Letter to Theo

My dear Theo, There is something inside me, what can it be? I am a man of passions, capable of and subject to doing more or less foolish things, which I happen to repent, more or less, afterwards. Now and then I speak and act too hastily, when it would have been better to wait patiently. I think that other people sometimes make the same mistakes. Well, this being so, what's to be done? Must I consider myself a dangerous man, incapable of anything at all? I don't think so. But the problem is to try every means to put those self-same passions to good use. For example, to name one of the passions, I have a more or less irresistible passion for books, and I continually want to instruct myself, just as I want to eat my bread. When I was in other surroundings, in the surroundings of pictures and works of art, you know how I then had a violent passion for them. Now I no longer have that, but the need to learn and to read remains, and that need is very strong. I feel the need for books as I feel hunger or thirst. And I shall go on working. What am I good for? Could I not be of service and use in some way? How can I become more knowledgeable, how can I study profoundly certain subjects? You see, that is what preoccupies me constantly. Your loving brother, Vincent