"My dear Rousseau, I do not know if the two sketches which I enclose will be of any use to you. I merely wish to show you where I would place the figures in your picture, that is all. You know better than I do what is best, and what you wish to do. These last few days we have had some effects of hoarfrost, which I am not going to try and describe, feeling how useless this would be! I will content myself with saying that God alone can ever have seen such marvelously fairy-like scenes. I only wish that you could have been here to see them. Have you finished your pictures? Because you have only a month more in which to finish your 'Forest', and it is very important indeed that this picture should be in the Salon. In fact, it must absolutely be there.. .Good-bye, my dear Rousseau, and accept a whole pile of cordial good wishes."

“They wish to force me into their drawing-room art, to break my spirit. No, no! I was born as a peasant and a peasant I will die. I say what I feel. I paint things as I see them, and I will hold my ground without retreating one sabot; if necessary, I will fight for honour.”

“Barbizon Thursday, My dear Sensier: M. Letrone, whom I do not know.. ..came yesterday , and bought my _005.jpg 'Women Putting Bread in the Oven', for 800 francs, and another little picture which I am to make from a sketch which he has seen for 400 francs. This gentleman has a son who has been, and, for all I know, may be still, a pupil of Rousseau. I am working, in spite of frequent interruptions, at my picture of 'A Woman Sewing by the Light of a Lamp' for the Dutchman . It is already in a forward state, but trivial matters disturb me too often.”

“I remember being awakened one morning by voices in the room where I slept. There was a whizzing sound which made itself heard between the voices now and then. It was the sound of spinning-wheels, and the voices were those of women spinning and carding wool. The dust of the room danced in a ray of sunshine which shone through the high narrow window that lighted the room..”

“Gautier's article is very good. I begin to feel a little more contented. His remarks about my thick colours are also very just. The critics who see and judge my pictures are not forced to know that in painting them I am not guided by a definite intention, although I do my utmost to try and attain the aim which I have in sight, independently of methods. People are not even obliged to know why it is that I work in this way, with all its faults.”

“You are sitting under the trees, feeling all the ease, all the tranquility that can possibly be enjoyed; you see some poor figure laden with a faggot come turning out of some little path. The unexpected and always striking way in which this figure appears to you carries your mind instantly to the sadness of human life.. .In tilled lands you see these figures digging and delving. From time to time you see one straighten his loins and wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. Is this the gay frolicsome work in which some people would have us believe? Yet here for me is the real humanity, the great poetry.”

“I came to Paris with all my ideas of art fixed, and I have never found it necessary to change them. I have been more or less in love with this master, or that method in art, but I have not modified any fundamental opinions. You have seen my first drawing, made at home without a master, without a model, without a guide. I have never done anything different since. You have never seen me paint except in a low tone; demi-teinte is necessary to me in order to sharpen my eyes and clear my thoughts, - it has been my best teacher.”