One small corner in which a human heart still beats

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, c. 14-18 March 1882

When I wrote, “remain something better than Tersteeg”, and when I intimated that I do not hold art dealers in general in high esteem - it's true, I could well have kept those things to myself, but now that my silence is broken and I have spoken - well then, that is how I will speak. . . .

I used to think he was the sort of person who put on the air of a man of means, of an homme du monde, I don't know how to put it in one word, I'm sure you'll take my meaning, and who hid a great deal of feeling and a warm heart behind that iron mask. But I found his armour enormously thick, so thick that I cannot make up my mind for sure whether the man is made of solid metal, be it steel or silver, or whether deep, deep down inside the iron there is one small corner in which a human heart still beats. If there is no heart in him, then my affection for him has truly run its course, making way for a “What are you doing to me? You are getting on my nerves.” So that in six months or a year he will either leave me utterly cold, or, or I will perhaps have found a way of getting on better with His Hon. Meanwhile - he is still His Hon. to me. Those are not the terms in which one thinks of somebody for whom one feels warm sympathy. “His Hon.” expresses something trite. Enough, suffit.

Letter 182
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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