I will achieve it only [being an artist] by perseverance, and by openly asserting my determination to emancipate myself, [but].. ..I both lament and … - Berthe Morisot

Another stroll along the quays with Julie asking questions all the time. We stood for a long time examining the sun and the planet at a mapmaker's.. ..There in the Tuileries Gardens.. ..sitting down I began to ponder over my painting of the garden, watching the shadows on the sand and on the roof of the Louvre, and trying to find the relationship between light and shade. Julie saw pink in the light and purple in the shadows.

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.

My work is going badly.. ..it is always the same story: I don't know where to start. I made an attempt in a field, but the moment I had set up my easel more than fifty boys and girls were swarming about me, shouting and gesticulating. On a boat one has another kind of difficulty. Everything sways, there is an infernal lap of water; one has the sun and the wind to cope with; the boats change position every minute, etc.. .The view from my window is pretty to look at, but not to paint. Views from above are almost always incomprehensible; as a result of all this I am not doing much..