If I must do with less, so be it

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 20-21 August 1883

Dear brother, there doesn't seem to be a little more ease in store for me. I will try not to complain, I will bear what I can.

Though I stick to my conviction that my work really demands more, and that I also ought to be able to spend a little more on food and other necessities, if I must do with less, so be it. After all, my life is perhaps not worth the money, why should I worry about it? And it's really nobody's fault, neither is it my own.

But I hope you will be convinced of one thing - that it is impossible to do more than stint oneself even in food, clothes, every comfort, every necessity. When one has skimped in everything, there can be no question of unwillingness, can there? You know very well that if somebody said to me, Do this or that, make a drawing of this or that, I should not refuse, yes, I would even make several trials with pleasure if the first one did not succeed. But nobody has said it - or only so vaguely, so generally, that it puts me out rather than helps me.

Letter 315
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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