I am throwing myself with might and main into life

Before things came to their present pass, I used to have many regrets and be very sad and reproach myself because things between Father and Mother and me were going so badly. But now that matters have gone this far, well, so be it, and to tell you the truth, I have no regrets anymore, cannot help feeling a sense of deliverance. If I should later come to see that I did wrong, well, then I shall of course be sorry, but as it is I have been unable to see how else I could possibly have acted. When somebody tells me decisively, “Get out of my house, the sooner the better, in half an hour rather than an hour,” well then, my dear fellow, it doesn't take a quarter of an hour for me to leave, never to return either. That was going too far, and you surely understand that, if only to spare you and others further financial trouble, I should not lightly have left on my own accord, but once that “Get out” has been said, by them and not by me, well then, my course is clear enough.

. . . Consider it a point in my favor that for the time being I am behaving as if Father and Mother did not exist. It would have been much better if I had spent this winter in Etten, and things would have been much easier for me, too, especially for financial reasons - if I were to start thinking and fretting about that again, it would make me melancholy, so that's over and done with, once and for all. I am here now and I must try to muddle through. If I wrote to Father about it again, it would be adding fuel the fire. I don't ever want to get angry again and am throwing myself with might and main into life and affairs here, and, what can I do, Etten is lost and so is Heike, but I shall try to obtain something else in their stead.

To Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 7-8 January 1882, Letter 169
Translations courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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