1. Cf. for this expression: letter 288, n. 15.

2. This expression occurred previously in letter 228.

3. A reference to the myth of Sisyphus, whom the gods condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain; the boulder always rolled down again just before it reached the top. See Homer, Odyssey, 2, 593 and Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4, 460.

a. By ‘geregeld’ Van Gogh does not mean ‘regelmatig’ (regularly), he means ‘geordend’ (coherently), with the same order and control in his thinking as they have.

4. In several of his letters Theo had included descriptions of life in Paris that charmed Vincent. See e.g. letter 260 and letter 288.

5. See for this term, derived from Victor Hugo’s Quatre-vingt-treize: letter 388, n. 22.

6. At the end of the second part of the letter (l. 295) four lines, rotated through 180^o and originally the start of a letter, have been crossed out: ‘Dear brother, today it was a sad, rainy day, as it usually is at present – but it was supremely beautiful outdoors precisely because of it, and for myself I feel drawn, just because of that sad mood, to go and look at things’ (‘Beste broer, Van daag was het/ zooals tegenwoordig meestal/ een triestigen regendag – maar heerlijk mooi was het buiten juist daarom/ en ik voor mij voel mij juist door die trieste stemming getrokken om dan de dingen te gaan bekijken_–’).

7. See for this possible quotation: letter 407.

b. Means: ‘losheid, lichtheid’ (ease, lightness).

8. This ‘says’ is not meant literally, it is the general message that Van Gogh has retained from his reading of Sensier’s La vie et l’oeuvre de J.F. Millet (1881). In this work Millet emerges as a painter who lived life according to his conscience and – although at first he often had to call on friends for financial assistance – was ultimately successful and remained true to his principles.

9. Van Gogh had probably read somewhere about the ‘pent-up tears’ in the figures that Andrea Mantegna painted; later in the letter he refers to them a second time – when he also adds Giotto’s name.

10. For ‘collier’s faith’, see letter 286, n. 17.

11. Van Gogh derived what he knew about Corot from Dumesnil 1875 (cf. also letter 396).

12. See Ps. 126:5-6; rhy. ps. 126:3 and hymn 262:7.