Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night Painting

Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night Painting
misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human
affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am
sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude,
and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of
stimulus: any more than I can be content,' he added, with emphasis,
'to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains- my nature,
that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed,
paralysed- made useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I,
who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation
even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's service- I, His
ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well,
propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.'
He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him
than in the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day
approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried
to appear as usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was
one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated
that this would be a different parting from any they had ever yet.
Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night Painting