1r:1
My dear Theo,
Arriving home, you may have found another note1 from me. But while I asked you in it then to take back one thing and another that you said,2 I don’t ask it of you any more.
Because even if you were to say that you’d started to think differently about it, I still wouldn’t be able to believe it, since I believe that you’re just definitely like that — and can’t easily retreat from it for the time being. We may perhaps talk about such issues very differently years from now, but probably not even then.
For the time being, in my view, we certainly don’t have to revert to it.
You would get back anything more than 100 francs that you might send next month, so send 100 francs (on which I’ll continue to rely for now, in accordance with our agreement), but no more.  1v:2
And it will be my endeavour to find something to replace that, too, and eventually I’ll succeed.
Regards.

Vincent

Please don’t think that I don’t want to remain good friends — but here it’s in the nature of the thing that it’s not possible; even if one were to try it, it still wouldn’t work. Anyway, it’s a situation that no one could do much about. I believe that your character has now set in a permanent mould — mine too3 — and the directions do not run parallel. I actually don’t take anything particularly amiss of you — perhaps you don’t of me either — but to go on as if we were in accord we’d have to be people like Monnier’s Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme, and I at least refuse to be that,4 and I hope for your sake — you do too — and I’m not going to take it to heart any longer, either.

455

Br. 1990: 486 | CL: 355b
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Nuenen, on or about Saturday, 23 August 1884
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1. This letter is not known; it is clear from a later reference in letter 473 of about Saturday, 6 December 1884 that in it Vincent had criticized Theo’s attitude in trenchant and unequivocal terms.
2. The brothers must have talked about Theo’s financial support during his visit. Vincent returns to this in the present letter and later talks about the allowance for ‘next month’, saying that it should not be for more than 100 francs. In fact Theo still sent 150 francs – not 100 – at the beginning of September (see letter 456).
3. Mr van Gogh tried to reassure Theo somewhat, and wrote on 22 August: ‘You will probably also receive a letter from V. I pray you don’t attach too much to it. He is evidently not well and I should think feverish and consequently too easily excited. I would ask you to keep calm, in the face of what could disrupt calm! He is very touchy or overwrought. Just let some time pass and consider the possibility conceivable that it is not entirely his own fault. We have seen it more in him. He is overwrought, whether it is related to other things – I should almost think it is. Certainly he’s not well and the strain of going backwards and forwards to Mr Hermans in the heat and talking about that work may also be part of it. It will have to be overcome by time, and calm is necessary. So let us remain as kind as possible and may God give what we cannot give. It is sad and unhappy, so much for himself, for he has no peace. We hope for higher help ... We also think about you, that this suffering also afflicts you, who actually seeks your joy in relieving the cares of another. We know that you do this and are grateful for it’ (FR b2256).
4. See for the character of the petit bourgeois Joseph Prudhomme in Monnier’s Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme: letter 296, n. 3.