Notes

Context:
JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883: "If I could have, I would have had the windows altered like this: which wouldn't have been that much more if we hadn't been dealing with blinds that already existed. The difference is only that there's a frame around each square of light, and the blinds are thus slightly smaller."

Context:
JLB 325, 3/5/1883: "Last year I bought at least 6 expensive, special penholders and various pens -- it was all rubbish."

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "But, old chap, it's wonderful for me that I've once again been given so many good tools -- thanks again for everything."

Context:
JLB 400, 10/28/1883: "Does one lose something by abandoning some notions, drummed into us as children, of preserving status -- of regarding certain manners as No. 1?"

Context:
JLB 203, 1/26/1882: "In short, my youth is past, not my love of life or my vitality, but I mean the time when one doesn't feel that one lives, and lives without effort. Actually I say all the better, there are now better things, after all, than there were then."

Context:
JLB 114, 5/19/1877: "Yesterday Uncle Cor sent me a batch of old paper, such as the sheet on which I'm writing to you. Isn't it wonderful for doing my work on? I have a lot of work already, and it isn't easy, but meekness will help one to get used to it. I only hope to bear in mind the ivy, 'which stealeth on though he wears no wings'. Like the ivy on the walls, so the pen must cover the paper."

Context:
BVG W12, 6/16/1889: "The cases where doing nothing becomes doing wrong do not seem to be exceptional here."
JLB 780, 6/16/1889: "The cases aren't perhaps rare here where doing nothing becomes doing bad."

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "But on such days it would be nice to look up a friend or to be in the company of one, and on such days one sometimes has an empty feeling if one can't go anywhere and nobody comes. Yet it's precisely then that I feel what the work is; how, regardless of approval or disapproval, it gives tone to life."

Context:
BVG 303, 7/23/1883: "Oh, Theo, the work brings its troubles and cares, but what is it in comparison to the misery of a life of inactivity?"
JLB 365, 7/23/1883: "Oh Theo, the work involves trouble and setbacks, but what is that compared with the misery that looms if someone leads a life without activity?"

Context:
BVG 379, 9/15/1884-9/30/1884: "I want to have a lot of work to do -- believe me -- and I don't intend to be bored -- do a great deal or drop dead."
JLB 464, 10/2/1884: "I want to have a lot of work -- believe me -- I have no intention of being bored -- do a great deal or die."

Van Heugten persuasively disputes the authenticity of all of the juvenilia other than De la Faille XII, the view of a farmhouse and a bar (Van Heugten, pp. 246-251). He does not officially accept the latter because he did not see it first-hand, but argues that it is probably correct because De la Failles states that the words "8 Februari 1864 Vincent" are written on the reverse in Dorus's handwriting: February 8 being Dorus's birthday and indicating that the drawing was a birthday gift to Dorus from his eldest son (ibid., p. 246). Van Heugten says about the juvenilia as a whole: "It is not only the provenances that are unconvincing. There is little in the sheets in the Van Gogh Museum to inspire confidence in their attribution. Technically they are far too good to be the work of a child. It makes little difference that they are all probably copies after prints, as Van Gelder rightly states, for one can recognize a child's hand even in a copy. Here the lines and hatchings are clearly the work of quite a practised artist. If the young Vincent had been capable of producing drawings like this, someone in the family would certainly have remembered." (ibid., pp. 247-248.)

Context:
JLB 406, 11/12/1883 or 11/13/1883: "One thing I tell you, that this countryside has the effect on me of bringing me peace, faith, courage, and I believe you also need this influence yourself -- it would be the very, very best thing for you -- let you find yourself, your soul again, but more thoroughly and fully than in the time of drawing mills. But I'm afraid you regard what I say as a trick of my imagination, my words as up in the air and without foundation."

Context:
BVG 143, 4/12/1881: "You should take into account that it is only a short time since I started drawing, although I made little sketches when I was a boy."
JLB: "You must remember that I haven't been drawing for long, even if I did sometimes make little sketches as a boy."

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "It may be that nature has favoured us to some extent (in any case you and I certainly have it -- perhaps we owe it to our boyhood in Brabant and to surroundings that taught us to think more than is usual), but it is really and truly not until later that the artistic sensibility develops and ripens through work."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "It may be that there has to be something innate in us, to some extent (but that too you have, and so do I -- for that we may have to thank our childhood in Brabant and a background that helped, much more than is usually the case, to teach us to think), but above all, above all, it's only later that the artistic sense develops and ripens through working."

Context:
JLB 741, 1/22/1889: "I still have the most primitive memories of all of you, of those days; to remember all this there's now only Mother and me."

Context:
BVG 324, 9/15/1883: "Theo, when I see a poor woman like that on the heath, with a child on her arm or at her breast, my eyes grow moist. I am reminded of her, and her weakness; her slovenliness, only add to the likeness. I know that she is no good, that I have every right to do as I am doing, that I could not stay with her there, that I really could not take her with me, indeed that what I did was sensible, wise, whatever you like, but that doesn't alter the fact that it cuts right through me when I see a poor little figure like that, feverish and miserable, and it melts my heart."
JLB 386, 9/14/1883: "Theo, when I see some poor woman on the heath with a child in her arms or at her breast my eyes become moist. I see her in them; her weakness and slovenliness, too, only serve to intensify the likeness. I know that she isn't good, that I have every right to do what I'm doing, that to stay with her there wasn't possible, that bringing her with me really wasn't possible either, that what I did was even sensible, wise, what you will, but that doesn't alter the fact that it goes right through me when I see some poor little creature, feverish and miserable, and that then my heart melts." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 135, 11/24/1877-11/25/1877: "But his wife was at home, sitting at work in a small room like the back room at Etten (only this one was on the street)."

Context:
JLB 138, 12/30/1877: "Yesterday I saw the sewing school that Ma now holds in the consistory, it is indeed pleasant, one would like to have a painting of it."

Context:
JLB 135, 11/24/1877-11/25/1877: "his wife … reminds me of Mrs. Jones, and she could pass for an Englishwoman as far as her appearance is concerned, especially if she were wearing a dress of English fabric, Scottish plaid, for example. They're such nice people, met them recently at a lecture and they stood out from the others in the audience just like an old, moss-covered apple tree or a rosebush from the cemetery or an elm tree with crows' nests would stand out among all kinds of unnatural, exotic plants."

Context:
BVG 546, 10/8/1888: "That is to say, I am doing a portrait of Mother for myself. I cannot stand the colourless photograph, and I am trying to do one in a harmony of colour, as I see her in my memory."
JLB 699, 10/8/1888: "That's to say, I'm doing a portrait of our mother for myself. I can't look at the colourless photograph, and I'm trying to do one with harmonious colour, as I see her in my memory."

Context:
JLB 685, 9/21/1888: "Only I don't like it at all as a real likeness; I've just painted my own portrait, and I have the same ashy coloration, and unless they do us in colour they'll give an idea of us that's not very lifelike."

Later, as here -- and probably earlier as well -- Vincent tried to recruit Theo in his deceptions. As early as 1873, Anna and Dorus tried to encourage Theo not to be led astray by his brother, suggesting that such attempts were well known to them. ("If you notice that you have made some kind of mistake then admit your guilt honestly rather than trying to cover it up." [b2593 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 1/9/1873].) In later years, Vincent's evasions would evolve into a sophisticated defensiveness that he used to manipulate his friends and, in particular, his brother. In 1882, when Theo asked to see one of Vincent's paintings to check his progress, Vincent responded: "But what I should like best of all is for you to see everything together. Is there any chance of your coming again this winter? If so, I should certainly prefer not to send anything." (JLB 266, 9/18/1882.) Effectively, this put Theo in an emotional box. If he insisted on seeing a painting, he would be telling Vincent that he had no plans to come visit. Vincent knew that Theo would never say that, as it would cast him in an unbrotherly light.

In dealing with his parents, Vincent developed just the opposite strategy: a brazen brinksmanship. The best example of this comes from 1881 when Vincent plotted to confront his Uncle Stricker with his plans to marry Stricker's daughter, Kee Vos. His plan was to show up unexpectedly at Stricker's home in Amsterdam to confront the preacher directly with the threat of an ugly scene if his suit of Kee were denied. "For when I do arrive entirely unannounced," he wrote Theo, "he [Stricker] might perhaps have no alternative but to turn a blind eye for the sake of peace" (JLB 182, 11/10/1881 or 11/11/1881). Vincent learned, presumably quite early, that his willingness to throw towering fits in a family that prized decorum forced his parents to choose: either appease him or risk an embarrassing explosion. He grew increasingly defiant and bullying, even as his parents grew increasingly distant and disapproving. At one point, he bragged to Theo: "I made Father and Mother feel something they did not want to feel" (JLB 185, 11/18/1881).(JLB 247, 7/18/1882.)

He learned the power of self-abusive behavior – or even just the threat of it. He often threatened to refuse the meager allowance that Theo sent him -- implicitly a threat to throw himself on the public dole and make himself a family embarrassment. In 1882 he responded to his family's effort to separate him from the prostitute Sien Hoornik with this vague, sulky threat of self-destruction: "I will not leave Sien; I should be a broken man without her, and then I should also be ruined in my work and everything; then I should never get over it, and not wanting to be a nuisance or trouble to you any longer, I should say, Theo, I am a broken man, and everything is lost; it's no use your helping me anymore" (JLB 247, 7/18/1882).

Dorus's reaction to threats like this betrays a lifetime of intimidation, "I foresee that again a bomb is going to burst," he wrote Theo wearily in 1878 (b0968 V/1962, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 3/2/1878). Vincent also developed a chronic miscreant's addiction to negative attention. "It is as if he purposely chooses the ways that lead to difficulties," Dorus lamented (ibid.). Vincent's parents braced themselves against this cycle of escalating insurrection with denial and appeasement in the short term ("Do me the favor not to write about this to Vincent; as he could interpret this incorrectly" [b2724 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/5/1874], and pious resignation for the future).

Context:
JLB 202, 1/22/1882: "And it hinders me so much in my work if I have too many other things on my mind that I don't want to think about, and am in a stew while sitting in front of the model about how I'm going to pay and whether I'll continue the next day or won't be able to."

Context:
BVG 221, 8/1/1882: "And one is almost inclined to say: confound it, the painters are almost like a family, namely, a fatal combination of persons with contrary interests, each of whom is opposed to the rest, and two or more are of the same opinion only when it is a question of combining together to obstruct another member."
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "And would almost say, Sapristi, the painters are a family too. That's to say, an ill-fated association of people with conflicting interests, each one at odds with the rest, two or more of whom share the same feelings only when they join forces to obstruct another member."

Context:
JLB 110, 4/8/1877: "It was so beautiful there on the heath, even though it was dark one could make out the heath and the pine-woods and the marshes stretching far and wide, it reminded me of that illustration by Bodmer that's hanging in Pa's study."

Kools, p. 115. Even if the observation in Kools is based on the acceptance of childhood drawings that may well not have been by Vincent (see Ch. 3, n. 42) it applies to the one childhood drawing that appears to be by him (see Ch. 3, n. 43) and is also consistent with everything else that we know about him as a child.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "I conclude with the same thing you said at the end of your letter, that we share a liking for peering behind the scenes, or, in other words, we have a tendency to analyze things. Now I believe that this is precisely the quality one has to have in order to paint -- the strength one must exert in painting or drawing. It may be that nature has favoured us to some extent (in any case you and I certainly have it -- perhaps we owe it to our boyhood in Brabant and to surroundings that taught us to think more than is usual), but it is really and truly not until later that the artistic sensibility develops and ripens through work."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "I end with that with which you close your letter -- that we have in common a liking for seeing behind the scenes or, in other words, are inclined to analyze things. Now this, I believe, is exactly the quality one must have in order to paint -- one must exercise this power when painting or drawing. It may be that there has to be something innate in us, to some extent (but that too you have, and so do I -- for that we may have to thank our childhood in Brabant and a background that helped, much more than is usually the case, to teach us to think), but above all, above all, it's only later that the artistic sense develops and ripens through working."

              I lose myself in You, Nature,
              How my mental power yield;
              I find myself back in the center,
              Around which the Universe turns,
              Exclaim the glory of the centuries,
              Proclaim!
              Or – be quiet, my toy, be silent!
              Hear what Creation
              Is singing!
              To fall silent is very meaningful here –
              And might be called reverence.

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "I just gave Mr. [Slade] Jones's girls a German lesson, and after the lesson I told them Andersen's story The snow queen."

Context:
JLB 342, 5/10/1883: "But the little lad is a miracle of high spirits, already appears inclined to oppose social institutions and conventions. For instance, as far as I know all children are brought up on a kind of bread porridge. But he has refused that with the greatest determination. Although as yet without teeth, he bites firmly into a piece of bread and gets down all kinds of eatables while all the time smiling and crowing and making noises, but his mouth stays firmly shut for porridge &c. &c. He often sits with me in the studio on the floor in a corner on a couple of sacks or something, he crows at the drawings and is always quiet in the studio because he looks at the things on the wall. Oh, he's such an agreeable little lad." (Emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 78, 4/21/1876: "We go to the beach often; this morning I helped the boys build a sand-castle like those we made in the garden at Zundert."

Context:
JLB 4, 1/28/1873: "It's cold here, and people are already skating on the flooded fields. I go walking as much as I can. I'm curious to know whether you'll find an opportunity to go skating."

Context:
JLB 342, 5/10/1883: "So, despite having heard something, it's still the same as with a game of goose, if you remember how one can land on a goose, thus go forward, but unfortunately just then land on a new goose with its beak pointing in a direction one doesn't want to take, and so one must count back to one's original position."

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "Right now you can go no further because you don't believe in yourself in this respect; otherwise you would jump the ditch, that is to say, you would venture further."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "Now you can't go any further because you don't yet believe in yourself in this respect, otherwise you would take the plunge, that's to say venture further."

Context:
JLB 340, 5/7/1883: "Naturally, I've never said a word about the matter, and you can rest assured that I won't let on at home or elsewhere that I already knew something of it or am aware of more intimate details. And, I imagine, behave as if I first heard about it only recently, on a superficial level."

Context:
BVG 363, 3/26/1884: "If you want to think this conceited of me -- well, that's your own business -- but for myself I think you conceited where there is no occasion for it."
JLB 438, 3/15/1884-3/19/1884: "If you want to think this pedantic of me -- that's up to you -- but I think you yourself rather pedantic here, where it isn't appropriate."

Context:
BVG R54, June 1885: "So this is my last word: I want you to take back, frankly and without reservation, what you wrote in your last letters -- beginning with the one I sent back to you."
JLB 517, 7/16/1885: "So there you have my final word. I want you to come right out and take back once and for all, without reservation, what was in your last letters -- beginning with the one I sent back to you."

Context:
JLB 405, 11/11/1883: "Pa sometimes mulled over the story of Jacob and Esau with regard to you and me -- not entirely mistakenly -- although happily there's less enmity, to mention just one difference, and in the Bible itself there are examples aplenty of better relations between brothers than existed between the aforementioned venerable patriarchs."

Context:
BVG 347, 12/18/1883: " My youth was gloomy and cold and sterile under the influence of the rayon noir."
JLB 403, 11/5/1883: " My youth has been austere and cold, and sterile under the influence of the black ray."

Context:
BVG 339a, 10/29/1883-11/15/1883: " I am going to refresh, to rejuvenate myself in nature; I am going to attack things in a new way, and I will arrange my life in such a way that, let's say, in a few years I shall have quite new and sure ground under my feet."
JLB 403, 11/5/1883: " I'm going to refresh, renew myself in nature, I'm just going to tackle it very differently, and I'll arrange it in such a way that in a few years' time, say, I have altogether new, firm ground beneath my feet."

Context:
BVG 76, 10/7/1876: "'I have been ill, my mind was tired, my soul disillusioned and my body suffering. I whom God has endowed at least with moral energy and a strong instinct of affection, I fell in the abyss of the most bitter discouragement and I felt with horror how a deadly poison penetrated my stifled heart. I spent three months on the moors, you know that beautiful region where the soul retires within itself and enjoys a delicious rest, where everything breathes calm and peace; where the soul in presence of God's immaculate creation throws off the yoke of conventions, forgets society, and loosens its bonds, with the strength of renewed youth; where each thought takes the form of prayer, where everything that is not in harmony with fresh and free nature quits the heart.'"
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "I have been ill. My spirit was weary, my soul disenchanted, my body sickly. I, whom God has at least endowed with moral energy and a vast instinct for affection, was falling into the depths of the bitterest discouragement, and I felt with terror a deadly poison creeping into my shrivelled heart. I have spent three months on the heath: you know, that lovely region where the soul returns to itself and enjoys sweet repose; where everything exudes peace and tranquillity; where the soul, in the presence of God's immaculate creation, shakes off the yoke of convention, forgets society and frees itself from its bonds with the vigour of returning youth; where every thought takes on the form of prayer; where the heart is emptied of everything that is not in harmony with the freshness and freedom of nature."

Context:
JLB 526, 8/8/1885-8/15/1885: "They're from the thrush, blackbird, golden oriole, wren, chaffinch. I just hope they arrive safely."

Context:
BVG R58, September 1885: "I thought that you might like the birds' nests as much as I do myself, for really and truly birds -- such as the wren and the golden oriole -- rank among the artists too."
JLB 526, 8/8/1885-8/15/1885: "I thought you might like the birds' nests as I do, because the birds - like the wren or golden oriole -- can also truly be counted among the artists."

Combining the skills of scholar and juggler, Dirks instructed all levels of students in everything from "rhymes and singing" to physics, constantly rotating groups between the benches on one side of the room and the desks that filled the rest of it (Brekelmans, p. 54). (Singing, along with geography and history, were compulsory subjects in elementary education [ibid.].)

Dirks taught geography using maps on the wall, math using abacuses, and writing using individual slates that were piled in the corner at the end of every day. Reading and history were leavened by speaking exercises and "contemplation class." (Students were asked to analyze statements like, "The majority of people live and die without having seriously contemplated either life or death."). After regular school hours, Dirks taught advanced classes in French, English, and German. School inspectors invariably gave Dirks "lots of praise" for his classroom skills and the town rewarded him with free accommodations, numerous honors, and a regular salary of one thousand guilders per year plus twenty cents for every three months each student attended. (His salary was raised at least once, in 1857.)

According to Kools, Master Dirks was a leading citizen in Zundert. If there was one complaint about him, it was that he demanded too much of his charges. He was widely regarded -- not necessarily disapprovingly -- as a strict disciplinarian (Kools, p. 99).

Context:
BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876: "… I thought of the day you took me there, and I stood on the steps at Mr. Provily's, looking after your carriage on the wet road; and then of that evening when my father came to visit me for the first time."
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "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."

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "One could see that yellow carriage in the distance on the long road -- wet after the rain, with thin trees on either side -- running through the meadows."

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "And around a fortnight later [i.e., after his parents left him at the Provily school] I was standing one evening in a corner of the playground when they came to tell me that someone was asking after me, and I knew who it was and a moment later I flung my arms round Father's neck. What I felt, wouldn't it have been 'because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying in us, "Abba, Father"'? It was a moment in which we both felt that we have a Father in heaven; because my Father, too, looked up and in his heart there was an even bigger voice than mine crying 'Abba, Father'."

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "One could see that yellow carriage in the distance on the long road -- wet after the rain, with thin trees on either side -- running through the meadows. The grey sky above it all was reflected in the puddles. And around a fortnight later I was standing one evening in a corner of the playground when they came to tell me that someone was asking after me, and I knew who it was and a moment later I flung my arms round Father's neck."

Context:
BVG W13, 7/2/1889: "Today I sent Theo a dozen drawings after canvases I am working on; otherwise my life is definitely as inept as it was when I was a twelve-year-old boy at boarding school, where I learned absolutely nothing."
JLB 785, 7/2/1889: "I've just sent Theo a dozen drawings after canvases which I have on the go, while all the rest of my life is absolutely as inept as it was at the time when, at the age of 12, I was at a boarding school where I learned absolutely nothing."

Context: JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "And around a fortnight later I was standing one evening in a corner of the playground when they came to tell me that someone was asking after me, and I knew who it was and a moment later I flung my arms round Father's neck."

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "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."

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "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."

Context:
BVG W13, 7/2/1889: "Today I sent Theo a dozen drawings after canvases I am working on; otherwise my life is definitely as inept as it was when I was a twelve-year-old boy at boarding school, where I learned absolutely nothing."
JLB 785, 7/2/1889: "I've just sent Theo a dozen drawings after canvases which I have on the go, while all the rest of my life is absolutely as inept as it was at the time when, at the age of 12, I was at a boarding school where I learned absolutely nothing."

Huysmans was at the height of his reputation when the Van Gogh family friend, Johannes Bosscha, recruited him to teach at the new HBS school in Tilburg. In return for the "great privilege" of Huysmans joining the faculty, Bosscha offered him a virtual blank check. Not only was he paid more than any other teacher, his proposals for the new art curriculum were all enthusiastically approved without regard to cost. Finally, after years of being misunderstood and mistreated in his position as a drawing teacher at the Royal Military Academy (a position he inherited from his father), Huysmans had the opportunity to design a program and furnish a classroom entirely according to his own ideas. His goal was nothing less than to make Tilburg "a center of art education" that would attract promising art students from around the country (ibid., pp. 6-7).

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: " If there had been someone then to tell me what perspective was, how much misery I should have been spared, how much further I should have been now!"
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: " If only there had been someone then who had told me what perspective was, how much misery I would have been spared, how much further along I would be now."

Context:
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "It's that you and I have in common a time of quietly drawing impossible windmills &c., where the drawings are in a singular rapport with the storm of thoughts and aspirations -- in vain, because no one who can shed light is concerned about them (only a painter would then be able to help one along the right path, and their thoughts are elsewhere)."

In another story from Vincent's adolescence, we see additional support for our portrait of Vincent as a wounded, alienated, and prickly youth. Stokvis reports the testimony of a family friend, Cornelis Honcoop, who accompanied Vincent on one of his trips from Tilburg to Zundert: "They traveled by train from Tilburg to Breda; from Breda to Zundert (a walk of more than three hours) they had to walk. On that occasion, Vincent had a large parcel with him; when the other [i.e., Honcoop] offered to take it over from him after a while, the painter replied: 'No. Everyone must carry his own parcel.'" (Stokvis, p. 11.) Stokvis uses this anecdote to support his narrative of Vincent as "exceedingly kind-hearted and friendly" -- Stokvis's relentless theme. In our view, this (mis)reading merely perpetuates the hagiographic gloss of both Stokvis and his witness, Honcoop, whose family later turned this memory into a touchstone of their special relationship with the famous painter. We see curtness and a hostile insularity in Vincent's response, not the faintly Christ-like martyred resignation that Stokvis insinuates.

A different possibility altogether is suggested by a handwritten caption on a surviving photograph of Vincent’s class at the Tilburg School. (Photo on file at the Van Gogh Foundation Archives.) The caption reads: “When he was 11 years old [Vincent] went to the boarding-school Zevenbergen with Provily later again to another school. The high-school in Tilburg and then at Geertruidenberg. At age 16 after consultation with Uncle [Cent] in Prinsenhage about what the boy should do, the latter offered him a position at the house of Goupil in The Hague.” [Emphasis added] This unsigned note introduces the otherwise unreported possibility that Vincent spent some time after leaving the Tilburg school at a third high school, this one in Geertruidenberg, a small community just north of Breda, where Ucle Cent and other Van Gogh relatives lived. This is the only evidence we have found of such an excursion in Vincent’s education.

If it was true in 1868, then Vincent’s quitting school would have been a catastrophic setback for Dorus. If Vincent could not soldier through secondary school, he certainly could never master the Latin and Greek he needed for university. (As of 1880, about a quarter of the Dutch population was university-educated [Mathijsen, p. 12; and Brugmans, p. 111].) However, we can find little support in the surviving record for the proposition that Dorus still harbored such ambitions for Vincent as late as 1868. (See Ch. 3, n. 263.) We think it much more likely that Dorus had come to same conclusion as the father in one of his favorite books, Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Kenelm Chillingly. In that book, a respectable family is upended by an eccentric, rebellious son who seeks solitude in nature, dresses inappropriately, and otherwise defies the duties of his station. His parents complain bitterly of his "strange conduct [that] gives us cause of serious anxiety" and wish only that their child would fit into the world (Bulwer-Lytton, p. 43). "You see, my dear son," his father tells him, "my wish [is] that you should distinguish yourself in the world … as your ancestors have done before." But the obstreperous child refuses all entreaties to normalcy and persists in his "oddities" (ibid.). Finally, in exasperation, the father lashes out at his strange son: "I am ashamed of you" (ibid., p. 44).