Amsterdam, 18 Aug. 1877.

My dear Theo,

I feel the need to write to you again, it might be rather a long time before we see each other again, although I hope that in any case we’ll be together in Etten for Christmas. Aunt Mina’s birthday was last Sunday1 and, as I was there that evening, Uncle Stricker asked me a thing or two and didn’t seem dissatisfied. In everything I often think of the words in Acts, ‘we came’,2 we too must simply go on walking, try to get ahead, looking forward step by step to the goal and keeping it in sight, and when we have made an effort for a while in that way, ‘striving on’, as Uncle Jan says, then we notice through one thing or another that we’ve come a long way.

A poor woodcutter, faggots piled upon his back

And burdened by his load and sum of years,

Groaning and bent low, made way with heavy tread

And tried to reach his smoky cot.

At last, by effort and by pain o’ercome

He lays his burden down and dwells upon his sorry state.

What pleasure has he known in all his days?

Is there a poorer man in all this turning world?

Hungry sometimes, and never knowing rest;

His wife, his children, soldiery, taxation’s cut, Creditors and forced servitude Make of him misfortune’s very mould.

He calls on Death. Death promptly comes, Asks what’s to be done.

He says, to help me load this wood upon my back again

You will not tarry long.

Our passing comes, the cure for every ill,

But let’s not shift from where we stand.

Suffer sooner than die,

That’s man’s maxim.10

I had quite a time on Thursday morning; Uncle had left town to go to Utrecht, and at 7 o’clock I had to be at the Strickers’, because Jan was leaving for Paris and I’d promised to accompany him to the station of the Hollandsche Spoor. So had got up early and seen the workers arriving at the dockyard with the sun shining wonderfully. ‘It is a good thing to praise the Lord God in the morning’,11 that’s what one thinks at such times. You would like the curious sight of that stream of black figures, large and small, first in the narrow street into which the sun shines only briefly and later at the yard. Had breakfast afterwards, a piece of dry bread and a glass of beer – that is a remedy Dickens recommends to those on the verge of committing suicide as being very efficacious in ridding them of that intention, for a while at least.12 And even if one isn’t exactly in such a mood, it’s nevertheless good to do it now and then, and to think at the same time of, for example, Rembrandt’s painting of the supper at Emmaus.13  1v:2

Work, take pains,

That’s the resource that fails the least.

A wealthy farmer, feeling death was nigh,

Summoned his children, spoke to them privily.

Take care, he told them, and do not sell

The inheritance our forebears handed down.

A treasure is concealed therein.

I know not the place, but some courage will suffice

To bring you to it, and you’ll find it out.

Plough your field as soon as the harvest is in.

Dig, delve, turn up the earth, leave not a spot Where the hand pass not and pass again.

Their father dead, the sons ploughed well the field,

This way and that, in such a way that one year thence

It brought back more In coin that was in no way hid. But the man was wise,

In showing them, before his death,

That work is wealth.

The oak one day said unto the reed,

You have good cause ’gainst nature to complain:

To you a goldcrest is a heavy weight,

The slightest wind that may perchance

Make ripples on the water’s face

Forces you to bow your head.

Whereas my brow, just as the mighty Caucasus,

Not only stops the sun’s hot rays

But bids the storm do what it may.

To you, each wind’s a northern blast, to me a gentle breeze.

Had you but grown within the shelter of the leaves

With which I cover all this place about

Your suffering would be less;

I would defend you ’gainst the tempest’s rage.

But you most frequently are found

On the damp edges of the windy realms,

And nature seems to treat you ill indeed.

Your pity, answered him the pliant shrub,

Springs from your kindly heart, but have no care for me.

To me, winds are less fearsome than they are to you,

I bend, I do not break; till now

Against their dreadful buffetings

You have held out; your back’s not bent,

But let’s see how it ends; and as he spoke,

From the far horizon furiously there came

The fearfullest of all the brood

The north had yet unleashed upon his flanks.

The oak stood firm, the reed bent low.

The wind blew harder and then harder still

Until it pulled up by the very roots

The one whose head reached heavenward,

Whose feet stood near the kingdom of the dead.

He stoops to conquer.24

How are you doing, old chap? Write a few words again when you can, you didn’t mind my sending the money back to you, did you,25 and you do know that I’d like SO VERY MUCH to come, first of all to shake your hand again, and also for the exhibition?26 But for the time being I’m not leaving town on Sundays, I simply may not.

Your most loving brother,

Vincent

Tomorrow at 10 o’clock the Rev. Laurillard will preach a sermon in the Oudezijdskapel.

It was such a good sermon, old boy, that Uncle Stricker gave on The way of life is above to the wise, That he may depart from hell beneath,34 and he worked that La mort et le bucheron into it with such feeling.

Something else, Paul Stricker’s engagement to Miss Margreet Meyboom has been broken off, I think it’s a pity.35