[고흐 편지 전집](The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh)에서 발췌한 것

***The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

[Vol 1]

--from Memoir of Vincent Van Gogh (by His Sister-in-Law)

*But the parents regarded this new experiment* with fresh anxiety: "I am always so afraid that wherever Vincent may be or whatever he may do, he will spoil everything by his eccentricity, his queer ideas and views on life," his mother wrote. His father added, "It grieves us so to see that he literally knows no joy of life, but always walks with bent head, whilst we did all in our power to bring him an honorable position! It seems as if he deliberately chooses the most difficult path." (XXVIII)

(note: when Vincent wanted to become an evangelist, while giving up to be a Minister)

 

*In October Theo, who had secured a permanent position at Goupil's in Paris, visited him on his journey thither and tried in vain to induce him to adopt some fixed plan for the future. He was not yet ready to make any decision; before he became conscious of his real power, he was to struggle through the awful winter of 1879-80, that saddest, most hopeless time of his never very fortunate life. It was during these days that he undertook, with 10 francs in his pocket, the hopeless expedition to Courriéres; the dwelling place of Jules Breton, whose pictures and poems he so much admired, and with whom he secretly hoped to come into contact in some way or other. But all he saw was the inhospitable exterior of Breton's newly built studio; he lacked the courage to introduce himself. Disappointed, his money spent, he made the long journey home; mostly he slept either in the open air or in a hayloft. Sometimes he exchanged a drawing for a piece of bread, but he suffered so much fatigue and want that his health never fully recovered. (XXX)

 

***Letters

*There is much evil in the world and in ourselves--terrible things; one does not need to be far advanced in life to fear much, to feel the need of a firm faith in life hereafter and to know that without faith in God one cannot live--one cannot bear it. But with that faith one can go on for a long time. (120)

 

*I spent Monday evening with Vos and Kee; they love each other truly, and one can easily perceive that where love dwells, God commands His blessing. It is a nice home, though it is a great pity that he could not remain a preacher. When one sees them sitting side by side in the evening, in the kindly lamplight of the little living room, quite close to the bedroom of their boy, who wakes up every now and then and asks his mother for something, it is an idyll. on the other hand, they have known days of anxiety and sleepless nights and fears and troubles. (141)

 

*I should like to read more widely, but I must not; in fact, I need not wish it so much, for all things are in the word of Christ--more perfect and more beautiful than in any other book. (144)

 

*Oh, boy, I shall be too glad for words if I can pass my examination; if I can overcome the difficulties, it will be in all simplicity of heart but also in prayer to God, for I often pray fervently to Him for the wisdom I need. And then that He may once grant that I write and preach many sermons--the more, the better--resembling our father's, and finish a work in my life, with ever day bringing some improvement. (148)

 

*Uncle Cor (then) asked me if I should feel no attraction for a beautiful woman or girl. I answered that I would feel more attraction for, and would rather come into contact with, one who was ugly or old or poor or in some way unhappy, but who, through experience and sorrow, had gained a mind and a soul. (160)

 

*There was once a man who went to church and asked, "Can it be that my zeal has deceive me, that I have taken the wrong road and have not planned it well? Oh! If I might be freed from this uncertainty and firmly convinced that I shall conquer and succeed in the end!"

A voice answered him, "And if you were certain of it, what would you do? Act sure of it now, and you will not be confounded." Then the man went on his way, not unbelieving but believing, and returned to his work, no longer doubting or wavering. (164)

 

*Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment without being bowed down is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has only known relative prosperity. For who are those that show some sign of higher life? They are the ones who merit the words, "Labourers, notre vie est traipse, laboureurs, vous souffrez dans la vie, laboureurs, vous e^tes bien-heureux" [Laborers, your life is dreary, labores, you suffer during life, laborers, you are blessed]; they are the ones who bear the signs of "toute une vie de lutte et de travail soutenu san fléchir jamais" [a whole life of struggle and constant work without ever faltering]. It is good to try to become like this. (165)

 

*Nothing less than the infinite and the miraculous is necessary, and man does well not to be contented with anything less, and not to feel at home as long as he has not acquired it.

This is the creed which all good men have expressed in their works, all who have thought somewhat more deeply and looked for more and worked more and loved more than others--who have dived into the depths of the sea of life. We must cast ourselves into the depths, if we want to catch something, and if at times we must work throughout the night without catching anything, it is good not to give in, but to cast the net again in the morning. (167)

 

*It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation--of loneliness, poverty and misery, the end or extreme of all things, the thought of God comes into our minds. (177)

 

*As molting time--when they change their feathers--is for birds, so adversity or misfortune is the difficult time for us human beings. one can stay in it--in that time of molting--one can also emerge renewed; but anyhow it must not be done in public and it is not at all amusing, therefore the only thing to do is to hide oneself. (194)

 

*But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something--whatever you like--you will be on the way to knowing more about Him; that is what I say to myself. But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence; and one must always try to know deeper, better and more. That leads to God, that leads to unwavering faith. (198)

 

* A man who has been tossed back and forth for a long time, as if on a stormy sea, at last reaches his destination; a man who has seemed good-for-nothing and incapable of any employment, any function, ends in finding one and becoming active and capable of action--he shows himself quite different from what he seemed at first. (198)

 

*Send me what you can, and do not fear for me. If I can only continue to work, somehow or other it will set me right again. Your doing this will help me a great deal. If you should take a trip to Holland, I hope you will not pass by here without coming to see the sketches. (200)

 

*As to your thinking I should not want to be among the mediocre artists, what shall I say? It quite depends on what you call mediocre. I shall do what I can, but I do not at all despise mediocre in its simple sense. And one certainly does not rise above the mark by despising what is mediocre. In my opinion one must at least begin by having some respect for the mediocre, and know that it already means something, and is only reached with great difficulty. (212)

 

*I hear from Father that without my knowing it you have been sending me money for a long time, in this way effectively helping me to get on. Accept my heartfelt thanks, I firmly believe that you will not regret it. (217)

 

*I do not know if you ever read English books; if you do, I can strongly recommend that you read Shirley by Currer Bell, author of another book called Jane Eyre. It is as beautiful as pictures by Millet or Boughton or Herkomer. (236)

 

*Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously does not allow that resistance to put him off his stride; on the contrary, it is that much more of a stimulus to fight for victory, and at bottom nature and a true artist agree. Nature certainly is "intangible," yet one must seize her, and with a strong hand. And then after one has struggled and wrestled with nature, sometimes she becomes a little more docile and yielding. (249)

*Since the beginning of this love I have felt that unless I gave myself up to it entirely, without any second thoughts, without any restriction, with all my heart, entirely and forever, there was no chance for me whatever; and even so, my chance is slight. But what is it to me whether my chance is slight or great? I mean, must I consider this when I love? No, no reckoning--one loves because one loves.

To love--quelle chose!

Just imagine what a real woman would think if she realized that someone proposed to her, yet with a mental reservation--would she not answer him with something worse than "no, never never"? Oh, Theo, don't let's talk about that; when you and I are in love, we love, that is all! (261)

 

*Whenever you love, do so without any reserve; or rather, when you do fall in love, you will not think of any reserve.

Moreover, when you do love, you will certainly not feel sure of success beforehand, you will be "une a^me en peine[a soul in pain?]," and yet you will smile. Whoever feels so sure of himself that he rashly imagines, She is mine, before he has fought that soul's battle of love--I repeat, before he wavers between life and death, on a high sea in storm and thunder--he does not know what a real woman's heart is, and that will be brought home to him by a real woman in a very special way. (262-3)

 

*What kind of love did I feel when I was twenty? It is difficult to define--my physical passions were very weak then, perhaps because of a few years of great poverty and hard work. But my intellectual passions were strong, meaning that without asking anything in return, without wanting any pity, I wanted only to give, but not to receive. Foolish, wrong, exaggerated, proud, rash--for in love one must not only give, but also take; and, reversing it, one must not only take but also give. Whoever deviates either to the right or to the left falls, there is no help for it. So I fell, but it was a wonder that I got up again. What helped me recover my balance more than anything else was reading practical books on physical and moral diseases. I got a deeper insight into my own heart and also into that of others. Gradually I began to love my fellow men again, myself included, and more and more my heart and soul--which for a time had been withered, blighted and stricken through all kinds of great misery--revived. And the more I turned to reality, and mingled with people, the more I felt new life reviving in me, until at last I met her. (265)

 

*Theo, I love her--her, and no other--her, forever. And. . . and. . . and. . .Theo, although as yet it never "seems" to be in full activity, there is a feeling of deliverance within me and it is as she and I had stopped being two, and were united forever and ever. (268)

 

*That higher feeling which I cannot do without is love for Kee. Father and Mother argue in this way: She says No, so you must resign yourself. I do not see the necessity of this at all, on the contrary. And I would rather give up the work just begun and all the comforts of this home than resign myself to not writing her or her parents. (269)

 

*You must not be astonished when, even at the risk of your taking me for a fanatic, I tell you that in order to love, I think it absolutely necessary to believe in God. To believe in God (that does not mean that you should believe all the sermons of the clergymen and the arguments and Jesuitism of the "bégueules dévotes collet monté" [bigoted, genteel prudes], far from it); to me, to believe in God is to feel that there is a God, not dead or stuffed but alive, urging us toward aimer encore with irresistible force--that is my opinion. (274)

 

*"Just listen, dear Uncle: if Kee were an angel, she would be too high for me, and I do not think I could remain in love with an angel. If she were a devil, I would not want to have anything to do with her. In the present case I see in her a true woman with a woman's passions and moods, and I love her dearly, and that is the truth and I am glad of it. As long as she does not become an angel or a devil, the case in question is not finished." (285)

 

*. . . I should like to be with a woman--I cannot live without love, without a woman. I would not value life at all, if there were not something infinite, something deep, something real. (285)

 

*. . .everyone who works with love and intelligence finds a kind of armor against the opinion of other people in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art. Nature is also severe and, so to speak, hard; but she never deceives and always helps us on. (424)

*How can I know whether I shall reach some goal--how can I know beforehand whether the difficulties will or will not be overcome?

One must go on working silently, leaving the result to the future. If one prospect is closed, perhaps another will open itself--there must be some prospect, and a future too, even if we do not know its geography. (513)

*That in the first period of a painter's life one unconsciously makes it very hard for oneself--by a feeling of not being able to master the work--by an uncertainty as to whether one will ever master it--by a great desire to make progress, by a lack of self-confidence--one cannot banish a certain feeling of agitation, and one hurries oneself though one doesn't like to be hurried.

This can't be helped, and it is a period which one must go through, and which in my opinion cannot and must not be changed. (536)

 

 

[VOL II]

*In my opinion, I am often rich as Croesus--not in money, but (though it doesn't happen every day) rich--because I have found in my work something which I can devote myself to heart and soul, and which inspires me and gives a meaning to life. (6)

*The thing is to keep on working. (21)

*It is devilishly difficult to hammer out a figure. And indeed, it is the same as with iron--one works on a model, and goes on working, at first with no result; but at last it mellows, and one finds the figure, like the iron, becomes malleable when it is hot, and then one must go on working on it. So I had a model continually for these two drawings, and worked on them early and late. (43)

*The work is an absolute necessity for me. I can't put it off, I don't care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I became melancholy when I can't go on with my work. Then I feel like a weaver who sees that his threads are tangled, and the pattern he had on the loom is gone to hell, and all his thought and exertion is lost. (45)

*Observez que ce qui plai^t au public est toujours ce qu'il y a de plus banal, ce qu'on a coutume de voir chaque année, on est habitué à de telles fadeurs, à des mensonges si jolis, qu'on refuse de toute sa puissance les vérités fortes. [Note that what pleases the public is always utterly banal, just what they are accustomed to seeing every year; they have got used to such insipidities, to such pretty lies that they repudiate vigorous truths with all their might.] (Zola, 여기서는 고흐의 편지에서 재인용, 70)

*But now it often happens that I feel so downhearted when I see people behave so hostilely and indifferently that I lose all my courage. But then I cheer up again, and go back to my work and laugh at it, and because I work in the present, and let no day go by without working, I believe that there is indeed hope for me in the future, though I do not feel it, for I tell you, there is no space left in my brain for philosophizing about the future, either for upsetting me or for comforting me. I think my duty is to stick to the present and not let it pass without extracting some profit from it. You try to stick to the present with regard to me, too, and let us persevere as far as we can persevere, today rather than tomorrow. (82)

*And who knows what we may achieve together in the future? (93)

*The world concerns me only in so far as I feel a certain indebtness and duty toward it because I have walked this earth for thirty years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawing or pictures--not made to please a certain taste in art, but to express a sincere human feeling. So this work is my aim--and when one concentrates on that one idea, everything one does is simplified in that it is not chaotic, but all done with one object in mind. (105)

*My firm resolve is to be dead to everything except my work. (112)

 

*Yes, for me, the drama of storm in nature, the drama of sorrow in life, is the most impressive. (128)

 

*I know the soul's struggle of two people: Am I a painter or not? Of Rappard and of myself- a struggle, hard sometimes, a struggle which accurately marks the difference between us and certain other people who take things less seriously; as for us we feel wretched at times; but each fit of melancholy brings a little light, a little progress; certain other people have less trouble, work more easily perhaps, but then their personal character develops less. . . .

If you hear a voice within you saying, "You are not a painter," then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working. . . . If one hasn't a horse, one is one's own horse--many people do so here. (188)

 

*And my aim in my life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life, I hope to pass away, looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, "Oh, the pictures I might have made?" But this does not exclude making what is possible, mind you. Do you object to this, either for me or for yourself?

. . .

Theo, I declare I prefer to think how arms, legs, head are attached to the trunk, rather than whether I myself am more or less an artist or not. (195)

 

*Now hardly a day passes that I do not make something. As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study on paints, is a step forward. (198)

 

*I think it deeply pathetic that this woman[Margot Begemann](while she was so weak and defeated by five or six other women that she took poison) says kind of triumphantly, as if she had gained a victory and as if she had found rest, "I too have loved at last."

She had never really loved before. (307)

*You do not know how paralyzing that staring of a blank canvas is; it says to the painter, You can't do anything. The canvas stares at you like an idiot, and it hypnotizes some painters, so that they themselves become idiots. Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the really passionate painter who is daring--and who has once and for all broken that spell of "you cannot."

Life itself is also forever turning toward a man an infinitely vacant, discouraging, hopeless, blank side on which nothing is written, nor more than on a blank canvas. But however vacant and vain and dead life may present itself, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, does not let himself be led astray by it. He steps in and acts and builds up, in short breaks--ruins they call it. (310)

 

*"Le moulin n'y est plus, mais le vent y est encore." [The mill is no longer there, but the wind still is.] (312)

 

*Forward--and what the devil do I care if I fail--If I fail, then I'll try again. (324)

 

*I believe that it is in our mutual interest that we separate. (329)

 

*Now I will take the liberty to say one thing--we shall separate--for me this is a precarious transition--and one coupled with financial difficulties that will certainly be a great worry to me. However, I shall try to see things through--but I most decidedly demand of you that at this moment, which is critical for me, you on your part will be very frank. I know that you will agree to our separation--for the very reason that it will be settled peacefully. (331)

 

*And every day I am more convinced that people who do not first wrestle with nature never succeed. (347)

 

*In any case, whether people approve or do not approve of that I do and how I do it, I personally know no other way than to wrestle with nature long enough for her to tell me her secret. (348)

 

*But I always think of what Millet said, "Je ne veux point supprimer la souffrance, car souvent c'est elle qui fait s'exprimer le plus énergiquement les artists"[I would never do away with suffering, for it often is what makes artists express themselves most energetically. (362)

 

*Letter 403, About [Potato Eaters], (367-8)

 

*. . .Tell Serret that I should be desperate if my figures were correct, tell him that I mean; If one photographs a digger, he certainly would not be digging then. Tell him that I adore the figures by Michelangelo though the legs are undoubtedly too long, the hips and the backsides too large. Tell him that, for me, Millet and Lhermitte are the real artists for the very reason that they do not paint things as they are, traced in a dry analytical way, but as they--Millet, Lhermitte, Michelangelo--feel them. Tell him that my great longing is to learn to make those very incorrectness, those deviations, remodelings, changes in reality, so that they may become, yes, lies if you like--but truer than the literal truth. (401)

 

*Well--but the more unfavorable outward circumstances become, the more the inner resources, that is the love for the work, increase. (412)

 

*On the occasion of my first visit to his studio at Nuenen it was impossible for me to get the right insight into his work; it was so totally different from what I had imagined it would be up to then, so rough and unkempt, so harsh and unfinished, that with the best will in the world I was unable to think it good or beautiful; and, badly disappointed, I decided not to go and see him again, and go my own way.

However, shortly afterward I discovered that his work had made a certain impression on me after all, which it was impossible for me to dismiss from my mind; every now and then his studies rose up before my mind's eye again, so that I resolved to pay him another visit; it was as if I were drawn to it.

At my second visit the impression I got was considerably better, although in my ignorance I still thought that either he could not draw or that he carelessly neglected to draw his figures, and so on, and I took the liberty of telling him so straight out.

He was not at all cross at this, he only laughed a little and said quietly, Later on you will think differently. (444) (Anton Kerssemakers' reminiscence) (Look at the Letter 386)

 

*When I remarked that he had not yet signed it, he said he might do so some time or other, "I suppose I shall come back someday, but actually it isn't necessary; they will surely recognize my work later on, and write about me when I'm dead and gone. I shall take care of that, if I can keep alive for some little time." (449) (Anton Kerssemakers' reminiscence)

 

*It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and when one literally has to pay for one's color out of what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, however strictly calculated. And then the models besides. But all the same there is a chance, and even a good one, because comparatively speaking, there are only a few painters at work nowadays. (454)

 

*Perhaps you will not able to understand, but it is true that when I receive th money my greatest appetite is not for food, though I have fasted, but the appetite for painting is even stronger, and I at once set out to hunt for models, and continue until all the money is gone. (466)

 

*The love of art makes one lose real love.

[L'amour de l'art fait perdre l'amour vrai.]

(521) 고흐는 Richepin의 말로 기억하고 있음

 

*In this batch there are the pink orchard on coarse canvas, and the white orchard, lengthways, and the bridge. If we keep these, I think the price may go up later, and some fifty pictures of this quality would compensate us in some measure for our very bad luck in the past. Take these three then for your own collection, and do not sell them, for they will each be worth 500 later on. (563)

 

*For loneliness, worries, difficulties, the unsatisfied need for kindness and sympathy--that is what is hard to bear, the mental suffering of sadness or disappointment undermines us more than dissipation--us, I say, who find ourselves the happy possessors of disordered hearts. (567)

 

*We do not feel we are dying, but we do feel the truth that we are of small account, and that we are paying a hard price to be a link in the chain of artists, in health, in youth, in liberty, none of which we enjoy, any more than the cab horse that hauls a coachful of people out to enjoy the spring. (570)

 

*I feel more and more that we must not judge of God from this world, it's just a study that didn't come off. What can you do with a study that has gone wrong? --if you are fond of the artist, you do not find much to criticize--you hold your tongue. But you have a right to ask for something better. We should have to see other works by the same hand though; this world was evidently slapped together in a hurry on one of his bad days, when the artist didn't know what he was doing or didn't have his wits about him. All the same, according to what the legend says, this good old God took a terrible lot of trouble over this world-study of his. (572)

 

*. . .Quick work doesn't mean less serious work, it depends on one's self-confidence and experience. In the same way Jules Guérard, the lion hunter, says in his book that in the beginning young lions have a lot of trouble killing a horse or an ox, but that the old lions kill with a single blow of the paw or a well-placed bite, and that they are amazingly sure at the job. (596)

 

*It's the only time I feel I am alive, when I am drudging away at my work. (600)

 

*. . .Perhaps death is not the hardest thing in a painter's life.

For my own part, I declare I know nothing whatever about it, but looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. one thing undoubtedly true in this reasoning is that we cannot get to a star while we are alive, any more than we can take the train when we are dead.

So to me it seems possible that cholera, gravel, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, buses, and railways are the terrestrial means. To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot. (605)

 

*. . .Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone, except to ask for dinner or coffee. And it has been like that from the beginning.

But up to now the loneliness has not worried me much because I have found the brighter sun and its effect on nature so absorbing. (609)

 

*Why, a canvas I have covered is worth more than a blank canvas.

That--believe me my pretensions go no further--that is my right to paint, my reason for painting, and by the Lord, I have one! (618)

 

 

[VOL III]

*I always feel I am a traveler, going somewhere and to some destination. If I tell myself that the somewhere and the destination do not exist, that seems to me very reasonable and likely enough. (2)

 

*It is a gloomy enough prospect to have to say to myself that perhaps the painting I am doing will never be of any value whatever. If it was worth what it cost to, I could say, "I never bothered my head about money."

But as things are, on the contrary it absorbs me. But there it is, and anyhow I must go on and try to do better. (3)

 

*To conclude, we must live almost like monks and hermits, with work for our master passion, and surrendering our ease. (16)

 

*What a pity painting costs so much! This week I had fewer worries than other weeks, so I let myself go. I shall have spent the 100-fr. note in a single week, but at the end of this week I'll have my four pictures, and even if I add the cost of all the paint I have used, the week will not have been sheer waste. I have got up very early every day, I have had a good dinner and supper, and so I have been able to work hard and long without feeling myself weaken. But there, we live in days when there is no demand for what we are making, not only does it not sell, but as you can see in Gauguin's case, when you want to borrow on the pictures, you can't get anything, even if it is a trifling sum and the work, important. And that is why we are the prey of every happening. And I am afraid that it will hardly change in our lifetime. But if we are preparing richer lives for the painters who will follow in our footsteps, it will be something. (20)

 

*Fortunately for me, I do not hanker after victory any more, and all that I seek in painting is a way to make life bearable. (22)

 

*Oh, my dear brother, sometimes I know so well what I want. I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, ill as I am, do without something which is greater than I, which is my life--the power to create. (25)

 

*This week I have done absolutely nothing but paint and sleep and have my meals. That means sitting of twelve hours, of six hours and so on, and then a sleep of twelve hours at a stretch. (37)

 

*At present I do not think my pictures worthy of the advantages I have received from you. But once they are worthy, I swear that you will have created them as much as I, and that we are making them together. (39)

 

*If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying Bismarck's policy? No. He studies a single blade of grass.

But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole. (55)

 

*I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell.

Nevertheless the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint and my own living, very meager after all, that is put into them. (92)

 

*I believe that the time will come when I too shall sell, but I am so far behind with you, and while I go on spending, I bring nothing in. Sometimes the thought of it saddens me. (94)

 

*If we can stand the siege, victory will come to us one day, in spite of our not being among the people who are talked about. It is rather a case that makes you think of the proverb--joy in public, sorrow at home. (101)

 

*If by the time I am forty I have done a picture of figures like the flowers Gauguin was speaking of, I shall have a position in art equal to that of anyone, no matter who. So, perseverance. (108)

 

*Look here--you know that what I am trying to do is to get back the money that my training as a painter has cost, neither more nor less. (126)

 

*We are all mortal and subject to all the ailments that exist, and if the latter aren't of a particularly pleasant kind, what can one do about it? The best thing is to try to get rid of them. (127)

 

*We are nothing but links in a chain. (131)

 

*I will not deny that I would rather have died than have caused and suffered such trouble.

Well, well, to suffer without complaining is the one lesson that has to be learned in this life. (140)

 

*My dear boy, the best we can do perhaps is to make fun of our petty griefs and, in a way, of the great griefs of human life too. (140)

 

*If I were without your friendship, they would remorselessly drive me to suicide, and however cowardly I am, I should end by doing it. There, as you too will see, I hope, is the juncture where it is permissible for us to protest against society and defend ourselves. (160)

 

*Let's remember that everything is always for the best in the best of worlds, which is not impossible. (161)

 

*Once you know that it is part of the disease, you take it like anything else. If I had not seen other lunatics close up, I should not have been able to free myself from dwelling on it constantly. (175)

 

*A new man has arrived, who is so worked up that he smashes everything and shouts day and night, he wildly tears his shirts too, and up till now, though he is in a bath all day long, he is hardly getting any quieter; he destroys his bed and everything else in his room, upsets his food, etc. It is very sad to see, but they are very patient here and will put him through in the end. New things grow old so quickly--I think that if I came to Paris in my present state of mind, I should see no difference between a so-called dark picture and a light impressionist picture, between a varnished picture in oils and a mat picture done with essence. (177)

 

*Do not fear that I shall ever of my own will rush to dizzy height. Unfortunately we are subject to the circumstances and the maladies of our time, whether we like it or not. But with the number of precautions I am now taking, I am not likely to relapse, and I hope that the attacks will not begin again. (184)

 

*We know life so little that it is very little in our power to distinguish right from wrong, just from unjust, and to say that one is unfortunate because one suffers, which has not been proved. (191)

 

*Work distracts me infinitely better than anything else, and if I could once really throw myself into it with all my energy, possibly that would be the best remedy. (195)

 

*His thoughts of suicide have disappeared, only disturbing dreams remain, but they tend to disappear too, and their intensity is less great. (199) (Dr. Peyron to Theo)

 

*Life passes like this, time does not return, but I am dead set on my work, for just this very reason, that I know the opportunities of working do not return. (207)

 

*The difference between happiness and unhappiness! Both are necessary and useful, as well as death or disappearance. . . it is so relative--and life is the same.

Even faced with an illness that breaks me up and frightens me, that belief is unshaken. (218)

 

*It is the experience and the poor work of every day which alone will ripen in the long run and allow one to do something truer and more complete. So slow, long work is the only way, and all ambition and keenness to make a good thing of it, false. (234)

 

*Diseases exist to remind us that we are not made of wood, and it seems to me this is the bright side of it all. (246)

 

*But after all, we must take things as they come. (276)

 

*Well, my own work, I am risking my life for it and my reason has half foundered because of it--that's all right--but you are not among the dealers in men as far as I know, and you can still choose your side, I think, acting with humanity, but que veux-tu? (298)

 

**Rappard

*Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength; and then, when one devotes all one's powers to it, to be looked upon as a kind of unpractical fellow and all kinds of other things--yes, that leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth. (324)

 

*My words about a past disappointment are based on something I won't speak about--at least not now. And yet I think it right to tell you this much. Suppose a man experiences a disappointment through a cruel injury to his love, a disappointment so deep that he is calmly desperate and desolate--such a condition is possible, for there is something like the white heat of steel or iron. Feeling that he has been disappointed irrevocably and absolutely, and carrying within himself the consciousness of it as a deadly, at least an incurable, wound, and yet going about his ordinary affairs with an unruffled countenance. . . would it be inexplicable to you that a man in this condition should feel a singular sympathy, involuntary and unintentional, for somebody he meets who is deeply unhappy, oh, perhaps unhappy beyond redress? And that, notwithstanding this, that sympathy or love or tie should be and remain strong? When Love is dead, is it impossible for Charity to be alive and awake still? (351--2)

(고흐가 Kay를 향한 구애에 실패하고 Sien과 동거를 하면서 보낸 편지)

 

*I believe that the more one loves, the more one will act; for love that is only a feeling I would never recognize as love. (383)

 

*When once I feel--I know--a subject, I usually draw three or more variations of it--whether it is figure or landscape--but every time and for each one I consult nature. And I even do my best not to give details--for then the dreaminess goes out of it. And when Tersteeg and my brother, and others, say, "What is this, is it grass or cabbage?" then I answer, "Delighted that you can't make it out." (389)

 

*I am asked quite often, "Why do others sell and you don't?" I answer that I certainly hope to sell in the course of time, but that I think I shall be able to influence it most effectively by working steadily on, and that at the present moment making desperate "efforts" to force the work I am doing now upon the public would be pretty useless--and consequently that the problem leaves me rather cold, as I am concentrating on getting on. But all the same, because I am so often reproached with it, and because I am so often hard pressed to make both ends meet, I must not fail to do anything that gives me the slightest chance to sell something. But, I repeat, as a matter of course I am reconciled to the fact that it won't succeed all at once. (396)

 

*Do you think that I do not care about technique, that I do not seek it? Most certainly I do--but only insofar as I want to say what I have to say--and if I cannot myself--but I don't care a damn whether my language is in conformity with that of the grammarians. (398)

 

 

**Wilhelmina J. Van Gogh

*The ivy loves the old branchless willow--every spring the ivy loves the trunk of the old oak tree--and in the same way cancer, that mysterious plant, so often fastens on people whose lives were nothing but love and devotion. However terrible the mystery of these sufferings may be, yet there is in reality something sweet and pathetically touching about it, which has the same effect as seeing the abundant growth of green moss on the old thatched roof. All the same I know nothing about it, and I haven't the right to assert anything. (450)

 

**From Theo

*I was greatly touched by your letter, which we received yesterday; really, you are making far too much of something which is entirely natural, without taking into account that you have repaid me many times over, by your work as well as by your friendship, which is of greater value than all the money I shall ever possess. (537)

 

*Perhaps you will tell me that every work of art must of necessity be the result of a great number of complicated combinations. This is true, but for the painter too there must come moments when he is so inspired by his subject or theme that he renders it in such a way that one can know, or at least feel, it like a thing you are simply confronted with. (556)

 

*Your pictures at the exhibition are having a lot of success. The other day Diaz stopped me in the street and said, Give your brother my compliments and tell him that his pictures are highly remarkable. Monet said that your pictures were the best of all in the exhibition. A lot of other artists have spoken to me about them. Serret came to our house to see the other pictures, and he was enraptured. He said that if he had no style of his own in which he could still express some things, he would change his course and go seek what you are seeking. (568)

 

*P. C. Gorlitz

He was a man totally different from the usual type of the children of man. His face was ugly, his mouth more or less awry, moreover his face was densely covered with freckles, and he had hair of a reddish hue. As I said, his face was ugly, but as soon as he spoke about religion or art, and then became excited, which was sure to happen very soon, his eyes would sparkle, and his features would make a deep impression on me; it wasn't his own face any longer: it had become beautiful. (596)

(고흐가 도르트레히트에서 서점 점원 생활을 할 때 같이 방을 쓴 사람으로 선생이었음)