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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 23h

Again and again one heard thunder and saw lightning, the sky looked like a painting by Ruisdael, and the gulls were flying low over the water. It was a magnificent sight, and really refreshing after the oppressive heat of yesterday.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Got up and went into the yard and took a couple of notebooks to the cupola and sat there reading and looking round the whole yard and dock, the poplars and elders and other shrubs were bent by the strong wind,

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

A terrible storm blew up here this morning at quarter to 5, a little while later the first stream of workers came through the gate of the dockyard in the pouring rain.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

On Monday Aunt Mina and Margreet Meyboom left for Etten, and I saw them at the station of the Oosterspoor. While I was waiting for them there, I read the following in Lamennais:

At the head of a small inlet beneath a cliff hollowed out at its foot by the waves, among rocks from which hung long strands of sea-green weed, two men, one young, the other old but still sturdy, leaning against a fishing-boat, waited for the tide that was slowly coming in, barely ruffled by a dying breeze. Swelling as they neared the shore, the waves slid lazily over the sand with a faint and gentle murmur. A little later, the boat could be seen moving away from the shore towards the open sea, its prow raised, leaving behind it a ribbon of white foam. The old man, beside the tiller, watched the sails as they filled, then drooped like weary wings. His gaze then seemed to look for a sign on the horizon and in the dense, motionless clouds. Then, as he sank back into his thoughts, one read on his tanned brow an entire life of toil and unremitting struggle from which he had never flinched. The ebb tide created small valleys in the calm sea, where the hen petrel played, balancing gracefully on the glistening, lead-hued waves. From high in the air the seagull dived into them like an arrow, and on the black tip of a rock the ungainly cormorant stood motionless. The slightest movement, a faint breath of air, a streak of light, altered the aspect of these changing scenes. The young man, withdrawn into himself, saw them as one sees in dreams. His soul drifted and floated to the sound of the wake, like the light, monotonous sound with which the nurse sends the child to sleep. Suddenly, coming out of his reverie, his eyes light up, the air echoes to the sound of his resonant voice: To the ploughman the fields, to the huntsman the woods, to the fisherman the sea and its waves, and its reefs and its storms. The sky above his head, the depths beneath his feet, he is free, he has no master but himself. See her obey his hand, see her leap across the moving plains, the frail vessel into which the wind breathes life…

mountains and valleys and fantastic cities, now plunged in shadow, now lit by all the glory of the setting sun. Oh, how sweet it is to me, the fisherman’s life! How its harsh battles and its manly joys delight me. And yet, my mother, when at night the squall suddenly shakes our cabin, what fear grips your heart! See you rise, all trembling, to invoke the holy Virgin who protects poor sailors! Kneeling before her image, your tears flow for your son, driven in the darkness by the whirlwind towards the reefs, where the moans of the dead are heard, mingling with the voice of the storm. Protect us, O Lord, for our barks are so small and Thy sea is so great.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Afterwards I heard Uncle Stricker in the Oosterkerk on ‘praise, not of men but of God’, also occasioned by the death of H.M.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The sun shone through the windows – there weren’t that many people in the church, mostly labourers and women.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Heard the Rev. Laurillard on Sunday morning in the early sermon on ‘Jesus went through the cornfields’. He made a deep impression on me –

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

When I saw that sexton I couldn’t help thinking of a wood engraving, by Rethel I think, you must know it too, ‘Death as a friend’. I always found that scene very moving, in London in those days one saw it in front of nearly all the print-shop windows.

Richard Julius Jungtow after Alfred Rethel
Death as a friend, 1851

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It’s a beautiful city, this, today I again saw a corner for Thijs Maris or Allebé, namely houses behind the Oosterkerk, on a small inner courtyard, I had to see the sexton to ask about Uncle’s place in the church and I was in his house, also living there is a shoemaker etc,

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Also took another walk to the Zuiderzee, which is 40 minutes from here, over a dyke from which one sees meadows everywhere and farms which always remind me of etchings by Rembrandt.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This week I went to the cemetery here, outside the Muiderpoort, there’s a small wood in front of it where it’s beautiful, especially in the evening when the sun shines through the leaves, there are also a lot of beautiful graves and all kinds of evergreens, and roses and forget-me-nots bloom there.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

‘No day without a line’, daily writing, reading, working and practising, with meekness and perseverance, will surely lead to something.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I have a lot to do every day, so the time goes quickly and the days are almost too short, even though I stretch them out a bit, I have such a great desire to progress and also to know the Bible well and thoroughly, and also to know many things, such as what I wrote to you about Cromwell.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Be blessed these days. Take a good look at the things around you – don’t forget them – walk through the land again, as it says: in the length of it and in the breadth of it.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But I repeat, brother, my heart spills over for you, I think the plan is very good – my past comes completely alive again now that I’m thinking of your future. ‘Behold, I make all things new’ will perhaps soon be your experience.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Be sure and write as soon as you hear any more about this, I hope that we’ll have a quiet moment together sometime before you leave. Even though there seems to be no opportunity at present, such a thing may soon come about.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I’ve loved so much about those two cities, I think back on them with a feeling of nostalgia, and I’d almost like to go with you, if I’m ever far enough along to be permitted to fill a position in that great Dutch Church,

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

What I hope now is only this – that you go to London before you see Paris. But we have to wait and see what happens.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

And then you wrote about how you spoke at home of your plans for the future, when I read it, my heart spilled over for you, as it were, it seems very good to me.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I received your letter of 7 June and was glad to see that you were in Etten and had a good Sunday there, it’s nice that Pa and little brother brought you as far as Dordrecht.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Be sure to write soon and tell me whether that piece about Cromwell isn’t something right out of the heart of London.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

In the evening there’s also a beautiful view of the yard, where everything is deathly still and the street-lamps are burning and the sky above full of stars. When all sounds cease – God’s voice is heard – Under the stars.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Sat up late last night writing, and early this morning it was such gorgeous weather.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

And the people and carriages like small black figures everywhere. Like one sometimes sees in a Rembrandt. And it put us in such a mood that we began talking about all sorts of things.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Rembrandt, Michel and others have painted it, the ground dark, the sky still lit by the glow of the sun, already gone down, the row of houses and towers standing out above, the lights in the windows everywhere, everything reflected in the water.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

We walked along Buitenkant and there by the sand works at the Oosterspoor, I can’t tell you how beautiful it was there in the twilight.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Last night I was at the Strickers’, Margreet Meyboom, to whom Paul is engaged, was there as well. That’s a girl who’s very reminiscent of Ellen in ‘The wide, wide World’, her father was a very clever preacher, an extraordinary man and close friend of Uncle Stricker.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Have got a lot to do, so adieu, perhaps this evening I’ll write a few more words below. Accept in thought a handshake, and believe me Your most loving brother, Vincent

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Went past the flower market on Singel today, I saw such a nice thing there. A farmer was standing there with lots and lots of pots, all kinds of flowers and shrubs, the ivy was at the back, and in between sat his little girl, a child like Maris would paint, so simple, wearing a black cap,

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

This evening I have to go to Uncle Stricker’s. Went to the early sermon yesterday morning, heard a sermon on the text ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’, how they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Did you go to Etten on Sunday? I sincerely hope so, and that you had a good day; I gather this from a sentence in the last letter from Etten: ‘we expect Theo, probably this Sunday’.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

You remember that evening in Dordrecht when we walked through Dordrecht together, around the Grote Kerk and through all kinds of streets and along the canals with their reflections of the old houses and the lights from the windows.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I wish you the very best, write again soon, give my regards to your housemates and any acquaintances you might see, and accept in thought a hearty handshake, and believe me Your most loving brother Vincent

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Believe in God, through faith one can become ‘sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing’ and evergreen and we need not complain ‘if our youth disappears at the maturing of our powers’.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

What a beautiful and heartening story that is too, the one about Jesus walking on the sea, Matthew XIV:22-33, And straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship, and to go before Him unto the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away,

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

This afternoon it was stormy and rained here, and I walked to the sea past the Jewish cemetery, a few days ago I also went for a walk there on Buitenkant near the Oosterspoor, where they’re working on the sand works etc.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

And we, although we saw no Angel, although we are not the same as those men of old, should we not know that there is strengthening from Above?

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I’ve carefully read the story of Elijah so often, and so often has it given me strength up to now…

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

It is good to believe that there is a God who knows what we need, better than we know it ourselves, and who helps us when we need help.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

You know what I want. If I may become a clergyman, if I fulfil that position so that my work is equal to that of our Father, then I shall thank God.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Be aware, though – we must both make sure that we survive the time between now and the age of 30 or so – and we must beware of sin – after all, we’re in the midst of life – well then, we must fight a good fight –

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

In your last letter you write that you were thinking about moving elsewhere if possible, and you mention London and Paris.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

It’s already late and everyone is already asleep, but I feel the need to write a few words to you again. You must persevere – you must go onward – as I must, too – we’re going through the same ordeal in many respects.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Accept a handshake in thought, and I wish you the very best, and write again soon to Your most loving brother Vincent

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

And the memory of everything we have loved remains and returns in the evening of our life. It is not dead, but sleepeth and it is good to collect a great store of it.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

And yet we are so attached to that old life because there is cheerfulness to counter despondency, and our heart and our soul are gladdened, just as the lark who cannot help singing in the morning, even if our soul is sometimes cast down within us and is disquieted in us.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

When I was standing next to Aertsen’s body, the calm and seriousness and solemn stillness of death contrasted so greatly with us who were living, that everyone felt what his daughter said in her simplicity: he is delivered from the burden of life which we must still bear.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

A book by Bunyan tells of a traveller who sees a lion lying at the side of the road he must traverse – and yet he continues on his way – there is nothing else he may or can do – and when he arrives at the place he notices that the lion is chained up and is only there to test the travellers’ courage.

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Van Gogh Letters @vangoghletters.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Isn’t it your experience, too, that whenever you wanted to do something bad, you were held back – that whenever there was something upsetting you and you saw no way out, you came through it all unharmed?

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