Downright starvation

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen, mid August 1885

So, in short - work hard - but at the same time try to work sensibly. The trouble you have taken along with me - for furnishing money is taking trouble too, and I don't in the least try to get away from it - this trouble anyway has been an act of personal initiative, of personal will and energy - but what shall I have to say and think of it if there is nothing to compensate for the gradual but undeniable weakening of financial aid?

In my opinion, at least, now is just the moment to try to do something with my work. . . .

You told me yourself, "Where there's a will there's a way." Well, I am going to take you at your word a little, at least as to your really wanting us to make progress together.

If I were to demand extravagant things and you refused - well, all right then - but when it is a question of the most urgent, the very simplest necessities of life, and it is increasingly and ever more badly becoming downright starvation, only then do I think you go too far in your economizing, and that in this respect it is far from useful.

Letter 420
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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