Your phrase: 'I am working hard at growing old', is absolutely me. What if you were always to speak in my place.. - Berthe Morisot

He [Manet] came about one o'clock [the day for submitting works for The Paris Salon of 1870]. he found it [ 'Reading', Berthe's double-portrait of her mother with her pregnant sister Edma] very good, except for the lower parts of the dress. He took the brushes and put in a few accents.. ..mother was in ecstasies. That is where my misfortune began. Once started, nothing could stop him, from the skirt he went to the bust, from the bust to the head, from the head to the background. He cracked a thousand jokes, laughed like a madman, handed me the palette, took it back; finally by five o'clock in the afternoon we had made the best caricature you have ever seen.

Dear sir, Edouard Manet told me that you were kind enough to bring the sketch that you completed of him [Monet painted Manet in his garden, Argenteuil, Summer 1874]. I did not have the time to thank you before leaving Paris [with Eugene Manet, just married]. I treasure your gift all the more because I attribute much value to what you do. My husband and I, when we look out at the English seascapes which around us, often speak of you talent and what you will achieve from this movement.......[unreadable – about the Impressionists?].

..the glimpse of the dome of St. Paul's through the forest of yellow masts, the whole thing bathed in a golden haze.