I agreed with my father's servant, to travel secretly to Greece [c. 1825-26], to help them in their War for freedom against the Turks]; everything wa… - Johannes Warnardus Bilders

People call this beautiful? - no, they are crazy, or I am mad! – How I learned now at Oosterbeek [c. 1834-36 that I should look at Nature completely different! In the beginning I could not make anything good; I soon realized that I had to start all over again.

Nothing has happened since two or three days.. ..nothing special, only the Ladies van Loon have visited me this morning, I have shown them a few of my studies, and talked a lot about and {[w|nl:Vorden|Vorden}}. Now I could tell you further, how little I still feel at home, how a certain nostalgia or quiet sorrow plunges me down, and how an indefinite hurry for an even more uncertain future dominates my whole [being?]; but why should I bother You by telling You my inner life.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek).

I worked hard the whole day, so that I am very tired now. Yesterday I made the sketch of the castle [in Vorden] 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 [ Swartzwald [?], but much more stronger and sadder. I hope to show the people how beautiful, how profoundly poetical the castle [is].. ..please save this thumbnail-sketch [drawn in the letter, on the same paper] 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.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek).