounds today, first time he’d been outside in months. We sat on a bench in the shade and I unpacked my bag — such things as one would take to a child, and he near forty, apples and lavender from my garden; chocolate and a cake of sweet
JULY 28TH
A long spiel in the paper tonight, my name figuring in the headline — quite unnecessary. I am mentioned in connection withtwo watercolour exhibits now travelling abroad. Why then do I go to bed heavy and heartachy? Write-ups depress me horribly. I feel as if somebody was making a mistake, especially after a day of wrestling with that mountain. The dismal failure I have made of it makes my spirit sick and bedraggled. I must get that lifting strength, but how?
The women’s clubs are sending “Vanquished” to Amsterdam for the Convention of the Confederation of Women Something-or-Other. Three women selected it today. Goodness, when I brought it out I felt maybe I’d gone back since I painted that three or four years ago. I believe it
is
stronger, and my heart is sick. Perhaps I’m approaching my dotage and my best is done. Oh, I must look up and pray!
I have wiped out the village at the foot of the mountain. Now I shall paint the little cowed hollow that the village sits in and maybe toss the huts in last of all. It is the mountain I
must
express, all else subservient to that great dominating strength and spirit brooding there.
JULY 29TH
Oh, my mountain! I am like a tiny rowboat trying to tow it into port and the sea is rough.
JULY 30TH
I have contraried my usual custom and ignored my painting this whole Sabbath. The day was perfect and the garden delicious; so the dogs, monk and I sat there and
lived.
Lizzie came to supper, and Henry who was alone tonight. I read Fred Housser’s
Whitman to America.
It’s wonderful, a splendid book to nourish the soul. Fred knows his Whitman and Whitman knew life from thesoul’s standpoint. What glorious excursions he made into the unknown! He wrote, “Darest thou now, O soul, Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region, Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow”; and he
dared.
We, Henry and I, went to the beach after and lit a fire and watched the moon rise across the water. There was absolute peace down there.
OH, TODAY I AM akin to the worm, the caterpillar and the grub! Where are the high places? I can’t reach anything, even the low middle.
The sketch should make the mouth water, but the finished picture should fill and satisfy with a sense of completeness. My sketches move people, not my pictures. I’m a
frost!
AUGUST 7TH
Two visitors today, one male, inflated and bloated with conceit like a drowned pup, one female, a writer, rather interesting, the mother of a fifteen-year-old boy yet ogling the “bloated pup” as if his sex made him
wonderful.
I toted out canvases and took the opportunity to scan them closely for any sign of falling below par. They do; they are indefinite and weak. I have wrestled again with my mountain. It is much like a great corsetless woman or a sitting pillow. I wish I could sit before it again and realize it fiercely, vitally.
I AM HAPPY . At last I have found a use for those fool newspaper write-ups I detest so. I found it in the Lunatic Asylum. I went out to Wilkinson Road Mental Home to see Harold. He was unusually clear-headed and happy. He gets the keepers and patients to cut out any notes about my painting and hoards them and rejoicesover them. “I just danced round the ward for joy when I read they’d sent your picture to Amsterdam,” he said. “Oh, I was so glad.” Poor lad, he begged me to do him a sketch of Kispiax Village where he lived with the missionaries. It is amongst his poor bits of treasures. He has ceased fighting against the bars now and is happy and contented. They let him come with me into the grounds today, first time he’d been outside in months. We sat on a bench in the shade and I unpacked my bag — such things as one would take to a child, and he near forty, apples and lavender from my garden; chocolate and a cake of sweet
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