1r:1
Ramsgate, 6 May 1876

My dear Theo,
Herewith you’ll find the 2 books I promised you.1 I’ve marked a few things in them, but you’ll certainly find many beautiful things in addition to these. As I wrote to you already, though, one starts to grow especially fond of them when one lives in the country itself.
It’s already Saturday evening again; the weather’s beautiful today: the sea is very calm and it’s low tide at the moment, the sky is a delicate whitish blue with a haze in the distance. Early this morning it was also beautiful, everything was clear, where now it’s more or less hazy.
This town has something very singular, one notices the sea in everything; but you know this special quality, too, because one finds it in The Hague and Scheveningen as well. Did you know that Anna  1v:2 has received an answer to her advertisements? This week she sent me 3 letters she’d received. I’m longing to hear what she’s decided. One of the letters came from Amsterdam, a situation as companion to an old lady, another letter was from Vaals2 and yet another from here in England. She may have received even more since then.3
She seems awfully eager for an opportunity to come into contact with families; in Amsterdam she would find this at once through Uncle Cor and Uncle Stricker.4
Do you still visit Uncle Cor now and then? Sometimes I long to see him so much; just yesterday I wrote to him. Keep him as your friend, there can’t be any harm in that. Sometime you must tell Mr Tersteeg about the school here. These are really happy days, the ones I’m spending here, day  1v:3 after day, and yet it’s a happiness and peacefulness that I don’t trust entirely, though one thing can lead to another.
A person isn’t easily satisfied, one moment he finds things far too good and the next he’s not satisfied enough. But I’m saying this by the by, we would do better not to talk about it, but rather continue quietly on our way. Have a good Sunday morning, and give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’, also to Mr and Mrs Tersteeg and Betsy, and in thought a handshake from

Your loving brother
Vincent

081

Br. 1990: 079 | CL: 65
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Ramsgate, Saturday, 6 May 1876
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1. Two English hymnals: see letter 80.
2. The Dutch town of Vaals – in the Netherlands’ southernmost province of Limburg – lies just over the border from the German city of Aachen.
3. These letters did not result in work for Anna; on or about 11 May 1876, she wrote to her parents: ‘The situation I applied for has come to nothing’ (FR b2749).
4. The minister Johannes Paulus Stricker was married to Willemina Catharina Gerardina Carbentus, a sister of Mrs van Gogh. The couple lived in Amsterdam.