I Work At My Garden All The

I Am Enslaved To My Work, Always Wanting The Impossible, And Never, I Believe, Have I Been Less Favoured By The Endlessly Changeable Weather.

I Still Have A Lot Of Pleasure Doing Them, But As Time Goes By I Come To Appreciate More Clearly Which Paintings Are Good And Which Should Be Discarded.

My Aim Is To Give You Only The Things With Which I Am Completely Satisfied, Even If It Means Asking You A Little More [time] For Them... For If I Were To Do Otherwise I'd Turn Into A Mere Painting Machine And You Would Be Landed With A Pile Of Incomplete Work Which Would Put Off The Most Enthusiastic Of Art Collectors.

These Landscapes Of Water And Reflections Have Become An Obsession. It's Quite Beyond My Powers At My Age, And Yet I Want To Succeed In Expressing What I Feel.

Ninety Per Cent Of The Theory Of Impressionist Painting Is In . . . Ruskin's Elements.