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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 2, No. 2 March 15, 1939

From the Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

From the Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

My finances arc pathetic, and the future is not very easy. Perhaps I could have done better. I have lost time in order to earn my living. I confess that my studies are wretched and deplorable, and: I lack incomparably more than I possess. But does this mean sinking and idling. I am simply out of a job because I have different ideas from the gentlemen who have jobs to give away, and because I mean to stick to my own ideas with every ounce of strength that is within me . . .

You may ask why I didn't stay at the University. I can only answer that I prefer to die a natural death than to prepare myself for it at the University, and I once learned a lesson, which seemed to me more valuable than a Greek unseen, from a man who was mowing grass. As for my improving my position; I have never asked for it.

If Christianity were taught and understood conformably to the spirit of its founder, the existing social organism could not last a day.

—Emile de Lavelaye.