1. Theo made the spring sales trip for Goupil; see also letter 71.

2. Allusion to the last line of the poem ‘De bestedeling’ (The boarder) by Jan van Beers. See letter 10, n. 10.

3. The journey on foot will have taken place when Van Gogh was living in London, between June 1873 and May 1875 (except for a three-month interval from October to December 1874, when he was in Paris). Brighton is on the south coast of England, c. 80 km south of London.

4. The beginning of Tales of a Wayside inn (1863) contains an evocation of the interior of an inn at Sudbury.

5. Constant Gabriël was represented at the Salon of 1876 with the works L’Aube, dans les polders de la Hollande (Dawn in the polders of Holland) and L’Approche de la pluie – Vue du lac d’Abcoude (Pays-Bas) (Approaching rain – View of Lake Abcoude (Netherlands)) (present whereabouts unknown). See exhib. cat. Paris 1876, p. 105, cat. nos. 836-837.

6. Xavier de Cock had two works at the Salon: Forêt (Forest) and Vaches (Cows) (present whereabouts unknown). See exhib. cat. Paris 1876, p. 72, cat. nos. 579-580. Van Gogh describes the depiction of Cows.

7. Despite Van Gogh’s remark, his handwriting shows no traces of hastiness.