Dear Theo,

Here are two more cartes-de-visite, to give you an idea of that decoration for Hermans, of which these two paintings are part.

Right now Rappard is here and sends his regards. He has made a very beautiful study of a girl's head, and one of a farmyard, and two small ones of ox wagons. And he intends to make several more that will follow.

I am working on the figure of a shepherd with a wide cloak, which is of the same size as the woman spinning.

And in addition, a study of two pollard willows, with the yellow leaves of poplars behind, and a glimpse of the fields.

It is extraordinarily beautiful here at present, with the autumn effects. In a fortnight's time we shall have the real chûte des feuilles [fall of leaves] when all the leaves on the trees fall off in a few days.

If I have some luck with that shepherd, it will become a figure in which there will be something of the very old Brabant. In short, it is not ready yet, and we shall see how it turns out.

I think you might have just replied in a few words to what I wrote the other day, if only to clear up your own ideas perhaps. For my part, in spite of much old and new sorrow, I feel less and less doubt about my own future, both as to my work and as to myself.

But I know that in both respects I shall have a hard fight, that both my work and myself will meet with much opposition, will make a bad impression in many cases, though not in all.

And as to my work, every day I become keener on it, and I get back my high spirits, as if I were twenty.

By all means I must manage to go to Antwerp sometime; often enough in the past I sold things that the experts had declared unsaleable. If I wanted to sell a thing then, it did not always fall through, if I really wanted someone to take a certain thing. And perhaps you are right, that I had better find my own way for my work, and in short, become my own dealer. Goodbye,

Yours sincerely, Vincent