1. This Dutch proverb means: ‘it is the virtuous who are often maligned’. Van Gogh seems to interpret the proverb incorrectly.
2. For this ‘Pierre de Carpentras’, see letter 753, n. 8.
3. Theo wrote this in letter 762 of 24 April.
4. Regarding Van Gogh’s successive attacks, see letter 750, n. 4.
5. Ward in the hospital (F 646 / JH 1686 [2782]).
[2782]
6. The courtyard of the hospital (F 519 / JH 1687 [2783]).
[2783]
a. Read: ‘probablement’.
7. For the philosopher Pangloss from Voltaire’s Candide, see letter 568, n. 3.
8. For Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet, see letter 669, n. 9.
9. For Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, see letter 152, n. 9. The circumstances in which Beecher Stowe wrote her book are described as follows: ‘Some of the chapters were written in my study at the College ... some of them over the cooking-stove in the kitchen, while directing a very poor cook in the preparation of dinner; but most of them at the table in the school-room, with the children round her, and read to them as each chapter was completed, amid their tears and sobs, and smiles and shouts’. See Uncle Tom’s cabin; or, life among the lowly. London n.d. (The Lily Series), p. vii (‘Introduction’).
Apart from this primary source, Van Gogh could have known the anecdote from L’amour by Jules Michelet (book 1, chapter 3): ‘Some-one asked the celebrated and charming Mrs Stowe how she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin: “Sir, by being the one who put the family’s dinner on the table”’ (Quelqu’un demandait à l’illustre et charmante madame Stowe, comment elle a fait l’Oncle Tom: “Monsieur, en faisant seule le pot-au-feu de la famille”’) (see Michelet, L’amour, p. 61).
10. For Dickens’s Contes de Noël, see letter 753, n. 3.
11. Van Gogh must be referring to Renan’s Vie de Jésus, which he mentioned in letter 763, together with his intention to read Renan’s L’Antéchrist. Regarding this book, see letter 30, n. 4.
b. Read: ‘connaisse’.
12. The saying ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss’ is used here to mean that someone who does not stay in the same place for long or does not practise the same trade long enough will never progress (WNT).
13. In March-April 1888 Van Gogh had made a series of paintings of orchards in blossom; see letter 600, n. 7.
14. The four orchards of 1889 are La Crau with peach trees in blossom (F 514 / JH 1681 [2779]), Orchard in blossom with a view of Arles (F 515 / JH 1683 [2780]), Orchard in blossom with a view of Arles (F 516 / JH 1685 [2781]) and Orchard (F 511 / JH 1386 [2584]).
[2779] [2780] [2781] [2584]
15. It is not known which book Willemien wrote about. Van Gogh writes ‘Drône’, but he certainly misread her handwriting. The writer Gustave Droz is the most likely candidate: in July 1889 Vincent was corresponding with Willemien about his book Monsieur, madame et bébé (see letter 785).
16. For this passage from Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, see letter 127, n. 12.
17. Elisabeth and Willemien were nursing the sick Mrs du Quesne in Soesterberg, as emerges from Theo’s letter to them both of 24 January 1889. The letter from Theo and Jo of 26 April 1889 is also addressed to both sisters (FR b919, FR b923). On 6 May Jo’s sister Mien received a postcard from Willemien in Soesterberg (FR b2900).
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