"This afternoon I had put myself down on this sweet spot, very tired of painting .. .. I was completely immersed in thinking of You.. .I would rather like to.. ..thank you, dear and beloved Lady, for the right judgments and remarks which You gave me in this sweet letter. I solemnly promise you that I will use them for my benefit, and will spent all my powers as an artist, to make your attentions more worthy to me. ."

“Then - being in two minds - in my father's courtyard, I counted the buttons of my coat: soldier or painter, soldier, painter, soldier, painter.. ..the last button told me: painter. So it was decided by chance that I would become a painter .”

“|Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century/The Forerunners of the Hague School, by Gerharda Hermina Marius”

“Just start, your palette will help you. (if you worried about a painting or dread to start painting”

“I worked hard the whole day, so that I am very tired now. Yesterday I made the sketch of the castle on the canvas and today I painted the sky, the whole day long. I made the composition even more simple by leaving out the creel; the air is painted in the spirit of the , but much more stronger and sadder. I hope to show the people how beautiful, how profoundly poetical the castle .. ..please save this thumbnail-sketch and also my previous letter. Who knows the descendants - when reading them, and looking at the sketch - will say: Look, it was in this way how Bilder's very lovely painting was discussed at the House 't Velde, and how it came into life in Vorden. Good-by, my dear Lady.. .”

“Yes, of course you want every shot to be a duck-bird”

“On a certain day I packed my things and went to Oosterbeek . I saw a man lying out of the window somewhere. Farmer! are there rooms for rent nearby? - Yes sir, even here. - I went in, saw a beautiful, suitable painting room; that satisfied me, I ask for nothing more. One hundred fifty guilders was the rent . I offered a hundred sixty when he also worked the garden and planted a lot of red cabbage, because I like to see that.”