1r:1
[Letterhead: Goupil Paris]

Paris, 30 Sept. 1875.

My dear Theo,
Herewith the book about Michel that I promised you,1 also an etching after the Margaret by Scheffer2 and a lithograph after Corot, and a package of chocolate.
I do know that things aren’t easy for you at the moment, old chap, but remain steadfast and be brave; ‘Not to dream, not to sigh’3 is also necessary sometimes.
You know ‘that you are not alone but that the Father is with you’.4 I shake your hand heartily in thought. Ever,

Your loving brother
Vincent

Please keep the enclosed etching after Rembrandt, along with the photos of the Corot and the Jules Breton5 sent previously, until Pa and Ma are comfortably settled in Etten, and send them then, at the end of November for example.

053

Br. 1990: 052 | CL: 40
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Paris, Thursday, 30 September 1875
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1. On Alfred Sensier, Etude sur George Michel, see letter 44, n. 2.
2. Scheffer made a number of paintings in which Margaret (from Goethe's Faust) figures (see Ewals 1987, p. 517). In letter 28 Van Gogh had already mentioned Margaret at the fountain [1663], after which the engraving Marguerite à la fontaine, made by Léopold Flameng, was published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts of 1 March 1864 (vol. 16, facing p. 196). (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1739 [1739].
Other known engravings in which Margaret features are Marguerite (Margaret) by Hermann Eichens of 1862 and Marguerite à l’église (Margaret at church) by Alphonse François of 1864 (both in Bordeaux, Musée Goupil); for the reproductions after Margaret at the spinning wheel, Margaret at church, Margaret leaving church, Margaret on the sabbath, Faust and Margaret in the garden and Margaret at the fountain, see Ewals 1987, pp. 258, 262, 283, 296, 308, 339.
[1663] [1739]
3. From the poem ‘Jonge roeping’ (Youthful vocation) by P.A. de Génestet, included in the volume Laatste der eerste (Last of the first). The opening lines read thus:

Not to dream, not to sigh,
Not to moan, according to my lights
Not to fear, not to fly
From life’s unallayed delights.

Niet te droomen, niet te zuchten,
Niet te klagen, naar ik meen
Niet te schuwen noch te vluchten
’s Levens reine lieflijkheên.

See De Génestet 1869, vol. 2, pp. 18-19.
4. Cf. John 16:32.
5. Regarding this shipment, see letter 42.