Article by Dr. M. B. Medes da Costa (December 2 1910) ... Vincent ought to have
another try.
But before long the trouble would start afresh, and then he
would come to me in the morning with an announcement I knew so
well, “Mendes, last night I used the cudgel again,”
or, “Mendes, last night I got myself locked out
again.” It should be observed that this was some sort of
self-chastisement resorted to whenever he thought he had
neglected a duty. In fact, during those days he lived in his
uncle's house, Rear Admiral J. van Gogh, director and commander
of the naval base at Amsterdam; the house was a big building
inside the naval dockyard. Well, whenever Vincent felt that his
thoughts had strayed further than they should have, he took a
cudgel to bed with him and belabored his back with it; and
whenever he was convinced he had forfeited the privilege of
passing the night in his bed, he slunk out of the house
unobserved at night, and then, when he came back and found the
door double-locked, was forced to go and lie on...
Newspaper article (April 12 1922) ... really don't care,
sir.”
Also, in those days he was always searching for some outward
means of self-denial and self-chastisement. He never sat down
at a table, but kept his copybook on his knees. ”Van
Gogh, do sit down at the table when you are writing,” the
master would say.
And Van Gogh would reply: “Oh, don't worry, sir; this
is good enough for me!”
When he spoke at a meeting, he would read a long discourse
he had already written down on paper - a thing little
appreciated in that Flemish land.
It is known that soon afterward he went to the Walloon
country as an evangelist, labouring among the miners; he gave
away all his clothes, so that he wore nothing more than a pair
of trousers and a jacket; he slept on a plank.
But he did not forget his fellow pupils. When he went to see
one of them - an army conscript in Mons - he carried under his
arm a large portfolio full of drawings of miners - all very
stiff and wooden, he...
Exerpt from La vie tragique de Vincent van Gogh (1939) ... and
lived like working people.
But our evangelist very soon showed toward his lodgings the
peculiar feelings which dominated him: he considered the
accommodation far too luxurious; it shocked his Christian
humility, he could not bear being lodged comfortably, in a way
so different from that of the miners. Therefore he left these
people who had surrounded him with sympathy and went to live in
a little hovel. There he was all alone; he had no furniture,
and people said he slept crouched down in a corner of the
hearth.