One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.

The image contrasts inner intensity with outward invisibility: a person can carry a powerful inner life—warmth, passion, generosity, creative fire—yet remain socially unseen or misunderstood. The “wisp of smoke” suggests that what others perceive are only faint, ambiguous signs of that inner blaze, easy to overlook amid their own journeys. Read in connection with van Gogh’s life and letters, the thought resonates with loneliness and the frustration of having deep feeling and vocation without companionship or recognition. It also implies a quiet ethical challenge: to look more closely at others, since what appears slight externally may conceal a profound interior world.