Nature Tales for Winter Nights by Nancy Campbell

Author:Nancy Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

a letter from the Netherlands

December 1883

Dear brother, Perhaps you were rather astonished when I told you briefly that I intended to go home for a while, and that I should write you from here. But first I have to thank you for your letter of December 1, which I just now received here at Nuenen.

For the last three weeks already I have not felt quite well – all kinds of little troubles arising from having caught a cold, and also from nervousness.

One must try to conquer such a thing, and I felt it would get worse if I did not get a change.

So for several reasons I made up my mind to go home for a while. A thing which, however, I was very loath to do.

My journey began with a good six-hour walk across the heath – to Hoogeveen. On a stormy afternoon in rain and snow.

That walk cheered me greatly, or rather my feelings were so in sympathy with nature that it calmed me more than anything. I thought that perhaps my going back home might give me a clearer insight into questions of how to act. Drenthe is splendid, but one’s being able to stay there depends on many things, depends on whether one is able to stand the loneliness. […]

I thought of you, brother, during that long walk across the heath, in the evening, in the storm. I thought of a passage, I don’t know from what book: ‘Deux yeux éclaircies par de vraies larmes veillaient’ [two eyes were awake, brightened by genuine tears]. I thought, I am disillusioned. I thought, I have believed in many things which I now know are really sorry fallacies – I thought, Those eyes of mine, here on this gloomy evening, wide awake in this deserted region – if they have been full of tears at times, why shouldn’t these have been wrung from me by a sorrow that disenchants – yes – and disturbs illusions – but at the same time – makes one wide awake.

I thought, Is it possible that Theo is satisfied with many things that worry me?

Is it possible that it is only my own melancholy when I cannot enjoy some things as I used to do?

In short, I thought, is it possible that I take gold for tinsel? Do I call withered a thing that is in full bloom? I could not find an answer. Can you? . . .

Vincent van Gogh

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.