Friendship must be action
Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, from The Hague, 22-29 October 1883
I have been thinking over your scruples about accepting the illustrations I sent you; and, although I respect your feelings, I believe you must not consider it a kindness on my part but look upon it as something natural - for the following reason.
I hope you do not object to my considering you my friend, and I suppose that you on your part think of me in the same way. I feel sure you will agree with me when I say that I think friendship must be primarily action and not just feeling. Consequently it was only natural for me to save duplicates for you of things you didn't have yet. You yourself did me a similar favor in Brussels, for instance, by letting me use your studio when I didn't have one of my own yet, and so on.
Letter R28
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
I have been thinking over your scruples about accepting the illustrations I sent you; and, although I respect your feelings, I believe you must not consider it a kindness on my part but look upon it as something natural - for the following reason.
I hope you do not object to my considering you my friend, and I suppose that you on your part think of me in the same way. I feel sure you will agree with me when I say that I think friendship must be primarily action and not just feeling. Consequently it was only natural for me to save duplicates for you of things you didn't have yet. You yourself did me a similar favor in Brussels, for instance, by letting me use your studio when I didn't have one of my own yet, and so on.
Letter R28
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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