“Unpleasant, quarrelsome nonentities”

Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, from The Hague, 1 November 1882

Those “rising men” of today are not what the “rising men” of the previous generation were - more effect and less quality nowadays. I have written about this more than once. I also see a difference between the personalities of the respective “rising men.” You know yourself, and you yourself suffer under it, that they look upon you and me as unpleasant, quarrelsome nonentities, and that above all they consider us ponderous and boring in our work and in our persons.

Letter R17
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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