Most people me consider me a failure

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 8 February 1883

Sometimes I cannot believe that I am only thirty years old, I feel so much older.

I feel older only when I think that most people who know me consider me a failure, and how it really might be so, if some things do not change for the better; and when I think it might be so, I feel it so vividly that it quite depresses me and makes me as downhearted as if it were really so. In a calmer and more normal mood I am sometimes glad that thirty years have passed, and not without teaching me something for the future, and I feel strength and energy for the next thirty years, if I should live that long.

And in my imagination I see years of serious work before me, and happier ones than the first thirty.

How it will be in reality doesn't depend only on myself, the world and circumstances must also contribute to it.

Letter 265
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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