from "Van Gogh: the Life"

"No issue defined Vincent's reincarnation in 1881 more than money. Of all the accusations leveled against him over the previous years, none weighed more heavily on his new life than the charge that he could not support himself. This was, after all, the accusation on which his father had launched the effort to have him committed [to an asylum]. The pain and humiliation of those memories had driven Thomas a Kempis completely out of his thoughts. From the moment he arrived in Brussels, he could not protest loudly enough his single-minded determination to earn a living. 'My aim must be to learn to make some drawings that are presentable and saleable as soon as possible,' he declared in his first letter from the Aux Amis, 'so that I can begin to earn something directly through my work.' His first stop in Brussels had been at Goupil for a symbolic re-embrace of the family's mercantile heritage-- '[I] have now returned to the art field,' he proclaimed. To Theo [his younger brother], he confided his hope that 'if only I work hard...possibly Uncle Vincent or Uncle Cor will do something--if not to help me, at least to help Father.' (pg. 225)

978-0-375-50748-9

edit :: 2.45, from "The Girl Who Circumnavigted Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" 

' Hats change everything. September knew this with all her being, deep in the place where she knew her own name, that her mother would still love her even though she hadn't waved good-bye. For one day, her father had put on a hat with golden things on it and suddenly he hadn't been her father anymore, he had been a solider, and he had left. Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else. ' (pg. 26)