6. The Exile | Notes | Van Gogh: The Life Biography

Notes

Chapters

A Fanatic Heart

The Early Years

The Dutch Years

The French Years

Ici Repose

Chapters

1. four and a half million people

Dyos, in Dyos and Wolff, eds. p. 362: Dyos and Wolff give this population figure as of 1875. In addition, they point out, there were another two million people “distributed, less congestedly but within easy daily reach, in an outer belt of the conurbation -- known for statistical purposes after 1875 as Greater London.”

2. "immense black spot"

Porter, p. 283.

3. spilling across the countryside

Lees, in Dyos and Wolff, eds. p. 417. London covered five times the area of Paris.

4. "several days"

Taine, translated by Edward Hyams, p. 16. Reproduced by kind permission of Thames & Hudson Ltd., London.

5. "crushed"

Ackroyd, pp. 586-588: “This, in a sensitive mind such as that of Henry James, can lead to acute depression or feelings of estrangement. 'Up to this time,' [James] wrote to his sister in 1869, 'I have been crushed under a sense of the sheer magnitude of London - its inconceivable immensity -- in such a way as to paralyse my mind ... The place sits on you, broods on you, stamps on you.' That is another aspect of its unimaginable size; it acts as a giant weight or burden upon each individual life and consciousness.”

6. "inconceivable immensity"

James, quoted in Ackroyd, pp. 586-588. (See Ch. 6, n. 5.)

7. so choked with traffic

Horse-drawn omnibuses were still the primary engine of intra-city travel. Inwood makes the point that the advent of the steam engine had only increased the need for horses to transport people and goods among the railroad termini arrayed around the city (Inwood, p. 548). He quotes a London stable-keeper in 1873: "The greater the increase of railways, the greater will be the use of the horse ... The horses have to work in connection with the railways; for every new railway you want fresh horses." In the 1860s, omnibuses carried more than forty million passengers annually (ibid., pp. 546-547). A fuller picture of the chaotic scene in most London streets would also include four-wheeled crawlers and growlers with surly coachmen in top-hats and capes (De Maré, p. 66); swarms of hansom cabs (estimates of their number at the time of Vincent's arrival range from 3,295 [ibid.] to 6,800 [Inwood, p. 548]); and two-wheeled "gondolas" (De Maré, p. 66) with their notoriously audacious drivers in billycock hats and distinctive check coats (ibid., p. 70), rushing impossibly into even the slenderest voids (Ackroyd, pp. 592, 594). In addition, there were thousands of commercial vehicles: milk trucks, bakers' wagons, hawkers' barrows, peddlers' drays; carts loaded with slow-moving mounds of produce and material, most notably wool, scrap metal, straw, and coal (De Maré, p. 55). The rich added private broughams, landaus, and victorias to the melée; the poor, their unpainted country wagons. Most of the latter converged in the market at Covent Garden (only an apple's throw from the Goupil office). Arriving near dawn with fruits and vegetables, they left each night with great steaming loads of manure (ibid., p. 70).

When Vincent left work after seven (his workday usually ended at six P.M., except on Saturday, when Goupil closed at four P.M. (JLB 009, 6/13/1873), but he often stayed in the city longer to eat a cheap dinner. His parents refer several times to his evenings beginning at seven (e.g., b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873). He must have often encountered droves of sheep, cattle, and pigs clattering their way to market through the paralyzed traffic (De Maré, p. 70). In 1867, a statute was passed prohibiting the driving of livestock on London streets between 10:00 A.M. and 7:00 P.M. Because the meat markets in Smithfield and Islington were only open two days a week, the additional congestion (and, no doubt, confusion) on the streets was confined to only those two days. Still, a flock of sheep can be seen competing for roadway in Gustave Doré's famous image of high madness on London's streets, Ludgate Hill from London -- A Pilgrimage (1872). De Maré adds to this nightmarish portrait of London's street scene this memorable detail: "now and then a wagonnette filled with children on an outing, or a fire-engine in flying career" (De Maré, p. 70). All these vehicles (and livestock) jockeyed for advantage in streets devoid of stoplights or traffic cops (Porter, p. 227). Policemen walking beats might try to unsnarl particular jams (as Doré depicts in Ludgate Hill), but there were, according to Porter, "few policemen on point-duty" (i.e., permanently stationed at intersections) (Porter, p. 227).

To ease these daily apocalyptic eruptions of humanity, London had built an underground railroad: almost four miles of dark tunnels through which steam engines bellowed and hissed just a few feet below the thronging crowds (Ransome-Wallis, p. 235). The public had mocked the idea of a "railroad among the sewers" (De Maré, p. 71) when it was proposed, but when the first line opened in 1863 (ibid., p. 73) a decade before Vincent's arrival, everyone hailed it as a wonder straight out of the fantastic tales of the popular French writer Jules Verne. Verne's Le Voyage au centre de la Terre was published the year after the London underground opened (1864); the English edition, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, appeared in 1874. The year of Vincent's arrival, 1873, marked the publication of Verne's Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (Around the World in Eighty Days) in both French and English. To a country boy with claustrophobia and a fear of the dark, however, nothing could have been stranger or more terrifying than the hellish smoke and sulfurous stench of "the Drain," as Londoners called their new subway (Brouwer, Siesling, and Vis, p. 24). And even though commuters flocked to it by the millions -- ten million in its first year (De Maré, p. 74) -- it had no noticeable effect on the chaos above ground, where, according to Charles Dickens, "the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the forward, and the vain, fretted, and chafed, and made their usual uproar" (quoted by Collins, in Dyos and Wolff, eds., pp. 553-554).

8. a person could cross the street

De Maré, citing Mayhew, p. 64: Not surprisingly, this vivid observation belongs to Henry Mayhew: "[One could] walk over the roofs of vans and buses as readily as over the united up-raised shields of the Roman soldiers outside the walls of some beleaguered city."

9. Great winding columns

Collins, in Dyos and Wolff, eds.,p. 552: "And meanwhile, along every street, big or small, in an eternal twilight relieved only by the glaring infamies of modern advertising, there flowed an endless stream of traffic between two columns of earnest, silent Londoners, marching along with eyes fixed ahead and elbows glued to their sides." In The Story of My Heart (1873), Richard Jefferies wrote, "This is the vortex and the whirlpool, the centre of human life today on the earth" (Jefferies, p. 89).

10. clogged the bridges

De Maré, p. 64.

11. interrupted by beggars

Porter, citing Mayhew, p. 284: According to Mayhew, there were forty thousand street people threading their plaintive way through the sidewalk traffic in search of crumbs and someplace to sleep.

12. shoe blacks

De Maré, p. 71.

13. mimes

Collins, in Dyos and Wolff, eds., p. 547.

14. crossing sweeps

De Maré, p. 71.

15. street boys turning cartwheels

Taine, p. 30.

16. hawkers selling every kind

Porter, p. 284: Hawkers, thousands of them, drawn like fishermen to the surging tides of humanity in the streets, planted themselves at the busiest corners in the midst of the rush and offered everything from sewing pins to furniture repair.

17. in a bawling language

Hawkers bawled their wares over the din of the street and the roar of the crowd in a peculiar lingo impenetrable even to some locals. Some examples from Mayhew, the great chronicler of the period: "Ye-o-o! Ye-o-o! here's your fine Yarmouth bloaters! Who's the buyer? ... Oy! oy! oy! Now's your time! fine grizzling sprats! good and cheap!" (Porter, quoting Mayhew, pp. 283-284). Costermongers sold fruit with yells like "strawberries ripe and cherries in the rise" and flower sellers often sold sex as well as their pretty blossoms. To Vincent's inevitable horror, some vendors even sold the larks and nightingales that he had stalked on the Zundert heath (ibid., p. 284). Cries for food, and the smells of it, filled the air everywhere -- from the familiar ham sandwiches (Inwood, p. 657) and hot eels (Porter, p. 284) (a cockney favorite) (see Weinreb and Hibbert, eds., p. 345) to the incomprehensible "trotters" (pickled pig's feet; sheep's trotters were the street-eater's favorite) and "whelks" (i.e., snails, also pickled) (Inwood, p. 657). With his modest salary, Vincent could not afford to take the omnibus to work, but even if he could, he would have had trouble understanding the strange, cryptic calls of the "cad" (conductor) (De Maré, p. 70). According to Ackroyd: "The conductors called out destinations in a continuous stream of colloquial abbreviations that must have been incomprehensible to a foreigner. They also banged on the roof of the bus to signal 'all aboard.'" (Ackroyd, pp. 592-594.)

18. "that great foul city"

Porter, quoting John Ruskin, p. 280. At the worst times, like the Great Stink of 1858, only the brave ventured into the streets without a handkerchief over their noses (De Maré, p. 44). Windows were covered with sheets soaked in chlorine (Ackroyd, p. 344). In poor areas, where drinking wells shared the same water table -- and even the same pipes -- with cesspools, graveyards, and slaughter houses, people died by the thousands of cholera and typhoid (Lampard and Banks in, Dyos and Wolff, eds., pp. 21-22, 106-107). The middle class abhorred such conditions, but, in fact, the city's well, the Thames, was little better. Benjamin Disraeli called it "a Stygian pool reeking with ineffable and unbearable horror" (quoted in Ackroyd, p. 344). In the same stretch of river where the city dumped all its raw sewage, private water companies drew the city's drinking water unfiltered (ibid.). One contemporary account states bluntly: "[Londoners were] made to consume, in some form or other, a portion of their own excrement" (Sheppard, p. 281).

19. Greasy black soot coated

Taine, p. 9. This is Hippolyte Taine's horrified description of London's grand buildings: "every crevice inked in, porticos foul with soot ... the colonnades, peristyles and Greek ornaments, the mouldings and garlands on the houses, all washed with soot; poor architecture of antiquity, what is it doing in such a climate as this! ... On the facades of the British Museum the fluting of the columns is full of greasy filth, as if sticky mud had been set flowing down them. St Paul's, a kind of Pantheon, has two storeys of columns, the lower ones all black, the top ones, recently scraped, still white, a glaring white, painful; but already coal smoke has fouled them with its leprosy." Taine bemoaned London's horrific smog, too: "The vast space which, in the south, lies between earth and heaven, is missed, here, by the seeking eye; no more air, nothing but the flowing fog. In this livid smoke, objects are no more than phantoms and nature looks like a bad drawing in charcoal on which someone has rubbed his sleeve."

20. thousands of other newcomers

Inwood, p. 570.

21. overwhelmed

Sheppard, p. 273: "Inner London became a place where few people lived if they had any choice in the matter. If they had choice, they went to the suburbs, or settled there if they came from outside London."

22. the ersatz country life

Inwood, p. 570: "Perhaps [the suburb's] appeal was strongest to the newly arrived migrants, who wanted to combine the economic benefits of the town with a few remnants of the country Life they had abandoned. Country-dwellers, rather than refugees from central London, made up the majority of suburban migrants."

23. "villas"

Dyos and Reeder in Dyos and Wolff, eds., p. 362: "The colonization of London's nearby villages by merchants and men of affairs in the eighteenth century had pre-empted a new middle-class ring of suburbs which, as it spread, congealed in the nineteenth century into a great continent of petty villadom."

24. lapped at the city

Porter, p. 205: In 1873, London was in the throes of a spectacular expansion. In every direction, new communities were spreading across the landscape in a "perfect fury" of building. Everyone wanted their small piece of the country life -- a villa with a garden -- and now, thanks to the railroad and cheap "workmen's fares" (Ackroyd, pp. 730, 732), even shopkeepers and clerks, like Vincent, could afford one (Porter, p. 234).

25. around Greenwich

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873. The location of Vincent's first boarding house in London is still not known, except that it was almost certainly on the south bank of the Thames (Meyers, p. 114; see also, Meyers, p. 119.) We believe that it was probably in the vicinity of Greenwich because (1) Vincent's description of the “suburbs” where he first boarded matches the description he gives four years later when he walked from Ramsgate to London, approaching from the east (“I walked on and arrived towards evening in the well-known suburbs of London” [JLB 84, 6/17/1876]); (2) It appears that his friend George Read lived in this area and it would be logical that Vincent would be referred by Read to a boarding house in the same area (as later he was probably referred to the Loyer house in Brixton by his boss, Obach, whom Vincent visited “in Clapham” in 1876 and who was listed as living at 314 Brixton Road, S.W. in 1882) (JLB 99, 11/25/1876); (3) A steamer from Greenwich to London began running in 1854, matching Vincent's description of the steamer he took to work from his first boarding house (see Weinreb and Hibbert, eds., p. 347). Most of the other steamer lines had closed by 1873 on account of competition from railroads (see Inwood, p. 553). Vincent could have taken a train from Greenwich, or even the underground from New Cross through the Rotherhithe Tunnel (the world's first underwater tunnel [built between 1825 and 1843] which was converted to railway use in 1871), but both of these would have been more expensive than the steamer (see Inwood, p. 552). (Vincent may also have had personal reasons for not taking the underground, although he did take it at least once on a visit to London three years later.) Even if these deductions are correct, Vincent could have lived in any community within walking distance of the steamer landing in Greenwich. The likeliest ones, in our view, are Brockley and Lewisham, where many “suburban” developments were built in the mid-nineteenth century.

Context:
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "The neighbourhood where I live is very pretty, and so peaceful and convivial that one almost forgets one is in London."

26. "so peaceful and pleasant"

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873. We have deviated from the Bonger translation, which uses "quiet and intimate," and from JLB's "peaceful and pleasant" (JLB 10, 7/2/1873).

Context:
BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: "The neighbourhood where I live is quite beautiful, and so quiet and intimate that you almost forget you are in London."
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "The neighbourhood where I live is very pretty, and so peaceful and convivial that one almost forgets one is in London."

27. the fashionable Gothic style

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873. "The neighbourhood where I live is very pretty, and so peaceful and convivial that one almost forgets one is in London. In front of every house is a small garden with flowers or a couple of trees, and many houses are built very tastefully in a sort of Gothic style." (JLB 10, 7/2/1873.) Developments like these offered faux antiquity and a facsimile of village life. See Ackroyd: "in the nineteenth-century city, Gothic possessed the consolation of supposed antiquity" (Ackroyd, p. 30). The Gothic style had been enshrined in the recently-completed Houses of Parliament (1860), designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin and championed by John Ruskin as "the recognised language of all leading architects" (quoted in Ackroyd, p. 301). As employed in suburb-building at the time of Vincent's arrival, the style was referred to as toy Gothic, ornamental Gothic, or "Wimbledon Gothic" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "In front of every house is a small garden with flowers or a couple of trees, and many houses are built very tastefully in a sort of Gothic style."

28. "lovely garden in front"

b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873.

29. the landlady, her two daughters

b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873: "He lives in a house with 3 ladies, a mother and her daughters ..."

30. every morning at 6:30

b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873. Hulsker gives Vincent's departure time in the morning as 8:30 A.M. (Hulsker, "The Elusive Van Gogh, and What His Parents Really Thought of Him," p. 245). The original letter appears to be unclear. But Vincent reports that his start time at work was 9:00 A.M. (JLB 9, 6/13/1873). Allowing time for the walk from his house to the departing pier and the walk from the arriving pier to the Goupil office, plus the steamboat trip, an 8:30 A.M. departure would not have allowed enough time (according to his parents, "he travel[ed] by steamboat for about an hour" [b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873]).

31. hour-long steamboat ride

b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 30.) This may include some or all of the time it took to walk to and from the steamboat landing. Vincent's parents refer several times to a one-hour commute time on his return in the evening (b2644 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/19/1873). It may also be that the evening commute was shorter than the morning one, for which Vincent would have had to allow for unexpected delays.

32. "Everywhere you see"

BVG 9, 6/13/1873.

Context:
BVG 9, 6/13/1873: " Everywhere you see charming parks with high trees and shrubs. Everyone is allowed to walk there."
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: " Everywhere one sees splendid parks with tall trees and shrubs, where one is allowed to walk."

33. the quite and relative solitude

Taine, pp. 16-17: "Regent's Park is in a backwater; the noise of traffic is no longer to be heard, London is forgotten, the place is a solitude."

34. he could imagine himself

On his visit to London during the 1860s, the French writer Hippolyte Taine found in the undulating parks of London "the beauties, tender and touching, of the misty lands, Holland for example" (Taine, p. 25). The parks provided another touch of home: they were among the few places in London where Vincent could buy a glass of milk in a city addicted to coffee and alcohol (Inwood, pp. 656-657).

35. by inviting Vincent to dinner

b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873: Dorus wrote that "Uncle Cent has seen to it that he [Vincent] met some people." In the same letter, Dorus reported that "[Vincent] had dinner with the Wallis family where Uncle [Cent] and Aunt [Cornelia] were staying." The reference is probably to Henry Wallis, owner of the French Gallery in London. According to Nonne, Henry retired from the business in 1871 in favor of his son Thomas, who was probably also at the dinner, given the importance of Cent (Nonne, p. 43, n. 40). According to Stolwijk, "Wallis & Son [was] among the principal clients of the Hague branch between 1861 and 1900 (Stolwijk, Uit de schilderswereld, p. 216, n. 97).

36. "glorious"

BVG 11, 9/13/1873: Vincent does not name the “two Englishmen” with whom he went boating. Three years later, he named “Richardson” and “Reid” as “old friends” (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). Because he names these two together twice (also in JLB 177), and does not mention any other London friends by name, it is reasonable to deduce, as Meyers does, that this is the same pair of Englishmen mentioned in the earlier letter. (Meyers, p. 122.) Almost a decade later, Vincent referred to “Richardson” as “the traveler for the house of G[oupil]&Cie” (JLB 277, 10/29/1882). According to JLB, this person has not been identified (JLB 93, note 11). Nonne writes that “in the hierarchy of important clients at the Hague branch in the years 1861 to 1900, Richardson follows Henry Wallis with 49 transactions” (Nonne, p. 43, n. 38), but this is Thomas Richardson, who, in the 1880s, became a good client of Theo’s. There is also a puzzle around the man that Vincent identifies only as “Reid.” Based on the scant trail of clues in the correspondence, JLB believe V was referring to “George R. Reid, a partner in the London firm of Buck & Reid, who in 1895 would enter the employ of Van Wisselingh,” and they cite for collateral support Heijbroek and Wouthuysen 1999, p. 71 (JLB 82, 5/12/1876, n. 7). In any event, Vincent was not referring to Alexander Reid, a Scottish art dealer whom he met much later in his career and who stayed in the Van Gogh brothers’ apartment in Paris in the winter of 1886-87. (See chapter 28.)

Context:
BVG 11, 9/13/1873: "One Saturday some time ago, I went boating on the Thames, in the company of two Englishmen. It was glorious."
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: "Some time ago I spent a Saturday rowing on the Thames with 2 Englishmen. It was glorious."

37. Saturday

Pickvance, p. 7. Vincent does not give a day. He writes (in September) only that he had gone boating on the Thames "one Saturday some time ago" (JLB 11, 7/20/1873; see n. 122). In his chronology, Pickvance advances two possible dates: August 10 and August 17 (Pickvance, p. 7). (In fact, both of those dates were Sundays.) There is no reason to believe that the event was not earlier in the summer.

38. "pleasant evenings"

BVG 9, 6/13/1873.

Context:
BVG 9, 6/13/1873: "There are also three German boarders who are very fond of music, they play the piano and sing, so we spend very pleasant evenings together."
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "There are also three Germans in the house who really love music and play piano and sing themselves, which makes the evenings very pleasant indeed."

39. a hearty trio of Germans

BVG 9, 6/13/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 38.) His parents refer to "two young Germans [who] also live at his [Vincent's] boarding house" (b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873).

Context:
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "I've come by a boarding-house that suits me very well for the present. There are also three Germans in the house who really love music and play piano and sing themselves, which makes the evenings very pleasant indeed."

40. singing at the parlor piano

BVG 9, 6/13/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 38.)

41. taking long weekend walks

BVG 9, 6/13/1873. According to Bonger, Vincent wrote on June 13, 1873: "At Easter, I made an interesting excursion with the Germans." But this must be an error as Easter fell on April 13 in 1873 and Vincent was in Helvoirt. The JLB translation does not mention Easter: "During the Whitsun holiday I also took a nice trip with those Germans, but those gentlemen spend a great deal of money and I shan't go out with them anymore" (JLB 9, 6/13/1873). Pickvance and Meyers propose that Vincent meant to indicate Whit Monday (which fell on June 2, not June 1 as indicated in Pickvance) (Pickvance, p. 7 and Meyers, p. 115). Vincent went out with one of the Germans again on a Monday bank holiday later that summer (August 4) (JLB 12, 8/7/1873).

Context:
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "I also took a nice trip with those Germans, but those gentlemen spend a great deal of money and I shan't go out with them any more."

42. new boss, Carl Obach

In some sources Obach is referred to as "Charles"; in others, "Carl." (JLB identify him as "Charles (Carl) Obach.") It is likely that, following the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and his transfer to England in 1873, Obach de-Germanized his name. Obach was another of the rising young gérants in the Goupil empire. According to Nonne, Obach was born "c. 1841," which would put him in his early thirties at the time Vincent worked under him (Nonne, p. 42, n. 30). Like Vincent, Obach had just arrived at the London branch. In July, Vincent's mother wrote: "At a later time Mr. Obach will take a trip to collect his wife and he will probably go to The Hague too, to meet with Mr. Tersteeg" (b2644 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/19/1873). We infer that Obach's transfer (probably from Germany) had been so recent that he had yet to bring his wife to London. For unstated reasons, Nonne agrees, citing 1873 as the year Obach undertook his duties in London (Nonne, p. 42, n. 30), supporting the assertion only "with thanks to Martin Bailey" (de Leeuw, Sillevis, and Dumas, p. 130). Obach's transfer appears to have been part of a plan to expand the London branch.

43. invited

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873: Dorus writes that Vincent "had joined his supervisor Mr. Obach and his family for a day in the country." This appears to be either a mistake on Dorus's part or a misrepresentation by Vincent to his parents for unknown reasons. A month later, Anna reports that Obach will "collect his wife" on a trip to the continent, suggesting that by the later date, the parents were aware of the earlier misunderstanding (b2644 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/19/1873).

44. on a Sunday

Pickvance, p. 7. The likely date was June 8, which was a Sunday (not June 9 as cited in Pickvance).

45. outing to Box Hill

BVG 9, 6/13/1873.

Context:
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "Last Sunday I went on an outing with Mr. Obach, my superior, to Box Hill, which is a high hill (some 6 hours from L[ondon].), partly of chalk and covered with box trees, and on one side a wood of tall oak trees."

46. "The country is beautiful here"

BVG 9, 6/13/1873.

Context:
BVG 9, 6/13/1873: "The country is beautiful here, quite different from Holland or Belgium."
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "The countryside here is magnificent, completely different from Holland or Belgium."

47. started attending church

b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873: Dorus reported to Theo "[VIncent] had been to church, where he likes the organ and the singing most of all." Curiously, Vincent does not mention going to church in his letters to Theo. The fact that he later admitted not to have spoken Dutch until the visit of a friend in August suggests that he may not, in fact, have been going to church at the time he made this representation to his parents -- at least not to the Dutch Reformed Church.

48. a small pen drawing

Austin Friars Church, London, JUV. XXV, July 1873-May 1875, pen in brown ink on woven paper, 4.09 x 6.77 in., 10.4 x 17.2 cm., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. The exact date of this drawing is not known. We have placed it here for several reasons. Any date later than August 1874 is unlikely because Vincent was in rebellion against his parents and against their church. Sometime in that period, he began going to the Metropolitan Tabernacle of the evangelical preacher Charles Spurgeon. Stylistically, the drawing is unrelated to the drawings Vincent did for Betsy Tersteeg prior to his trip to Helvoirt in the summer of 1874 (which supports Bailey's argument that the drawing is a copy after a photograph or illustration). In its clear intent to document and share, the drawing is related to the drawings Vincent did in late 1873 to show his new home at the Loyers to his parents (Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 122). The explanatory caption that Vincent added to the drawing, which brags about the history of the church, suggests an effort to impress and reassure his parents, something that would have been less likely after settling in at the Loyers in the fall of 1873. Each of these observations pushes the date further toward the beginning of Vincent's stay in London, although the thin foliage on the tree branches would seem to preclude a summer dating.

The fact that this drawing later came into the possession of Vincent's sister Anna (1914) has been used to argue that Vincent gave this drawing to her while she was in England (1874-76), and therefore it should be dated later, even perhaps to Vincent's second stay in England in 1876 (ibid.). It is more likely (given the always testy relationship between the two eldest Van Gogh siblings) that Vincent sent the drawing home to his parents in 1873 and they in turn gave it to Anna before she left; or that the drawing came into Anna's possession subsequently. Given Vincent's turn to evangelical religion in 1874-75, it is unlikely that he would have chosen this subject or bothered with such an elaborate inscription in 1876.

49. Vincent had bought a top hat

b2609 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", Mar. 1873.

50. "In London one could not"

b2609 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", Mar. 1873.

51. He reported breathlessly

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: The surviving report of the visit to Rotten Row is in a letter to Willem and Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek. We believe Vincent sent similar reports to his parents.

Context:
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "One of the nicest things I've seen here is Rotten Row in Hyde Park, which is a long, broad avenue where hundreds of ladies and gentlemen go riding."

52. "Rotten Row"

A corruption of "route de roi" -- king's path (Weinreb and Hibbert, eds., p. 413).

Context:
BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: "One of the finest sights I have seen is Rotten Row in Hyde Park …"
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "One of the nicest things I've seen here is Rotten Row in Hyde Park …"

53. in their finest fashion

De Maré, p. 106. Jerrold and Doré describe the daily pageant, which occurred every night between five and seven P.M., as "the best picture ... of the pride and wealth, the blood and bearing, the comeliness, beauty, and metal of Old England" (Jerrold and Doré, p. 120). Hippolyte Taine gave a more mixed review of the parade: "Beauty and adornment are abundant; but there is a want of taste. The colours are outrageously crude, and lines ungraceful. Crinolines too full, or the fullness badly draped, like geometrical cones or else dented; ribbons and scarves, green; gold lacing; bold, flower-patterned materials; a profusion of floating gauze; hair bunched, falling or curled. The whole display surmounted by tiny hats, much trimmed but hardly perceptible. The hats are over trimmed, the hair too shiny and clamped to the temples with too hard a line; the mantelet or cosaque hangs shapeless to the hips, the skirt is monstrously overfull, and the whole of this scaffolding is badly put together, badly matched, striped, fussed, overdone, loud, exces¬sively numerous colours each swearing at the others." (Taine, pp. 19-20.)

54. "One of the finest sights"

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873.

Context:
BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: "One of the finest sights I have seen is Rotten Row in Hyde Park …"
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "One of the nicest things I've seen here is Rotten Row in Hyde Park …"

55. British artists he discovered

BVG 5, 3/17/1873: Vincent admits to not having seen much British art, giving the following excuse.

Context:
JLB 5, 3/17/1873: "I'm very curious about the English painters, we see so little of them, because almost everything stays in England."

56. he found only two worthy

In his long list of sixty recommended artists in January 1874 (JLB 17, January 1874), the only other British artist Vincent mentions is Richard Parkes Bonington. Otherwise, there is no mention of Bonington in the correspondence until two years later (1875) when VIncent reffered to a print of Bonigton's that he had put on his wall in Paris (Vincent called it A Road; the correct name is Near Boulogne) (JLB 30, 3/6/1875). Two months later, Vincent sent Theo two lithographs after Bonington with the assurance, they will "will no doubt be to your liking" (JLB 42, 9/2/1875); and, a few days later, commented ambivalently that Bonington " almost painted it, and yet that isn't it either" (JLB 44, 9/74/1875; emphasis in original). Three years after that (1878), when Theo arrived in Paris, Vincent wrote him: "you'll probably see stormy skies like those Bonington painted" (JLB 144, 5/19/1878). The next (and final) mention is not until 1882: "There's a certain je ne sais quoi in your description, a scent -- a memory -- of a watercolour by Bonington, for example, only it's still faint as if in a mis" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). This skimpy record of belated enthusiasm suggests that Vincent's initial impression in 1873 was no better than tepid. We have not included James Tissot here because Vincent does not express enthusiasm for his work until after the Royal Academy show in the summer of 1874 (see Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 39).

57. George Boughton

BVG 10, 7/20/1873: Elsewhere, Vincent calls Boughton "one of the best painters here" [i.e., in England] (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873). Vincent also mistakenly believed that Boughton, whose family had moved to America when he was an infant, was an American. He probably did not have a British accent.

Context:
JLB 11, 7/20/1873: "Then Boughton, of whom you know the 'Puritans going to church' in our Galerie photographique. I've seen very beautiful things by him."

58. John Everett Millais

BVG 10, 7/20/1873.

Context:
JLB 11, 7/20/1873: "There are some good painters here, though, including [John Everett] Millais, who made 'The Huguenot', Ophelia, &c., engravings of which you probably know, they're very beautiful."

59. the conventional taste

Bailey, Van Gogh in England, pp. 39, 42: "Boughton, Tissot and Millais were very much in the mainstream of Victorian art, evidence of Van Gogh's highly conventional taste." As noted, Vincent did not mention Tissot until the following year, 1874.

60. Boughton was under contract

Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 39.

61. He gave passing nods

BVG 11, 9/13/1873. Vincent used the term “clever” to describe a painting by the English artist Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1836/38-1904), a Pre-Raphaelite acolyte of Leighton and Millais who had studied with Charles Gleyre, one of Uncle Cent's favorite painters. But his description of Pinsep’s painting suggests he did not necessarily mean “clever” as a compliment: “Another English painting is 'Satan possessing the herd of swine at the Gadarene lake'. It showed some 50 black pigs and piglets, running helter-skelter downhill and tumbling over each other into the sea. It was very edifying. This was, however, a very clever painting by Prinsep.” (JLB 13, 9/13/1873.) About the English black-and-white artists like Thomas Faed, Philip Richard Morris, George John Pinwell, or William Small, Vincent later said "studying them more than repays the effort" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882).

Context:
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: "Another English painting is 'Satan possessing the herd of swine at the Gadarene lake'. It showed some 50 black pigs and piglets, running helter-skelter downhill and tumbling over each other into the sea. It was very edifying. This was, however, a very clever painting by Prinsep."

62. a few other artists

BVG 10, 7/20/1873: Vincent mentions Otto Weber, Ferdinand Heilbuth, and Philippe Jacques Linder.

63. their sentimental appeal

BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883.

Context:
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: " That Pinwell is reminiscent of Feyen-Perrin -- in his earlier period -- his work also recalls Thijs Maris, but with a yet purer feeling. He was a poet, as strong as could be, he saw the sublime in the most ordinary, everyday things. His work is rare, I saw little by him, but that little was so beautiful that now, 10 years later, it has remained just as clear in my mind as when I first became acquainted with it."

64. nouveau riche display

BVG 10, 7/20/1873: Vincent shows special enthusiasm for the work of Philippe Jacques Linder, a French genre painter of pretty bourgeois people in pretty bourgeois settings. He was another student of Gleyre, Uncle Cent's favorite.

65. "value for money"

De Maré, p. 94: De Maré identifies four elements of the "Victorian Zeitgeist": "romantic individualism, religious evangelicism, nouveau riche display," and "getting value for money."

66. the new social-realist depictions

Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 38.

67. held no interest for him

Bailey, Van Gogh in England, pp. 39-42. Despite the fact that social-realist painters Samuel Luke Fildes (Simpletons), Hubert von Herkomer (After the Toil of the Day), and Francis (Frank) Montague Holl (Leaving Home) had paintings in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1873, Vincent did not mention any of them until years later. At the 1874 exhibition, Fildes's painting Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward was so controversial that a special rail had to be constructed to hold back crowds. This, too, goes unmentioned by Vincent. Bailey summarizes (rightly, we think) that "it was only after [Vincent] had left Britain that the real impact of English art hit him" (Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 43).

68. The Honeymoon

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873. La lune de miel (The Honeymoon) was a print after a painting by Eugène Feyen (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873).

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "'The honeymoon' is after Eugène Feyen, one of the few painters who paint intimate modern life as it really is and don't turn it into fashion plates."

69. The Baptism

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873.

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "'A baptism' is after Albert Anker, a Swiss, who has painted all manner of subjects, all equally sensitive and intimate."

70. Devonshire House

Bailey, Van Gogh in England, pp. 38-39: Bailey believes that Devonshire House is probably the "very clever picture" by Prinsep that Vincent refers to after mocking the same painter's The Gadarene Swines.

71. "modern life as it really is"

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873. This comment is marshaled specifically in respect to Feyen's La lune de miel. Vincent adds, even more incredibly, "[Feyen] don't turn [life] into fashion plates."

Context:
BVG 11a, 10/1/1873: "The "Lune de Miel" [The Honeymoon] is after Eugene Feyen, one of the few painters who pictures intimate modern life as it really is, and does not turn it into fashion plates."
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: 'The honeymoon' is after Eugène Feyen, one of the few painters who paint intimate modern life as it really is and don't turn it into fashion plates."

72. Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy

De Maré, p. 211: The exhibition was staged at the Academy's new home on Piccadilly, not far from the Goupil office. The "opening" of the new Royal Academy had been a prolonged affair, starting in 1867 when the academy moved to Burlington House from its premises at the National Gallery (Hutchison, pp. 123-124). The Academy's architect, Sydney Smirke, designed the Main Galleries and art school (adding a third floor to the existing building). Work began in April 1867 and was ready for occupation by November 24, 1868. The architectural firm of Banks and Barry erected the building's frontage and flanks and finished the courtyard (ibid.).

73. mocking several works specifically

BVG 11, 9/13/1873.

Context:
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: "Some time ago I saw one with a sort of fish or dragon no less than 6 ells long. It was ghastly."

74. "very bad and uninteresting"

BVG 11, 9/13/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 73.) Vincent's assessment of English art was still far more generous than Hippolyte Taine's: "I do not believe that pictures so very disagreeable to look at have ever been painted" (Taine, p. 263). Taine balanced his excoriating view of English art with a rapturous appraisal of English poetry: "But what a pity it is that these artists, instead of writing, took to painting!"

Context:
BVG 11, 9/13/1873: "It was a real pleasure to see those Belgian pictures; the English ones are with a few exceptions very bad and uninteresting."
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: "It was truly refreshing to see those Belgian paintings; the English ones are, with few exceptions, very disagreeable and feeble."

75. next door on the Strand

BVG 112, 10/30/1877. According to Bailey, the offices of the Illustrated London News were at 198 Strand and the Graphic at 190 Strand, "just a few minutes walk from Goupil's" (Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 145).

Context:
JLB 133, 10/30/1877: "I imagine you know the woodcuts by Swain, he's a clever man, his studio is in such a nice part of London, not far from that part of the Strand where the offices of the illustrated magazines are (Ill. Lond. News, The Graphic, Seeley &c.), not far from Booksellers' Row either, full of all kinds of bookstalls and shops where one sees all kinds of things, from the etchings of Rembrandt to the Household edition of Dickens and Chandos classics everything there has a green cast (especially in foggy weather in the autumn, or during the dark days before Christmas), and it's a place that immediately reminds one of Ephesus, as it is described with such singular simplicity in Acts."

76. he joined the crowd

BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "More than 10 years ago I used to go every week to the display case of the printer of The Graphic and London News in London to see the weekly publications."

77. "quite wrong"

BVG 295, 6/22/1883. In calling English of the black-and-white woodcuts "quote wrong" or "completely wrong," Vincent was probably referring to their commercial potential (i.e., lack thereof) at a time when colored prints were becoming more sophisticated, cheaper to produce, more popular, and therefore more profitable -- a fact that Vincent explicitly recognized in JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "But it's a delight to see how the photos sell, especially the coloured ones ..."

Context:
BVG 295, 6/22/1883: "I felt this, especially with English drawings: at first I didn't like them at all, and just like most people here, thought that the English were actually quite wrong; but that did not last, and I have learned to look at things from a different angle."
JLB 356, 6/22/1883: "I did that with the English manner particularly. I didn't find it at all beautiful immediately and first thought, exactly like most people here, that the English were in fact completely wrong, but in my case that didn't last, and I learned to see things from another angle."

78. "I didn't like [them] at all"

BVG 295, 6/22/1883. Later, Vincent retroactively inflated his interest in these images (see JLB 267, 9/19/1882-9/17/1882 and JLB 307, 2/4/1883). In 1883, he wrote his friend AnthongVan Rappard: "The impressions I gained there on the spot [i.e., in London] were so strong that the drawings have remained clear and bright in my mind, despite everything that has since gone through my head" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). Although it is clear from subsequent events that these images were not "lost" on Vincent at the time (few images were), his appreciation of them was by no means immediate. Later the same year as the quote above, he writes Theo more candidly: "I know from my own experience how one can have a dislike for someone's work or be indifferent to it, and feel that for a long time until, one day, one suddenly sees something by him, thinks about it and remembers his earlier work and says to oneself, wait a minute, that must be good after all ... I did that with the English manner particularly. I didn't find it at all beautiful immediately and first thought, exactly like most people here, that the English were in fact completely wrong, but in my case that didn't last, and I learned to see things from another angle." (JLB 356, 6/22/1883.)

Context:
BVG 295, 6/22/1883: "… at first I didn't like them at all …"
JLB 356, 6/22/1883: "I didn't find it at all beautiful immediately …"

79. he commented only

BVG R42, March, 1884. In 1884, when Theo visited London, Vincent only specifically urged him to see one painting in the National Gallery, Meindert Hobbema's Avenue at Middelharnis (see JLB 453, 8/4/1884; n. 3). Constable was a landscape painter who lived about thirty years ago; he is splendid--his work reminds me of Diaz and Daubigny. Then there are Reynolds and Gainsborough, whose forte was very beautiful ladies' portraits, and Turner, whose engravings you must have seen.

Context:
JLB 435, 3/8/1884: "Look out for the Hobbema in the National Gallery -- you certainly won't forget to look at a couple of very fine Constables there (Cornfield) and also in South Kensington (where that farm is, Valley farm)."

80. the Dulwich picture gallery

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. Vincent also visited the vast new complex of museums just south of Hyde Park (JLB 36, 6/29/1875). With the support of Prince Albert, four museums were built on eighty-eight acres of land facing Hyde Park in the wake of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (Porter, pp. 297-298). One of these, the South Kensington Museum, forerunner of the Victoria & Albert Museum, was founded in the 1850s and was, at the time Vincent visited it, housed in a "utilitarian affair of iron and glass dubbed ... the Brompton Boilers" (De Maré, p. 89). Its collection, then as now, ranged over a dizzying, disjointed array of fine and decorative arts. Its neighbor, the Natural History Museum, had only just begun construction in 1873 (Porter, pp. 297-298).

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "I went with one of the Germans to Dulwich, an hour and a half outside L., to see the museum there, and afterwards we walked to a village about an hour further on."

81. "splendid" Constables

BVG 10, 7/20/1873. In the same letter, Vincent mentions two other giants of British art, Thomas Gainsborough and J.M.W. Turner, but without evaluative comment. Of the former, he says only that his "mostly painted very, very beautiful portraits of women" (not clear if "beautiful" refers to the ladies or the paintings); to his mention of the latter, he adds only "whom you'll probably have seen engravings," as if helping Theo to place the name (JLB 11, 7/20/1873).

Context:
JLB 11, 7/20/1873: "Moreover, among the old painters, Constable, a landscape painter who lived around 30 years ago, whose work is splendid, something like Diaz and Daubigny. And Reynolds and Gainsborough, who mostly painted very, very beautiful portraits of women, and then Turner, after whom you'll probably have seen engravings."

82. exhibition of familiar Belgian artists

BVG 11, 9/13/1873. According to Meyers, Vincent had already seen many of the same paintings in Brussels the previous summer (1872) (Meyers, p. 119).

Context:
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: "Yesterday I saw an exhibition of Belgian paintings, which included various old acquaintances from the last Brussels Exhibition."

83. "It was a real pleasure"

BVG 11, 9/13/1873.

Context:
BVG 11, 9/13/1873: " It was a real pleasure to see those Belgian pictures; the English ones are with a few exceptions very bad and uninteresting."
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: " It was truly refreshing to see those Belgian paintings; the English ones are, with few exceptions, very disagreeable and feeble."

84. he begged Theo impatiently

BVG 12, 11/19/1873.

Context:
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "Ask [Teunus van] Iterson to write to me if he has a moment, and in particular to send me a list of the painters who were awarded prizes at the Paris exhibition."

85. often in astonishing detail

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. Vincent clearly spent most of his free time in London in 1873 in museums, as one can judge by his failure to see many of the city's most popular tourist attractions (see context).

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "I haven't yet been to the Crystal Palace and the Tower, nor to [Madam] Tussaud's; I'm not at all in a hurry to go and see everything. For the time being I have enough with the museums, parks, &c., which attract me more."

86. resurface after a decade

BVG R23, 1/20/1883. In 1883, Vincent mentions three images by Frank Holl.

Context:
JLB 303, 1/20/1883: "There you have 3 prints that I hadn't seen in 10 years."

87. image that seized Vincent's imagination

Pickvance, p. 23.

88. he made a sketch of it

BVG R19, 11/16/1882: Nine years after viewing The Heir, in London, Vincent mentioned the image in a letter to his friend Anthon Van Rappard. The Heir was Boughton's only painting in the 1873 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition documented copy (Pickvance, p. 23). JLB note that this drawing has not survived and "it is not clear for whom it was made" (JLB 284, n. 9.)

Context:
JLB 284, 11/18/1882: "I know the Boughton, 'The heir' , as a painting. I saw it at the Royal Academy and later at Goupil's. At that time I found it so beautiful that I made a drawing of it for an acquaintance in Holland to give him some idea of it."

89. sent it home

BVG R19, 11/16/1882. It is interesting to speculate on the "acquaintance" to whom Vincent says he sent his copy of this picture. Given how small his circle of friends was at the time, the most likely candidate is his cousin Willem van Stockum (and Willem's wife Caroline Haanebeek), to whom Vincent addressed a number of artistic observations when he first arrived in London. If so, it might suggest that he was still representing (consciously or unconsciously) to friends and family that he was in line to succeed his uncle Cent in the art business. Of course, Vincent could be misrepresenting or mis-remembering to his friend Van Rappard to whom he was writing nine years after the fact. He could have sent the drawing to his parents or his brother -- an act even more fraught with psychological subtext.

Context:
JLB 284, 11/18/1882: "At that time I found it so beautiful that I made a drawing of it for an acquaintance in Holland to give him some idea of it."

90. reminded him of home

BVG 9, 6/13/1873. When memories of home weren't triggered by the similarities of London, they were triggered by the differences: "The apple trees &c. have blossomed beautifully here; it seems to me that everything is earlier here than in Holland" (JLB 22, 4/30/1874).

Context:
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "I live in one of the suburbs of London, where it's comparatively quiet. It's a bit like Tilburg or some such place."

91. "with nostalgia"

JLB 11, 7/20/1873.

Context:
BVG 10, 7/20/1873: "Still, I often think with regret of the delightful Sundays at Scheveningen and other things, but what's the use of worrying?"
JLB 11, 7/20/1873: "And yet I sometimes think back with nostalgia to the wonderful Sundays in Scheveningen and so on, but never mind that."

92. "I do not forget"

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873.

Context:
BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: "Yet I do not forget The Hague, and should very, very much like to spend an evening in the Poten, and look in on you, too."
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "Still, I haven't forgotten The Hague and should very, very much like to spend another evening in the Poten, and also look in on you."

93. exactly the same prints

b2638 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873.

94. marked every family holiday

BVG 11, 9/13/1873.

Context:
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: "I'm very curious to hear whether you went to Helvoirt on Ma's birthday and how it was there."

95. "You must have had"

BVG 12, 11/19/1873.

Context:
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "You'll have had some pleasant days at home; how much I'd like to see them all again too."

96. quickly vanished

Obach is never again mentioned as a friend or social companion, only as a boss -- and in terms that are not at all nostalgic and only barely sympathetic. "I have respect for working," Vincent wrote Theo in 1882 (JLB 293, 12/11/1882). "I despise neither Obach nor Mesdag, but there are things that I rate infinitely higher than that sort of energy" (ibid.; emphasis in original). Vincent did, however, apparently get to know Obach's family and even visited them in Clapham in 1876, after he had left Goupil and was working in Isleworth as a teacher and lay preacher.

Two other early acquaintances, Read and Richardson (see Ch. 6, n. 122), are not mentioned again until 1876 when Vincent claimed them as “old friends by now” (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). In 1881, when Theo was planning a trip to London, Vincent asked him to “give my kind regards to my old mates George Read and Richardson,” and waxed strangely poetic about Read, whom he called “a very ordinary person,” but made of that ordinariness a kind of distinction – like an especially loyal pet: “He perhaps doesn’t particularly distinguish himself, whether in business or in knowledge, but as a person and character, if one knows him rather intimately, there is no more faithful, more kind, more sensitive chap than he. He’s so nice and so witty and so capable in domestic life that in that respect he’s worth a lot as a friend. If I were allowed to choose whom I should most like to see again from those I became acquainted with in England, it would definitely be George Read” (JLB 177, 10/17/1881). It is difficult to understand this odd, belated, and somewhat patronizing paean. Vincent’s relationship with Read may have intensified after Vincent’s alienation from his family in 1874; they may have shared a religious fervor at that time; or Vincent may simply be exaggerating in hindsight, as he was wont to do.

In addition to Richardson and Read, Vincent later claimed as friends in London Elbert van Wisselingh, the son of a prominent Dutch art dealer who had a store in London and who later worked at Goupil (Boussod & Valadon) in Paris (JLB 206, 2/25/1882); an unnamed employee of Mr. Wallis (presumably Thomas Wallis), the London dealer; and Mr. Wallis himself (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). Vincent also later claimed as an acquaintance a “young clergyman” who preached in or near the Strand (ibid.). Despite these later and probably inflated reports, in Vincent’s letters at the time (1873-1875), even the word “friend” virtually disappeared. In fact, during his years in London, Vincent rarely used the word “vriend” (friend) and then only when referring to those he left behind in Holland (e.g., “give my regards to all my friends” [JLB 23, 6/16/1874]).

97. Vincent understood English

BVG 5, 3/17/1873.

Context:
JLB 5, 3/17/1873: "I think it's wonderful for my English, which I understand well, though I don't speak it nearly as well as I'd like."

98. his landlady's parrot

b2644 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/19/1873: Vincent's mother didn't get the joke. She had to have it explained to her by Uncle Cent that "it is very common for people to keep parrots in the living room." The landlady kept two parrots, but, apparently, one's English was not as good as Vincent's.

99. "[They] spent too much"

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873. Wylie suggests that this excuse was disingenuous: "Money need not actually have impeded potential friendship, for Vincent's finances were not unduly strained; the Germans threatened his isolation, not his purse" (Wylie, p. 18). We believe that Meyers and others have made a persuasive case for the tightness of Vincent's budget during the first few months when he boarded with the Germans, (Meyers, p. 117). However, we agree with Wylie that there were other reasons Vincent stopped socializing with them. Vincent seems to have had an antipathy to Germans in general (JLB 546, 12/6/1885). According to an acquaintance in Nuenen in 1884-85, Vincent "detested ... all that was German" (de Brouwer, quoting Willem van de Wakker, p. 116). It is equally likely, or perhaps more likely, that the Germans stopped socializing with him. It should be pointed out that in August, months after his vow to avoid them, Vincent went to Dulwich with one of the Germans.

100. "I never felt in my element there"

BVG 165, 12/22/1881-12/24/1881: Vincent wrote this assessment to his brother six years after leaving London at a time when Theo was considering transferring there.

Context:
BVG 165, 12/22/1881-12/24/1881: "In the long run I do not think you would like it there, at least it becomes clearer and clearer to me that I never felt in my element there."
JLB 177, 10/17/1881: "But in the long run I don't think you'd feel at home there, at least it's becoming increasingly clear to me that, speaking for myself, I wasn't really in my element there."

101. Tower of London and Madame Tussaud's

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 85.)

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "I haven't yet been to the Crystal Palace and the Tower, nor to Tussaud's; I'm not at all in a hurry to go and see everything."

102. in solitary pursuits

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873. Vincent's tendency to solitude was reinforced by Goupil's early (six o'clock pm) quitting time (JLB 9, 6/13/1873). Also, in a city of four million people, of whom almost forty percent were foreigners (i.e., born elsewhere) -- Vincent apparently could not find (or did not seek out) any fellow Dutch-speakers.

Context:
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "I'm already finished with my work at 6 o'clock, so I still have a fair amount of time for myself, which I spend very pleasantly walking, reading and writing letters."

103. "taking walks, reading"

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 102.)

Context:
BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: "At six o'clock my work is already done for the day, so that I have a nice bit of time for myself, which I spend pleasantly -- taking walks, reading and letter-writing." JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "I'm already finished with my work at 6 o'clock, so I still have a fair amount of time for myself, which I spend very pleasantly walking, reading and writing letters."

104. A former coworker

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. There were two visits by "Itersons" to Vincent: this one by Iterson's brother, and another by Iterson himself in September 1876 (JLB 92, 10/3/1876). Information about these visits is muddled. Bonger mentions a visit in September 1875 by "an acquaintance" of Vincent's who brought a package from Theo (Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxiv). However, according to an interview of Vincent's Hague housemate, Boele van Hensbroek, in 1893 the visit by the co-worker bringing a gift from Theo happened after Theo moved to The Hague (in November 1875), suggesting that it was Iterson himself who brought the present in September 1876 and that Bonger confused the two visits (Van Gogh-Bonger with Deel and Druk, quoting Van Hensbroek, pp. 334-335).

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "A day or two ago I had a visit from a brother of Iterson who lives here, and so had the first opportunity of speaking Dutch since May. We live a long way from each other, which I very much regret."

105. "world weariness"

Van Gogh-Bonger with Deel and Druk, quoting Van Hensbroek, pp. 334-335. Van Hensbroek's account of Vincent's emotional state appears to be based on reports from two separate visits to London by Vincent acquaintances from The Hague: the first may have been the visit by Iterson's brother in August 1875 (Iterson boarded with the Rooses). The second was almost certainly the visit by Iterson himself in September 1876 when Vincent was in Isleworth. The comments cited in the text about "enormous loneliness of the big city" and "big Weltschmerz," seem to apply to the first visit, or at least seem to predate the report from the later visit: "One of his co-workers once went to London and met Vincent under the most miserable circumstances." (Van Hensbroek separates the two reports with the word "meanwhile" and additional narrative.) The later visit also appears to be the visit mentioned in Bonger, incorrectly dated to September 1875 (Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxiv). It is possible that Van Hensbroek's account could have conflated several reports of Vincent's emotional state or extended a single one.

106. "enormous loneliness"

Van Gogh-Bonger with Deel and Druk, quoting Van Hensbroek, pp. 334-335. (See Ch. 6, n. 105.)

107. "stony, arid"

BVG 332, 10/12/1883.

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "I must look into my own past to find why I lived in that stony, arid mood for years, and why it became worse instead of better, though I tried to remedy it. Not only did I feel hardened instead of sensitive toward nature, but, much worse still, I felt exactly the same toward people."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "I now have to look back into my own past to see what the matter was, spending years in that stony, barren state of mind and trying to emerge from it, and yet it got worse and worse instead of better. Not only did I feel indifferent instead of responsive to nature but also, which was much worse, I felt exactly the same about people."

108. "pensive"

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873.

109. "strange"

b2629 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/22/1873: "How strange it is for Vincent now ... It will be very strange to him that he is now so far from his friends" (b2629 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/22/1873). "Vincent writes that it feels so strange always to be in a hurry during the day and then after 7 o'clock to have such a quiet evening" (b2644 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/19/1873).

110. "The house here is not"

BVG 12, 11/19/1873.

Context:
BVG 12, 11/19/1873: "I have a pleasant home, and although the house here is not so interesting as the one in The Hague, it is perhaps well that I am here."
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "Things are going all right for me here, I have a nice home, and even though the firm isn't as exciting as the Hague branch, it's perhaps good that I'm here …"

111. London branch had no gallery

The London Goupil store had just begun to sell a few paintings and watercolors and did not yet have a public gallery. (One would not open until 1875.) Vincent wrote: "Latterly we've had quite a few paintings and drawings and sold a lot of them, but we still have a long way to go, it has to become more solid and lasting and substantial. I believe that there's still a lot to do here in England, but it can't be done all at once, and of course the first thing we need is to have good paintings &c., and that will be quite a feat. Well, we have to see how it goes and do the best we can with the means at our disposal." (JLB 15, 11/19/1873.)

112. Its only customers

BVG 9, 6/13/1873.

Context:
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "Write to me soon, I'm longing to hear from you, and tell me how you're spending your days at present, &c. Write to me especially about the paintings you've seen recently, and also whether anything new has been published in the way of etchings or lithographs. You must keep me well informed about this, because here I don't see much in that genre, as the firm here is just a stockroom."

113. The stockroom was busy enough

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873.

Context:
JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "This branch is just a stockroom and is therefore completely different from working in The Hague, though I'm sure I'll get used to it."

114. processing

According to Vincent, the London store did not always mount photographic prints as The Hague store did, reflecting the English fashion for scrapbooks rather than portfolios (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873).

115. more than a hundred prints

BVG 12, 11/19/1873. Vincent uses the figure of a hundred only in regard to average daily sales of photographic reproductions in a particularly popular Goupil series (Musée Goupil & Cie), so the average overall daily sales must have been more.

Context:
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "The Musée Goupil & Cie photos we sell only en papillottes, around 100 a day on average."

116. the stock was limited

BVG 13, 1/1/1874: An indication of how much stock the London branch kept can be found in Vincent's comment about how long it took to do the annual inventory.

Context:
JLB 17, January, 1874: "We're busy in the office, we're occupied with the inventory, which is however drawn up in 5 days, so we have it a little easier than you do in The Hague."

117. "Good pictures"

BVG 12, 11/19/1873: We have altered the translation slightly.

Context:
BVG 12, 11/19/1873: "I think there is still much work to do here in England, but it will not be successful at once. Of course, the first thing necessary is to have good pictures, and that will be quite difficult."
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "I believe that there's still a lot to do here in England, but it can't be done all at once, and of course the first thing we need is to have good paintings &c., and that will be quite a feat."

118. "Tell me especially"

BVG 9, 6/13/1873: We have altered the translation slightly.

Context:
BVG 9, 6/13/1873: "You must tell me especially what pictures you have seen lately, and also if any new etchings or lithographs have been published. Let me know as much as you can about these things, for I do not see much of them here as it is only a wholesale house."
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "Write to me especially about the paintings you've seen recently, and also whether anything new has been published in the way of etchings or lithographs. You must keep me well informed about this, because here I don't see much in that genre, as the firm here is just a stockroom.

119. "grubbing"

BVG 332, 10/12/1883. Vincent had no one but himself to blame for his new life as a clerk, coming and going every day in the vast clerical tide of white shirts and starched collars in the city where, six years earlier, Karl Marx had first described (and decried) modern workplace "alienation" in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts. Although this work was written in 1844 (i.e., before Marx moved to London in 1849) he wrote the first volume of Das Kapital (Capital) (the only one completed in his lifetime) in London, and it was published in Berlin in 1867 (Inwood, pp. 495-496). Marx remained based in London until his death in 1883. It is interesting to note that Marx attended a meeting of an important proto-communist organization in The Hague in 1872, when Vincent was working there.

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "I do not believe somebody like -- (?) for instance--who proved really to be insane -- thought that way, and therefore I repeat, I have often thought those years of grubbing over, but I do not see how in those circumstances I could have been different from what I was."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "I don't believe that someone like [Marius] Boks, for instance, who really turned out to be mad, thought like that -- so I say again, I've thought about it a lot since, about my years of all sorts of scrambling, and I don't see that, given my circumstances, I could be other than I have been." (Emphasis in original.)

120. "Everything is not so beautiful"

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873.

Context:
BVG 10a, 8/7/1873: "But moving is so horrible that I shall stop here as long as possible, although everything is not so beautiful as it seemed to me in the beginning. Perhaps it is my own fault."
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "But I find moving so terrible that I'll stay here as long as possible, though things aren't as nice here as they seemed at first. Perhaps this is my fault."

121. flashes of self-awareness

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. Vincent writes: “Perhaps I'll soon be doing that as well, if I can find a cheap room somewhere. But I find moving so terrible that I'll stay here as long as possible, though things aren't as nice here as they seemed at first. Perhaps this is my fault, so I'll wait a little longer.” (JLB 12, 8/7/1873.) Arguably, both his complaint (“things aren’t as nice here as they seemed at first”) and his confession (“perhaps this is my fault”) refer only to the increasingly uncomfortable situation at his boarding house, which is the initial subject of the paragraph (ibid.). However, we believe that this subject is a surrogate (perhaps conscious, perhaps not) for his larger unhappiness at Goupil, about which he is loath to talk more openly.

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "Perhaps I'll soon be doing that as well, if I can find a cheap room somewhere. But I find moving so terrible that I'll stay here as long as possible, though things aren't as nice here as they seemed at first. Perhaps this is my fault, so I'll wait a little longer."

122. "later on"

BVG 12, 11/16/1873.

Context:
BVG 12, 11/19/1873: "Later on, especially when the sale of pictures grows more important, I shall perhaps be of use."
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "… later on especially, when the trade in paintings becomes a little more important, I'll possibly be of use."

123. "I shall perhaps"

BVG 12, 11/16/1873.

Context:
BVG 12, 11/19/1873: "Later on, especially when the sale of pictures grows more important, I shall perhaps be of use."
JLB 15, 11/19/1873: "… later on especially, when the trade in paintings becomes a little more important, I'll possibly be of use."

124. "overawed"

BVG 332, 10/12/1883.

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "It has not been so. I spoke once or twice to Thijs Maris. I dared not speak to Boughton because his presence overawed me; but I did not find it there either, that help with the very first things, the ABC."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "It didn't happen then -- I did talk to Thijs Maris occasionally (I didn't dare speak to Boughton, because I felt such great respect in his presence) but I didn't find it there either, that helping me with the first things, with the ABC." (Emphasis in original.)

125. "too bashful to speak out"

Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxiv: Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxvi: Bonger describes Vincent as 'too bashful to speak out freely to [Maris] and shut all his longings and desires within himself.” However, she may be conflating Vincent's encounter with Maris and his encounter with Boughton. (See Ch. 6, n. 124.) Vincent said that he “did talk to Thijs Maris occasionally,” probably at least once in his uncle's company in Paris (JLB 394, 10/12/1883). On a later visit to Paris, he presented Maris with a poetry album. But none of these contacts seems to have had much of an impact on Maris who, at the end of his life, barely recalled Vincent and disparaged his art (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 69-70).

126. his salary had almost doubled

b2638 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873: from 50 to 90 guilders per month. His salary was paid in pounds -- £90 annually, or about seven-and-a-half pounds per month. De Maré reports that "an unskilled labourer earn[ed] an average wage of one pound a week" (De Maré, p. 64). Wilkie points out that Vincent's salary was more than his father earned in Helvoirt (800 florins) (Wilkie, pp. 34, 36). Meyers and Wylie suggest that Vincent's salary was comfortable (Meyers, p. 115, and Wylie, p. 18). Bailey goes on to claim that Vincent's salary "put him among the privileged elite" (Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 16). Inwood, however, claims that clerks' wages ranged from about £75 to £150, which would put Vincent at the lower end of the scale (Inwood, pp. 495-496).

127. still barely covered

b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873. Vincent's lodging in the suburbs and his lunches in town ate up more than 80 percent of his pay. Vincent reports that his basic expenses were 18 shillings per week. His father translates this with remarkable precision in a letter to Theo: "The boardinghouse and lunch cost F 890.10 per year." That figure represents 82.4 percent of Vincent's annual salary of 1,080 florins.

128. "To save on pennies"

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873.

129. he stopped taking the steamer

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873: Dorus: "London has become very expensive. Nowadays Vincent walks to town." If he arrived on May 22, then he only took the steamer for three weeks before guilt over the expenditure caused him to quit. However, in July of 1874, when Vincent was visiting Helvoirt, he wrote a note to Betsy Tersteeg to accompany an album of sketches from his life in London: "I am going back to London with my sister ... and I will be driving again in the steamer which I drew for you here." This could suggest either that Vincent continued to take the steamer occasionally or that his brief time taking the steamer was memorable.

130. He vowed to find

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873.

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "The countryside here is so beautiful; many people who have their business in L. live in some village or other outside L. and come to the city every day by train. Perhaps I'll soon be doing that as well, if I can find a cheap room somewhere."

131. promises to economize

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873: Vincent's parents informed Theo: "He [Vincent] hopes to be able to economize a little as soon as he feels more at home there." Also: "But he still has to economize because everything is so expensive there." Promises to economize were typically accompanied by professions of guilt for expenditures. Regarding Vincent's German housemates, Dorus reported to Theo (presumably relaying a complaint from Vincent): "these Gentlemen spent too much money so that he stated that he would have to deny himself that pleasure." A further profession of guilt can be inferred from Vincent's detailed report of the expense of his boardinghouse and lunch that Dorus summarizes for Theo in a letter from July 2 (b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873).

132. exaggerated mea culpas

b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873: Dorus complained to Theo that Vincent's boarding house "is rather expensive." Vincent replied with money woes of his own: "Life here is very expensive. I pay 18 shillings a week for my lodgings" (JLB 9, 6/13/1873). Vincent apparently took the room in the boardinghouse before he knew what his salary would be. The complaints about the rent thus suggest he expected a higher salary than he in fact received.

133. reports of financial hardship

b2640 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/12/1873: "[N]ow that we don't know where we'll have to get the money, but our heavenly Father knows." Elsewhere Dorus writes: "It is really going well in the parish, it is a wonderful working environment; if only the salary could be a little higher!" (b2660 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1873). Anna seconded the complaint: "everything is getting so expensive so that we are really disappointed." Sounding very much like Vincent, she added: "It's not easy to want something and not being able to do it" (b2665 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/1/1873). Anna also complained about the cost of teaching her daughter Anna to knit (b2671 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/22/1873).

134. pledges of further sacrifice

b2646 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/25/1873: Anna and Dorus promised belt-tightening measures like making do with fewer servants, earingin something extra by selling pears and cabbages (b2727 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1874) and, most bizarrely, buying lottery tickets (b2670 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/22/1873).

135. We will try to live

b2671 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/22/1873: Anna wrote this to Theo, but it is reasonable to assume that she wrote something similar to Vincent. Indeed, because Vincent, unlike Theo, was making far more money at the time, the undercurrent of blame (perhaps unintended) may have been far stronger in her statements to Vincent. After all, all of the parents' financial troubles could be traced to the huge expense of buying Vincent out of military service.

136. deepened into melancholy

Wylie, p. 17: Wylie is the only other biographer who reads Vincent's emotional state in the summer of 1873 more or less as we do: "The mood of despair which colored the last days of Vincent's stay in The Hague grows rather than diminishes in London until nothing is spared its tint ... Homesickness had Vincent in its grip." Other biographers follow the lead of Bonger who described Vincent's first year in London as the "happiest year of his life" (Bonger, p. xxiv). This was necessary, of course, to her view of the seminal place of his relationship with Eugenie Loyer.

137. "content"

b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873: Dorus reported to Theo that Vincent was “very satisfied” in his work and that in his letters he “sounded content.” The reliability of Vincent's reports (whether to his parents or to Theo) will be at issue again and again. We should state clearly in relation to this early example that we do not believe Vincent is a reliable reporter, especially in situations, such as this, where he has a compelling emotional agenda (here, reconciliation) that supersedes the weak obligation of reportorial accuracy. As Vincent must have anticipated, his parents were eager to accept his reassurances. Despite a few early misgivings, they quickly seized on Vincent's upbeat reports and rebroadcast them to other family members, probably with some optimistic amplification. The first glowing reports came almost as soon as Vincent set foot on English soil. Anna and Dorus wrote Theo on May 31: "Aren't you also glad that he is doing well?" (b2630 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/31/1873).

A letter from Vincent to his parents in June apparently said nothing that merited optimism and perhaps something that merited the opposite (JLB 9, 6/13/1873). Dorus wrote cryptically to Theo on June 14: "Everything [in London] still feels so strange [to Vincent]" (b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873), and again on July 2, as if he had something specific in mind, "he [Vincent] does not feel at home in his work yet" (b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873). But he also reassured Theo, "in his letters he [Vincent] sounds content." On July 15, Uncle Cent stopped in Helvoirt and gave Dorus and Anna "positive news about Vincent" (b2644 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/19/1873). In early August, even as Vincent was telling Theo that he could barely stand his work (JLB 12, 8/7/1873), his parents received "another good letter from Vincent" (b2649 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/6/1873). "He seems to like his work very much," Dorus wrote (b2649 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/6/1873). Later in August, Dorus added, "nothing but good news from Vincent" (b2660 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1873).

138. "doing fine"

b2651 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/25/1873.

139. "experiencing delightful satisfaction"

b2609 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus" to "Gogh, Theo van", March 1873.

140. "Considering the circumstances"

BVG 9, 6/13/1873.

Context:
JLB 9, 6/13/1873: "I'm very well, considering the circumstances."

141. "I shall probably"

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: This letter was written to Willem and Caroline [Haanebeek] van Stockum.

Context:
BVG 9a, 7/2/1873: "The business here is only a stockroom, and our work is quite different from what it is in The Hague; but I shall probably get used to it."

JLB 10, 7/2/1873: "This branch is just a stockroom and is therefore completely different from working in The Hague, though I'm sure I'll get used to it."

142. "I shall bear with it"

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873: Again, the ostensible subject is Vincent's deteriorating housing situation.

Context:
BVG 10a, 8/7/1873: "Perhaps it is my own fault, so I shall bear with it a little longer."
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "Perhaps this is my fault, so I'll wait a little longer."

143. opened an intimate correspondence

BVG 9a, 7/2/1873. Vincent had written Caroline and her new husband, Willem van Stockum, jointly three times in his first months in London, using salutations of either "My dear friends" (JLB 10, 7/2/1873; JLB 12, 8/7/1873) or "Dear Caroline and Willem" (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873). These were generally formal exchanges of news and pleasantries, although with some allusions that, in the context of the later letters, suggest that Vincent's flame for Caroline still burned. By November, however, the veil of propriety had fallen away and Vincent began writing only to Caroline, addressing his last letters "Lieve Carolien" (Dearest Caroline) (JLB 16, 11/20/1873) or "Mijn Beste Carolien" (My Dear Caroline) (JLB 18, 2/9/1874). Even some of the earlier letters addressed to both husband and wife contain coded amorous messages cleared intended for Caroline's reading only (see Ch. 6, n. 152).

144. flooded her with flattering

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873. Vincent wrote Caroline: "Not everyone is as capable as you are of noticing and feeling good and fine things" (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873).

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "I know the photo of 'The landlady's daughter' and I find it very beautiful. It's good that you find Bouguereau beautiful."

145. blonde young ladies

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873.

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "'The honeymoon' is after Eugène Feyen, one of the few painters who paint intimate modern life as it really is and don't turn it into fashion plates."

146. country maidens

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873.

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "I know the photo of 'The landlady's daughter' and I find it very beautiful. It's good that you find Bouguereau beautiful"

147. a poem by John Keats

BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. Vincent calls Keats "the favourite [poet] of the painters here, and that's how I came to be reading him" (JLB 12, 8/7/1873). The poem was "The Eve of Saint Mark" (see context).

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873:

"The eve of Saint Mark"
(Unfinished)

Upon a Sabbath day it fell;
Twice holy was the Sabbath bell,
That called the folk to evening prayer;
The city streets were clear and fair
From wholesome drench of April rains;
And, on the western window panes,
The chilly sunset faintly told
Of unmatured green, vallies cold,
Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,
Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge,
Of primroses by shelter'd rills,
Of daisies on the aguish hills.
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell:
The silent streets were crowded well
With staid and pious companies,
Warm from their fire-side orat'ries;
And moving, with demurest air
To even-song, and vesper prayer.
Each arched porch, and entry low,
Was fill'd with patient folk and slow,
With whispers hush and shuffling feet,
While played the organ, loud and sweet.
The bells had ceased, the prayers begun,
And Bertha had not yet half done
A curious volume, patch'd and torn,
That all day long, from earliest morn,
Had taken captive her two eyes,
Among its golden broideries;
Perplexed her with a thousand things,
The stars of Heaven, and angels' wings,
Martyrs in a fiery blaze,
Azure saints and silver rays
Moses' breastplate, and the seven
Candlesticks John saw in Heaven,
The winged lion of Saint Mark,
And the covenantal Ark,
With its many mysteries
Cherubim and golden mice.
Bertha was a maiden fair,
Dwelling in th' old minster-square;
From her fireside she could see,
Sidelong, its rich antiquity,
Far as the Bishops gardenwall;
Where sycamores and elm trees tall,
Full leaved, the forest had outstript,
By no sharp north wind ever nipt,
So shelter'd by the mighty pile,
Bertha arose and read awhile,
With forehead 'gainst the window pane.
Again she tried and tried again,
Until the dusk eve left her dark
Upon the legend of St Mark.
From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin,
She lifted up her soft warm chin,
With aching neck and swimming eyes
And dazed with saintly imag'ries.

All was gloom, and silent all
Save now and then the still foot-fall
Of one returning homewards late,
Past the echoing minster-gate.
The clamorous daws, that all the day
Above tree tops and towers play,
Pair by pair had gone to rest,
Each in its ancient belfry-nest,
Where asleep they fall betimes
To music and the drowsy chimes.

All was silent, all was gloom,
Abroad and in the homely room:
Down she sat, poor cheated soul!
And struck a lamp from the dismal coal;
Leaned forward, with bright drooping hair,
And slant book, full against the glare.
Her shadow, in uneasy guise,
Hover'd about, a giant size,
On ceiling beam and old oak chair,
The parrot's cage, and panel square;
And the warm angled winter-screen,
On which were many monsters seen,
Call'd doves of Siam, Lima mice,
And legless birds of Paradise,
Macaw, and tender Av'davat,
And silken-furr'd Angora cat.
Untired she read, her shadow still
Glower'd about, as it would fill
The room with wildest forms and shades,
As though some ghostly queen of spades
Had come to mock behind her back
And dance, and ruffle her garments black.
Untired she read the legend page,
Of holy Mark, from youth to age,
On land, on sea, in pagan chains,
Rejoicing for his many pains.
Sometimes the learned eremite,
With golden star, or dagger bright,
Referr'd to pious poesies
Written in smallest crow-quill size
Beneath the text; and thus the rhyme
Was parcell'd out from time to time:
................................................................
................................................................
John Keats (1818) 148. "maiden fair" BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 150.)

Context: BVG 10a, 8/7/1873: "Bertha was a maiden fair, Dwelling in the old Minister-square …"
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "Bertha was a maiden fair, Dwelling in th' old minster-square …" 149. "bright drooping hair" BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. (See Ch. 6, n. 150.)

Context:
BVG 10a, 8/7/1873: "Lean'd forward, with bright drooping hair, And slant book, full against the glare."
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "Leaned forward, with bright drooping hair, And slant book, full against the glare." 150. another, longer Keats poem BVG 10a, 8/7/1873. Keats's narrative poem "The Eve of St. Agnes," which Vincent says is "rather too long to copy out" (JLB 12, 8/7/1873), is a story of two lovers meeting under auspicious circumstances. The lover Porphyro braves the moors under moonlight to find his love Madeline locked away in a castle filled with hostile occupants. An old woman, Angela, guides him to Madeline's bedchamber where the lovers unite and flee the castle at dawn under the cover of an encroaching storm. Despite the harshness of the impending storm and the dangers within the castle, the flight of the lovers represents a "triumph of the imagination" and a validation of romantic love (Burgess, p. 394). Keats may have drawn his inspiration from Boccaccio's romantic tales -- specifically the prose romance Filocolo -- in constructing his narrative poem (MacCracken, p. 148). A number of parallels are present between Keats's bedchamber scene and a similar scene in the earlier work, specifically, the "scene in the tower of Alexandria" (ibid.). In both examples, a despondent maiden retreats to her bedchamber in hopes of envisioning her lover in a dream. The lover then enters these chambers with the help of a kindly old woman and watches the maiden undress and sleep. When the maiden awakens, she mistakes the lover for her dream and insists he stay. Then, after spending the night together, the couple exchange vows to consummate their union (MacCracken, pp. 148-149).

Recently, scholars have argued for a more tragic ending. Herbert G. Wright emphasizes the poem's ambiguous conclusion -- where the couple is lost in the storm. Death -- an ever present force -- bears down on the couple in the form of a raging tempest (Wright, pp. 90-94). Michael Ragussis argues that this bleak ending is a deliberate awakening of the narrator out of the blissful creation of a "happy romance" (Ragussis, p. 378). Shifting between past and present tense, the narrator blurs the line between fantasy and reality, and only in the poem's conclusion do both narrator and reader acknowledge that the lovers are gone. Here the lovers' happy ending dissolves: "And they are gone: ay, ages long ago / These lovers fled away into the storm." The detachment achieved by a "long ago" era matches the distancing effect of the violent storm -- which like time itself must inevitably engulf even the happiest couples (Ragussis, p. 383). But it is highly unlikely that Vincent would have read into the poem the revised interpretation.

Context:
JLB 12, 8/7/1873: "His most famous piece is 'St Agnes' eve', but it's rather too long to copy out."

151. "who took my heart"

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873. Vincent quotes Jules Michelet, L'amour; "Les aspirations de l'automne": "Elle atteint le bout de l'allée, se retourne. -- Nous pouvons la voir. Mais ne l'ai je pas vue déja aux musées d'Amsterdam ou de la Haye? Elle me rappelle une dame de Philippe de Champagne qui m'était entrée dans le coeur, si candide, si honnête, suffissament intelligente, simple pourtant, sans finesse pour se démêler des ruses du monde."(Michelet, "Les aspirations de l'automne," p. 389). The portrait in the Louvre referred to by Michelet was thought by Vincent (and Michelet) to be by Philippe de Champagne. It has since been determined to be by another hand. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 11a, 10/1/1873: "She reminds me of the lady by Philippe de Champagne (N.B. in the Louvre), who took my heart, so candid, so honest, sufficiently intelligent, yet simple, without the cunning to extricate herself from the ruses of the world. This woman has remained in my mind for thirty years …"
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "She reminds me of a lady by Philippe de Champaigne (NB in the Louvre), who had found her way into my heart, so ingenuous, so honest, sufficiently intelligent, yet simple, without the subtlety to extricate herself from the snares of the world. This woman has remained with me for thirty years …"

152. in language more appropriate

BVG 13a, 2/9/1874. Vincent wrote the clause "when we were together" in German -- "wenn (sic) wir zusammen waren"-- perhaps to disguise it from Caroline's husband (JLB 18, 2/9/1874). According to JLB, the clause was "Borrowed, consciously or otherwise, from 'Der Spinnerin Nachtlied' (The spinner's lullaby) by Clemens Brentano, which contains the line 'Da wir zusammen waren' (For we were together), as well as the variations 'Als wir zusammen waren' (When we were together) and 'Wie wir zusammen waren' (How we were together)" (JLB 18, 2/9/1874, n. 1).

Context:
JLB 18, 2/9/1874: "What happy days those were 'when we were together'. You must know that I haven't forgotten you"

153. recommended that she read

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873. Vincent avowed that his new appreciation of Longfellow was inspired by three paintings by Boughton, who was "very fond of Longfellow," according to Vincent (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873). (The implied recommendation from Boughton contradicts Vincent's report elsewhere that he "felt such great respect" in the painter's presence that he could not speak to him [JLB 394, 10/12/1883].) Boughton's three paintings of Puritans were, in turn, inspired by Longfellow's The Courtship of Miles Standish, another narrative poem dealing with frustrated (but ultimately requited) love that Vincent read and recommended to Caroline. Vincent could have pictured himself either as the Cyrano-like John Alden, who ultimately wins the hand of his love Priscilla, or as Miles Standish, who returns from years of fighting Indians in the wilderness to accept the marriage that he originally condemned as a betrayal.

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "'Puritans going to church' is after Boughton, one of the best painters here; an American, he's very fond of Longfellow, and rightly so. I know 3 paintings by him based on 'The courtship of Miles Standish'. Seeing the paintings prompted me to read Miles Standish and Evangeline again, I don't know why, but I never knew they were as beautiful as I find them now."

154. "a homeland"

BVG 13a, 2/9/1874.

Context:
BVG 13a, 2/9/1874: "And as a homeland, the whole world, i.e. a small spot in the world where we are sent to stay. We have not got there yet, though I am straining after it, and perhaps may grasp it."
JLB 18, 2/9/1874: "With the world as my mother country, meaning that tiny spot in the world where we're set down. But we aren’t there yet, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend."

155. "a small spot"

BVG 13a, 2/9/1874. (See Ch. 6, n. 154 .)

Context:
BVG 13a, 2/9/1874: "And as a homeland, the whole world, i.e. a small spot in the world where we are sent to stay."
JLB 18, 2/9/1874: "With the world as my mother country, meaning that tiny spot in the world where we're set down."

156. "[I] have not got there"

BVG 13a, 2/9/1874. (See Ch. 6, n. 154.)

Context:
JLB 18, 2/9/1874: "But we aren't there yet, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend."

157. "We are getting cheerful"

b2651 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/25/1873.

158. attach himself to other families

Nagera, p. 165. Nagera argues that because Vincent’s relationship with his own parents was a failure, he often tried to create parent-child relationships with others, but that these, too, always ended in failure. Other examples of families to which Vincent tried to attach himself: the Slade-Jones, the Voses (Kee and son), the Hoorniks (Sien, mother, sister, etc.), the De Groots, the Roulins, the Gachets, the Ginouxs, and finally Theo’s new family in 1888. There was perhaps another mother-daughter “family” in Paris which is only fleetingly mentioned in a later letter. Wylie makes the interesting related point that “none of van Gogh's friendships during those years of his late adolescence and early manhood were outside the context of a family situation” (Wylie, p. 16).

159. Vincent visited at home

BVG 82, 11/25/1876: Vincent reports his visit to the Obachs in November 1876, after leaving Goupil for good. The failure of Vincent's effort to attach himself to the Obach family can be gauged from his failure to mention Obach after the initial Box Hill excursion until three years later. We know from a letter of his mother's to Theo that he visited the Obach's at Christmas 1873 (b2682 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/7/1874).

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "I also went to Mr. Obach's to see his wife and children again."

160. He came as a boarder

Vincent may have been referred to the Loyers by his boss Obach. Three years later, in 1876, Vincent seems to say that Obach lived in Clapham, a community just west of Brixton (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). In this letter, he refers to the Loyers as living in Clapham as well, suggesting that Obach and the Loyers lived in some proximity (and that Vincent considered himself to be living in Clapham, not Brixton). It may also be that Vincent first came to inspect the Loyer house on his trip to Dulwich with one of his German housemates in early August (JLB 12, 8/7/1873). Vincent says that, after visiting the museum, "we walked to a village about an hour further on" (ibid.).

161. The rent was cheaper

b2651 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/25/1873: "Vincent is doing well in London. We are getting cheerful letters. He moved last week to save some money, as his former lodgings had become too expensive for him, and he had found a good place for 180 guilders less a year." The rent at the Loyers in Brixton was 15 guilders per month less than the suburban boardinghouse.

162. the walk to work shorter

BVG 16, 4/30/1874.

Context:
JLB 22, 4/30/1874: "I enjoy the walk from home to the office and in the evening from the office back home. It takes about three-quarters of an hour."

163. the fifty-eight-year-old widow

Bailey, The Young Vincent, p. 29. There is some disagreement about Ursula's age. An 1871 census lists her, apparently mistakenly, as forty-six years old (ibid., p. 28). Her death certificate in 1895 lists her age as seventy-nine, which would point to a birth year of 1815. Bailey suggests that Ursula "either did not know her year of birth or wanted to pretend she was older or younger" ("Letter from Marin Bailey to Fieke Pabst," n.p.). Bailey therefore picks a "middle year," 1820. We find the earlier 1815 date compelling, and between an upward and a downward exaggeration, would always assume the latter. JLB also give 1815 as the year of Ursula's birth.

164. Born to a ship's captain

Bailey, The Young Vincent, p. 29.

165. "Her name is written"

BVG 82, 11/25/1876.

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "Her name is written in the book of life."

166. "a kindly old soul"

Wilkie, pp. 58-59.

167. "not one hint of misery"

Quoted in Meyers, p. 133: "Enid Plowman, Eugenie's daughter, recalled her grandmother as a nice, warm woman; not one hint of misery."

168. broad features

From the photograph Meyers argues that "Ms. Loyer had regular features and was not unattractive ..." When shown a picture of her mother by Wilkie, Enid Plowman (Eugenie's daughter) commented: "Oh yes, that's her all right. A face like that? I don't think age improved her, do you?" (Wilkie, p. 57.)

169. the shock of red hair

Wilkie, quoting Eugenie's granddaughter, Katheleen Eugenie Maynard, pp. 52-54.

170. willful

Bailey, The Young Vincent, p. 28. We deduce this from the fact that, after holding off a marriage proposal from her suitor (and ultimately husband), Sam Plowman, for at least five years, Eugenie allowed herself to become pregnant two to three months prior to marrying Plowman in 1878.

171. withholding

Wilkie, quoting Eugenie's daughter, Enid (Plowman) Dove-Meadows, p. 58: Enid told Wilkie she "would not express her feelings very often and it was often difficult to guess what she was thinking."

172. "domineering [and] difficult"

Wilkie, quoting Eugenie's daughter, Enid (Plowman) Dove-Meadows, p. 58: Enid told Wilkie, "Even by Victorian schoolmistress standards Mother was a severe woman ... She was extremely strict -- but you wouldn't say unkind. There was certainly no playing around with her ..."

173. "sharp wit"

Wilkie, quoting Eugenie's daughter, Enid Dove-Meadows, p. 58.

174. an explosive temper

Wilkie, pp. 58-59: According to Eugenie's daughter, Enid Dove-Meadows: "when she did let go, she would fairly explode."

175. dead for more than a decade

Bailey, The Young Vincent, p. 29. There is disagreement in the record about Jean-Baptiste Loyer's age. Bailey says he was born in 1801, based on an 1851 census. An undated, unsigned document in the Van Gogh Foundation Archives gives his birth year as 1816 ("Loyer Family," n.p.). The story in Vincent's poetry album to Lies gives the Loyer père character an age of thirty when he married (which would make his birth year 1822 -- assuming a marriage date of 1852 because the story places his final illness "seven or eight years" after his marriage and he died in 1859-60). Because the note in the Van Gogh Museum Archives is unverifiable and the story contains a number of other dating inconsistencies, the census age reported by Bailey should control unless (as in the case of Ursula), there is other competing, reliable documentary evidence. Moreover, according to a letter from Martin Bailey in the Van Gogh Foundation Archives, the marriage certificate of Jean-Baptiste Loyer and Sarah Ursula is dated June 23, 1849 ("Letter from Martin Bailey to Fieke Pabst," n.p.).

176. A native of Provence

Bailey, The Young Vincent, p. 29: Born at Sainte Cecile, about fifty miles up the Rhône river valley from Arles.

177. driven into exile

Du Quesne-van Gogh, pp. 57-58. We accept Bailey's argument that the fragmentary story included in the poetry album that Vincent sent to his sister Lies, via Theo, was a roughly valid account of Jean-Baptiste Loyer's life (Bailey, "Vincent van Gogh, the Writer," p. 16). We, too, find the parallels compelling and we have treated it as reliable where it does not conflict with other sources. On the other hand, we also agree with Tilborgh and Pabst that this story was not Vincent's own invention, but was transcribed by Vincent (and then, perhaps, Theo), from another source as yet unidentified (Tilborgh and Pabst, p.91).

178. arrived in London as a stranger

"Vincent van Gogh, Petersham, Loyer, Charles Obach," n.p.: Loyer may have had relatives in London. An unsigned note in the Van Gogh Foundation Archives (dated November 11, 1956) documents the following entry in a "Directory" of the county Surrey in 1860: "LOYER, Geo, Esq., 2 Brunswick Place, Brixton Hill, S.W." For unstated reasons, Wilkie assumes that this is Jean-Baptiste's father (Wilkie, p. 63). If the story in Vincent's poetry album for Lies is, in fact, a veiled account of Loyer's life, then his father died before he came to England (Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 58). In England, Loyer adopted the Protestant faith by the time he married Ursula Wilson in 1849 ("Vincent van Gogh, Petersham, Loyer, Charles Obach," n.p.).

Although Bonger referred to Jean-Baptiste Loyer as "a curate from the South of France" (Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxiv), and others have picked up on that cue ("the French Curate"), it is not at all clear if he was born a Protestant or converted from Catholicism, the dominant religion of France. If, as Bailey maintains (and we agree), the story in Vincent's album to Lies is a rough account of Jean-Baptiste's life (Bailey, "Vincent van Gogh, the Writer," p. 16), then his deathbed acquiescence to Catholic last rites strongly suggests that Catholicism was the religion of his birth and probably of his upbringing (Du Quense-van Gogh, p. 58). After arriving in London, he may have been required to embrace Protestantism in order to teach at the Stockwell Grammar School (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 29). Originally a separate village, Stockwell is now a small district just north of Brixton, only a few blocks south of the Loyer house on Hackford Road where Vincent lodged.

179. married Ursula

According to a letter from Martin Bailey in the Van Gogh Foundation Archives, the marriage certificate of Jean-Baptiste Loyer and Sarah Ursula Wilson is dated June 23, 1849 ("Letter from Martin Bailey to Fieke Pabst," n.p.). However, Bailey also introduces another possible date for the Loyer marriage: 1840 -- although such an early date creates an unlikely nine-year interval between the parents' marriage and Eugenie's birth (Bailey, "Vincent van Gogh, the Writer," p. 16). The later date might suggest that Jean-Baptiste's arrival in England was related to the upheavals of 1848 when many Frenchmen, especially those who had a reason to flee and a means (Loyer was a sailor) did so.

180. only one child, Eugenie

"Letter from Martin Bailey to Fieke Pabst," n.p.: According to her death certificate, dated February 21, 1895, Eugenie was seventy-nine. That would place her birth sometime in 1849.

181. "consumption"

Du Quense-van Gogh, p. 57.

182. to die in his homeland

Du Quense-van Gogh, p. 57.

183. to watch the sun set

Du Quense-van Gogh, p. 57.

184. "all who were present"

Du Quense-van Gogh, p. 58.

185. A document recounting

( See Ch. 6, n. 177.)

186. "He loved nature"

Du Quense-van Gogh, p. 58.

187. this sentimental tale

Vincent probably heard the story soon after moving into the Loyers' house at 87 Hackford Road. The obvious question, which surely arose early in their acquaintanceship, would have been about the absence of men in the family. It was certainly the question on the minds of Vincent's mother and father. When Vincent first met Harry Gladwell's family in London in August, 1876 -- like the Loyers, candidates for surrogacy -- he expressed an immediate urge "to see so deeply into their family affairs" (JLB 88, 8/18/1876).

188. "I never heard or dreamed"

b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874.

189. as the perfect fit

Wylie, p. 20: Our view comports with Wylie's: "[Vincent] could nourish himself on the fantasy of having found both a wife and a mother in a ménage of which he was already a part. An irresistible dream."

190. "I now have a bedroom"

BVG 11, 9/13/1873.

Context:
BVG 11, 9/13/1873: " I now have a bedroom such as I always longed for, without a sloping ceiling and without blue wallpaper with green fringes."
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: " I now have a room, as I've long been wishing, without sloping beams and without blue wallpaper with a green border."

191. "Oh! Old man"

BVG 11, 9/13/1873.

Context:
BVG 11, 9/13/1873: " Oh! -- Old man, I so want that you come here to see my new lodgings, the one I have already spoken about to you."
JLB 13, 9/13/1873: " Oh, how I'd like to have you here, old chap, to see my new lodgings, which you'll have heard about."

192. in the garden

BVG 16, 4/30/1874. Vincent called the garden of the Loyers' Hackford Road house "our garden" (Meyers, p. 136).

Context:
JLB 22, 4/30/1874: "I'm doing a lot of gardening and have sown sweet peas, poppies and reseda, now we just have to wait and see what comes of it."

193. the Loyers grew flowers

BVG 111, 10/21/1877.

Context:
JLB 132, 10/21/1877: "How beautiful the winter chrysanthemums in London will be in the little gardens, and they bloom there the whole winter long."

194. in the collections

Eugénie's daughter told Wilkie that the Loyers collected dolls, eggs, butterflies, and photographs (Wilkie, p. 69). In The Tragic Life of Vincent van Gogh, Piérard appears to have inflated a scrap of information about the Loyers’ doll collection into a narrative theme, melodramatically labeling Eugénie “the angel of the little dolls” (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 29).

195. He made drawings

Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 29. (See Ch. 6, n. 196.)

196. his new family and his old one

b2673 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/15/1873: The writer was Dorus: “Vincent sent us such a nice drawing of the street and the house where he lives, and of the interior of his room, so that we can imagine very well how it all looks.” They enclosed the drawings of his room, probably at Vincent's instruction, so Theo could see them. “Please return the drawings of Vincent's room. There is not enough space in this letter to include any more now.” (ibid.) Vincent probably gave detailed instructions on which drawings his parents should send Theo if they could not send them all. Anna added to the letter: “Don't you think it is nice that we can now really picture how Vincent lives. It is so well drawn, how nice and sweet of him.” These drawings (since lost) anticipate the many paintings of his rooms and environs that Vincent later made, including, most famously, The Bedroom (JH 1608 F 482) in Arles in 1888 (see Chapter 32).

197. decorate the house with holly

b2682 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/7/1874. The drawing of the Hackford Road house that Vincent gave to the Loyers came to light only in 1991, through the investigations of journalist Ken Wilkie (Wilkie, p. 40).

198. "in the English way"

b2682 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/7/1874.

199. with pudding

Coquiot, p. 38.

200. and carols

b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873.

201. first Christmas away from home

b2662 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/22/1873: Vincent knew as early as September that he would not be coming home for Christmas, almost certainly because of the expense. By this time, however, he was living at the Loyer house. If not for his contentedness there, he would either have come home regardless of the expense, or would have spiraled into a depression -- as he would do so often during Christmas holidays to come (including, most famously, in Arles in 1888 [see Chapter 36]).

202. "I hope you had"

BVG 13, 1/1/1874.

Context:
JLB 17, January, 1874: "I hope you had a nice Christmas, just as I did."

203. newfound sense of belonging

Because they follow Bonger's lead in attributing all of Vincent's later unhappiness to Eugenie Loyer's rejection, most Vincent biographers have been forced to explain Vincent's apparent happiness during the winter of 1873-1874 even after he knew she was engaged to be married. Meyers justifies Vincent's "paradoxical cheerfulness" by suggesting his reaction to the news of Eugenie's engagement was delayed (Meyers, p. 135). Wylie contends that Vincent was never really as cheerful as he pretended to be, and that his activities that winter "have the ring of busyness for the sake of distraction" (Wylie, p. 19).

204. to reclaim his place

b2686 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/7/1874.

205. He wrote home faithfully

b2684 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/28/1874: His parents wrote Theo that Vincent "never forgets to write."

206. always in a cheerful voice

b2689 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/24/1874. Vincent's sister Anna reported to Theo: "[Vincent] has found such a kind family to live with. He seems to be always in good spirits."

207. all the way up to Paris

b2683 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/17/1874: "Just now a letter from Uncle Cent arrived in which he writes that the gentlemen in Paris are so much satisfied with Vincent's work in London that they had given him a raise as of January 1." Five months later, Dorus reported that he had heard from Uncle Cent that "Mr. Goupil had said of Vincent that he has a lot of ambition" (b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874). This strikes us as a more ambiguous, noncommittal comment than it is generally regarded in the literature (see, e.g., Cassee, p. 111). It makes no representations, after all, about Vincent's ability, or his performance, or his promise. It comes filtered through multiple layers of diplomatic hearsay: Obach (presumably), Goupil, Uncle Cent, and Dorus. Genuine, ringing praise probably would have survived more intact.

208. a New Year's raise

b2683 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/17/1874. (See Ch. 6, n. 207.)

209. sent so much money home

b2681 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/7/1874. Vincent’s generosity began at Christmastime 1873, when he sent to his parents two (or more) gold coins with the cheerful (and religious) exclamation: “What a rich life ... Your gift, oh God!” (b2675 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/24/1873). In his letter to Theo, Dorus only reported one gold coin (“Fl.6”) (b2675 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/24/1873). However, in her letter of the same date, Anna writes suggesting that there was at least one previous coin (perhaps on St. Nicholas Day): “Don't you find it kind of Vincent to send us another half gold coin?” (b2676 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 12/24/1873). After this, there are two mentions in the correspondence of further disbursements: £2.50 on January 7, 1874 and £1 on February 7 (for Dorus’s birthday) (b2686 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/7/1874). It is not clear if another mention on February 15 refers to a separate enclosure. The dating suggests that Vincent may have been striving to send something at the beginning of each month when he was paid. In late February, Anna wrote Theo: “I should like so much to send some money home as Vincent does sometimes. (b2689 V/1982, ''Gogh, Anna van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 2/24/1874).

210. "denying himself"

b2686 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/7/1874: "Vincent sent £1 for my birthday again," Dorus complained. "That dear boy is carrying things a little too far."

211. He even reached out

b2686 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/7/1874. Vincent has apparently received at least one letter from Tersteeg during the summer of 1873. He writes Theo in January: "I know that things are going well for you in the office, because I heard as much from Mr. Tersteeg" (JLB 17, January, 1874). This may have been a holiday exchange only. The following spring probably, a substantive correspondence developed, with Vincent using the illness of Tersteeg's daughter Betsy as an excuse to re-open it. Four years later, Vincent showed his mother some "nice and lovely" letters that Tersteeg had written him in London (b0972 V/1962, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/31/1878).

212. family favorite, H. G. Tersteeg

b2656 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/1/1873: "He [Tersteeg] is such a dear person and Uncle Cent speaks so highly of him."

213. a plan to bring his sister

BVG 11a, 10/1/1873. The idea of finding work for his sister in England had been on Vincent’s mind at least since his arrival at the Loyer house. As of October 1873, the plan was already well formed in his thinking: “I'd like it so much if something could be found for her here; we've talked about this before, as you know.” The last phrase may suggest that he had the idea before his departure from The Hague, when he was preparing to come to England. Vincent was never close to his oldest sister. In 1874, he wrote Caroline Haanebeek that he and Anna had “seen very little of each other, and we only half know each other” (JLB 20, 3/3/1874). As of the beginning of the previous year, Vincent's correspondence with Anna was desultory: “I expect a letter from Anna soon. She's rather lazy about writing these days.” (JLB 4, 1/28/1873.)

At this early point, their relationship was no doubt correctly warm but not enthusiastic; eventually, it would become bitterly antagonistic. Yet Vincent did sympathize with Anna's unhappiness at school. Anna wrote Theo (and presumably Vincent) from school: “I should like to run away from here” (b2679 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/6/1874). Like both Vincent and Theo, Anna was painfully aware of the cost of her schooling: “I will be happy when the school-life will be over; then [Lies] can go to school because they won't have to pay for me” (b2689 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/24/1874). Vincent also resented his parents' relentless push for more education. “Pa and Ma have suggested that she stay at school,” he wrote in October, “but if she'd rather not she needn't do it” (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873). That Anna’s schooling cost their parents money they could not afford no doubt also resonated with Vincent’s broader guilt over the events of the previous winter.

Context:
JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873: "Our Anna has passed her examinations in English and in needlework, you can imagine how delighted she and all of us are. Pa and Ma have suggested that she stay at school until next April, and in that case attempt French, but if she'd rather not she needn't do it. I'd like it so much if something could be found for her here; we've talked about this before, as you know."

214. he relentlessly argued

b2690 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/7/1874: "Our Vincent also writes faithfully, and about Anna, too."

215. more offers would be open

BVG 19, 7/21/1874.

Context:
JLB 26, 7/21/1874: "I believe there's more chance of her finding something here than in Holland" (emphasis in original).

216. sought out suitable positions

b2693 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/23/1874: "We are busy looking for a position in England for Anna; Vincent is trying as well." Vincent put his parents in touch with a "Miss Naillé," a Dutch governess in England whose example they found encouraging: "not yet 17, she was here, in this country, and went to London without telling her parents, all alone, and still managed to find a position through an advertisement, had a rough time of it, but persevered just the same. She wanted to master the language, which is so different from what we speak here." (b2690 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/7/1874.)

217. drafted letters of inquiry

b2696 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/27/1874: "[O]f his own accord, [Vincent] had so nicely drafted a letter in French for an English lady, because Dad wasn't used to writing in French; very sweet, don't you think, and so very well done that it didn't need any changes."

218. "Such a dear"

b2696 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/27/1874.

219. her boarding school

The school was located in Leeurwarden.

220. Eugenie and Vincent had agreed

b2679 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/6/1874. Much ink has been spilled because Anna used the name “Ursula” in her letter where she clearly meant “Eugénie.” Since she purports to transcribe a letter from Vincent, the inference has often been that this was originally Vincent’s mistake. In her memoir, Jo Bonger institutionalized the error and it was not uncovered until 1991 when British journalist Ken Wilkie established that the Loyer daughter's name was Eugénie (Wilkie, p. 38). The likeliest explanation, in our view, is that the mistake was Anna's. The passage that she transcribed was obviously from a longer letter which probably introduced both Loyers. Vincent’s syntax could be confusing. In her transcription, Anna may have supplied the name she thought was correct in place of a pronoun. In a letter six weeks later, she used the correct name without comment. It is possible, but far less likely after four months in the Loyer household, that Vincent made the mistake. He could be absent-minded. In any event, we do not see any significance in the slip, if it was his; and certainly not the tantalizing but insupportable Oedipal imaginings of the 2002 play Vincent in Brixton.

221. "like brother and sister"

b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874.

222. "should consider her a sister"

b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874: Vincent urged Anna to open a correspondence with Eugenie so that she could find out for herself "what kind of person she is." Not trusting his sister, whom Vincent considered a "lazy" correspondent (JLB 4, 1/28/1873), he prevailed on Eugenie to write the first letter (b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874). Even though Anna said that she had received a letter from "Ursula Loyer," it has long been assumed that this letter, which accompanied Vincent's letter introducing the Loyers in January, was in fact from Eugenie. However, it could have been a letter from Ursula. Six weeks later, Anna reported a letter from Eugenie and what sounds like a first impression: "I got too a very kind letter from Eugenie, she seems to be a natural and amiable girl" (b2689 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/24/1874). As a "sister" to Eugenie, Vincent promised, Anna would share "the love between her and her mother" which Vincent described in rapturous terms (b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874).

223. "Be kind to her"

b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874. Hulsker and others have translated this famous passage to say: "But again: Love her for my sake." However, our translator translates the same passage this way: "Only once more, for my sake, be kind to that girl." There is a world of difference between the two translations.

224. Ursula wrote Anna

b2691 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/17/1874: The letter from Ursula is reported in a letter from Vincent's mother to Theo. She refers to Ursula Loyer as "that old lady."

225. "as her own home"

b2691 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/17/1874.

226. "to a good-natured youth"

b2689 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/24/1874.

227. continuing money woes

b2696 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 4/27/1874: “[M]oney is getting tight, very tight,” Dorus wrote Theo. “God has helped us so far [but] capital is decreasing.” Nine months earlier, the parents had been more trusting of Providence: “[W]e don't know where we'll have to get the money,” Anna wrote, “but our heavenly Father knows” (b2640 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 7/12/1873). But as early as February, Anna thought she might go to England in May (b2689 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/24/1874). By May, the decision was made. The ultimate timing, in July, was probably due to a combination of factors: the governess that Anna was in contact with in England thought that “mid-July would be best” (ibid.); the timing of Vincent's summer break, her parents' general reluctance to let Anna go, and -- the final straw -- Anna's “shameful” failure in her final exam (b2693 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/23/1874). That failure left her parents few other choices.

228. "Our Anna will come"

BVG 14a, 3/3/1874.

Context:
BVG 14a, 3/3/1874: "Now I have something new to tell you; perhaps our Anna will come here. You can well imagine how wonderful this would be for me."
JLB 20, 3/3/1874: "Now I have a piece of news for you; our Anna will perhaps be coming here. You can imagine how wonderful that would be for me, but it's almost too good to be true."

229. In November

Stolwijk in Stolwijk and Thomson, eds., p. 24: Theo left Brussels on November 5, took the train home to Tilburg where his father met him and then went to The Hague on November 12 in order to be ready to report for work on November 17.

230. Vincent's boardinghouse

b2663 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/22/1873: The Rooses at Lange Beestenmarkt 32. Theo had to pay "Fl. 2 per month more than Vincent had to pay," and did not, at first, occupy the same room as Vincent.

231. his brother's duties

Stolwijk in Stolwijk and Thomson, eds., p. 25: Theo worked alongside Vincent's old colleague Teunus van Iterson. Vincent closed one of his letters from London with "Adieu, old chap, keep your chin up, and I wish you well. Give my regards to Van Iterson" (JLB 21, 3/30/1874).

232. Gérant Tersteeg invited

b2682 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/7/1874: "It's so nice that you had coffee with the Tersteeg family at Christmas -- it proves that Mr. Tersteeg is satisfied with your work."

233. Theo mixed effortlessly

Nonne, p. 40: In The Hague, as in Brussels, Theo began immediately to build an extensive network of contacts among Dutch galleries and dealers. Nonne gives an extensive account of Theo's successful networking in the Belgian capital, despite being there only ten months.

234. "tactful"

Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 41.

235. "attentive"

b2568 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/18/1877.

236. "golden tongue"

b2535 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/11/1877.

237. "knew how to handle"

Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 42: It should be noted that Theo's sister Elisabeth does not date her description of Theo's considerable interpersonal skills as a dealer; and that she probably draws heavily from his later career in Paris. However, we believe that the empathy, consideration, and sociability that underlie these skills are sufficiently documented in the sources on Theo as a child; and therefore it is reasonable to assume that the skills developed quickly and early; or, at least, were evident early.

238. "help them to a better"

Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 42.

239. "they always thought"

Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 42.

240. He soon won praise

Stolwijk, “'Our Crown and Our Honour and Our Joy' Theo van Gogh's Early Years,” pp. 49-50: Tersteeg recognized Theo’s natural gift for sales and soon put them to work. He sent Theo on a sales trip to Utrecht in his first week on the job (ibid.) -- an early sign of confidence that pleased (and relieved) father Dorus (“So you have arrived safely in The Hague, and were immediately sent out on an assignment”) and mother Anna (“[Tersteeg] never would have given that job to a little boy or someone who didn't already have a good reputation”). b2673 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/15/1873.

241. "How well suited you are"

b2694 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/26/1874.

242. "not a word spoken"

Quoted in Stolwijk, “'Our Crown and Our Honour and Our Joy' Theo van Gogh's Early Years,” pp. 47-48. In another sign that he had his eye on the newest Van Gogh at Goupil, two weeks before the transfer to The Hague, Uncle Cent gave Theo some of his old clothes (“an excellent pair of trousers, a waistcoat and a jacket”) (b2670 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/22/1873). In the Van Gogh family, such a gesture conferred on Theo much more than just clothing. Dorus saw the deeper significance and encouraged his son to pursue this early favor: “Uncle is so interested in you ... Write him often” (b0997 V/1962, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Jo van”).

243. hopes of providing an heir

(See Ch. 6, n. 242.)

244. a measure of self-sufficiency

Stolwijk, "'Our Crown and Our Honour and Our Joy' Theo van Gogh's Early Years," pp. 49-50: According to Stolwijk, Theo was already making "about 35 florins a month" in 1873 before his raise to 38 florins in January. Like Vincent, he had started out at 30 florins, but was given at least one raise during his first ten months in Brussels. It is not recorded when during the period of 1869-1873 Vincent's salary was raised to the level of 40 florins, where it was at the beginning of 1873, but clearly Theo's increases were on a faster track that Vincent's had been.

245. "It's a privilege"

b2677 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/31/1873: "… enjoy the privilege that you are already helping us by paying for your board and lodging yourself."

246. Theo upheld family obligations

b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874: After Theo paid a call on her old artist friends, the Bakhuyzens, Anna encouraged him to do so again. "They will be happy to welcome you," she wrote with a rueful recollection. "I know this because they previously had the same intentions towards Vincent" (b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874). Despite his busy schedule, Theo always remembered to visit relatives on birthdays and anniversaries or at times of sickness (b2693 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/23/1874). Unlike Vincent's turbulent missives -- strange and worrisome one week, placid and concealing the next -- Theo's letters were always solid and reassuring: "a marvelous elixir," Dorus called them (b2507 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/19/1877).
Where Vincent always sent gifts that reflected his own obsession of the moment, Theo had a salesman's eye for gifts that pleased the recipient (b2702 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/19/1874). Exquisitely sensitive to the moods of those around him, he understood the value of small kindnesses: a well-timed note or an unexpected favor (b2716 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/30/1874). In January 1874, for example, he surprised his dispirited sister Anna at the train station in Utrecht and took her out to lunch (b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874). Such thoughtfulness had made him the favorite of his siblings (ibid.). "What a nice print you sent me," Anna wrote Theo after her birthday in 1874 (b2689 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/24/1874). "Everyone admired it very much. I got one from Vincent too but it is not as nice as yours" (ibid.). Fourteen-year-old Lies looked up to Theo, not Vincent: "I like to study," she wrote Theo in 1875, "because it will make me independent one day, just like you" (b2330 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/11/1875).

247. encouragement

b2641 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/12/1873: "Dear boy, never end the day without having had a decent dinner ... [otherwise] we will soon have such a skinny and withered young man, that people will say that it is our son Theo, but we will not be able to recognize you anymore."

248. undisguised favor

Now, instead of urging Theo to follow Vincent's lead, the parents urged Theo to set the standard for his older brother: "Through your example, [you] can be useful to him" (b2311 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/9/1875). For his twenty-first birthday in March 1874, they gave Vincent cufflinks, a butter cake, and chocolate (b2690 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/7/1874). For his seventeenth birthday in May the same year, they gave Theo a new suit, a scarf, and a pair of kid gloves (b2697 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/29/1874).

249. "Be well and always remain"

b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874: The more mellifluous translations of the final phrase -- “pride and joy,” “joy and crown” -- do not convey the sense of singularity, primacy, and example of the word “ace,” which, according to our translator, is the literal translation of the Dutch word “kraan.”

250. "our joy and crown"

b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874. More mellifluous translations -- "pride and joy," "joy and crown" -- do not convey the sense of singularity, primacy, and example of the word "ace," which, according to our translator, is the literal translation of the Dutch word "kraan".

251. Vincent had already heard

BVG 13, 1/1/1874.

Context:
JLB 17, January, 1874: "I know that things are going well for you in the office, because I heard as much from Mr. Tersteeg."

252. "pleased"

BVG15, 3/30/1874.

Context:
BVG 15, 3/30/1874: "I was pleased to hear that you are doing so well."
JLB 21, 3/30/1874: "I'm glad that you're so well."

253. did not show it

Clearly, the implication of the facts marshaled in the text is that Vincent was, at some level at least, not pleased By Theo’s successes. We agree with Nagera on this point, which will become increasingly central to the brothers' relationship: “The relationship was permeated as we have said by negative aggressive, anal sadistic elements. ... If Theo failed to give us this unconditional support Vincent's aggression and anal sadistic tendencies were triggered off, and found expression occasionally in extreme ambivalent feelings towards Theo or in sheer abuse of the brother” (Nagera, p. 170).

254. letters were short and perfunctory

Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 36-37: "Writing to Theo on his birthday, [Vincent] perfunctorily thanked his brother for 'a guilder from you for a pair of cuff-links.' At the end of the short note, [Vincent] concluded: I, too, am very busy just now and am glad of it, for that is what I want.'"

255. "[I] am very busy"

BVG 14, 2/20/1874. (See Ch. 6, n. 254.)

Context:
BVG 14, 2/20/1874: "I am all right and am very busy."
JLB 19, 2/20/1874: "I'm all right, I'm busy."

256. "tell me what you see"

BVG 5, 3/17/1873.

Context:
BVG 5, 3/17/1873: "Be sure to tell me more about the pictures you see."
JLB 5, 3/17/1873: "Above all, you must write more about the kind of things you see."

257. "think it over"

BVG 17, 6/16/1874: All the brothers' exchanges began to take on this new supercilious tone. When Theo asked about a photo-engraving process, Vincent brushed the question aside: "I know more or less how they're made, though I haven't seen it, and it isn't clear enough to me to explain it" (JLB 10, 7/2/1873). When Theo commended a book, Vincent confessed curtly, "I haven't read [it]" (JLB 19, 2/20/1874). (Theo had recommended or inquired about a book by the Dutch writer Johannes van Vloten. Vincent replied, again curtly: "[Thoré-]Bürger is simpler, and everything he says is true" [ibid.].) Theo responded to this wave of coldness with an obliviousness that was its own kind of hostility. He blithely reported his active social life among Vincent's former friends (including, most hurtfully, Caroline Haanebeek) (JLB 22, 4/30/1874). In response to what was probably a list of new friends named by Theo, Vincent concludes a letter by sending his "regards to everyone I know at the Tersteegs', Haanebeeks' and Carbentuses', and especially the Rooses', also everyone at Uncle [Abraham] Pompe's ... and Mr. [Jules] Bakhuyzen." Theo also recounted his successes at work, and complained about his busy schedule -- to which Vincent replied tartly, "I'm also busy" [JLB 21, 3/30/1874]). (See Ch. 6, n. 255.) When Theo sent his sister Anna a portrait of himself, he neglected to send one to his brother, reducing Vincent to a plaintive plea: "If you can spare another, I commend myself" (JLB 5, 3/17/1873).

Context:
BVG 17, 6/16/1874: "I am also anxious to have a good talk with you about art; think it over and perhaps you will have some questions to put to me."
JLB 23, 6/16/1874: "I'm also looking forward to having a good talk with you about art, start thinking about any questions you might want to put to me."

258. By June

There are conflicting versions of Vincent's actual departure date (from London) and arrival date (in Holland). The departure date was originally identified by Vincent as Thursday, June 25 or Saturday, June 27 (JLB 23, 6/16/1874). A week later, his parents reported expecting him to leave London on Saturday, June 27 and to arrive the next day in Helvoirt (b2709 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 6/23/1874). But in the same letter Dorus told Theo to inform Tersteeg that Vincent “plans to leave for here next Thursday” (i.e., June 25 or July 2), which would put Vincent in Helvoirt on June 26 or July 3 (the arrival date often cited). Although JLB date the arrival in Helvoirt to June 27, we have taken the dates that seem most strongly advanced (and that observe the workweek at Goupil): i.e., departure from London on Saturday, June 27 and arrival in Holland on Sunday, June 28.

259. the brothers had cooled

b2709 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/23/1874: In what may have been a signal of his displeasure, Vincent changed his travel plans at the last minute, bypassing The Hague -- and Theo -- to go directly to Helvoirt, offering only the vague assurance that he would visit there sometime during his trip, "but will decide later when that will be." In late April, Vincent had expressed a plan to stop in The Hague during his visit home (JLB 22, 4/30/1874). In late June, on the eve of Vincent's arrival, Dorus reported a change in plan: "Vincent says that he still has to go to [The Hague] for about 3 days. But we will decide later when that will be. I imagine that Vincent will go to [The Hague] after being home for a while." (b2709 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/23/1874.) Vincent's cancellation of his waylay in The Hague on his return trip, after having carefully preserved it through various iterations, suggests either a last-minute exigency or an act of pique.

260. grateful welcome he expected

b2709 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/23/1874: As late as six weeks before his arrival in Helvoirt, Vincent was still waxing nostalgic about the home he hardly knew: "If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere. Yet I sometimes yearn so much for Holland, and especially Helvoirt."

261. A relentless matchmaker

Cassee, p. 111. Even Vincent’s subsequent report that Eugénie Loyer was engaged to another man did not deter Anna's matchmaking zeal. In the very same letter in which she informed Theo of the engagement, she explored another possible match for Vincent: “I am very curious to know more about him [Vincent] and Annet [Haanebeek]. We two are just old people who try to know all about persons who are in love.” (b2689 V/1982, ''Gogh, Anna van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 2/24/1874.) Annet Haanebeek was the older, unmarried sister of Caroline Haanebeek. Anna showed intense interest in the love-lives of both of her brothers. In January 1874, she gave a scathing review of a “Miss Strunck” whom Theo had inquired about. “One day she will be amiable to a person because he flatters her, another she is quite the contrary. She receives our letters and when she is good humoured she will answer them but if not she doesn't and is very impolite ... she never was a girl who pleased me very much.” (b2680 V/1982, ''Gogh, Anna van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 1/20/1874.)

Anna was also a student of "true love" -- i.e., the kind she found in books. A year later, Anna explained her preference for the sentimental love poetry of Tennyson (Excelsior) and Longfellow (Courtship of Miles Standish) over the more erotic love poetry of Byron: "They speak more to the soul than the beautiful, powerful verses, which are not always the revelations of a great mind but, in my opinion, of an impure soul. I believe that Byron is one of those, the kind of which Jesus said, "He shall be forgiven much, because he has loved much." (b2333 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/28/1875.) Given this predilection, it is hardly surprising that Anna's suspicion of a romantic liaison between Vincent and Eugénie was not at all discouraged by Vincent's relentless portrayal of their relationship as "like that between brother and sister" (see Ch. 6, n. 221). Indeed, Anna responded by comparing the love between Vincent and Eugenie to that between David Copperfield and his "sister" Agnes (b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874). Although David and Agnes grow to love each other "like siblings," when they discover that they are not true siblings, they promptly marry, bringing Dickens' novel to the usual happy, inevitable, and improbable conclusion.

It is impossible that Anna did not share this literary comparison and romantic calculus with her parents. Anna's letters show her to be catty, prudish, censorious, sensitive to criticism, incapable of keeping a secret, and a tattle. In a typical remark (about this time), when Theo inquired her opinion of a woman whom he was considering courting, Anna replied: "she considers you as a little boy and herself as a lady -- no young lady -- or she does something that is not comme-il-faut. The first I know she doesn't, for she always liked to seem younger than she really was ... I believe you will be angry at what I say; for you had wished that I would say that she was an amiable loving girl, but remember you asked me to be sincere." (b2680 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/20/1874.)

262. "Old girl, you must"

b2679 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/6/1874. It is possible that Vincent intended, as part of his inducement to Anna, to communicate the possibility of a romantic relationship with Eugénie. He may have rethought this perilous strategy by the time he told Anna about Eugénie's engagement six weeks later. But it was too late. (Of course, the story of the engagement may have been invented just to put a stop to the damaging rumors about which he was probably already answering questions from home, but that is a more tenuous line of speculation.) The fact that he did not mention Eugénie to Theo, whose discretion was far more reliable than Anna's, supports the conclusion that the story of his “love” for Eugénie (whether or not he intended the romantic implications) was designed as allurement, not reportage -- at least at the time he wrote it.

263. "more than a brother's love"

b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874.

264. "do not mention"

b2679 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/6/1874.

265. the Van Goghs blamed

b2644 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 7/19/1873. Regarding Vincent’s parents' sensitivity to the nature of his living situation, it is interesting to note that one of his mother’s early observations on Vincent’s first boarding house in London was this half-hearted approval: “The ladies in whose house [Vincent] lives are very ordinary people, nothing bad to write about.” If “ordinary” was the gold standard, the Loyers fell far short. After Vincent left the Loyers in August 1874, Anna wrote Theo: “Wonderful that you are well housed and well taken care of; I'm always afraid that Vincent doesn't attend to that enough ...” (b2715 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 8/15/1874). On the subject of the Van Gogh’s tendency to deal with their son's “inability to cope with society by putting the blame on the other person's behavior,” see Wylie, p. 20.

266. "that old lady"

b2691 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/17/1874.

267. "unnatural"

Meyers, p. 137.

268. "They are no family"

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874.

269. touched by French immorality

Wylie, p. 20: "The pastor's oblique suggestion that the Loyers were not normal can perhaps be accounted for by the little we know of the good dominie's notions of French morality." It is interesting to note on this subject that in the previous decade, both the Dutch King (Willem III) and the Crown Prince (Willem) had sought the favor of the famous Parisian courtesan Cora Pearl, and both had become deeply involved in a scandalous relationship with the French courtesan, Elizabeth Cookson, whom the King briefly brought to Holland and set up as his mistress before public opinion forced him to return her to France, where she continued her affair with his son. These notorious shenanigans only confirmed proper Dutch opinion of French morals and the perils they posed.

270. "too many secrets"

b2715 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 8/15/1874. Vincent's appearance when he arrived in Helvoirt after a full year's absence only heightened his parents’ concern. Anna described him as “so very skinny,” implicitly accusing his landlady of failing to feed him properly (ibid.). And for parents obsessed with both clothing and cleanliness, it could not have escaped notice that his clothes had not been kept mended or cleaned. Fifty years later, the Helvoirt tailor to whom Vincent took his clothes for repair remembered them as “reeking of smoke and wholly unpresentable” (Stokvis, p. 15). In her memoir, Jo Bonger infers from these reports of Vincent’s sad condition upon his arrival from London that his proposal of marriage to Eugénie Loyer had been rejected before his return: “With this first great sorrow his character changed; when he came home for the holidays he was thin, silent, dejected -- a different being” (Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxv).

Here is the only other tangential support for this sweeping statement that we can find: (1) Anna's comment “I hope Vincent is looking better” two months after his visit (b2722 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 9/21/1874), although this probably also refers to his thinness and perhaps his clothing; (2) Dorus's description of Vincent's mood as “dejected” in a later letter to Theo (b2723 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/2/1874), although this description appears to be based on Vincent’s mood at the time of writing, almost three months after the summer visit: in particular, some unfriendly letters from Vincent in the interim and a worrisome slowdown in correspondence; (3) An even later letter from Anna in which she recalls that Vincent “already wasn't himself anymore this summer” (b2723 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo `van'', 10/2/1874); (4) Dorus's recollection in the same later letter to Theo that Vincent was “grousing about the London fog” (ibid.); and (5) The comment recorded by Stokvis, apparently from the tailor Frederik van de Plas, that Vincent was “strikingly quiet” (Stokvis, Nasporingen omtrentVincent van Gogh in Brabant, p. 15), although Stokvis is unclear whether this observation applies to Vincent's 1874 visit and/or a different visit.

In any event, the argument in the text about the origin of the alienation Vincent felt in Helvoirt in the summer of 1874 is consistent with all of the relevant observations (by Stokvis, Dorus, and Anna), and does not demand the grand, romantic leap of speculation that Bonger's story does. It is possible, although unlikely given the Van Gogh reluctance to discuss such matters, that Bonger had other, undisclosed sources for her story.

271. "wonderful"

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874: "It turns out things weren't so wonderful at the Loyers'." We take this as Dorus's summary of Vincent's description of life at the Loyers.

272. "an escape from life's"

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874: Anna wrote Theo soon after Vincent left the Loyers in August: "[Vincent's] illusions have not been realized -- real life is different from what one imagines and no matter how much good there may be, no one escapes life's troubles and problems." We assume that this is Anna's (unsympathetic) summary of the arguments Vincent made on behalf of his relationship with the Loyers when he was in Helvoirt. It may have been informed by Vincent's correspondence prior to his visit as well.

273. "illusions"

Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 47-49: Bailey translates the word as "dreams" rather than "illusions."

274. Anna took umbrage

b2677 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/31/1873: Anna found it particularly disturbing that Vincent could miss his first Christmas at home so blithely: "It's strange not to have you and Vincent here with us at the end and the beginning of the year, but we know we will be in your thoughts, as you are in ours ..."

275. his wife's misgivings

b2715 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/15/1874. By this time (1874), Dorus’s feelings towards his eldest son were as conflicted as Vincent's towards him. Alarmed by every negative sign and doubtful of every positive one, Dorus alternately encouraged Vincent to succeed and despaired of his ever succeeding. Even Vincent's elaborate efforts in the spring to arrange a job for Anna had worked against him. Dorus and Anna dreaded the loss of their eldest daughter. Only a few weeks before Vincent’s arrival, Anna wrote: “We fear that we will have to go along that path” (b2706 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 6/10/1874). Inevitably, their dread of Anna's departure rubbed off on Vincent’s arrival. As they anticipated their loss, they cast Vincent increasingly as the agent of that loss. “I dread Vincent's arrival,” his mother wrote in May, “because Anna may soon be leaving then.” (b2704 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/27/1874). Dorus echoed the same sentiment earlier that spring: “I imagine that Vincent's arrival is linked with Anna's departure.” (b2690 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/7/1874). After Vincent and Anna left, Dorus wrote a sermon based on Jeremiah 31:16: “Weep not, your children shall return from 'the land of the enemy'“ (b2711 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 7/18/1874). With hearts so hardened against him, Vincent's campaign for rehabilitation had little chance of success.

276. she paid a visit

b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874: "It's nice that the queen has visited the store; a pity that Uncle Cent and Mr. Goupil weren't there at the time." The royal visit apparently took place sometime around mid-June. It was the crowning event of an extraordinary spring that began with Theo's seventeenth birthday in May followed by another royal encounter on a trip to Amsterdam where he enjoyed a privileged seat at the procession of King Willem III. His mother wrote enviously, "I have never seen a procession, so you are way ahead of me" (b2702 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/19/1874). We know that Theo, and probably some friends, hired a "vigilante," a small carriage, and stood on top of it to get a better view. "At least you had a good view from up there," wrote Anna approvingly (b2702 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/19/1874).

277. Uncle Cent had introduced

b2709 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/23/1874: "How nice it was of Uncle Cent that he remembered you so well."

278. royalty of a different kind

b2706 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874: On June 10, Theo's parents report that "Mr. Goupil and his family" are staying with Uncle Cent in The Hague. Less than two weeks later, they acknowledged Theo's report of having met with Uncle Cent. An introduction was inevitable.

279. almost had to cancel

b2706 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 6/10/1874. His father had originally asked Theo to take eight days off, but in the end, he could only manage one: “I hope that you can be with us at least one Sunday with Vincent and Anna” (b2699 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/5/1874). Presumably, Theo took Saturday, July 4, off work in order to travel to Helvoirt and was there all of Sunday, July 5. Securing even one day off may have required a personal appeal from Dorus to gérant Tersteeg: “Did Mr. Tersteeg return yet? I also asked him if you could come over for a short while when Vincent comes. That will probably be all right.” (b2705 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 5/27/1874.) Anna wrote at the same time, “Dad told Mr. Tersteeg how we wish that we would all be together again when Vincent is home and he promised to make it happen if it would be possible in any way” (b2705 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/27/1874). When Theo finally arrived at the parsonage on July 4, his mother Anna reported that he “looked so good and healthy ... [and] so content” -- a flattering description that stands in stark contrast to her account of her other, skinny son (b2711 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 7/18/1874). (See Ch. 6, n. 270.)

280. They talked shop

b2711 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/18/1874: Dorus subsequently wrote to Theo: "When you [and Vincent] were together, you had such a strong bond with each other." We take this as a reference to their both working in the art trade. Dorus went on to say: "Keep working together to make things all right for each other" -- a vague and tepid encouragement by the effusive standards of Van Gogh family reunions. This is the only (surviving) comment that either parent made about the day the brothers spent together. An echo of Dorus's comment can be heard in Anna's letter to Theo soon after he returned to The Hague: "It is so nice for Vincent and you that you are in the same beautiful business (b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874). Judging by the businesslike letters the brothers subsequently exchanged, they had left no intimate conversation unfinished, despite the brevity of the visit.

Five days after Theo left Helvoirt, Vincent wrote him a short, perfunctory note responding to “information” from Theo (apparently equally brief) about when Vincent and Anna would leave for London (JLB 25, 7/10/1874). The letter (a note, really) concluded with a few sentences about specific prints. The tone is notably formal and curt (especially given how much free time Vincent had in Helvoirt). When Vincent next wrote from London, his tone improved somewhat, although the letter was still short and concerned mostly with business (JLB 26, 7/21/1874). He appears to gloat over his success in bringing Anna to London. There is also a reference to Theo's reading of a book by Jules Michelet (probably L'amour), apparently a topic that Theo had broached in his previous letter. The next letter was longer and friendlier and included several confidences (“entre nous”) (JLB 27, 7/31/1874). The subject of women had obviously been raised, breaking the ice of the previous, passing chill. It would preoccupy the brothers' correspondence for the rest of the year.

281. the next morning

( See Ch. 6, n. 279.)

282. in a fit of pique

Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 38-40: Vincent considered various plans for visiting Theo in The Hague during his trip to Helvoirt. (See Ch. 6, n. 259.) The most logical time was when Theo returned to The Hague on Sunday, July 5 (see Ch. 6, n. 279). Instead, at the last minute, he asked Theo to deliver a little album of drawings that he had begun for five-year-old Betsy Tersteeg. The accompanying note hints at the pique he felt at Theo's summary departure: "Dearest Betsy, I had wanted to fill this little book with drawings for you, but Theo is leaving today, so I don't have any more time. You'll just have to have it the way it is …" (JLB 24, 7/7/1874.)

283. a little sketchbook

Szymanska, pp. 6-7, 10, 12, 14. This is the album that he gave Betsy Tersteeg (see Ch. 6, n. 282).

284. "snapshots"

Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 38: One page shows the steamboat that Vincent took to work (before moving to the Loyers); another, the Loyers' house on Hackford Road. Both of these drawings were subsequently separated from the album and lost. Before he put the sketchbook in Theo's hands to give to Betsy Tersteeg (see Ch. 6, n. 282), Vincent added a wistful sketch of a little girl curled up asleep, probably Betsy herself, as he remembered or imagined her (Meyers, p. 139). Another image in the sketchbook was an avenue of trees disappearing into the distance, an image that already seemed to haunt him (Szymanska, pp. 6-7, 10, 12, 14).

285. drawings of the Helvoirt parsonage

b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874: Anna and Dorus reported on these drawings to Theo: "Vincent has done quite a bit of drawing. For Lies, the bedroom window and a piece of the front door, so that part of the house." Presumably, one of the windows proximate to the door was a bedroom window. He gave Wil a drawing of the little parsonage seen from a distance (View of Helvoirt, F XIX JH --) together with the ancient church opposite it (Church of Helvoirt, [F XVIII JH --]). The one-story parsonage still stands in Helvoirt.

286. a big drawing

b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874: "For us also on a larger scale [Vincent made a drawing of] those houses in London that they see from their window."

287. the view from his window

b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874. It is possible this drawing was copied from or based on a drawing that Vincent brought with him; or that he did it from memory (i.e., de tête). Either possibility is intriguing, given later developments in his artistic career.

288. "We are all very happy"

b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874.

289. more irritable and alienated

b2723 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1874.

290. groused about the fog

b2723 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1874: "When he was home, he was grousing about the London fog."

291. "He wasn't himself"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

292. Dorus, physically sick

b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874: "Luckily Pa's cough is better, but he takes it easy and has to remain careful."

293. his father's death in May

b2701 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/7/1874: Dorus's father, Reverend Vincent, died on May 7, 1874 in Breda, at the age of eighty-five. (See Chapter 5.)

294. overstayed the ten days

b2699 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/5/1874: "I think Vincent will come on vacation in the 2nd half of June, though just for a short while, about 10 days he thought." The summer "vacation" to Helvoirt had a rocky birth. Vincent did not have a firm date for the trip until the last minute because gérant Obach was in Paris (b2707 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/10/1874). The final date was not confirmed until less than a week before Vincent left (b2709 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/23/1874).

295. Vincent wrote his boss

b2711 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/18/1874: "Vincent wrote to London that they would come a day later ..."

296. at the last minute

b2711 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van"to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/18/1874. Vincent apparently did not request the extra time until the last few days of the trip, hardly enough time to receive a response from Obach. Two years later, this cavalier attitude toward his employment would give his superiors the excuse they needed to fire him (see Chapter 7).

297. requesting more time

b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874. This is a typical Vincent squeeze play: he wrote Obach "requesting" the extra day on July 10, a Friday. That left barely enough time for Obach to receive the letter and respond in time for Vincent to receive his response before departing on July 14, the following Tuesday. This was show. It is equally possible that Vincent did not even write the letter, but just told his parents that he did. This cavalier attitude toward his work will eventually contribute to his dismissal (see Chapter 7). Vincent and Anna were scheduled to leave Helvoirt on Monday, July 13, and arrive the next day. Instead, they left on July 14 and arrived on Wednesday, July 15 (JLB 129, 9/4/1877). See also: "We do not mind that Vincent and Anna stay one more day" (b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874).

298. frantic rush of drawing

b2711 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/18/1874: "Vincent wrote to London that they would come a day later, and we profited from an extra day and Vincent made several more beautiful drawings including one for us that he took with him to frame it ..."

299. left from the Helvoirt station

b2711 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/18/1874: "Oh Theo you should have seen their departure. They needed a cart with a horse for their luggage."

300. had come to see Anna

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874: "[Vincent] already wasn't himself anymore this summer, but we hoped Anna's presence would do him good." Perhaps, their parents hoped, like so many unmarried Van Gogh women before her, Anna might save her brother from "the slippery path that he seemed fated to follow " (b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873). As usual, Vincent's mother found an unflattering contrast with his brother Theo. "Wonderful that you are well housed and well taken care of," she wrote Theo; "I'm always afraid that Vincent doesn't attend to that enough, especially when Anna will be gone" (b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874). Dorus's anxieties over Vincent's and Anna's departure found a voice in his next Sunday sermon, based on a passage from Jeremiah: "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears," said the Lord to Rachel, who had lost her children; "they shall come again from the land of the enemy" (b2711 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/18/1874).

301. "They are good people"

b2713 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874.

302. Vincent seemed deliriously happy

BVG 20, 7/31/1874.

Context:
JLB 27, 7/31/1874: "Anna is managing well, we go on wonderful walks together. It's so beautiful here, if only one has a good and a single eye, without many beams in it."

303. "You can imagine"

BVG 20, 7/31/1874.

Context:
BVG 20, 7/31/1874: "You can imagine how delighted I am to be here together with Anna."
JLB 27, 7/31/1874: " You can imagine how wonderful it is for me to be here with Anna."

304. Anna accompanied him

b2713 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874: Vincent's parents copied into a letter for Theo a passage from a report that Anna had sent them: "We take a walk every evening and always find new beautiful spots; even the fog, which I had always imagined to be an absolute horror, has its pretty side -- especially in the morning, when I accompany Vincent part of the way, the streets are very beautiful."

305. then practiced the piano

b2714 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874.

306. She visited his workplace

b2712 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/30/1874: Only two weeks after arriving, Anna reported, "I have already been to visit Vincent three times concerning his business ..." While she was there, Vincent pressed his favorite artists' work on his sister. The painter he was most enthused about, according to Anna, was Thijs Maris (ibid.).

307. dined with his boss Obach

b2714 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874: "This morning a fine letter from Vincent and Anna gladdened us. They are having a lot of fun and see many nice and peculiar things. Anna is happy with her room. She sees a lot of beautiful paintings and drawings and had spent a very pleasant evening with the Obach family."

308. they toured museums

b2713 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874: "It seems Anna is really beginning to enjoy paintings and she visits a lot of museums; wouldn't it be something if you could also be in London with those two!"

309. took picnics in the parks

b2714 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874: "Last Monday was a public holiday; they were planning to take a long walk to Dulwich then, taking their food with them."

310. Vincent learned to swim

BVG 19, 7/21/1874.

Context:
JLB 26, 7/21/1874: "I'm learning to swim."

311. "It turns out things"

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874.

312. "I'm glad he isn't there"

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874.

313. speculated that Vincent

The evidence for a love affair between Vincent and Eugenie Loyer is astonishingly thin, given the amount of attention it has attracted (see Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 20, although Hulsker cannot bring himself to entirely renounce Bonger's love story). Vincent never mentions Eugenie's name in any of his surviving correspondence (presumably, he mentioned her at least twice in letters to Anna at the beginning of 1874, assuming the mistaken use of the name "Ursula" was in Anna's transcription, not Vincent's letter). If Bonger had had access to any letters that are now missing from the corpus (as we believe she did) they must not have mentioned Eugenie in any substantive way or Bonger undoubtedly would have corrected Anna's mistake in her account. The same reasoning suggests that she did not have access to any "family" stories or other oral sources.

Subsequent biographers have scoured the letters for possible oblique references to a relationship. They have proposed two, both dating from seven years later when Vincent was in the throes of an unreciprocated love for his cousin, Kee Vos: (1) "When I was younger, one half of me once fancied that I was in love, and with the other half I really was. The result was many years of humiliation. Let me not have been humiliated in vain." (BVG 156, 11/10/1881-11/11/1881.) (2) "But just because love is so strong, generally in our youth (I mean at 17, 18, or 20 years) we are not strong enough to keep it going straight! The passions are the little ship's sails, you know. And he who gives way entirely to his feelings in his twentieth year catches too much wind and his boat takes in too much water and -- and he sinks -- or comes to the surface again after all ... The first case -- that of the man whose little boat capsized when he was twenty years old, and sank, did it not? ... is really that of your brother Vincent ... What kind of love was it that I felt when I was twenty? It is difficult to define -- my physical passions were very weak then, perhaps because of a few years of great poverty and hard work. But my intellectual passions were strong, meaning that without asking anything in return, without wanting any pity, I wanted only to give, but not to receive. Foolish, wrong, exaggerated, proud, rash ... So I fell, but it was a wonder that I got up again ... I got a deeper insight into my own heart and also into that of others. Gradually I began to love my fellow men again, myself included, and more and more my heart and soul -- which for a time had been withered, blighted and stricken through all kinds of great misery -- revived. And the more I turned to reality, and mingled with people, the more I felt new life reviving in me, until at last I met her [Kee Vos]." (BVG 157, 11/12/1881.)

These passages (especially the latter), like all of Vincent's perorations, should be read in light of their purpose -- in this case, an all-out effort to enlist Theo in his suit of Kee Vos against both families' opposition -- and discounted accordingly. As discussed in the previous chapter, we agree with Cassee that these passages refer to Vincent's infatuation with Caroline Haanebeek in The Hague in the period 1872-73, when Vincent was nineteen and twenty (Cassee, p. 110). In addition to Cassee's arguments, we believe that Vincent would not have written in this hyperventilating shorthand ("... did it not?") about an affair (with Loyer) with which Theo was, as far as we know, unfamiliar. Theo was, however, very familiar with Caroline Haanebeek. Also, there was an obvious parallel between the "cousin" Caroline and the cousin Kee. Finally, ten years later, Vincent made it clear that even if there was a romantic relationship with Eugenie, it was not the seminal life event described previously by Bonger. In 1884, he wrote, "It is true that I myself have twice met with great sorrow, sorrow of a totally divergent nature" (BVG 377, September 1884; emphasis added). The context leaves no doubt that he was referring to Kee Vos and Sien Hoornik, not to either Caroline Haanebeek or Eugenie Loyer.

Here is the JLB translation of the passages discussed in this note: (1) "When I was younger I once half-imagined that I loved, while the other half truly loved, the result being many years of humiliation. May I not then have been humiliated too much in vain."(JLB 182, 11/10/1881 or 11/11/1881.) (2) "But precisely because love is so strong, we are, especially in our youth (I mean now, 17, 18, 20 years old), usually not strong enough to maintain a straight course. The passions are the ship's sails, you see. And someone of 20 who gives himself over completely to his feelings catches too much wind and his boat fills with water and -- and he founders or ... he surfaces again … The first case, that of the man whose little boat capsized in his 20th year or thereabouts and perished, did it not? -- or no -- surfaced again recently -- is actually that of your brother V ... What kind of love did I have in my 20th year? Difficult to define, my physical passions were very weak then, perhaps owing to a couple of years of dreadful poverty and hard work. But my intellectual passions were strong, and by that I mean that I was determined, without asking anything in return or accepting any favours, only to give but not to receive. Absurd, wrong, exaggerated, haughty, arrogant. For in matters of love one mustn't only take but also give, and conversely, not only give but also take. He who turns aside to the right hand or to the left falls, there is no mercy for him. So I fell, and it was a miracle that I found my footing again. ... I learned to look more deeply into my own heart and also into that of others. Gradually I began to love people again, myself included, and with each passing day I regained a little heart and spirit which for a time had been destroyed and withered and devastated, so to speak, by all manner of great misery. And the more I returned to real life and was among people, the more new life awoke in me until finally I met her [Kee Vos]." (JLB 183, 11/12/1881; emphasis in original.)

314. into speculative seas

Early speculators included Piérard, who claimed that Eugenie cruelly mocked Vincent when he proposed. "When one day [Vincent] openly declared his love she replied laughingly that she was already engaged to be married. Vincent, losing his head, demanded that her engagement should be broken off, which provoked the 'angel of the dolls' to laugh in his face even more loudly." (Piérard, quoted in Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 46-47.) Even a relatively serious early biographer, Nordenfalk, described how Vincent's "broken heart made him even gloomier, and he became preoccupied with religious questions" (Cassee, pp. 109-110). Subsequent writers have spun considerable detail about the nature and course of the putative love affair, including the exact date of the breakup (ibid.); and a plan to convert Eugenie from a filial to an amorous love (Meyers, p. 126). Tralbaut, perhaps, sails furthest into these unchartable waters: "[Vincent] had already thought of her as his bride, and this repulse left an indelible impression upon him ... the first event in the drama which was to reach its final catastrophe in the hapless lover's death sixteen years later ... Ursula's [sic] refusal may have aroused dormant neurotic tendencies, in particular an inferiority complex in regard to women ... This blighted love destroyed all Vincent's joy in life, and his eyes lost their sparkle." (Tralbaut, p. 44.)

315. "He tried everything"

Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxv. Johanna Bonger had good reason to believe that Vincent might have proposed to Eugénie despite her engagement. Jo herself had been the subject of a surprise marriage proposal from Vincent’s brother Theo at a time when her heart belonged to another man. She turned down Theo’s initial proposal, only to take it up again several years later and eventually marry him. In her diary, Jo referred to the man she would have preferred to marry as “Mr. E”. According to Fell: “Theo proposed twice more before Johanna accepted him. Only after her love for Mr. E was firmly rejected did she accept Theo’s proposal of marriage” (Fell, pp. 149-150).

We agree that there is a possibility that Vincent proposed -- although, if so, it almost certainly was after his return in July, not earlier in the year, compressing courtship, proposal, and rejection in one blinding stroke of delusion (exactly what happened seven years later with his cousin Kee Vos). Given Vincent’s contrariness and emotional immaturity, we can imagine that, on returning from his disapproving parents, his brotherly affection for Eugénie was transformed suddenly into something more urgent and intimate because of his parents' disapproval. This, too, parallels the Kee Vos incident: it was not until his family opposed the suit that Vincent became obsessed with it. The awkwardness created by such a sudden transformation could well have prompted Vincent’s departure from Hackford Road. There is, of course, not a scintilla of evidence for this version of events, either; credible though it may be.

316. "sensitive to the pain"

Stone, pp. 10-18: "Pain did curious things to him. It made him sensitive to the pain of others. It made him intolerant of everything that was cheap and blatantly successful in the world around him. He was no longer of any value at the gallery [Goupil's]. The only pictures in which he could find reality and emotional depth were the ones in which the artists had expressed pain."

317. transformed into a suspicious

b2680 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/20/1874. Two examples: "I read over what I wrote about Miss Strunck and I see I have been very hard upon her. But I cannot help it, she never was a girl who pleased me very much … you ask me to tell you what I think about her character and I must say you that she is changeable [wispelturig]. One day she will be amiable to a person because he flatters her, another she is quite the contrary. She receives our letters and when she is good humoured she will answer them but if not she doesn't and is very impolite."

318. censorious nineteen-year-old

b2530 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/13/1877: Describing her employers, Anna wrote: "they're good people, but really rather very boring. The daughter is an unbelievably plain, little educated person, good-natured out of stupidity."

319. she did not know him

b2689 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/24/1874: Speaking of Vincent's relationship with Tersteeg, Anna wrote to Theo, "You know how Vincent liked him, therefore I think he must have his good side. You know Vincent, didn't make very much of an angry word ..."

320. "first great sorrow"

Van Gogh-Bonger, p. xxv: By suggesting that Vincent began drawing "a great deal" immediately following this early rejection, Bonger's account manages neatly to explain in a single stroke not only his departure from the Loyers and a lifetime of pain and anger, but also his turn to art.

321. "I think it will be very difficult"

BVG 20, 7/31/1874.

Context:
BVG 20, 7/31/1874: "Entre nous, I think it will be very difficult to find something for her, they say everywhere that she is too young, and generally German is required, but at all events, she has more chances here than in Holland. Adieu."
JLB 27, 7/31/1874: "Between you and me, I think we'll have trouble finding something for her, everywhere they say she's too young and they require German as well, but at any rate she certainly has more of a chance here than in Holland. Adieu."

322. a time of special volatility

Disputes with landlords plagued Vincent throughout his adult life.

323. By August 15

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874: "[T]hey have moved and are no longer living en famille but are living in rooms." This letter was written no earlier than August 12. On August 10, Vincent wrote Theo, "We are going to move to a house quite covered in ivy ..." (JLB 28, 8/10/1874). So the move took place sometime between these two dates.

324. sudden, traumatic breakups

Nagera, p. 170. We agree with Meyers that the fact that Vincent hung prints in Anna's room at the end of July, less than two weeks before the departure, suggests that the decision to leave was sudden and unexpected (Meyers, p. 141). However, we disagree with his unsupported statement that "during the vacation in the Netherlands it was decided that Vincent was not to stay with the Loyers" (ibid., p. 140). Two observations by Nagera are relevant here: "[Vincent] was usually overwhelmed by his feelings and talked and acted on impulse, only to regret it later on" (Nagera, p.171) and "Thus it was a near impossibility for anybody to keep a close relationship to him for any length of time" (ibid., p. 170).

325. "He has illusions"

b2333 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/28/1875.

326. in her only comment

Anna's comment dates from eight months after she left the Loyer house on Hackford Road and follows a serious falling out with Vincent after Christmas 1874. We assume that this opinion of the adult Vincent was formed largely during the longer stay the previous year. We note that it could be read to apply to Vincent's opinion of either Eugenie Loyer (as it often is) or Anna herself.

327. Within days

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874. The Van Goghs received a letter from Vincent and Anna informing them of Anna's new position on August 14. The likeliest date for the move to Kennington Road is August 11-12. It is possible that Anna knew of the position before the move (as Meyers argues, p. 141). It is even possible that Anna's decision to accept the position, so far from London, in some way precipitated Vincent's sudden departure from Hackford Road. It is unlikely that Anna or Vincent would have moved if they had known beforehand that she would be leaving London soon unless the departure was stained by bad blood. Anna moved from Kennington Road to Welwyn in time to begin work on August 24 (b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874). She considered the position "not very distinguished", but took it anyway because it paid £12 a year and because she (and her parents) believed it would be "detrimental to her future" to spend an extended period in London "anonymously" (i.e., without employment, thus leaving a hole in her resume) (ibid.).

328. new lodgings on Kennington Road

b2715 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1874: "395 Kennington New Road." The house, called "Ivy Cottage," (since demolished) was north of the Loyers' Hackford Road house, on Vincent's presumptive walking route to work. In her memoir, Bonger misread the address as "Kensington" Road (Van Gogh-Boner, p. xxv). The "new" was subsequently dropped from the street name. (For more, see Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 21).

329. He stopped drawing

BVG 20, 7/31/1874.

Context:
JLB 27, 7/31/1874: "My passion for drawing has again vanished here in England, but maybe inspiration will strike again one day. I'm reading a lot again."

330. balms of literature and art

BVG 20, 7/31/1874. Clues to Vincent's reading can be found in the poetry album that he prepared for Theo over the winter of 1874-75, after leaving the Loyer house. The German Romantics, especially Heine and Uhland, were heavily represented in the second album (see Pabst, p. 19). Vincent also included a number of French authors in the same album. In another regression to childhood, he gave (or sent) Theo money and insisted that he use the money to "buy Alphonse Karr's 'Voyage autour de mon jardin.' ... Be sure to do it, I want you to read it."(JLB 28, 8/10/1874.)

Vincent's taste in art also took a nostalgic turn, as he became preoccupied by Thijs Maris's moody scenes of canals, barges, and drawbridges from his mythic homeland (JLB 31, 4/6/1875). One Maris painting, Souvenir d'Amsterdam (1871), in particular, made an vivid impression on him. He recalled it in detail seven months later: "An old Dutch town with rows of brownish red houses with step-gables and tall flights of steps, grey roofs, and white or yellow doors, window-frames and cornices; canals with ships and a large white drawbridge, a barge with a man at the tiller going under it. The little house of the bridge-keeper, whom one sees through the window, sitting in his office. Some distance away a stone bridge over the canal, with people and a cart with white horses crossing it." (JLB 31, 4/6/1875.) Vincent says only that he saw this painting "some time ago," but because it reminded him of a poem by Heine (Meeresstille [Calm Sea]), and because he was reading Heine at this time, we believe this is an appropriate dating for his encounter with this Maris image (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 27, 7/31/1874: "I'm reading a lot again."

331. ignored his appearance

b2727 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1874. Anna wrote her parents after a visit by Vincent in October that "he looked better when he last paid her a visit." That previous visit was probably the initial trip to Welwyn prior to August 24, or, less likely, an unrecorded interim visit in September.

332. neglected his duties

Van Crimpen, in Van Spanndonk, Wildenberg, and Mulder-Koenen, eds., p. 81: "The London branch of Goupil, finding Vincent somewhat lacking in social graces, was not very enthusiastic about him." It may be an indication of his dereliction at work that Vincent registered at the British Museum's Department of Prints and Drawings on Friday, August 28, a work day.

333. "wished [Vincent] would"

b2721 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/9/1874: Dorus and Anna had visited Uncle Cent in Princenhage immediately prior to writing this letter.

334. he stopped writing home

b2720 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/4/1874: Vincent apparently wrote his parents one letter after taking Anna to Welwyn sometime before August 24. His mother, characteristically, reports only this about the letter: "Vincent spoke of a house with stained-glass windows and panes. I hope that it is not too dark behind those windows." Vincent did not write Lies or Anna, either (b2716 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/30/1874). The question of whether he wrote Theo is taken up in the text.

335. "It pains us"

b2728 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874: "We hope that the change of scenery will be useful and do him good, but that he doesn't write saddens us and is proof that he is not his usual self -- He is strange …"

336. "roamed around a lot"

Görlitz, pp. 332-333. The experience of a huge modern city at night, before the coming of electricity, was still a new one. But solitary minds had already discovered this wilderness within. The great Dickens walked endlessly (Collins, in Dyos and Wolff, eds., p. 545) through the sleeping city “as a way of allaying private miseries” (Ackroyd, pp. 450, 452). “It offered him strange comfort and reassurance.” In an essay called “Night Walks,” Dickens described the “awful look” of the Thames at night where “the wild moon and clouds were as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed” (Dickens, p. 151). By the time Vincent arrived in London, night walks had become a vogue among poets (Ackroyd, pp. 450, 452), an art genre among painters, and the subject of entire books (ibid., p. 448), all with titles like James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night, published in 1874, the year Vincent left Hackford Road (De Maré, p. 213).

The text does not mention -- and certainly Vincent did not admit to -- drinking excessively during this period. But, given his later alcoholism, the inference is unavoidable. Hippolyte Taine memorably described the back streets of London as a shadow-world of “beggars, thieves and prostitutes ... grating music from gin cellars ... fights between women ... men in the most astonishing rags ... as if a human sewer were suddenly clearing itself” (Taine, p. 33). For people who roamed this dystopian world, said Taine, “there is only one refuge: drunkenness” (ibid., p. 34). In fact, Vincent had arrived in London during an “epidemic” of public drinking (Inwood, pp. 686-687). According to Ackroyd (p. 356), more than half a million Londoners sought refuge in drink at least once a day. At times, the streets themselves smelled of liquor, according to one contemporary account, since everyone “drinks heavily and incessantly.” (ibid., p. 426) There were more than twenty thousand places to buy liquor in “Thirsty London” (Ackroyd, p. 356); from fancy hotels, to private saloons, to ubiquitous public houses (“pubs”), to gin palaces specializing in the popular “blue ruin” (De Maré, p. 114), to illegal backrooms with peepholes and secret signals -- sixty years before Prohibition brought speakeasies to America (Inwood, p. 602). In a single, mile-long stretch of the Strand where Vincent walked home every evening, scores of pubs, private saloons, and gin palaces beckoned him to enjoy the escape of inebriation. (Inwood, p. 655)

In this “town of Malt and Hops,” it was impossible for anyone to avoid contact with the easy consolation of alcohol. (Ackroyd, p. 356). And if his later life is any indication, Vincent could not have resisted it. For him, drinking had the same calming effect as work, described by Taine in a passage that could have been written about Vincent: “to shut the door on the melancholy influence of a hostile world, to fill up the great void where melancholy and boredom might find lodgement” (Taine, p. 10).

337. eighty thousand prostitutes

Porter, p. 299. The number of prostitutes in London in the 1870s is, improbably, a matter of considerable scholarly debate. (For a summary, see Gay, p. 357-358.) Contemporaneous numbers tended to be influenced by moral indignation or reformationist zeal or both (why else bother to count?). The figure of eighty thousand, used by Mayhew, although often questioned, is mentioned most often in the literature; and higher as well as lower numbers are offered (Mayhew, p. 213).

338. the age of consent

De Maré, p. 117: Only three years previously, a Royal Commission had recommended that the age of consent be raised to fourteen from twelve. De Maré describes a "rife paedophilia" at the time.

339. "You cannot walk"

Taine, translated by Edward Hyams, p. 31. Reproduced by kind permission of Thames & Hudson Ltd., London.

340. three thousand official brothels

Inwood, p. 602.

341. all peddling the same wares

Inwood, p. 602: "London in the 1850s still had ... about 3,000 known brothels, and over 1,000 disreputable coffee houses. ... [These] coffee shops, 'cigar divans', dancing saloons and night houses ... were the breeding grounds, so the police believed, of the city's immoral and criminal subculture." Inwood's numbers are from the 1850s, so probably should be adjusted upwards to understand the ubiquity of these establishments in Vincent's London. Inwood does go on to report that sometime in the 1870s the police began to crack down on this demimonde.

342. "swarms"

De Maré, p. 117: De Maré quotes Dostoevsky's account of his visit to the Haymarket: "It is a district in certain streets of which prostitutes swarm by night in their thousands."

343. Oxford Street

Ackroyd, p. 378.

344. St. James's Square

Inwood, p. 602.

345. Covent Garden

Inwood, p. 602.

346. steps of the Goupil store

De Maré, p. 117. In addition to those locations listed in the text, prostitutes also had a designated back-up venue in case of inclement weather: the Burlington Arcade next to the Royal Academy. Until the gates closed, they reclined on the benches in Hyde Park, “occasionally with the head of a drunken man reposing in their lap,” according to Mayhew (Mayhew, p. 243). Taine adds: “Throughout the day, in the Strand and Haymarket, a large number of shops and more or less respectable-looking houses display this notice: 'Beds to let'. At evening, in the same places and elsewhere, numerous figures are to be seen entering and leaving.” (Taine, pp. 98-99.) One of the most active of these illicit public markets, and more directed to the working-class trade, was around Haymarket, then known as “Hell's Corner” (De Maré, p. 117).

347. They accosted passersby

De Maré, p. 117: "The accepted approach to pros¬pective clients was always 'Are you good-natured, dear?', and a standard rate was a five-shilling piece." In the 1860s, Taine reported other opening gambits: "some of them ask for a glass of gin; others say, 'Sir, it is to pay my lodging.' This is not debauchery which flaunts itself, but destitution." (Taine, p. 36.)

348. unnerved the unwary

De Maré, p. 117. De Maré quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky's account of his first encounter with London prostitutes in 1862: "It is a terrifying experience to find oneself in that crowd ... The streets can hardly accommodate the dense, seething crowd ... All this mass of humanity craves for booty and hurls itself at the first comer with shameless cynicism." Interestingly, Dostoevsky found English prostitutes (and English women) attractive. "You will find old women there [at the Haymarket] and beautiful women at the sight of whom you stop in amazement. There are no women in the world as beautiful as the English ... And how beautiful they are sometimes with their keepsake faces!"

349. drabs

De Maré, p. 114.

350. Cyprians

De Maré, p. 117: Mayhew called them "Cyprians of the better sort."

351. fallen sisters

De Maré, p. 117.

352. lorettes

Taine, p. 98.

353. harlots

Sheppard, p. 300.

354. "degraded creatures"

Mayhew, p. 243.

355. "girls who love so much"

BVG 21, 8/10/1874. Bailey refers to this phrase as "the phrase [Vincent] always used for prostitutes" (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 47-49).

Context:
BVG 21, 8/10/1874: "You know the 'Margaret at the Fountain,' by Ary Scheffer, is there a purer being than that girl 'who loved so much'?"
JLB 28, 8/10/1874: "You know the Margaret at the fountain by Ary Scheffer; is there a purer being than that girl 'who loved so much'?"

356. "Virginity of soul"

BVG 21, 8/10/1874. (Emphasis added.)

Context:
JLB 28, 8/10/1874: "Purity of soul and impurity of body can go together."

357. Brussels held special temptations

b2663 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/22/1873: "Well, my boy! Keep well, be careful in a world like Brussels, in which there is much that isn't good." One special source of anxiety for the Van Goghs was the annual spring "Carnival" (see Van Crimpen, in Van Spanndonk, Wildenberg, and Mulder-Koenen, eds., pp. 80-81).

358. "be on your guard"

b2674 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/11/1873.

359. "steer clear of the rocks"

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873.

360. "don't be known as a gadabout"

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873.

361. the dangers of sex

De Maré, p. 114: As a Victorian, Dorus was not alone in equating sex with sin. According to De Maré: "As a result of their Puritan beliefs the Victorians were in a neurotic state about sex, a word they tended to equate with sin."

362. When an unrequited infatuation

Stolwijk, in Stolwijk and Thomson, eds., p. 25: The object of Theo’s “love” was apparently Annet Haanebeek, Caroline's older sister. The evidence for such an infatuation is circumstantial but persuasive (see Cassee, pp.112-113). Family letters from December 1873 (soon after Theo’s arrival in The Hague) through October 1874 show that Theo frequently visited the Haanebeeks. One from Anna to Theo dated 10/19/74 even suggests that Theo may have visited (or boarded) for an extended period in the Haanebeek house: “We have always been so grateful that the Hanebeek family took you in” (b2727 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/19/1874), although no other evidence exists that Theo left the Rooses.

A letter from Theo’s sister Anna suggests that Theo had asked if Anna thought it was appropriate for an older woman to pay a visit on a younger gentleman (Annet Haanebeek was six years older than Theo) (b2680 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/20/1874). The priggish Anna, of course, responded in the negative: “the world does not approve such things,” then went on to say, obviously with direct knowledge of the woman about whom Theo had inquired: “She considers you as a little boy and herself as a lady -- no young-lady ... she always liked to seem younger than she really was” (ibid.). Admittedly, Anna makes Theo’s object of desire sound far older than Annet's twenty-three, but that may be just the perspective of an eighteen-year-old sister looking out for her sixteen-year-old brother.

Although there is always the possibility that Theo had his sights on an unidentified, older woman other than Annet, we believe that these references probably are to Annet, whom Theo apparently specifically mentioned in a letter at the beginning of the year and about whom Anna had previously instructed him: “You must try to find out more about Annet Hanebeek” (b2679 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/6/1874). Meyers uses this passage to support his claim that Vincent fell in love with Annet (Meyers, p. 95) -- a speculation for which we can find no other evidence. This claim is also directly refuted by Cassee (Cassee, pp. 111-112). We believe the passage may be the first indication of Theo’s amorous interest in Annet. Stolwijk, places their affair in the spring of 1874. (Stolwijk in Stolwijk and Thomson, eds., p. 25.)

Anna, ever the love-maven, pressed Theo to pursue the relationship and keep her informed of its progress so that she could inform Vincent, which she may have done. We also believe that the quote from Michelet that Vincent included in his letter dated July 31 regarding older women was probably meant to reassure the (by then) seventeen-year-old Theo about his infatuation with the twenty-three-year-old Annet: “That book [L'amour] was a revelation and immediately a gospel to me. ‘There is no such thing as an old woman!’ (This isn’t to say that there are no old women, but that a woman doesn’t grow old as long as she loves and is loved.)” (JLB 27, 7/31/1874.) This passage has often been stretched to suggest that Vincent was enamored of his almost-sixty-year-old landlady, Ursula Loyer.

363. Vincent seized the moment

There is no support for the general assumption in the literature that the subject of prostitutes and sex was raised first by Vincent in his letter of August 10 (JLB 28, 8/10/1874). As discussed in the text, we believe it is more likely that Theo first raised the subject of women, either in Helvoirt in July or in a subsequent letter, and that Vincent's references to both Michelet's L'amour (JLB 26, 7/21/1874) and Scheffer's painting Margaret at the Well (JLB 28, 8/10/1874) were in response. We believe the brothers shared an avid interest in prostitutes (and sex in general), and therefore we roundly disagree with the suggestion in the literature that Theo expressed disapproval of Vincent's liberal attitude toward prostitution. See, e.g., Bailey: "Theo must have criticised his older brother's libertarian views, and Vincent reacted by bluntly telling him to mind his own business" (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 47-49). Here is the passage used to support such conclusions: "Theo must have given his brother unwanted advice about visiting prostitutes ..." (Wylie, p. 23). "So stick to your own ideas, and if you doubt the goodness of them, test them against those of him who dared to say 'I am the truth', or against those of some humane person, such as Michelet (JLB 28, 8/10/1874). We read this passage exactly the opposite way: i.e., that Vincent was telling Theo to stand firm on his (Theo's) libertarian principles against the advice and admonitions of their father.

364. "The animal must get out"

Quoted in Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 47-49: According to Bailey, "Vincent believed that sexual intercourse outside marriage could be positive. Three years later he gave a theological explanation of his libertarian views: 'A man ought not to marry before his fortieth year or thereabouts: first the passions ought to be curbed before one may think of entering upon such a serious matter; one can only be a man in real earnest after the passions are conquered, for only then can one seek to be a spiritual being with good results; the animal must get out, then the angel can enter.'"

365. buy a biblical almanac

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873.

366. with an appropriate verse

b2634 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1873.

367. "Ye judge after the flesh"

BVG 21, 8/10/1874.

Context:
JLB 28, 8/10/1874: "Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man."

368. "He that is without sin"

BVG 21, 8/10/1874.

Context:
JLB 28, 8/10/1874: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

369. "Keep to your own ideas"

BVG21, 8/10/1874. Various biographers take this to be a reproving comment directed at Theo. (See Wylie, p. 23 and Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 47.) The latter says that “Vincent reacted by bluntly telling [Theo] to mind his own business.” We believe exactly the opposite is the case: that the comment is intended to be vehemently supportive of Theo's tendency to sexual adventure. Indeed, the suggestion that Christ would encourage such adventurism borders on blasphemy -- as it was no doubt intended to do -- in direct engagement with their father on the (Christian) validity of connecting sex and sin.

Context:
BVG 21, 8/10/1874: "So keep to your own ideas, and if you doubt whether they are right, test them with those of Him who dared to say, "I am the truth," or with those of some very human person, Michelet, for instance ..."
JLB 28, 8/10/1874: "So stick to your own ideas, and if you doubt the goodness of them, test them against those of him who dared to say 'I am the truth', or against those of some humane person, such as Michelet."

370. "ghastly"

b2669 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/13/1873: On the eve of Theo's transfer in 1873, Dorus reported to his son this admonitory dream: "I had such a ghastly dream last night: I imagined it was night and I was in a big city, where there were awfully wild goings-on. I saw all kinds of young people there -- but in a miserable state (as I went along, I remembered that it was a good place to buy a silk dress for Anna); all in all it left an unpleasant impression on me, when I woke up. And I thought of you and Vincent, and of the specific dangers of those big cities. I trust you won't hold it against me when I, as a result of that nightly vision, advise you once more to be careful and to watch where and with who you are and to keep your path pure and think about that serious side of life." Dorus probably reported the same dream to Vincent.

371. "wild goings-on"

b2669 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/13/1873.

372. Margaret at the Fountain

BVG21, 8/10/1874. According to Bailey, Vincent could have seen this 1858 painting at the Bethnal Green Museum, in one of London's poorest districts. When the museum opened in 1872 (after being relocated from South Kennsington where it had been a branch of the Victoria and Albert), it showed works on loan from the collection of Richard Wallace who purchased the painting in that year (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 47). (Wallace's collection was later given a permanent home in Hertford House on Manchester Square). The painting is currently known as Margaret at the Well. Of course, Vincent could have seen the image in print form -- presumably the only form in which Theo could have been familiar with it. (For additional information, see Weinreb and Hibbert, eds., p. 63.)

Context:
JLB 28, 8/10/1874: "You know the Margaret at the fountain by Ary Scheffer; is there a purer being than that girl 'who loved so much'?"

373. helpless before temptation

Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 47. The innocent Margaret was wooed by Faust with the assistance of Mephistopheles. The painting was by Ary Scheffer. Vincent’s choice of this painter, whose portraits of Jesus Christus Consolator and Christus Remunerator had hung on the parsonage walls throughout the brothers' childhood, was carefully calculated. Vincent was parrying his father not just Bible verse for Bible verse, but image for image. Nor was it a coincidence that Vincent's judgment on the girl in the painting mocked his father's favorite euphemism. “Is there a purer being?” (JLB 28, 8/10/1874). Bailey quotes a typically euphemistic summary of Margaret's dilemma that appeared in the Illustrated London News on the occasion of the exhibition of the Scheffer painting in Bethnal Green in 1872 “[It depicts] the story of a girl who 'has been detected in a lapse of feminine virtue'” (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 47).

374. alluring young peasant girls

BVG 19, 7/21/1874. Der Wirthin Töchterlein (The Landlady’s Daughter) by Adolphe William Bouguereau was first mentioned by Vincent in a letter to Caroline Haanebeek van Stockum in 1873 (JLB 14 (10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873). In April of the following year (1874), Vincent sent Theo a photograph of the painting Young Girl with a Sword by Gustave Jean Jacquet (JLB 22, 4/30/1874). In the same letter, Vincent described a print by Jacobus van Gorkom as “not very dirty,” a reference clearly designed to carry sexual innuendo (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 26, 7/21/1874: "Yesterday a crate was sent to The Hague in which I put a photo of a J. Maris and also 'The landlady's daughter' I promised, both of which I hope you'll hang up in your room."

375. portrait of Camille Corot

BVG 23, 3/6/1875.

Context:
JLB 30, 3/6/1875: "Also Jesus by Renan and Jeanne d'Arc by Michelet, and also a portrait of Corot, from the London News, which I also have hanging in my room."

376. voluptuous female woodcutters

BVG 27, 5/31/1875: Bûcheronnes (Women cutting wood).

Context:
JLB 34, 5/31/1875: "There are 3 Corots at the Salon, very beautiful, the most beautiful one, painted shortly before his death, 'Women cutting wood', will probably appear as a woodcut in L'Illustration or Le Monde Illustré."

377. Jules Breton's of peasant girls

BVG 27, 5/31/1875.

Context:
JLB 34, 5/31/1875: "[Breton] has a beautiful painting at the Salon, 'The feast of St John,' peasant girls dancing on a summer evening round the St John's bonfire, in the background the village with its church and the moon above it."

378. young women of James Tissot

BVG 17, 6/16/1874: Vincent names the three Tissot paintings as Walk in the Snow, Walk on the Ramparts, and Marguerite in Church. Bailey lists the three Tissots in the Academy show as London Visitors, Waiting, and The Ball on Shipboard (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 23-24). Vincent makes no mention of the social realist painting that caused a sensation at the Royal Academy show that year, Luke Fildes's Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward.

Context:
JLB 23, 6/16/1874: "There are beautiful things at the Royal Academy this year; among others Tissot has 3 paintings."

379. Charles Sainte-Beuve, whose sonnets

Sonnet (after Uhland); quoted in Pabst, p. 13.

380. longing for the feminine ideal

“Oh! Yet to be seated / near to one of them!” Sainte-Beuve, Sonnet (after Uhland); quoted in Pabst, p. 13. Vincent also copied some verse by Joseph Autran, who in poems like Dernieres feuilles (Last Leaves) lamented the autumnal devastation of a broken heart: "When our dark winter comes, / When the wind of destiny, which withers the best of men / Has reduced the number of our illusions by a tenth / And thoroughly shaken our weeping leaves / [Of] loves nearly faded and friendships almost dead"). (ibid.)

381. "souls as deep"

Armand Silvestre, Une vaneuse [sic] (A Woman Winnowing), quoted in Pabst, p. 20.

382. "blouses molded"

Armand Silvestre, Une vaneuse [sic] (A Woman Winnowing), quoted in Pabst, p. 20.

383. "This year I shall"

Emile Souvestre, Les Derniers Bretons (The Last Britons), quoted in Pabst, p. 28.

384. avatar of romantic angst

Fellow-poet Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve wrote a tribute to De Musset that Vincent also copied into his albums: “For him, roses that faded within the day were not swift enough; he would have liked to tear them all up in order to be able to better inhale their scent.” Alfred de Musset, Causeries de lundi (Monday Chats), quoted in Pabst, p. 23.

385. these and other writers

Two of Vincent’s favorite sources for his poetry albums are not included in the text here because they have been mentioned before. One was Jules Breton, painter-poet of “women dancing joyously, hand in hand [by] the light of the flames” (Seule [A Woman Alone], quoted in Pabst, p. 20. In his poetry, Breton preached both the sickness of melancholy (“my vanished dreams” (L'Aube [The Dawn], quoted in Pabst, p.20), and the cure of nature (“I felt my heart, whose leaden words I was chasing away / Melt at the soft, pale and changing light” [ibid.]).

The other, of course, was le maître Jules Michelet: towering historian of the Revolution, champion of free will, debunker of religion and fate, defender of the heart's desire (married to a woman thirty years his junior), who had just died in February. Among Vincent's favorite passages was a contemplation on a captured nightingale, imprisoned with other birds raised in captivity. In “Le Rossignol” (quoted in Pabst, p. 14), Michelet observes how the nightingale, “jostled by the mad, inquisitive games” of his fellow prisoners, withdraws “into the shadows” of his cage). “‘I felt strongly,’ he writes, that the shadows he sought were, in the cruelty of his pain, an attempt not to exist, an intentional suicide. In his mind he was embracing death, and he was dying as much as he could by suspending his senses and all external activity ... He was clearly saying, ‘What does it matter to one who is no more?’ [In him] I sensed the soul of an artist, all gentleness and light, with no venom or hard-heartedness to set against the barbarism of the world and the ferocity of fate. And that is what he lived on; that is how he managed not to die.” (ibid.) (For a complete list of writers and translation of Vincent’s poetry albums, see Pabst, Vincent van Gogh’s Poetry Albums.)

386. this fevered chorus found its way

BVG 29, 6/29/1875: One indication that the excerpts in the poetry albums are a valid guide to the contents of the missing letters is Vincent's allusion in a letter from June, 1875 to one of those excerpts. Referring to a town in France where Millet lived, Gréville, Vincent noted the similarity to the name of a town mentioned in one of the album excerpts, Granville. “I don't know whether it was Gréville or Granville where the man I once told you about died” (JLB 36, 6/29/1875). This appears to refer not to the album, but to a passage in a (missing) letter.

387. evidence that some were written

The primary evidence for missing letters is contextual. There is no indication of antagonism in the final letter before the six-month gap (JLB 28, 8/10/1874) -- in fact, the letter is quite warm -- and no reference to a gap in the first letter after the correspondence resumes (JLB 29, 1/5/1875 and 3/5/1875). After other, shorter gaps in the correspondence, Vincent invariably apologized for the delay in writing. For example, after a silence of three weeks, Vincent wrote, “You’ll have expected a letter sooner” (JLB 101, 1/21/1877). In addition, during the six-month hiatus, Theo informed his parents of the date of Vincent's departure from London, suggesting either missing correspondence or alternative, intra-Goupil communication (Meyers, p. 144).

Given all that happened in Vincent's life during those six months, it is inconceivable that he did not share it with the only person who would have cared about it (and the person for whom he was busily preparing an elaborate poetry album). Indeed, Theo was the only family member who had Vincent's address in Paris in the last three months of the year and his parents assumed the brothers were corresponding. In a letter from October, 1874, Dorus gave Theo instructions on how to write Vincent: “Perhaps it is best not to touch upon any sensitive issues in your letter, but then again I myself don't know what would be good” (b2728 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/28/1874). So persuasive is the inference that Bailey dispenses with the conditional altogethers and concludes: “It was a period of great depression and although Vincent wrote occasionally, his letters have been destroyed” (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 50). The subject of prostitution taken up in JLB 28, 8/10/1874 would almost surely have triggered Johanna Bonger's censor, especially if the exchange related, as we believe it did, to Theo's earliest sexual adventures. Theo would also have had an opportunity to edit the record when, after Vincent's death, he reviewed the correspondence preliminary to arranging for a biography to be written (see Epilogue).

388. two little albums

The two albums are slightly different in size. The "First" album measures 15.6 x 9.6 cm (about 6 x 3¾"); the "Second," 16 x 10.3 cm (about 6¼ x 4") (Pabst, pp. 6, 18.)

389. for almost two months

Vincent wrote in late August after taking his sister Anna to Welwyn, but after that the letters home stopped. Unlike the case with letters to Theo, there is ample evidence that Vincent was not writing his parents. The failure to write is mentioned in letters on September 2 (b2717 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/2/1874), September 4 (b2720 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/4/1874), October 5 (b2724 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/5/1874), and October 28 (b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874).

390. "Vincent won't write"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

391. Vincent wasn't eating properly

Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 50.

392. he wasn't getting out

b2726 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1874: "He shouldn't isolate himself too much ..."

393. "mingle with the well-to-do"

b2721 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/9/1874: "I too would wish that Vincent would mingle with the well-to-do; if he doesn't, it will not be easy for him."

394. too much time alone

b2723 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1874. This old concern was expressed in a new form: "poor Vincent, so alone and downhearted. I wish he would have a more enjoyable time, if only we could cheer him up some; we feel sad about it, and he hardly ever writes -- please write him often, we do too. I think it's much better for you to be working until a little later in the evening; he always finishes at 7." Basically, Vincent doesn't spend as much time at work as Theo, and is therefore left alone more in the evenings. This may be a more knowing (or at least suspicious) comment than it appears about what Vincent does with his evenings.

395. "adverse effects"

b2726 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/19/1874: “I still say the London air has an adverse effect, as many people have found to their cost.” In another letter earlier in October, Anna and Dorus had recalled that “When [Vincent] was home, he was grousing about the London fog. I wonder if the air over there is beneficial to him.” (b2723 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/2/1874.) At that time, Dorus floated the idea of having Vincent transferred someplace else where the air was better and relatives could keep an eye on him -- although not to The Hague where he might lead brother Theo astray (ibid.).

396. "it turns the mind"

b2723 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1874.

397. "not cooperating"

b2723 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1874.

398. God's plan for his happiness

b2713 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/4/1874: "Our Vincent cannot but feel unhappy right now. He has strayed from the natural way of life to which God has linked happiness and the joy of living ..."

399. "Poor boy"

b2723 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/2/1874.

400. "We experience unhappy times"

b2704 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/27/1874.

401. When Uncle Cent visited

b2717 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/2/1874: Uncle Cent (and Aunt Cornelie) visited Helvoirt for the weekend of August 29-30. Only days after this encounter, Anna wrote Theo, "Uncle Cent says that he [Vincent] should mingle with other people for his education. It is just as necessary as becoming good at his job ..." In early September, Anna went to visit Cent and Cornelia in Princenhage where she saw "stereoscope and photographs" of their trip to Rome (b2720 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/4/1874). Cent visited Helvoirt again on September 21 (b2722 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/21/1874). It was during this visit that Dorus met Leon Boussod, Adolphe Goupil's (and Uncle Cent's) Parisian partner, who was traveling with his daughter (b2722 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/21/1874). There may have been other encounters in Helvoirt or Princenhage. Cent was visiting Helvoirt frequently in this period because he and his brothers were planning to build a house for two of their unmarried sisters there following the death of their father (b2722 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/21/1874).

402. Soon after that

b2729 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/28/1874. As of October 7, Vincent knew of the transfer. In her letter, Anna informed Theo about Vincent’s “last unfriendly letter” in which he expressed his suspicion that “Pa had arranged for his transfer.”

403. Vincent was infuriated

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874: "He thought Dad had arranged for his transfer, which he didn't like."

404. He fired off an angry letter

b2726 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1874: Dorus referred to Vincent's letter only as "not very cheerful." Anna, always more direct, called it "unfriendly."

405. "I didn't talk to Uncle"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874: This is Anna's report to Theo of the argument that Dorus had made to Vincent: "After having received Vincent's letter, Pa immediately assured him that Pa hadn't talked about Paris to Uncle, but Uncle had talked to Pa, and that Uncle had said that he wanted the transfer so that Vincent would be even more involved in the business, and he also did it in view of the future expansion to London."

406. Dorus had met with Cent

b2722 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van"to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/21/1874.

407. he had informed Theo

b2722 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 9/21/1874. In a letter to Theo on October 2, Dorus expressed a wish that Vincent would be transferred “even if it were only temporary” -- undoubtedly the same wish he expressed to Cent. He immediately recognized the danger that this “wish” would be misconstrued by Vincent (b2723 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/2/1874). Later in the same letter, he urged Theo: “don't let on what I told you about my wish for a transfer.” Theo apparently wrote back expressing dismay at the idea (and/or concern about Vincent’s negative reaction) and Dorus felt the need to underscore and elaborate the admonition not to tell Vincent that his father favored a transfer: “Your letter gives me a reason to return to a passage from my last letter. It is not my plan to request a transfer for Vincent. I do not want to take the responsibility for that and so will not make any effort from my side to effect that purpose, I just meant that I wished it!”

This frantic backpedaling not only suggests that Dorus was aware of his son's hypersensitivity to parental interference, but also sounds suspiciously like Dorus doing damage control -- positioning himself for full deniability. “I do not think it [i.e., a transfer] is totally impossible. Because I recently heard Uncle Cent say that he [Vincent] has to become familiar with the business in Paris, so it could be that sooner or later he would have to go there for a short time. If it happened that such a transfer would take place, especially in these days of depressed mood, I would imagine that a change of air and surroundings could perhaps be useful for him. But 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.)

The next installment on October 19 further suggests a frantic effort to create a “cover story” that would dissociate Dorus from the transfer: “Judging by what Uncle Cent told me, I do believe that Vincent will go to Paris for a while. Uncle so wanted him to work at headquarters and become more familiar with everything the Paris store contains before the new building in London is opened. As I wrote you recently, I purposely refrain from asking for anything ... the decision is in good hands with Uncle Cent.” (b2726 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/19/1874.) The reality was probably closer to Vincent’s view, which we have tried to express in the rhetorical questions in the text. We are assuming that Theo probably did keep his brother informed of his correspondence with his father, in contravention of Dorus's frantic instructions.

408. Vincent tried to credit

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874: "He thought Dad had arranged for his transfer, which he didn't like. The transfer itself he did like though ..."

409. "wanted him to work"

b2726 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1874.

410. But he continued to seethe

b2735 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/3/1874: Not surprisingly, Vincent was unconvinced by his father's lawyerly parsing. After all, hadn't Dorus arranged for Theo's transfer to The Hague from Brussels? Van Crimpen, Hulsker, and Meyers make parental complicity in Theo's transfer in 1873 sound like settled fact, but the argument is circumstantial, although persuasive (Van Crimpen, in Van Spanndonk, Wildenberg, and Mulder-Koenen, eds., pp. 80-81; Hulsker, Vincent and Theo,pp. 13-14; and Meyers, p. 144). And, either way, Vincent clearly believed it to be true. Also, hadn't Dorus pulled Goupil strings to get Theo time off in July? "Through Aunt Fietje, I've sounded out Mr. Tersteeg about the possibility of you getting some time off to visit us, and a bit longer too" (b2759 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/17/1876). And finally, hadn't Dorus forced Anna to stay in school when she wanted to leave? (JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873).

No brief for the defense could overcome this history of interference. On November 20, Vincent sent his parents a note openly blaming them for the transfer: "We finally heard from Vincent ... We shouldn't think he was angry; there was no reason to be angry at all, but we shouldn't expect him to write us as before -- "what's done is done" -- On the 25th he sent us a 20 franc bill but without an accompanying note" (b2735 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/3/1874). Meyers writes that Dorus tried to convince Vincent that Vincent was wrong in thinking that it was his father and not his Uncle Cent who was responsible for the move to London and that the subterfuge about enlargement of the London gallery contained an element of truth. Meyers goes on to argue that Vincent's reaction to his father's description of the events leading up to the removal to London can be inferred from the fact that Vincent did not reply to his father's letter -- although of this we cannot be sure. (Meyers, p. 145.)

411. he sent a curt note

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874: "Afterwards we heard from Anna that he had asked her for his suitcase by means of a postcard. She too was very eager to hear from him."

412. He pointedly refused

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874. (See Ch. 6, n. 414.)

413. the date of his departure

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874. (See Ch. 6, n. 414.)

414. to beg the information

b2729 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/28/1874: “You wrote us that Vincent was supposed to go to Paris last Monday. That was news to us, because he has not written us since 7 October ... I know neither his address nor that of the house of Goupil ... Of course, you can find out what they are.” This letter came with a letter that Dorus asked Theo to forward to Vincent. Meyers is instructive on the issue of how the need for Vincent’s address forced them into a confession that they would not otherwise have made to Theo (and therefore we would not know about). Meyers argues that, only when Dorus and Anna learned from Theo that Vincent had departed from London on October 26, did they reveal to Theo the conflict that had been brewing between them and their eldest son. Because they did not know Vincent’s address in Paris, which Vincent would normally have given them, they had no choice but to let Theo know that Vincent had stopped communicating with them. Although Uncle Cent would have known Vincent’s address, Meyers argues persuasively that Dorus and Anna would not have asked Uncle Cent for the address because to do so would have revealed just how deep the rift in their family ran – a disclosure that would have reflected badly on them as well as on Vincent. (Meyers, p. 144.)

415. for France on October 26

b2729 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 10/28/1874. On Wednesday, October 10, Anna echoed back to Theo the date of Vincent’s departure: “You wrote us that Vincent was supposed to go to Paris last Monday.” The previous Monday was October 26.

416. posture of waiting and hoping

b2733 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/18/1874: Vincent’s parents found consolation in reading Kenelm Chillingly, Bulwer-Lytton's tale of a young man who goes astray, only to return safely to the fold of convention and the bosom of his family. “That young man could not seem to get along with real life at first,” Dorus wrote of the novel’s protagonist (ibid., emphasis in original). Dorus recommended the book to all his children (b2321 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/11/1875).

417. "We don't want to despair"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

418. "God's involvement"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

419. "the way he used to be"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

420. "unnatural"

b2733 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/18/1874.

421. "it can hardly have"

b2733 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/18/1874.

422. "He has withdrawn"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

423. "He pretends not to know"

b2729 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/28/1874.

424. "He is a stranger"

b2728 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/28/1874: The original Dutch is: “hy is zonderling,” which also translates as “he is strange,” or “he is eccentric.”

100

425. eventually broke his silence

b2735 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/3/1874: In time for Saint Nicholas Day, Vincent sent his parents money, as they reported to Theo: “On the 25th [of November] he sent us a 20 franc bill but without an accompanying note.” In mid-December, he finally wrote. “I'm happy to say that we have [received] a very good note from Vincent,” his parents informed Theo, “saying that he would return to London in the last week of the year and would probably move into rooms of his own again ... You will understand that it did us a lot of good, him writing like he used to do” (b2737 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/14/1874).

426. "that mood"

b2737 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/14/1874: "We have also [received] another good letter from Vincent. That mood will likely pass, or has already passed, which is a source of happiness to us."

427. the family's holiday reunion

b2736 V/1982, ''Gogh, Elisabeth van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 12/4/1874. Only Anna did not return for this Christmas. She could not afford the trip from Welwyn, England, where she served as a governess.

428. Delayed by work

b2739 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/21/1874: "Vincent hasn't arrived yet, we are filled with anticipation, though not without worries about the weather ..."

429. "How wonderful Helvoirt looked"

BVG 82a, 9/1/1876: Bonger translates Vincent’s original descriptor “vriendelijk,” as “pleasant.” JLB translate it as “friendly” (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). Because, earlier in the same passage, Vincent refers to the sight of Den Bosch that same night as “beautiful” (as translated by both Jansen and Bonger), We have split the difference by using a more general but more intense expression of contented appreciation: “wonderful.”

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876: "And viewed from the distant road to Bois-le-Duc, how pleasant Helvoirt looked that evening and the lights in the village and the steeple amidst the snow-covered poplars."
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "And how friendly Helvoirt looked that evening, and the lights in the village and the tower between the snow-covered poplars, seen from a distance on the road to Den Bosch."

430. on a starry

b2339 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/30/1875: Lies reports that on Christmas Eve, "The sky was so blue, and everything was alright."

431. moonlit night

BVG 82a, 9/1/1876: Vincent recalls that he “saw the moon rise above Mariënhof,” an estate on the outskirts of Helvoirt (see JLB 89, 8/26/1876; n. 26). In the same letter, Vincent recalls a trip that the family took on Christmas Day to the nearby hamlet of Sint Michielsgestel, where the local preacher had just died and Dorus was substituting (b2737 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/14/1874).

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I'm already looking forward to Christmas, two years ago we took that walk in the snow in the evening, do you remember it, when we saw the moon rise above Mariënhof?"

432. Returning to England in January

b2738 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/20/1874. The exact date of Vincent's return to London from Paris is not recorded. In this letter from December, Lies reports that "Vincent is going back to London around New Year." Presumably, he would have been expected to report for work no later than Monday, January 4.

433. opened while he was in Paris

Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 53-54. The deal to purchase Holloway & Son, a rival print dealer, at 25 Bedford Street (just one street down the Strand from Southampton Street, where Goupil was located) had been in the works for some time. (See Pickvance, p. 12, and Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 32-33.) In July 1874, Vincent had written Theo: "We'll probably be moving on 1 January 1875 to another, larger gallery. Mr. Obach is in Paris at the moment, deciding whether or not we'll take over that gallery [Holloway]" (JLB 27, 7/31/1874). The physical move as well as the stocking of the new gallery took place while Vincent was in Paris, and/or in January after he returned.

434. "Our gallery is ready now"

BVG 22, 2/1/1875.

Context:
JLB 29, 1/5/1875 and 3/5/1875: "Our gallery is now finished and it's beautiful, we have many beautiful things at the moment."

435. "good letters"

b2317 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/9/1875.

436. "full of ambition"

b2317 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/9/1875. Vincent’s ambition had, apparently, been on display when the family gathered at Christmastime. Lies wrote a few months later: “I hope that he has as much success with his work as he has ambition for it” (b2325 V/1982, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/7/1875).

437. After seeing Vincent in London

b2310 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/7/1875. At Christmas, Dorus had enjoined all his children to “live for one another again.” As part of his latest campaign of family belonging, Vincent reached out to his sister Anna, who had been unable to attend the family Christmas in Helvoirt (ibid). He hosted her in his rooms on Kennington Road for the last part of her six-week vacation (b2735 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/3/1874). He also accompanied her and her employers (a family named Applegarth) to a comedy in London's new “West End” theater district (b2317 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/9/1875). Vincent's mother reported specifically that they saw a “comedy,” so presumably this is not the same theatrical outing as the later one reported by Dorus when Vincent and Anna saw Hamlet (b2320 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/11/1875).

But like the outreach to his parents, Vincent's outreach to Anna was doomed to failure. In late January or early February, the siblings went to see Hamlet, this time apparently without the Applegarths (b2320 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/11/1875). They probably saw the production starring Henry Irving that opened at the Lyceum Theatre on October 31, 1874 (“Sir Henry Irving’s Obituary, Funeral and Tributes”). Irving's performance shattered Shakespearean convention by portraying the melancholy, misplaced Dane not as a histrionic prince, but as a sensitive soul who fails to act decisively “not so much from weakness of will as from excess of tenderness,” according to one contemporary reviewer (ibid.). After the performance, Vincent and Anna argued bitterly (b2333 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 4/28/1875).

Three months later, still furious, Anna reported the incident to Theo: “I'm very sorry to have paid him a visit, and to have been such a nuisance to him ... If I had had any reason to expect that [my visit] would turn out the way it did, I certainly would have done things differently ... [but] the sun is shining too beautifully and cheerfully in my room to be thinking about such unpleasant things” (b2333 V/1982, “Gogh, Anna van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 4/28/1875). Apparently, Anna also wrote about the incident to Lies, who was taken aback at the intensity of her sister's anger at Vincent: “Oh! Anna -- if she wanted, how much good could she do for him. I cannot understand why she has changed so much. I always thought she loved him so much.” (b2339 V/1982, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/30/1875.) In fact, the blow-up between brother and sister was hardly unforeseeable. In November 1874, after Vincent left for Paris, Anna had dismissed his anti-social behavior as just “a case of the grumps,” and tartly advised her parents to “just let Vincent go his own sweet way” (b2733 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/18/1874).

Vincent could not have responded well to this callous diminishment of his emotional anguish -- which suggests that Irving's angst-ridden portrayal of Hamlet may have triggered the argument between brother and sister, whether or not it was the actual topic. How much of the play's intricate, fast-moving English the two Dutch speakers understood is, of course, debatable.

438. "looked very good"

b2317 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/9/1875. Sister Anna's later correspondence casts doubt on the reliability of this positive report about Vincent. In his summary of Anna's account on her interactions with Vincent in London in January, Dorus wrote that she “enjoyed” seeing Hamlet with Vincent (b2320 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/11/1875). But Anna later wrote Theo that she and Vincent had quarreled after the performance (see Ch. 5, n. 437). Why would she have sent her parents misleadingly upbeat reports? “I have not written home about this [i.e., her altercation with Vincent],” she wrote Theo several months later; “they think that he's a shoulder to lean on for me and that seems to put Pa and Ma greatly at ease” (b2333 V/1982, ''Gogh, Anna van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 4/28/1875). Everyone in the Van Gogh family, not just Vincent, endeavored to maintain the fiction of family harmony.

439. "deep emotion"

Hulsker, "The Elusive Van Gogh, and What His Parents Really Thought of Him," p. 246.

440. have their photographs taken

b2320 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/11/1875. Dorus reported to Theo: “Vincent sent a good item in his letter, to have our portrait made for the children.” Later in the same letter, Vincent’s mother added: “Don't you think it's nice that Vincent sent [money for] portraits? A very sweet thought and certainly we'll do it when Pa is in den Bosch ['s Hertogotenbosch].”

441. a running family preoccupation

BVG 3, 1/1/1873: Interestingly, the family obsession appears not to have gotten fully underway until Theo left home at the beginning of 1873. It was at that time that Vincent had a portrait of himself taken (JLB 3, mid-January 1873). He says that he did it for his father's birthday, but he sent a copy to Theo first (JLB 4, 1/28/1873). A few months later, Theo had his picture taken and distributed copies to his sisters. He eventually sent a copy of the photograph to Vincent but only after Vincent somewhat forlornly had to ask for it (JLB 5, 3/17/1873). In early 1875, Lies had her portrait taken and sent copies to her parents and to Theo (b2313 V/1982, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/14/1875). She may have sent a copy to Vincent, too, and that may have inspired Vincent's gift to his parents in February (see Ch. 6, n. 440). Certainly, he shared Lies's sentiment: “I love so much to look at the portraits of the people I hold dear” (ibid.). (See also b2573 V/1982, “Gogh, Willemina van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/5/1877 and b0962 V/1962, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/13/1878.)

Context:
JLB 3, mid-January 1873: "The next time I write I'll send you my portrait; I had it taken last Sunday."

442. an obsession with portraiture

Another indication of this obsession was the appearance of more and more portraits among the prints on Vincent's walls around the same time. He reported to Theo in March that he had hung a portrait of Corot (from the Illustrated London News (JLB 30, 3/6/1875). Later that year, he sent Theo his first explication of a portrait: Rembrandt's Burgomaster [Jan] Six. Significantly, his comments about it were personal, not artistic. He saw younger versions of his uncle Cent and uncle Cor in Rembrandt's portrait of his wealthy patron (JLB 47, 9/12/1875). More than two years later, Vincent revealed that he had another portrait-print on the wall of his room in London at this time (JLB 132, 10/21/1877). It was a portrait of a young man, A Young Citizen of the Year V by Jules Goupil, an image that Vincent later said reminded him of Theo.

443. frontiers of artistic expression

BVG 5, 3/17/1873. The unique, oblique, and profound nature of Vincent's reaction to portraits may perhaps be glimpsed in his reaction to a picture of Theo that Theo sent him in early 1873: "I'm very pleased with the portrait," he wrote, "it turned out well" (JLB 5, 3/17/1873). By at least one obvious interpretation, this is a very odd thing to say about a photograph.

Context:
JLB 5, 3/17/1873: "I just received your letter, for which I thank you. I'm very pleased with the portrait, it turned out well."

444. to transfer Theo

BVG 23, 3/6/1875.

Context:
JLB 30, 3/6/1875: "I don't believe there's any chance that you'll be transferred to the London branch for the time being."

445. "How I should like"

BVG 22, 2/1/1875.

Context:
JLB 29, 1/5/1875 and 3/5/1875: "I'd like so much to have you here, we must make sure that it happens sometime."

446. Dorus's announcement

b2733 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/18/1874.

447. back into financial jeopardy

b2733 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 11/18/1874. Dorus wrote Theo: “We will indeed have to watch our money.” Anther letter from the parents reveals one example of the new economies that had to be imposed: Anna had spent “over 30 florins” on the Christmas tree decorations the year before (b2677 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/31/1873); but in 1874, she spent only five florins, of which two were contributed by a friend who had attended the previous year's elaborate festivities (b2737 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/14/1874).

448. turned a deaf ear

b2339 V/1982, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/30/1875. Lies wrote: “If Pa, for once, could hear the way he [Vincent] speaks with us and listen to his pure thoughts, how differently he would think of him.” In fact, Dorus suffered an actual, not just a metaphorical, sudden hearing loss at this time (b2318 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/7/1875). It was, apparently, related to a more general respiratory affliction that makes its first appearance in a letter from December 14: “Dad was ill too, last week -- severe back pain. The cough went away, only to settle there. The doctor has seen him. As you know it is always difficult on Sundays.” (b2737 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 12/14/1874.) In Dorus’s part of the same letter, he claimed that he was “well again,” but he was still complaining of deafness the following February, although minimizing the problem. Two weeks later, Anna acknowledged some improvement, but confided to Theo, “in daily life a stranger wouldn't notice, but Pa misses quite a bit of what happens around him, of what is being said. It's worst inside the house” (b2324 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/25/1875). In the same letter, Anna indicated that if there wasn’t any improvement by spring, they would consult an ear doctor.

449. "pure thoughts"

b2339 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/30/1875.

450. "If, for once"

b2339 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/30/1875.

451. with short letters

b2317 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 1/9/1875. It seems that all of the letters that the parents received from Vincent in the first part of 1875 (or at least all those that they mentioned) were short. Here is a sampling of their complaints: “Sunday evening we had a short but good letter from Vincent” (ibid.); “Vincent's letter arrived ... short but with good thoughts” (b2321 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 2/11/1875); “We had a good little letter from Vincent ...” (b2327 V/1982, “Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 3/13/1875); “A short letter from Vincent on May 1” (b2336 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/5/1875).

452. at erratic intervals

b2314 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/14/1875. Anna and Dorus spent the first months of 1875 on tenterhooks waiting for news from London to know if Vincent had pulled his life back together. "We look forward again to letters from England" (b2314 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/14/1875). "Did you also get news from Vincent? ... We long for it again." (ibid.) "Still no news from England. We waited to write you [to see] if a letter would have arrived." (b2315 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/20/1875.) "You are just like me and look forward to news from Vincent" (ibid.). "We hope for news with every mail delivery, Vincent must be very busy" (ibid.). "Pa has not yet received any news from Vincent. Don't you reckon that it would take quite a while? Certainly, he did not find the time to write." (b2316 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/25/1875.) "We have waited several days already to write to you, in the hope that we would get letters from England and we could tell you the contents; but it did not happen" (b2324 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/25/1875).

101

453. "social graces"

Van Crimpen, in Van Spanndonk, Wildenberg, and Mulder-Koenen, eds., p. 81: "The London branch of Goupil, finding Vincent somewhat lacking in social graces, was not very enthusiastic about him."

454. the new gallery slowly moved

De Maré, p. 24. The slow unfolding of Goupil's expansion in London (there was a six month lag between the announcement of the acquisition of Holloway and the inaugural exhibition) may have been due to the economic downturn that befell England in 1874 as the juggernaut of British empire began to slow under competitive pressure from other countries, especially Germany and the United States (Pickvance, p. 12).

455. may have argued openly

BVG 252, 12/11/1882. In comparing his fantasy of the work environment at the London paper, the Graphic, with his work environment at Goupil in London, Vincent wrote in 1882: “I would like to do the same as those who began The Graphic ... But no, they [i.e., people like gérant Obach] would ask: 'Can you do chromos by electric light?' Anyway, instead of dealing with a way of thinking, a feeling, ... one is presented with a mode of seeing and thinking like Obach's. That saddens me, and then I feel powerless. Undertaking something oneself is possible only if one encounters interest and cooperation.”

Context:
JLB 293, 12/11/1882: "Anyway, instead of dealing with a way of thinking, a feeling, a goal like Dickens's (The Graphic was like that originally), one is presented with a mode of seeing and thinking like Obach's. That saddens me, and then I feel powerless. Undertaking something oneself is possible only if one encounters interest and cooperation."

456. "materialism"

BVG 252, 12/11/1882. As part of his diatribe agains Obach (see Ch. 6, n. 455).

Context:
BVG 252, 12/11/1882: "And now everything is gone -- once again materialism instead of moral principle."
Moral greatness diminishes, material greatness comes in its place."

457. "out of his mind"

In October 1883, as part of his campaign to persuade Theo to quit Goupil, Vincent wrote a disparaging account of his own experience at the gallery. The thrust of his argument was that Goupil destroyed people. His former employer in London, Obach, was among his primary examples. Although this assessment of Obach does not relate directly to the dispute Vincent had with his boss in 1875 (see Ch. 6, n. 455), we believe it springs from the same well of acrimony as the letter a year earlier in which Vincent reopened that argument (JLB 293, 12/11/1882; see Ch. 6, n. 455). Our reading is that Vincent believed Obach was already showing the beginnings of his later "insanity" (or perhaps, more accurately, soullessness) in their disagreements in London in 1875.

Context:
BVG 333, 10/16/1883: "But I am disposed to include Obach -- he waited so long and went through so much strain that for a time he lost his reason."
JLB 397, 10/16/1883: "I would, though, include Obach -- he waited so long, put up with so much stress that for a time he was going out of his mind." (Emphasis in original.)

458. "I am not what"

Later in the same letter, Vincent writes: “people will probably say the same about you in a couple of years; at least if you continue to be what you are: my brother in two senses of the word.” Cassee suggests that by “two senses” Vincent meant that he and Theo were both real brothers and that they loved two sisters (i.e., Caroline and Annet Haanebeek) (Cassee, p. 111). We would suggest an alternate reading: that Vincent and Theo were brothers both in their family and in their profession: the art business. Therefore, Vincent was predicting that Theo, too, would eventually run into trouble with his bosses -- a prediction that turned out to be correct. In the same letter, Vincent reported an ominous forewarning of the transfer and demotion to come. In late April, Uncle Cor and Tersteeg came to London (b2334 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Willemina van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 4/29/1875). According to Vincent, they left on May 1 without having paid a social call on Vincent (JLB 33, 5/8/1875). (Their departure date is confirmed in a letter from Dorus to Theo [b2336 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/5/1875].) Vincent clearly saw this as a snub and reacted with worried indignation: “C.M. [i.e., Uncle Cor] and Mr. Tersteeg were here and left again last Saturday. In my opinion they went a little too often to the Crystal Palace and other places that didn't concern them. It seems to me they could also have come and seen where I lived” (JLB 33, 5/8/1875.) The significance of that snub -- if Vincent didn't guess it at the time -- was soon made clear when the transfer order to Paris arrived. (Anna speculated that the last-minute replacement came as a surprise to Vincent [b2338 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/24/1875].)

Context:
BVG 26, 5/8/1875: "I hope and trust that I am not what many people think I am just now."
JLB 33, 5/8/1875: "I hope and believe that I'm not what many think me to be at present …"

459. In mid-May

b2338 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/24/1875. Neither the exact date that Vincent was notified of his transfer, nor the date of his travel, is known. However, there is no hint of either in a letter to Theo on May 8 (JLB 33, 5/8/1875), and Vincent was in Paris by Thursday, May 20 (on May 24, Dorus wrote that he was informed by Cent that Vincent was in Paris by “last Thursday” [i.e. May 20]). The small window of time suggests the possibility of a traumatic precipitating event. In her letter of the same day, Anna reported: “it surely is a replacement he had not expected” (b2338 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/24/1875).

460. only days before the opening

Pickvance, p. 12: The inaugural exhibition, entitled "An Exhibition of High-Class Continental Pictures," opened on May 24, 1875. It included works by "Gerome, Meissonier, Jules Breton, Hebert, Millet, Corot, Troyon, Fortuny, Agrasot, Villeeas, Sorby, etc." It was reviewed in the Art Journal: "This is an exhibition of high-class Continental pictures by modern artists, the catalogue says; and when the visitor enters he finds that it is so. The name and reputation of such a house as Goupil & Co. would, of course, be sufficient guarantee that any collection of pictures identified with them must be such as art-lovers and connoisseurs would contemplate with profit and delight." (Quoted in Bailey, Van Gogh in England, p. 33.)

461. "temporary"

b2338 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/24/1875: Uncle Cent told Dorus "that Vincent is in Paris [and] Mr. Tripp, an Englishman, has temporarily substituted for him during the exhibition in London." In a letter from late May, Vincent's parents report that they have received a postcard from Vincent in Paris: "He wrote nothing else than: The Heeren have approved to replace me with Tripp for 6 to 8 weeks" (b2338 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/24/1875). Clearly, Vincent had early doubts about the temporary nature of the transfer. He wrote Theo on June 19, "I don't know how long I'll be staying here" (JLB 35, 6/19/1875).

462. "the Gentlemen"

b2338 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/24/1875: So undeniable was the shame of Vincent's failure that Uncle Cent apparently did not even bother to offer an excuse to his parents or the family chronicler (Cent’s sister Mietje). If Cent had bothered to provide a specific excuse for Vincent’s sudden, untimely transfer, Dorus certainly would have reported it to Theo. Instead, the only mitigation he reports from Cent is that, in Paris, “[Vincent] is charged specifically with the gallery” (ibid.) -- a statement that is either misleading (Vincent was certainly not put in charge of the gallery) or meaningless. Vincent himself clearly saw the transfer as a demotion to “one of the least” (JLB 394, 10/12/1883; ). This is an appropriate place to recall Aunt Mietje's entry in the family chronicle from one year later (1876): “The gentlemen had noticed long ago that [Vincent] was not fit for business, yet they had let him stay as long as possible for Uncle[Cent]'s sake” (Van Gogh, Maria Johanna, p. 9; emphasis added).

463. an Englishman

b2338 V/1982, “Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/24/1875: Dorus’s letter (see Ch. 6, n. 462) identifies Vincent’s replacement only as “Mr. Tripp” and implies that he heard the name from Uncle Cent. In her letter of the same day, Anna reported that Vincent used the name in a postcard from Paris, which may suggest that Vincent had known Tripp in London.

464. "I hope it will not hurt"

b2338 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/24/1875: Anna seconded her husband's concern: "It will not be easy for him to take."

465. "nobody close to"

b2339 V/1982, “Gogh, Elisabeth van” to “Gogh, Theo van”, 5/30/1875. These quotations are taken from a letter from Lies to Theo written on May 30, 1875, in which Lies responded to what was apparently Theo’s impassioned defense of his embattled brother. We are assuming that Lies was paraphrasing Theo’s arguments back to him in agreement. Here is the full relevant section: “Thanks a lot for your letter and your good wishes for my birthday. Your having written made me very happy. For such a long time I have longed to know more about Vincent, and now that I know so much: Oh! Théo, I know what it is like for him, being so sensitive, to feel that nobody trusts you despite such good intentions and you are so good. I understand what it feels like to have nobody near you who has sympathy for you, who knows what's going on in your heart and sees your good will and encourages you.”

466. "[nobody] knows what's"

b2339 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/30/1875.

467. "nobody trusts him"

b2339 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/30/1875. (See Ch. 6, n. 465.)

468. "sensitivity"

b2339 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/30/1875. (See Ch. 6, n. 465.)

469. "strange letter"

b2341 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/9/1875.

470. Vincent enclosed a poem

b2355 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/15/1875. Less than three months after Vincent sent this letter, Theo sent Lies an album of poetry that included the same poem. (Despite many similarities to the albums that Vincent prepared for Theo, the authorship of this third album is hopelessly muddled; see Tilborgh and Pabst, p. 89). On August 15, Lies thanked Theo: "These verses that you sent me were so lovely. Do you know which ones I like particularly? L'Exilé, ... What a strong, good attitude that is. I like it a lot. I had already read the piece from Vincent. He sent the Dutch version to Pa and Ma."

471. "heat and exertions"

b2341 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/9/1875.

472. "overstimulated"

b2341 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/9/1875.

473. "Just between us"

b2341 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/9/1875.