1. Theo would turn 20 on 1 May.

2. Rhy. ps. 51:5.

3. Cf. Luke 12:21 and Jas. 2:5; the KJ has ‘richer toward God’.

4. Biblical; see, for example, Ps. 19:11 (in KJ Ps. 19:10) and Isa. 13:12.

5. John 16:32.

6. This prayer recurs frequently; see letter 42.

a. Meaning, ‘Halt te houden, de reis te onderbreken’ (To stop, to interrupt the journey).

7. Luke 9:62.

8. Jan Hendrik Hooyer had been the minister of the Waalse Kerk (French Church) at the corner of Visstraat and Voorstraat since 1873.

9. The Rev. Samuel Essenius Greeff was the minister of the Nederlands Hervormde (Dutch Reformed) congregation.

10. Sunday, 7 January; see letter 101, n. 31.

11. 1 Cor. 13:12.

12. Regarding this walk, see letter 103.

13. A reproduction of the drawing Gevallen grootheid (Fallen greatness) by Lodewijk Apol appeared in Eigen Haard 1 (1875), no. 30, p. 253. Ill. 1803 .

14. The house of the keeper of the cemetery in the Dubbeldamseweg. See Molendijk 1990, p. 5; a 1914 photograph of this house is to be found in J.J. Beyerman, Dordrecht in oude ansichten. Zaltbommel 1967, p. 20.

15. This expression of Mr van Gogh, which Vincent repeats frequently, could have been derived from hymn 56:1 and hymn 56:9.

16. Another version of this proverb is ‘The devil is not so black as he is sometimes painted’.

17. Jacques Albin Simon Collin de Plancy, Légendes des artistes. Dessins-croquis de C. Rochussen. The Hague (Société neerlandaise pour les Beaux-Arts) 1842. The legends of the artists contains 14 biographical, anecdotal essays on Dutch and Flemish artists (mostly painters) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Each essay is accompanied by several engravings after sketches by Charles Rochussen. Theo’s estate included a copy of this edition, which had belonged to Uncle Hein van Gogh.

18. A catechism is a question-book used in religious instruction. From the bibliography accompanying the 1887 account of Stricker’s life, it appears that Van Gogh’s employer, Mr Braat, had published two of his catechisms. See Berlage 1887, p. 36.

19. Cf. 2 Cor. 7:10.

20. For the concept of the ‘Christian Workman’, see letter 109, n. 15.

21. Rom. 8:28.

22. Biblical; Van Gogh was possibly thinking of 1 Kings 19:4, which he quotes at length in letter 118.

23. Num. 6:24-26, as well as the closing lines of the liturgical service.

24. Hymn 36:2 and Eph. 3:20.

25. Ps. 121:5.

26. Matt. 28:20.