The Letters of Vincent van Gogh Read online

  And we whose lives have been calm up to now, calm in comparison of what others have felt - let us not fear the storms of life, amidst the high waves of the sea and under the grey clouds of the sky we shall see Him approaching for Whom, we have so often longed and watched. Him we need so - and we shall hear His voice: ‘It is I, be not afraid.’

  And if after an hour or season of anguish or distress or great difficulty or pain or sorrow we hear Him ask us: ‘Dost Thou love me?’ then let us say: Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. And let us keep that heart full of the love of Christ and may from thence issue a life which the love of Christ constraineth. Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. When we look back on our past, we feel sometimes as if we did love Thee, for whatsoever we have loved, we loved in Thy name.

  Have we not often felt as a widow and an orphan - in joy and prosperity as well and more even than under grief, because the thought of Thee. Truly our soul waiteth for Thee more than they that watch for the morning - our eyes are up unto Thee, 0 Thou who dwellest in Heavens. In our days too there can be such a thing as seeking the Lord.

  What is it we ask of God - is it a great thing? Yes it is a great thing: peace for the ground of our heart, rest for our soul - give us that one thing and then we want not much more, then we can do without many things, then can we suffer great things for Thy name’s sake. We want to know that we are Thine and that Thou art ours, we want to be thine - to be Christians. We want a Father, a Father’s love and a Father’s approval. May the experience of life make our eye single and fix it on Thee. May we grow better as we go on in life.

  We have spoken of the storms on the journey of life, but now let us speak of the calms and joys of Christian life. And yet, my dear friends, let us rather cling to the seasons of difficulty and work and sorrow even for the calms are treacherous often. The heart has its storms, has its seasons of drooping, but also its calms and even its times of exaltation. There is a time of sighing and of praying, but there is also a time of answer to prayer. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

  The heart that is fainting

  May grow full to o’erflowing

  And they that behold it

  Shall wonder and know not

  That God at its fountains

  Far off has been raining

  My peace I leave with you - we saw how there is peace even in the storm. Thanks be to God who has given us to be born and to live in a Christian country. Has any of us forgotten the golden hours of our early days at home, and since we left that home -for many of us have had to leave that home and to earn their living and to make their way in the world? Has He not brought us thus far? Have we lacked anything? We believe, Lord, help Thou our unbelief. I still feel the rapture, the thrill of joy I felt when for the first time I cast a deep look in the lives of my Parents, when I felt by instinct how much they were Christians. And I still feel that feeling of eternal youth and enthusiasm wherewith I went to God saying: ‘I will be a Christian too.’

  Are we what we dreamt we should be? No - but still - the sorrows of life, the multitude of things of daily life and of daily duties so much more numerous than we expected - the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over - but it is not dead, it sleepeth. The old eternal faith and love of Christ it may sleep in us but it is not dead and God can revive it in us. But though to be born again to eternal life, to the life of Faith, Hope and Charity - and to an evergreen life - to the life of a Christian and of a Christian workman, be a gift of God, a work of God - and of God alone, yet let us put the hand to the plough on the field of our heart, let us cast out our net once more - let us try once more - God knows the intention of the spirit. God knows us better than we know ourselves, for He made us and not we ourselves. He knows of what things we have need. He knows what is good for us. May He give His blessing in the seed of His word that has been sown in our hearts.

  God helping us, we shall get through life - with every temptation. He will give a way to escape.

  Father we pray Thee not that Thou shouldest take us out of the world, but we pray Thee to keep us from evil. Give us neither poverty nor riches, feed us with bread convenient for us. And let Thy songs be our delight in the houses of our pilgrimage, God of our Fathers, be our God: may their people be our people, their Faith our faith. We are strangers in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us, but may the love of Christ constrain us. Entreat us not to leave Thee or to refrain from following after Thee. Thy people shall be our people. Thou shalt be our God.

  Our life is a pilgrim’s progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture, it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right hand side a row of hills appearing blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendour of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and heather, here and there the white stem of a birch tree and its yellow leaves, for it was in Autumn. Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain, far, far away. On the top of that mountain a city whereon the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, a figure in black that makes one think of St. Paul’s word: ‘As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing.’ That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions.

  And the pilgrim asks her: ‘Does the road go up hill then all the way?’ And the answer is: ‘Yes to the very end.’ And he asks again: ‘And will the journey take all day long?’ And the answer is: ‘From morn till night my friend.’

  And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing, sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow and he thinks of two old sayings, he has heard long ago, the one is:

  There must much strife be striven

  There must much suffering be suffered

  There must much prayer be prayed

  And then the end will be peace.

  The water comes up to the lips

  But higher comes it not.

  And he says, I shall be more and more tired, but also nearer and nearer to Thee. Has not man a strife on earth? But there is a consolation from God in this life, an angel of God comforting men, that is the Angel of Charity. Let us not forget Her. And when everyone of us goes back to daily things and daily duties, let us not forget that - that things are not what they seem, that God by the things of daily life teacheth us higher things, that our life is a pilgrim’s progress and that we are strangers in the earth, but that we have a God and Father who preserveth strangers, and that we are all bretheren. Amen.

  And now the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us for evermore. Amen.

  (Reading: Psalm 91)

  Tossed with rough winds and faint with fear

  Above the tempest soft and clear

  What still small accents greet mine ear

  ‘t Is I, be not afraid!

  ‘t Is I, who washed thy spirit white;

  ‘t Is I, who gave thy blind eyes sight,

  ‘t Is I, thy Lord, thy life, thy light,

  ‘t Is I, be not afraid.

  These raging winds, this surging sea

  Have spent their deadly force on me

  They bear no breath of wrath to Thee

  ‘t Is I, be not afraid.

  This bitter cup I drank it first

  To Thee it is no draught accurst

  The hand that gives it thee is pierced

  ‘t Is I, be not afraid.

  When on the otherside thy feet

  Shall rest, mid thousand welcomes sweet;

  One wellknown voice thy heart shall greet –

  ‘t Is I, be not afraid.

  Mine eyes are watching by thy bed

  Mine arms are underneath thy head

>   My blessing is around Thee shed

  ‘t Is I, be not afraid

  Once more, a handshake in my thoughts. Yesterday evening I went to Turnham Common to take the service for Mr Jones, who was not well. I walked there with the oldest of the boys, he is 17 but as tall as I am and has a beard. He is due to go into business later, his father has a large factory. He has an honest, good, sensitive heart and a great need of religion. His hope and desire are to do good among the working people when he is older. I recommended Eliot’s Felix Holt to him.

  It was beautiful in the park with the old elm trees in the moonlight and the dew on the grass. It felt so good speaking in the little church - it is a wooden church.

  Bye, Theo, bye, my boy, I hope I have written this so you are able to read it. Keep your spirits up and get better soon.

  Dordrecht

  Van Gogh’s stay in England ended as abruptly as it had begun. By Christmas 1876 he was back in Holland, where family discussions culminated in the decision that he must give up his English post because it held too few long-term prospects. His mother seemed to understand him when she sighed, ‘I wish that he could work with nature or art,’ but his own solution, again after mediation by his Uncle Vincent, was to take a job as a bookseller. In January 1877 Van Gogh was to be found in Dordrecht, the town where his beloved Ary Scheffer was born. There he started work in Blusse & Van Braam’s bookshop. One of the first places in the Netherlands to embrace the reformed religion, Dordrecht was fertile soil for his fanatical faith and he never missed a service, of whatever denomination. Beyond that, he delighted in the ‘golden glow’ of the town, birthplace of Aelbert Cuyp, whose paintings captured the special quality of the light there. Writing from memory, he gave astonishingly vivid descriptions of a painting by Daubigny and of London in the rain.

  In a letter dated 22 March 1877, written soon after a brief meeting with Theo in Amsterdam, Van Gogh explained that his religious vocation was a hereditary trait. ‘In our family, which is a Christian family in the full sense of the term, there has always been, as far as one can tell, someone from generation to generation who was a preacher of the Gospel.’

  85 [D] [part]

  [7/8 February 1877]

  My dear Theo,

  […] Last Sunday I was in the French church here, which is very solemn and dignified and has something most attractive about it. The text was: ‘Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.’ The sermon closed with: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.’ After church I went for a lovely walk along a dyke past the mills; the glittering sky over the meadows was reflected in the ditches.

  There are some special things in other countries, for instance the French coast I saw near Dieppe: the falaises1 topped with green grass, the sea and the sky, the harbour with the old boats as if painted by Daubigny, with brown nets and sails, the small houses, among them a few restaurants, with little white curtains and green pine branches in the windows, the carts with white horses harnessed in large blue halters and red tassels, the drivers with their blue smocks, the fishermen with their beards and oilskins and the French women with pale faces, dark, often rather deep-set eyes, black dresses and white caps. And, for instance, the streets of London in the rain with the lamps, and a night spent there on the steps of a little old grey church, as happened to me this summer after that trip from Ramsgate.

  There are indeed some special things in other countries, but last Sunday, when I walked on that dyke, I thought how good it felt to be on Dutch soil, and I felt something like, ‘Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God!’ For the memory of old times came back to me, among other things how we used to walk with Father to Rijsbergen, etc., during the last days of February and heard the lark above the black fields with the young green corn, beheld the sparkling blue sky with the white clouds above, and then the paved road with the beech trees.

  Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Or rather, oh, Zundert, oh, Zundert! Who knows if we might not walk together beside the sea this summer! We must stay good friends, anyway, Theo, and just believe in God and trust with an abiding trust in Him who presides over prayer and over thought - who can tell to what heights grace can rise?

  Warmest congratulations on today - it is already half past one and so it is already 8 February. May God spare us our father for a long time yet and may ‘He bind us closely to one another, and may our love for Him strengthen our bonds ever more’.

  Father wrote he had already seen starlings. Do you still remember how they used to perch on the church in Zundert? So far I have not noticed any here, but I did see a great many crows on the Great Church in the morning. Now it will soon be spring again and the larks, too, will be returning. ‘He reneweth the face of the earth,’ and it is written: ‘Behold, I make all things new,’ and much as He renews the face of the earth, so He can also renew and strengthen man’s soul and heart and mind. The nature of every true son does indeed bear some resemblance to that of the son who was dead and came back to life.

  Let us not forget the text ‘sorrowful yet alway rejoicing’, ‘unknown and yet well known’, and write the word weemoed2 as two words, wee3 and moed4 and faith in God, who in His time can cause the loneliness which we sometimes feel even in the midst of a crowd, to fall from us. He, of whom Joseph said, ‘He hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.’ And yet Joseph had not forgotten his father, as well you know, but you also know what he meant by his words.

  Take care of yourself, give my regards to all at the Rooses’ and above all to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg, and accept a handshake in my thoughts and believe me, Tell Mr Tersteeg not to take it amiss that the drawing samples have been kept for so long. They are for the H. B. school,5 and there are 30 already there. But they also want to choose some for the evening classes and so they need to keep them for about a week longer. You will have them back as soon as possible.

  Your very loving brother

  Vincent

  Send me that page from Michelet again, my boy. The one you sent me before is in the box in my desk and I need it. Write again soon.

  89 [D]

  Dordrecht, 22 March 1877

  My dear Theo,

  I want to make sure you have a letter to take on your journey. What a good day we spent together in Amsterdam. I stayed and watched your train until it was out of sight. We are such old friends already - how often haven’t we walked the black fields with the young green corn together at Zundert, where at this time of year we would hear the lark with Father.

  This morning I went to Uncle Stricker’s with Uncle Cor and had a long talk there on you know what subject. In the evening at half past six Uncle Cor took me to the station. It was a beautiful evening and everything seemed so full of expression, it was still and the streets were a little foggy, as they so often are in London. Uncle had had toothache in the morning, but luckily it didn’t last. We passed the flower market on the way. How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.

  Have written home to tell them what we did in Amsterdam and what we talked about. On arrival here I found a letter from home at the Rijkens’. Father was unable to preach last Sunday and the Rev. Mr Kam stood in for him. I know that his heart burns for something to happen that will allow me to follow in his footsteps, not just some of the way, but all the way. Father has always expected it of me, oh, may it come about and blessings be upon it.

  The print you gave me, ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away’, and the portrait of the Rev. Mr Heldring are already up in my little room, oh, how glad I am to have them, they fill me with hope.

  Writing to you about my plans helps me to clarify and settle my thoughts. To begin with, I think of the text, ‘It is my portion to keep Thy word’. I have such a craving to make the treasure of the Bible’s word my own, to become thoroughly and lovingly familiar with all those old stories, and above all with everythin
g we know about Christ.

  In our family, which is a Christian family in the full sense of the term, there has always been, as far as one can tell, someone from generation to generation who was a preacher of the Gospel. Why should there not be a member of our family even now who feels called to that ministry, and who has some reason to suppose that he may, and must, declare himself and look for means of attaining that end? It is my prayer and fervent desire that the spirit of my Father and Grandfather may rest upon me, and that it may be granted me to become a Christian and a Christian labourer, that my life may come to resemble, the more the better, those of the people I have mentioned above - for behold, the old wine is good and I do not desire new. Let their God be my God and their people my people; let it be my lot to come to know Christ in His full worth and to be impelled by His charity.

  It is so beautifully put in the text, ‘As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, what that charity is, and in 1 Cor. 13 she ‘beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth.’

  My heart is filled today with the text about those on the way to Emmaus, when it was toward evening and the sun was going down: ‘But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us.’

  It is dear to you, too, that ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’, keep it in mind, for it is a good text and a good cloak to wear in the storm of life, keep it in mind at this time now that you have been going through so much. And be careful, for though what you have been through is no small thing, yet as far as I can see there is something still greater ahead, and you too will be put in mind of the Lord’s word: I have loved you with an everlasting Love, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. I shall comfort you as one who comforteth his Mother. I shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth. I will make a new covenant with you. Depart, touch no unclean thing, and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God. And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters. Hate the evil and the places where it is rife, it draws you with its false splendour and will tempt you as the devil tried to tempt Christ by showing Him ‘all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them’; and saying, ‘All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ There is something better than the glory of the things of this world, namely the feeling when our heart burns within us upon hearing His word, faith in God, love of Christ, belief in immortality, in the life hereafter.