1. For Rod’s Le sens de la vie, see letter 783, n. 5.

2. Regarding Souvestre’s Un philosophe sous les toits, see letter 93, n. 2.

3. The novel Monsieur, madame et bébé by Antoine Gustave Droz (1866) stresses the benefits of viewing marriage as a blessing and not as a grind.

4. Catharina du Quesne van Bruchem-Van Willis, a cancer patient nursed by Elisabeth and Willemien, had died in Soesterberg on 17 May 1889 (cf. letter 426, n. 1).

5. Regarding this consignment of eleven drawings, see letter 784, n. 16. Vincent wrote twice to Theo that it was ‘ten or so’ (letters 784 and 790).

6. From 1864 to 1866, Van Gogh had attended a boarding school in the North-Brabant town of Zevenbergen.

7. Paul Gauguin.

8. The large Vente Secrétan, at which 350 lots were sold, took place from 1 to 4 July 1889 at Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, located at 4bis rue de Rochefoucauld in Paris. See auct. cat. Paris 1889 (Lugt 1938-1987, no. 48407). Pierre-Etienne Secrétan was the owner of a copper foundry in Sérifonfaine, 85 km west of Paris. The angelus was sold for 553,000 francs on 1 July 1889, the first day of the sale. The auction had attracted a lot of attention. Jo van Gogh-Bonger wrote about it to her family in Amsterdam: ‘The whole street full of vehicles – unbearably hot inside and naturally a sea of people ... I shall be glad for Theo when it’s all over, for he is extremely busy’ (FR b4290, 27 June 1889). With regard to the painting, see letter 17, n. 3.

9. Emile Louis Vernier, lithograph after Millet’s The Angelus, 1881, published by Lemercier & Cie in Paris (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes). Ill. 2291

. Theo sent this lithograph soon after this to the Rev. Salles; see letter 792.

10. For this epitaph on the Carpentras Stele, see letter 753, n. 8. Van Gogh also quoted the inscription in his previous letter to Willemien (letter 764).

11. Regarding Shakespeare’s Richard ii, Henry iv and Henry v, see letter 784, n. 6. Henry vi (1590-1591) revolves around the battle between Lord Talbot and the advancing French army. The English lose ground, despite Talbot’s heroic command. Defeated in the end by domestic power conflicts, he is the innocent victim of the curse resting on the crimes committed by Richard ii.

The power of passion and the disastrous consequences of uncontrolled rage lead in King Lear (1606-1607) to the old king’s ruin. King Lear, determined to free himself of the burden of the throne, is in the end driven mad by bitter rage.

12. An allusion to the end of Voltaire’s Candide. Regarding this novel, see letter 568, n. 3.