To tell the truth, peasant subjects suit my nature best, for I must confess, at the risk of your taking me to be a Socialist, that the human side is … - Jean-François Millet

I work like a gang of slaves; the day seems five months long. My wish to make a winter landscape has become a fixed idea. I want to do a sheep picture and have all sorts of projects in my head. If you could see how beautiful the forest is! I rush there at the end of the day, after my work, and I come back every time crushed. It is so calm, such a terrible grandeur, that I find myself really frightened. I don't know what those fellows, the trees, are saying to each other.. ..we don't know their language, that is all; but I am quite sure of this - they do not make puns!.. ..Send [me] 3 burnt sienna, 2 raw ditto, 3 Naples's yellow, 1 burnt Italian earth, 2 yellow ocher, 2 burnt umber, 1 bottle of raw oil.

They [the Paris art-critics] 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.

Sir, I have completed the picture ['Les Faneurs / Haymakers', 1849] which you were kind enough to order, and have executed it with all possible care and conscientiousness. I ought to send it to the Exhibition, where it could be properly seen and judged. I pray you to be good enough to pay me the balance of 1,100 francs which is still due on this commission. My great need of money obliges me to ask you to let me have it as soon as possible. Accept, sir, the assurance of my pro- found respect - J. F. Millet. 8, Rue du Delta [Paris]'''