I think differently

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen, 31 January 1885

You commit an error if on your part you are unable to understand that your being suspicious of me is positively improper. Most certainly I think differently, I feel differently, I act differently. But it is quite consistent when viewed in its proper relation.

And considering that when I was in Drenthe and I advised you to become a painter, you wrote me that I was speaking about your affairs from afar and I conceded this point, the reverse is most certainly true too, namely that you can only make a wild guess about my doings here. So give up your suspicions, for they are simply improper. And the means must be found in the good progress my work is making - leaving the matter of more or less mutual sympathy out of the question - to be at least inoffensive to each other, however much our ways may run in opposite directions.

Letter 388a
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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