Faith in God is for me a certainty — not some notion, not an idle belief, it is so, it is true — there is a God that lives — and He is with our parents, and his eye is also upon us, and I am certain that He intends us for something, and that we do not belong entirely to ourselves, as it were — and that God is none other than Christ of Whom we read in our Bible, whose word and story are also deep in your heart. If only I had worked at it sooner with all my might, yes, it would be better for me now — but even now He will be a mighty help, and it is in His power to make our life bearable, to keep us from evil, to let all things work together for good, to make the end of us peace. There is evil in the world and in ourselves, terrible things, and one doesn’t have to have gone far in life to dread much and to feel the need for unfaltering hope in a life after this one, and to know that without faith in a God one cannot live — cannot endure. But with that faith one can long endure. And now, there are words in our Bible that are emphatically repeated in various places, on various occasions, under various circumstances, Fear not, our Father took that to heart and he says ‘I never despair’, let us repeat it after him. Isn’t it your experience, too, that whenever you wanted to do something bad, you were held back — that whenever there was something upsetting you and you saw no way out, you came through it all unharmed? A book by Bunyan tells of a traveller who sees a lion lying at the side of the road he must traverse — and yet he continues on his way — there is nothing else he may or can do — and when he arrives at the place he notices that the lion is chained up and is only there to test the travellers’ courage. Thus it is in life more than once. There is much in store for us, but others have lived, and so whosoever loves his parents must follow them on life’s path. If you value the love and esteem of young people, declare your beliefs openly whenever suitable, and admit that you love Christ and the Bible, doesn’t a son love his Father better for this reason than for any other? Women and children and the simple often feel and know these things so deeply, and there is hidden in so many a heart a great and vigorous faith. We, too, are in need of this when we think of much that is in store for us, He spoke from all His experience of life, and we know how much must have been going on in the heart whose plenitude made His mouth utter the words ‘in the Heavenly Kingdom they do not marry, and are not given in marriage’, and who said, he who hate not, even his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. Yes, those words of the Lord, surely they are the words issuing from the mouth of God whereby man shall live — and not by bread alone and the more one seeks in those words, the more one shall find therein. When I was standing next to Aertsen’s body, the calm and seriousness and solemn stillness of death contrasted so greatly with us who were living, that everyone felt what his daughter said in her simplicity: he is delivered from the burden of life which we must still bear. And yet we are so attached to that old life because there is cheerfulness to counter despondency, and our heart and our soul are gladdened, just as the lark who cannot help singing in the morning, even if our soul is sometimes cast down within us and is disquieted in us. And the memory of everything we have loved remains and returns in the evening of our life. It is not dead, but sleepeth and it is good to collect a great store of it. Accept a handshake in thought, and I wish you the very best, and write again soon to
Your most loving brother
Vincent
120 | Amsterdam, Tuesday, 12 June 1877 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Amsterdam, 12 June 1877
My dear Theo,
I received your letter of 7 June and was glad to see that you were in Etten and had a good Sunday there, it’s nice that Pa and little brother brought you as far as Dordrecht.
And then you wrote about how you spoke at home of your plans for the future, when I read it, my heart spilled over for you, as it were, it seems very good to me. Launch out into the deep. What I hope now is only this — that you go to London before you see Paris. But we have to wait and see what happens. I’ve loved so much about those two cities, I think back on them with a feeling of nostalgia, and I’d almost like to go with you, if I’m ever far enough along to be permitted to fill a position in that great Dutch Church, then those memories will one day provide subjects for sermons, go onward in belief and with the faith of old, you and I; who knows whether we’ll shake each other’s hand again as I remember Pa and Uncle Jan doing at that little church in Zundert, once when Uncle came back from travelling and much had happened in both their lives, and they now felt firm ground beneath their feet, as it were.
Be sure and write as soon as you hear any more about this, I hope that we’ll have a quiet moment together sometime before you leave. Even though there seems to be no opportunity at present, such a thing may soon come about. But I repeat, brother, my heart spills over for you, I think the plan is very good — my past comes completely alive again now that I’m thinking of your future. ‘Behold, I make all things new’ will perhaps soon be your experience.
Be blessed these days. Take a good look at the things around you — don’t forget them — walk through the land again, as it says: in the length of it and in the breadth of it.
I have a lot to do every day, so the time goes quickly and the days are almost too short, even though I stretch them out a bit, I have such a great desire to progress and also to know the Bible well and thoroughly, and also to know many things, such as what I wrote to you about Cromwell. ‘No day without a line’, daily writing, reading, working and practising, with meekness and perseverance, will surely lead to something.
This week I went to the cemetery here, outside the Muiderpoort, there’s a small wood in front of it where it’s beautiful, especially in the evening when the sun shines through the leaves, there are also a lot of beautiful graves and all kinds of evergreens, and roses and forget-me-nots bloom there. Also took another walk to the Zuiderzee, which is 40 minutes from here, over a dyke from which one sees meadows everywhere and farms which always remind me of etchings by Rembrandt. It’s a beautiful city, this, today I again saw a corner for Thijs Maris or Allebé, namely houses behind the Oosterkerk, on a small inner courtyard, I had to see the sexton to ask about Uncle’s place in the church and I was in his house, also living there is a shoemaker &c., but one finds it everywhere, the world is full of it, may our own heart be filled with it and become so more and more. When I saw that sexton I couldn’t help thinking of a wood engraving, by Rethel I think, you must know it too, ‘Death as a friend’. I always found that scene very moving, in London in those days one saw it in front of nearly all the print-shop windows. It has a pendant, Cholera in Paris, and that dance of death is also by Rethel.
Heard the Rev. Laurillard on Sunday morning in the early sermon on ‘Jesus went through the cornfields’. He made a deep impression on me — he also spoke in that sermon about the parable of the sower and about the man who cast seed into the ground, and he should sleep, and rise day and night, and the seed should spring and increase and grow up, he knoweth not how, he also spoke about the funeral in the cornfield by Van der Maaten. The sun shone through the windows — there weren’t that many people in the church, mostly labourers and women. Afterwards I heard Uncle Stricker in the Oosterkerk on ‘praise, not of men but of God’, also occasioned by the death of H.M.
On Monday Aunt Mina and Margreet Meyboom left for Etten, and I saw them at the station of the Oosterspoor. While I was waiting for them there, I read the following in Lamennais:
At the head of a small inlet beneath a cliff hollowed out at its foot by the waves, among rocks from which hung long strands of sea-green weed, two men, one young, the other old but still sturdy, leaning against a fishing-boat, waited for the tide that was slowly coming in, barely ruffled by a dying breeze. Swelling as they neared the shore, the waves slid lazily over the sand with a faint and gentle murmur. A little later, the boat could be seen moving away from the shore towards the open sea, its prow raised, leaving behind it a ribbon of white foam. The old man, beside the tiller, watched the sails as they filled, then drooped like
weary wings. His gaze then seemed to look for a sign on the horizon and in the dense, motionless clouds. Then, as he sank back into his thoughts, one read on his tanned brow an entire life of toil and unremitting struggle from which he had never flinched. The ebb tide created small valleys in the calm sea, where the hen petrel played, balancing gracefully on the glistening, lead-hued waves. From high in the air the seagull dived into them like an arrow, and on the black tip of a rock the ungainly cormorant stood motionless. The slightest movement, a faint breath of air, a streak of light, altered the aspect of these changing scenes. The young man, withdrawn into himself, saw them as one sees in dreams. His soul drifted and floated to the sound of the wake, like the light, monotonous sound with which the nurse sends the child to sleep. Suddenly, coming out of his reverie, his eyes light up, the air echoes to the sound of his resonant voice: To the ploughman the fields, to the huntsman the woods, to the fisherman the sea and its waves, and its reefs and its storms. The sky above his head, the depths beneath his feet, he is free, he has no master but himself. See her obey his hand, see her leap across the moving plains, the frail vessel into which the wind breathes life. He contends with the waves and subdues them, he contends with the wind and tames it. Who is as strong, who is as great as he? Where are the boundaries of his domains? Has anyone ever found them? Wherever the Ocean pours itself forth, God has said to him: Go, this is thine. His nets gather a living harvest in the depths of the waters. He has flocks beyond number which grow fat for him in pastures covered by the seas. Flowers — purple, blue, yellow, crimson, open in their bosom, and to charm his eye, the clouds present him with vast shores, beautiful azure lakes, wide rivers, mountains and valleys and fantastic cities, now plunged in shadow, now lit by all the glory of the setting sun. Oh, how sweet it is to me, the fisherman’s life! How its harsh battles and its manly joys delight me. And yet, my mother, when at night the squall suddenly shakes our cabin, what fear grips your heart! See you rise, all trembling, to invoke the holy Virgin who protects poor sailors! Kneeling before her image, your tears flow for your son, driven in the darkness by the whirlwind towards the reefs, where the moans of the dead are heard, mingling with the voice of the storm. Protect us, O Lord, for our barks are so small and Thy sea is so great.
A terrible storm blew up here this morning at quarter to 5, a little while later the first stream of workers came through the gate of the dockyard in the pouring rain. Got up and went into the yard and took a couple of notebooks to the cupola and sat there reading and looking round the whole yard and dock, the poplars and elders and other shrubs were bent by the strong wind, and the rain pelted on the wood-piles and the decks of the ships, sloops and a little steamboat went back and forth in the distance, near the village on the other side of the IJ, one saw brown sails passing quickly and the houses and trees on Buitenkant and churches in more vivid colours. Again and again one heard thunder and saw lightning, the sky looked like a painting by Ruisdael, and the gulls were flying low over the water.
It was a magnificent sight, and really refreshing after the oppressive heat of yesterday. It has refreshed me, because I was awfully tired when I went upstairs yesterday evening.
Paid a visit yesterday to the Rev. Meijjes and his wife, because Pa had told me to do this, and I had tea with them. When I arrived, His Reverence was taking his afternoon nap and I was requested to go for a half-hour walk, which I did, fortunately I had that little book by Lamennais in my pocket and I read under the trees lining the canals, where the evening sun was reflected in the dark water. Then I went back, and they made me think of ‘Winter’ by Thorvaldsen. One nevertheless sees it much more beautifully in Pa and Ma, but as I said, it was like that here, too.
The days fly past, I’m four years older than you and I feel that they probably go by faster for me than for you, but I fight against it by stretching them out a bit in the mornings and evenings.
Will you write again soon? It’s a pity that Mager isn’t coming after all. The weather has cleared up again, and the sky is blue and the sun is shining brightly and the birds are singing, there are rather a lot of them at the yard, and all kinds, in the evenings I always walk up and down there with the dog, often thinking of that poem ‘Under the stars’.
When all sounds cease, God’s voice is heard, under the stars.
The roses growing against the house are also blooming, and in the garden the elderberry and jasmine. Recently went to the Trippenhuis again to see whether those rooms, which were closed when we were there together, had been put back in order, but it will probably take another fortnight before one can go in again. There were a lot of foreigners at the time, French and English, hearing them speak revives a lot of memories in me. Yet I don’t regret being back here. ‘Life hath quicksands, life hath snares’ are true words.
How is Mrs Tersteeg? If you run into Mauve or go to see him, give him my regards, also to everyone at the Haanebeeks’ and Rooses’.
Now I must get to work, don’t have any lessons today, but on the other hand 2 hours tomorrow morning, so have really a lot to do. I’ve worked my way through the history of the Old Testament up to Samuel, this evening I’ll start with Kings, when that work is finished, it will be a valuable thing to have. As I sit here writing I cannot help making a little drawing now and then, like the one I sent you recently, and like the one I made this morning of Elijah in the desert with stormy skies and a couple of thorn-bushes in the foreground, it’s nothing special, but sometimes I see it all so clearly in my mind’s eye, and I believe that at such moments I should be able to talk about it passionately, may it later be granted me to do so.
I wish you the very best, if you ever go to the Scheveningen Bosjes or to the beach, give them my regards. When you next come here I’ll be able to show you some beautiful spots here as well. Every day on my way to Mendes I have to pass through the Jewish quarter.
Should like you to hear the Rev. Laurillard too, one day.
And now, adieu, a handshake in thought from
Your loving brother,
Vincent
123 | Amsterdam, Friday, 27 July 1877 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Amsterdam, 27 July 1877
My dear Theo,
Thanks for your last letter, I heard from home that you’ve already been to Mauve’s, that was undoubtedly a good day, I’ll certainly hear about it sometime, when the opportunity arises. Herewith a contribution for your collection, namely three lithographs after Bosboom and two by J. Weissenbruch, found them this morning at a Jewish bookseller’s. Is that one after Bosboom the church in Scheveningen? The other is the Grote Kerk in Breda, the third after his painting that was at the large exhibition in Paris. Those two after Weissenbruch moved me — perhaps you already have them, but then again possibly not. Do go on collecting such prints, and books too.
I’m now collecting Latin and Greek themes and all kinds of writings on history and so on. Am working on one on the Reformation that’s getting rather long.
Recently spoke to a young man who had just done his entrance examination for the Leiden college with a good result — it isn’t easy, he told me what they asked him, but I do keep up my courage, and with God’s help I’ll pass them, and the following examinations as well. Mendes has given me every reason to believe that at the end of three months we’ll be as far as he imagined we would be if everything went well. Still, Greek lessons in the heart of Amsterdam, in the heart of the Jewish quarter on a very warm and oppressive summer afternoon, with the feeling hanging over me that many difficult examinations will have to be taken, set by very learned and cunning professors, are rather more oppressive than a walk on the beach or in the Brabant wheatfields, which will certainly be beautiful now, on a day like that. But we must ‘strive on’ through everything, as Uncle Jan says.
A couple of days ago a couple of children fell into the water near the Kattenburg bridge. Uncle saw it and commandeered the sloop of the Makasser that is in dock here. A little boy was pulled out; I went along with two ship’s doctors whom U
ncle had sent over, and the men carrying the boy into a chemist’s shop made every effort to resuscitate the child, but to no avail. In the meantime it was recognized by the father, who’s a stoker at the dockyard, and the little body was taken home in a woollen blanket. The search went on for an hour and a half, as it was thought that a girl had fallen in as well, though happily that seems not to be the case. In the evening I went back to see the people, it was then already dark in the house, the little body lay so still on a bed in a side room, he was such a sweet little boy. There was great sorrow, that child was the light of that house, as it were, and that light had now been put out. Even though coarse people express their grief in a coarse way and without dignity, as the mother did, among others, still, one feels a great deal in such a house of mourning, and the impression stayed with me the whole evening when I took a walk.
Last Sunday morning I made a nice excursion, namely first to the early sermon, the Rev. Posthumus Meijjes in the Noorderkerk, then to Bickerseiland, where I walked on the dyke along the IJ until it was time for church again, and then to the Eilandskerk where Uncle Stricker preached. Thus the time passes, and quickly too, already we’re almost at the end of the week again.
How are you, old chap? So very often, daily, do I think of you.
God help us, struggling, to stay on top, it is good that you associate with good artists; I, too, still cling to the memory of many of them. Overcome evil with good, it is written, and one can seek to do it — and to this end God can help and make our days bearable with much good in the meantime, and preserve us from too much self-reproach.
Ever Yours Page 13