Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (2 May 1889) ... probably less so than taking a house again;
besides, the thought of beginning to live alone again is an
absolute horror to me.
I should like to enlist. What I am afraid of is - as my
accident is known all over town here - that they would refuse
me, but the thing I dread, or rather the thing that makes me
faint-hearted, is the possibility, the probability of a refusal
here. If I had some acquaintance who could shove me into the
Legion for five years, I should go.
Only I do not want this to be thought a fresh act of madness
on my part, and that is why I speak of it to you, as well as to
M. Salles, so that if I did go, it would be in all serenity and
after mature consideration.
For bear in mind, to go on spending money on this painting
when things might come to such a pitch that you would be short
of money for your own housekeeping would be atrocious, and you
know well that the chances of success are abominable. Besides,
I am so convinced that it is an irresistible...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (7 December 1889) ... of a house front and small figures .
I think of you and Jo very often, but feeling as though
there were an enormous distance between here and Paris and it
was years since I saw you. I hope you are well. For myself I
have nothing to complain of, I am feeling absolutely normal, so
to speak, but without an idea for the future, and really I do
not know what is going to happen, and perhaps I rather avoid
facing this question, feeling that I can do nothing about
it.
I have also finished the copy of the “Diggers”
or nearly so .
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his mother (c. 12 June 1890) ... - one grasps no more of it than
that.
For me, life may
well continue in solitude. I have never
perceived those to whom I have been most attached other than as
through a glass, darkly.
And yet there is good reason why my work is sometimes more
harmonious nowadays. Painting is unlike anything else. Last
year I read somewhere that writing a book or painting a picture
was like having a child. I don't go so far as to make a claim
for myself, however - I have always considered the last-named
the most natural and the best of the three - if indeed
they are comparable. That is why I at times try my very
hardest, although it is this very hard work that turns out to
be the least understood, and though for me it is the only link
between the past and the present.
There are a lot of painters in this village - next door a
whole family of Americans who paint away day in, day out. I
haven't seen any of their work yet - it's unlikely to be up to
much.
Theo, his...
