"In the back of the garden of the hostelry where I am staying there is a settee; when one is sitting there you get precisely a nice view on the abandoned castle of Vorden. Often I see the old reverend clergyman sitting there, certainly for having a real rural view on the meadow, or for being able to turn his eyes to the old grayed-up walls of the castle, and coming in that way to the thought how all human labor is brought back to Nothing by the breath of the ages. ."

“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.”