Everything may be useful

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 18 September 1882

I should like to get some of the studies you have back sometime, the ones you do not care to keep (of course, if you have a chance to send them). If there is anything you want to keep, if there is anything I have here you would like to have, just say so, for I consider everything as belonging to you. If I ask it back, it is because what is made directly from the model is often necessary for watercolors, for instance. But there is no hurry - just don't throw them away, even though they are not so very well done, for everything may be useful. I do not think I am mistaken in believing that being and remaining productive depends on the studies one has and continues to make. The more variety there is in them, the more one drudges on them, the more easily one works later when it comes to making real pictures or drawings. In short, I reckon the studies to be the seed, and the more one sows, the more one may hope to reap.

Letter 232
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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