The Letters of Vincent van Gogh Read online

  After his trial month with Mr Stokes, Van Gogh had to make up his mind whether or not he would stay on. Mr Stokes had plans for moving his school to Isleworth, near London, and had asked Vincent to go along, too, but could not promise him any pay beyond his board and lodging. Once again Van Gogh began looking for another post and - perhaps mindful of Eliot’s Scenes of Clerical Life - he wrote to Theo that it was likely to be ‘a job between clergyman and missionary among working people in the suburbs of London’. In a note to a prospective employer he gave a fair resume of his position at the time.

  [D] [enclosed with letter 69]

  [17 June 1876]

  Dear Sir,

  A clergyman’s son who, because he has to work for his living, has neither the money nor the time to keep up studies at King’s College, and is in any case already a few years older than is usual for those who go there and has not yet even started the preliminary studies in Latin and Greek, would, all this notwithstanding, be very glad to find a position connected with the church, albeit the position of a university-educated clergyman is beyond his reach.

  My father is a clergyman in a village in Holland. I went to school when I was 11, staying on until I was 16. I then had to choose a profession and did not know which to choose. Through the kind offices of one of my uncles, a partner in the firm of Goupil & Cie, art dealers and publishers of engravings, I obtained a position in his business in The Hague. I was employed in this business for 3 years. From there I went to London to learn English and, after 2 years, moved on to Paris. Various circumstances have, however, compelled me to leave Messrs G. & Cie, and for the past 2 months I have been teaching at Mr Stokes’s school in Ramsgate. But since my aim is a position in connection with the church, I must look elsewhere.

  Although I have not been trained for the church, perhaps my past experience of travels, of living in different countries, of association with various people, poor and rich, religious and irreligious, of work of various kinds, days of manual labour followed by days of office work, &c, perhaps also my ability to speak various languages, may in part make up for my not having been to a university.

  But the reason I would much sooner give for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and everything to do with the church, which may lie dormant from time to time but always reawakens; and, if I may say so, although with a sense of great inadequacy and imperfection: the Love of God and of man.

  And also, when I think of my past life and of my father’s house in the village in Holland, the sense of: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son: make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me a sinner.’

  When I lived in London I often attended your church and have not forgotten you. Now I would ask for your recommendation as I look for a position, and also that you keep your fatherly eye on me should I find such a position. I have been left a good deal to myself, and I believe your fatherly eye will do me good, now that:

  The early dew of morning

  has passed away at noon.1

  Thanking you in anticipation for what you may feel able to do for me -

  In July 1876 Van Gogh, who had meanwhile turned twenty-three, was finally offered a post as an assistant preacher by the Reverend Thomas Slade-Jones, a Methodist minister in Isleworth. Vincent lived with his employer and his wife, Annie, in their house, Holme Court. Between giving lessons to his pupils, he wrote long letters to his brother full of atmospheric descriptions of the local landscape. He relished English poetry and hymns, copying them out at length in letters and poetry albums for family and friends.

  He enjoyed the city, ‘especially the streets in the evening when it is more or less foggy and the lamps are lit’, or when the sun went down in a park ‘behind the elm trees, whose leaves are now coloured bronze. Over the grass lay that mist Anna wrote about, and a stream runs through the park in which you can see swans swimming. The acacia trees in the playground have already lost many of their leaves; they can be seen through the window in front of my desk - sometimes they stand out dark against the sky, sometimes the sun can be seen rising red in the mist behind them.’

  Van Gogh’s favourite reading at this period was John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. He associated it with a painting by the Victorian artist George Henry Boughton, which reminded him of a walk he made to Canterbury in June. The pilgrim in the painting seemed evocative of his own path through life and inspired his first sermon, which he gave at the end of October.

  74 [D] [part]

  Isleworth, 26 Aug. 1876

  My dear Theo,

  […] It is towards evening. A sandy path leads over the hills to a mountain on which one can see the Holy City, lit by the sun setting red behind the grey evening clouds. On the path, a pilgrim on his way to the city. He is already tired and asks a woman in black, who is standing on the path and whose name is ‘Sorrowful yet alway rejoicing’:

  Does the road go uphill then all the way?

  ‘Yes to the very end.’

  And will the journey take all day long?

  ‘From morn till night my friend.’1

  The landscape through which the path runs is very beautiful, brown heathland with birches and pine trees here and there and patches of yellow sand, and in the distance the mountains against the sun. Truly, it is not a picture but an inspiration.

  I am writing to you between lessons. Today I took a few moments off to go for a walk between the hedgerows with ‘John and Theogenes’ to study it. How I wish you could just see the playground and the garden beyond, now, in the twilight. The gas is flickering in the school and one can hear the companionable sound of the boys at their lessons. Now and then one of them starts to hum a snatch of some hymn or other, and then there is something of the ‘old faith’ in me. I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed. I want - to be bound to Christ with unbreakable bonds and to feel these bonds. To be sorrowful yet alway rejoicing. To live in and for Christ, to be one of the poor in His kingdom, steeped in the leaven, filled with His spirit, impelled by His Love, reposing in the Father with the repose of which I wrote to you in my last letter. To become one who finds repose in Him alone, who desires nothing but Him on earth, and who abides in the Love of God and Christ, in whom we are fervently bound to one another. […]

  79 [D]

  Isleworth [31 October 1876]

  Dear Theo,

  It is high time you heard from me again. Thank God the recovery is continuing. I am longing so much for Christmas - it will probably be upon us before we know it, though it still seems so far away.

  Theo, last Sunday your brother preached for the first time in God’s house, in the place of which it is written: ‘In this place will I give peace’. Enclosed is a copy of what I said - may it be the first of many.

  It was a bright autumn day and a beautiful walk from here to Richmond along the Thames, in which were mirrored the tall chestnut trees with their burden of yellow leaves and the bright blue sky, and through the tops of those trees the part of Richmond that lies on the hill, the houses with their red roofs and uncurtained windows and green gardens and the grey spire above them, and below, the great grey bridge, with the tall poplars on either side, over which the people could be seen going by as small black figures.

  When I stood in the pulpit I felt like someone emerging from a dark vault underground into the friendly light of day, and it is a wonderful thought that wherever I shall go from this day forward I shall be preaching the Gospel. To do that well, one must have the Gospel in one’s heart; may He grant that. God says, Let there be light! And there is light. He speaks and it is there. He commands and there it stands and stands firm. He, who calls us, is faithful, and shall accomplish it.

  You know enough of the world, Theo, to realize that a poor preacher is quite alone as far as the world is concerned - but He can increasingly arouse in us awareness and belief. ‘And yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.’


  I know in whom to place my trust

  Though day and night may come and go.

  I know the rock on which I build:

  He never fails who saves me yet.

  And come the evening of my life,

  Worn out with care and strife I will,

  For each day granted me on earth,

  The air with praises to Thee fill.

  (Evangelical Hymns 280: 5).

  Glory, Christians by your left

  and by your right side God abides!

  Where helplessly I lose my way

  Or suffer sorely, God is there!

  Where dear friends’ hands in vain reach out

  to help me, God is there!

  In death and in death’s thrall,

  Yes, God is everywhere.

  (Evangelical Hymns 143: 3).

  But my boy, how I long for Christmas and for all of you. Once again I feel as if I have grown years older in these few months.

  The panting hart who slipped the chase,

  Craves no more fiercely for the joys

  of the refreshing water brooks,

  Than doth my soul now long for God.

  Aye, my soul is athirst for God:

  Dear God of life, oh when,

  Shall I Thy countenance approach

  And magnify Thy name with praise?

  Oh, my soul why art cast down,

  and so disquieted withal?

  Trust thou in God as didst of yore,

  Seek in His praises all thy joy,

  How oft hath not in days gone by

  He changed thy fortune for the best.

  Hope thou in God, lift up your eyes,

  For yet I shall his praises sing.

  (After Psalm 42: 1 and 5).

  Whenever we meet disappointment and sickness and trouble, my boy, let us thank Him for having brought us this hour, and let us not forget meekness, for it is written: ‘On this man will I look, even on him who is poor and sorrowful and who trembleth at My word.’1 I was in Richmond again yesterday evening and walked across a large grassy field there surrounded by trees and houses, with the spire rising high above them. The dew lay on the grass and it was growing dusk. On one side the sky was still aglow from the setting sun, on the other side the moon was rising. An old lady (dressed in black) with beautiful grey hair was walking under the trees. In the middle of the field boys had lit a big bonfire which one could see flickering in the distance. I thought of the lines ‘And come the evening of my life, Worn out with care and strife I will, For each day granted me on earth, The air with praises to Thee fill’. Goodbye, a handshake in my thoughts,

  Your very loving brother

  Vincent

  I hope to preach on John and Theogenes in Mr Jones’s church a week this Thursday: ‘And the Lord added daily to the church such as should be saved.’2

  Your brother was very deeply moved when he stood at the foot of the pulpit and bowed his head and prayed, ‘Abba, Father, in Thy name be our beginning.’

  Regards to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg, Haanebeek, Van Stockum and all at the Rooses’ and Van Iterson3 and anyone else you may see whom I know.

  [E] [enclosed with letter 79: sermon given

  by Van Gogh in English, on 29 October 1876,

  and written down for Theo4]

  [31 October 1876]

  Psalm 119:19: ‘I am a stranger in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from me.’

  It is an old faith and it is a good faith that our life is a pilgrims progress - that we are strangers in the earth, but that though this be so, yet we are not alone for our Father is with us. We are pilgrims, our life is a long walk or journey from earth to heaven.

  The beginning of this life is this. There is one who remem-bereth no more Her sorrow and Her anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. She is our Mother. The end of our pilgrimage is the entering in Our Father’s house, where are many mansions, where He has gone before us to prepare a place for us. The end of this life is what we call death, it is an hour in which words are spoken, things are seen and felt that are kept in the secret chambers of the hearts of those who stand by, - it is so that all of us have such things in our hearts or forebodings of such things.

  There is sorrow in the hour when a man is born into the world, but also joy - deep and unspeakable - thankfulness so great that it reacheth the highest Heavens. Yes the Angels of God they smile they hope and they rejoice when a man is born in the world. There is sorrow in the hour of death - but there too joy unspeakable when it is the hour of death of one who has fought a good fight. There is One who has said, I am the resurrection and the life, if any man believe in Me, though he were dead yet shall he live. There was an Apostle who heard a voice from heaven saying: Blessed are they that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labour and their works follow them.

  There is joy when a man is born in the world, but there is greater joy when a Spirit has passed through great tribulation, when an Angel is born in Heaven.

  Sorrow is better than joy - and even in mirth the heart is sad - and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasts, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. Our nature is sorrowfull but for those who have learnt and are learning to look at Jesus Christ, there is always reason to rejoice.

  It is a good word that of St. Paul’s: As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing. For those who believe in Jesus Christ, there is no death and no sorrow that is not mixed with hope - no dispair - there is only a constantly being born again, a constantly going from darkness into light. They do not mourn as those who have no hope - Christian Faith makes life to evergreen life.

  We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers - we come from afar and we are going far. The journey of our life goes from the loving breast of our Mother on earth to the arms of our Father in heaven. Everything on earth changes - we have no abiding city here - it is the experience of everybody: That it is God’s will that we should part with what we dearest have on earth - we ourselves we change in many respects, we are not what we once were, we shall not remain what we are now. From infancy we grow up to boys and girls - young men and young women -and if God spares us and helps us, to husbands and wives, Fathers and Mothers in our turn, and then, slowly but surely the

  Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, 31 October 1876 | 29

  face that once had the early dew of morning, gets its wrinkles, the eyes that once beamed with youth and gladness speak of a sincere deep and earnest sadness - though they may keep the fire of Faith, Hope and Charity - though they may beam with God’s spirit. The hair turns grey or we loose it - ah - indeed we only pass through the earth, we only pass through life - we are strangers and pilgrims in the earth. The world passes and all its glory. Let our later days be nearer to Thee and therefore better than these.

  Yet we may not live on just anyhow - no, we have a strife to strive and a fight to fight. What is it we must do? We must love God with all our strength, with all our might, with all our heart, with all our soul, we must love our neighbour as ourselves. These two commandments we must keep and if we follow after these, if we are devoted to this, we are not alone, for our Father in Heaven is with us, helps us and guides us, gives us strength day by day, hour by hour, and so we can do all things through Christ who gives us might.

  We are strangers in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us. Open Thou our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Teach us to do Thy will and influence our hearts that the love of Christ may constrain us and that we may be brought to do what we must do to be saved.

  On the road from earth to Heaven

  Do Thou guide us with Thine eye

  We are weak but Thou art mighty

  Hold us with Thy powerful hand.

  Our life we might compare it to a journey, we go from the place where we were born to a far off haven. Our earlier life might be compared to sailing on a river, but very soon the waves become higher, the wind more violent, we are at sea almost before we are aware of
it - and the prayer from the heart ariseth to God: Protect me o God, for my bark is so small and Thy sea is so great. The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too. The heart that seeks for God and for a Godly life has more storms than any other. Let us see how the Psalmist describes a storm at sea. He must have felt the storm in his heart to describe it so. We read in the 107th Psalm: They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth up a stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to Heaven they go down again to the depth, their soul melteth in them because of their trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He bringeth them out of their distress. He bringeth them unto their desired haven.

  Do we not feel this sometimes on the sea of our lives? Does not everyone of you feel with me the storms of life or their forebodings or their recollections?

  And now let us read a description of another storm at sea in the New Testament, as we find it in the VIth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John in the 17th to the 21th verse. And the disciples entered into a ship and went over the sea towards Capernaum. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship and they were afraid. Then they willingly received Him into the ship and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. You who have experienced the great storms of life, you over whom all the waves and all the billows of the Lord have gone - have you not heard when your heart failed for fear the beloved well-known voice - with something in its tone that reminded you of the voices that charmed your childhood - the voice of Him whose name is Saviour and Prince of peace, saying as it were to you personally - mind to you personally: ‘It is I, be not afraid.’ Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled.