Dear Theo,
Coming home, you may have found another note I wrote you.
But whereas in this I asked you to take back some things you
said, now I ask you not to.
For even if you should say you had come to think differently
about things, I should not be able to believe you, as I am of
the opinion that you are definitely like that - and that it
is not to be expected that you will actually change your
mind in the near future. When years have gone by, we shall
perhaps speak about these matters in quite a different
way, but probably not even then.
For the time being I believe we certainly need not revert to
the subject.
What you might send next month over and above the 100
francs, you would get back, so please send 100 francs, which
for the time being I shall continue to count on according to
our agreement, but nothing more.
And it will be my endeavour to find something to replace
that, and in the long run I suppose I shall succeed.
Goodbye.
Vincent
[Postscript]
Please do not think I do not want to be good friends
- but in this case it is not in the nature of things; even if
one should try, it would be no good - in short, it is a case
nobody would be able to do much about.
I believe that your character is now cast in a definite
mould - mine is too - and the shapes are not identical.
I cannot say I really take ill of you - neither perhaps do you
of me - but to go on as if we were of one mind, we should have
to be like Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme in Monnier's book, and
I at least utterly refuse to be like that, and for your
sake I hope you will do the same. So I'm not going to take it
to heart any longer.
At this time, Vincent was 31 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written early February 1885 in Nuenen. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number . URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/15/355b.htm.
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