At the same time I saw a painting by Jules Dupré, and a very large one at that.
As far as the eye could see, black marshy terrain, in the middle distance a river and in the foreground a pond (near it 3 horses). Reflected in both, the bank of white and grey clouds behind which the sun has set; on the horizon some greyish red and purple, the upper sky a gentle blue.
I saw these paintings at Durand-Ruel’s. There they have no fewer than 25 etchings after Millet, and the same number after Michel, and masses after Dupré and Corot and all other artists, to be had for 1 franc apiece. That’s tempting indeed. I couldn’t resist buying a couple after Millet: I bought the last 3 of The evening angelus, and my brother will of course receive one when the opportunity arises.
I hear that Mr Iterson is coming to live at the Rooses’, he’s the youngest, I believe. Write again soon. Regards to everyone at the Rooses’ and to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg and to anyone who might ask after me, and in thought a handshake, and ever
Your loving brother
Vincent.
Adieu!
Ramsgate, Welwyn, and Isleworth, 17 April–25 November 1876
76 | Ramsgate, Monday, 17 April 1876 | To Theodorus van Gogh and Anna van Gogh-Carbentus (D)
Ramsgate, 17 April 1876.
Dear Father and Mother,
By now you’ve no doubt received the telegram, but will be wanting to know more particulars. I wrote down a few things in the train and am sending you that, so you can see how my trip went.
Friday
We want to stay together today. Which would be better, the joy of seeing each other again or the sadness of parting?
We’ve often parted from each other already, though this time there was more sorrow than before, on both sides, but courage as well, from the firmer faith in, and greater need for, blessing. And wasn’t it as though nature sympathized with us? It was so grey and rather dismal a couple of hours ago.
Now I look out over rolling pastures, and everything is so quiet and the sun is setting behind the grey clouds and throws a golden glow across the land. How much we long for each other, those first hours after parting, which you’re spending in church and I in the station and the train, and how much we think of the others, of Theo, and of Anna and the other sisters and of little brother.
We just passed Zevenbergen, and I thought of the day you took me there and I stood on Mr Provily’s steps and watched your carriage driving away down the wet street. And then the evening when my Father came to visit me for the first time. And that first homecoming at Christmas.
Saturday and Sunday.
How much I thought of Anna on the boat; everything there reminded me of our journey together.
The weather was clear, and on the Maas especially it was beautiful, also the view from the sea of the dunes, gleaming white in the sun. The last thing one saw of Holland was a small grey tower.
I stayed on deck until sunset, but then it grew cold and dismal.
The next morning in the train from Harwich to London it was beautiful to see in the morning twilight the black fields and green pastures with sheep and lambs, and here and there a hedge of thorn-bushes and a few large oak trees with dark branches and grey, moss-covered trunks. The blue twilit sky, still with a few stars, and a bank of grey clouds above the horizon. Even before the sun rose I heard a lark.
When we arrived at the last station before London the sun rose. The bank of grey clouds had disappeared and there was the sun, so simple and as big as possible, a real Easter sun.
The grass was sparkling with dew and night frost.
And yet I prefer that grey hour when we parted.
Saturday afternoon I stayed on deck until the sun was down. The water was quite dark blue as far as one could see, with rather high waves with white crests. The coast had already disappeared from view. The sky was light blue, burnished and without a cloud.
And the sun went down and cast a streak of dazzling light on the water.
It was a truly grand and majestic sight, and yet simpler, quieter things move one so much more deeply, for now I couldn’t help shuddering, and thought of the night in the stuffy saloon with smoking and singing passengers.
A train was leaving for Ramsgate 2 hours after my arrival in London. That’s another train ride of around 4½ hours. It’s a beautiful ride; we passed, among other things, a hilly region. The hills have a sparse covering of grass at the bottom and oak woods on the top. It’s very similar to our dunes. Between those hills lay a village with a grey church covered with ivy like most of the houses. The orchards were in blossom, and the sky was light blue with grey and white clouds.
We also came past Canterbury, a town which still has a lot of medieval buildings, in particular a splendid church with old elm trees around it. Often, already, I’ve seen something of this town in paintings.
You can imagine how I sat looking out of the window, watching well ahead of time for Ramsgate.
I arrived at Mr Stokes’s around 1 o’clock. He was away from home but will be coming back this evening. During his absence his place was taken by his son (23 years old, I think), a schoolmaster in London.
I saw Mrs Stokes in the afternoon at table. There are 24 boys between the ages of 10 and 14. (It was a fine sight, seeing those 24 boys eating.)
So the school isn’t large. The window looks out onto the sea.
After eating we went for a walk by the sea, it’s beautiful there. The houses on the sea are mostly built of yellow brick in a simple Gothic style, and have gardens full of cedars and other dark evergreen shrubs.
There’s a harbour full of ships, closed in by stone jetties on which one can walk. And further out one sees the sea in its natural state, and that’s beautiful.
Yesterday everything was grey.
In the evening we went to church with the boys. On the wall of the church was written ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world’.
The boys go to bed at 8 o’clock and get up at 6.
There’s another assistant teacher, 17 years old. He, 4 boys and I sleep in another house close by, where I have a small room, which wants some prints on the wall.
And now enough for today, what a good time we had together, thank you, thank you for everything. Many regards to Lies, Albertine and little brother, and in thought a handshake from
Your loving
Vincent.
Thanks for your letters which just arrived; more soon, when I’ve been here a few days and have seen Mr Stokes.
79 | Ramsgate, Friday, 28 April 1876 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Ramsgate, 28 April 1876
My dear Theo,
Many happy returns; my hearty congratulations on this day, may our love for one another only increase as we get older.
I’m so happy that we have so much in common, not only memories of the past but also that you’re working for the same firm I worked for until now, and therefore know so many people and places that I know too, and that you love nature and art so much.
You’ll have received that letter containing Anna’s advertisement in good order. There’s also an advertisement in the Daily News; now we can only hope that something will come of it.
Mr Stokes told me that he intends to move after the holidays — with the whole school, naturally — to a village on the Thames, around 3 hours from London. He would then furnish the school somewhat differently and perhaps expand it.
Now let me tell you about a walk we took yesterday. It was to an inlet of the sea, and the road to it led through the fields of young wheat and along hedgerows of hawthorn etc. When we got there we had on our left a high, steep wall of sand and stone, as high as a two-storey house, on top of which stood old, gnarled hawthorn bushes. Their black or grey, lichen-covered stems and branches had all been bent to the same side by the wind, also a few elder bushes.
The ground we walked on was completely covered with large grey stones, chalk and shells.
To the right the sea, as calm as a pond, reflecting the delicat
e grey sky where the sun was setting. It was ebb tide and the water was very low.
Thanks for your letter of yesterday, I think it very nice that Willem Valkis will be joining the branch. Give him my particular regards. I’d like to walk with you both sometime through the Bosjes to Scheveningen.
Have a pleasant day today, and give my regards to everyone who asks after me, and believe me
Your loving brother
Vincent.
I wish you well today, old boy, and begin a happy and blessed year. These are important years for us both, years on which much already depends. May everything turn out well.
I’ll be glad when Anna has found something, but situations like the ones she is looking for are rather scarce. A sickly lady here who needed someone to look after her received 300 replies to her advertisement.
I shake your hand heartily in thought. Adieu!
83 | Ramsgate, Wednesday, 31 May 1876 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Ramsgate, 31 May 1876
My dear Theo,
Bully for you, being in Etten on 21 May, happily there were 4 of the 6 at home. Pa wrote to me in detail about everything that happened that day. Thanks, too, for your last letter.
Have I already written to you about the storm I saw recently? The sea was yellowish, especially close to the beach; a streak of light on the horizon and, above this, tremendously huge dark grey clouds from which one saw the rain coming down in slanting streaks. The wind blew the dust from the small white path on the rocks into the sea and tossed the blossoming hawthorn bushes and wallflowers that grow on the rocks.
On the right, fields of young green wheat, and, in the distance, the town with its towers, mills, slate roofs and houses built in Gothic style, and, below, the harbour between the 2 jetties running out into the sea, looking like the cities Albrecht Dürer used to etch. I also saw the sea last Sunday night, everything was dark grey, but day was beginning to break on the horizon. It was still very early, and yet a lark was already singing. And the nightingales in the gardens on the sea-front. In the distance the light of the lighthouse, the guard-ship &c.
That same night I looked out of the window of my room onto the roofs of the houses one sees from there and the tops of the elms, dark against the night sky. Above those roofs, one single star, but a nice, big friendly one. And I thought of us all, and I thought of the years of my life that had already passed, and of our home, and the words and feeling came to me, ‘Keep me from being a son that causeth shame, give me Your blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my Mother’s sake. Thou art Love, beareth all things. Without your constant blessing we can do nothing.’
Herewith a little drawing of the view from the school window where the boys stand and watch their parents going back to the station after a visit. Many a boy will never forget the view from that window. You should have seen it this week when we had rainy days, especially in the twilight when the street-lamps are being lit and their light is reflected in the wet street.
Mr Stokes was sometimes moody during those days, and when the boys were too boisterous for him it sometimes happened that they didn’t get their bread and tea in the evening. You should have seen them then, standing at the window looking out, it was really rather sad. They have so little apart from their food and drink to look forward to and to get them through the day. I’d also like you to see them going down the dark stairs and small corridor to table. On that, however, the friendly sun shines.
Another extraordinary place is the room with the rotten floor where there are 6 basins at which they wash themselves, with only a feeble light falling onto the washstand through a window with broken panes. It’s quite a melancholy sight, to be sure. How I’d like to spend or to have spent a winter with them, to know what it’s like.
The youngsters are making an oil stain on your little drawing, forgive them.
Herewith a few words for Uncle Jan.
And now good-night, if anyone should ask after me bid them good-day. Do you still visit Borchers once in a while? Give him my regards if you see him, and also Willem Valkis and everyone at the Rooses’. A handshake in thought from
Your loving
Vincent
[Sketch 83A]
83A. View of Royal Road, Ramsgate
84 | Welwyn, Saturday, 17 June 1876 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Welwyn, 17 June 1876
My dear Theo,
Last Monday I left Ramsgate for London. That’s a long walk indeed, and when I left it was awfully hot and it remained so until the evening, when I arrived at Canterbury. That same evening I walked a bit further until I came to a couple of large beeches and elms next to a small pond, where I rested for a while. In the morning at half past 3 the birds began to sing upon seeing the morning twilight, and I continued on my way. It was good to walk then. In the afternoon I arrived at Chatham, where, in the distance, past partly flooded, low-lying meadows, with elms here and there, one sees the Thames full of ships. It’s always grey weather there, I think. There I met a cart that brought me a couple of miles further, but then the driver went into an inn and I thought he might stay there a long time, so I walked on and arrived towards evening in the well-known suburbs of London and walked on towards the city down the long, long ‘Roads’. I stayed in London for two days and often ran from one end of the city to the other in order to see various people, including a minister to whom I’d written. Herewith a translation of the letter, I’m sending it to you because you should know that the feeling I have as I start out is ‘Father, I am not worthy!’ and ‘Father be merciful to me!’ Should I find anything it will probably be a situation somewhere between minister and missionary, in the suburbs of London among working folk. Don’t speak about this to anyone, Theo. My salary at Mr Stokes’s will be very small. Probably only board and lodging and some free time in which to teach, or if there’s no free time, at most 20 pounds a year.
But to continue: I spent one night at Mr Reid’s and the next at Mr Gladwell’s, where they were very, very kind. Mr Gladwell kissed me good-night and that did me good, may it be granted me sometime in the future to show some more friendship to his son every now and then. I wanted to leave for Welwyn that evening, but they literally held me back by force because of the pouring rain. However, when it had let up somewhat, around 4 in the morning, I set out for Welwyn. First a long walk from one end of the city to the other, something like 10 miles (each taking 20 minutes). In the afternoon at 5, I was with our sister and was very glad to see her. She looks well and you would be as pleased with her room as I am, with ‘Good Friday’, ‘Christ in the Garden of Olives’, ‘Mater Dolorosa’ &c. with ivy around them instead of frames. Old boy, when you read my letter to that minister you’ll perhaps say: he’s not so bad after all, though in fact he is. Think of him as he is, however, every once in a while. A handshake in thought from
Your loving brother
Vincent
Rev. Sir.
A clergyman’s son, who, because he must work to earn a living, has no money and no time to study at King’s College, and who, besides that, is already a couple of years older than is usual for someone starting there, and has not even begun on the preparatory studies of Latin and Greek, would, in spite of everything, dearly like to find a situation connected with the church, even though the position of a clergyman who has had college training is beyond his reach.
My father is a clergyman in a village in Holland. When I was 11 years old I started going to school and stayed there until I was 16. At that time I had to choose a profession and didn’t know what to choose. Through the offices of one of my uncles, an associate in the firm of Goupil & Co., art dealers and publishers of engravings, I was given a position in his branch at The Hague. I worked for the firm for 3 years. From there I went to London to learn English, and after 2 years from there to Paris. Forced by various circumstances to quit the firm, however, I left Messrs G.&Co. and have since taught for 2 months at Mr Stokes’s school at Ramsgate. As my goal is a situation connected with the church, however, I
must look further.
Although I have not been trained for the church, perhaps my past life of travelling, living in various countries, associating with a variety of people, rich and poor, religious and not religious, working at a variety of jobs, days of manual labour in between days of office work &c., perhaps also my speaking various languages, will compensate in part for my lack of formal training. But what I should prefer to give as my reason for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and that which concerns the church, which has at times lain dormant, though it awakened repeatedly, and — if I may say so, despite feelings of great inadequacy and shortcoming — the Love of God and of humankind. And also, when I think of my past life and of my father’s house in that Dutch village, a feeling of ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me.’ When I was living in London I often attended your church and I have not forgotten you. Now I am asking you for a recommendation in my search for a situation, and to keep a fatherly eye on me should I find such a situation. I have been left very much to myself; I believe that your fatherly eye could do me good, now that
The early dew of morning
has passed away at noon.
Thanking you in advance for whatever you may be willing to do for me …
88 | Isleworth, Friday, 18 August 1876 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Isleworth, 18 Aug. 1876
My dear Theo,
Yesterday I went to see Gladwell, who’s home for a few days. Something very sad happened to his family: his sister, a girl full of life, with dark eyes and hair, 17 years old, fell from her horse while riding on Blackheath. She was unconscious when they picked her up, and died 5 hours later without regaining consciousness.
I went there as soon as I heard what had happened and that Gladwell was at home. I left here yesterday morning at 11 o’clock, and had a long walk to Lewisham, the road went from one end of London to the other. At 5 o’clock I was at Gladwell’s. I’d gone to their gallery first, but it was closed.
Ever Yours Page 9