Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 26 September 1883) ...
As I feel the need to speak out frankly, I cannot hide from
you that I am overcome by a feeling of great anxiety,
depression, a je ne sais quoi of discouragement and despair
more than I can tell. And if I cannot find comfort, it will be
too overwhelming....
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 27 September 1883) ... was better again, so I went out to
paint. But it was impossible, I was missing four or five
colours, and I came home so miserable. I am sorry to have
risked myself so far without a sufficient supply. I know from
experience how it ends when one undertakes...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 3 October 1883) ... For I had had paint sent from Furnée, as I thought on
the subject like you wrote in your letter, that by absorbing
myself in my work, and quite losing myself in it, my mood would
change, and it has already greatly improved.
But at times...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (12 October 1883) ... is - your place no longer knows
you.
I felt too melancholy
to try to redress things, and I do not
remember ever having been in a mood to speak about it to
anybody the way I do to you now. Because, to my surprise, in
your letter I read...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 29-2 Oct-Nov 1883) ... do that,
no more than commit suicide.
I too have my moments of deep melancholy, but I say again,
both you and I ought to regard the idea of disappearing or
making oneself scarce as becoming neither you nor me.
And notwithstanding all, one...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 29-2 Oct-Nov 1883) ... upside down, that won't do for me!
I feel my own incurable melancholy, caused by certain
developments in the past, and then they want to tell me that my
mood is “the rash fanaticism of youth”! Far, very
far from it. In your mood...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (late September 1884) ... and a beautiful
landscape with sheep.
Recently I have been working very hard; I believe, what with
other emotions, I have even overworked myself. For I am in a
melancholy mood, and all these things have combined to upset me
in such a way that there...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (mid November 1885) ... a painter must be only a painter.
And then, don't forget that I am not a born melancholic. The
general nickname I have in this neighborhood is “ `t
schildermenneke,” [The little painter fellow] and it is
not without a certain dose of malice...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 3 May 1888) ... Paris. I paid for it nicely afterward! When I stopped drinking,
when I stopped smoking so much, when I began to think again
instead of trying not to think - Good Lord, the depression and
the prostration of it!
