2. An allusion to a passage in the novel Partie carrée (1851) by Théophile Gautier, which describes how the wedding guests arrived on a ‘foggy day’ in coaches at the Church of Sainte-Margareth. Ed. Pierre Laubriet. 2 vols. Paris 2002, vol. 2, chapter 4, pp. 35-37.

3. Queen Sophia of the Netherlands (wife of King Willem iii) was ill and would die on 7 June.

a. rookeries: Van Gogh wrote the Dutch ‘roekennesten’ and added ‘(rookeries)’.

4. Cromwell by Alphonse Marie Louis Prat de Lamartine originally appeared in Le civilisateur. Histoire de l’humanité par les grands hommes (1853-1854) and was included in Vies des grands hommes (1855-1856 and 1859), in Lamartine’s Oeuvres complètes (1863) and as a separate work, one such edition being the volume referred to here: Cromwell. Brussels 1854; Paris 1864; Paris 1872 and Versailles 1872.

Cromwell contains a passage about Hampton Court, which Van Gogh recollects in his letter. The closing remark – that a ‘sombre tone’ hangs over the whole – is a description of the book’s ending. See Cromwell. Paris 1864, pp. 235-236, 245-257.

5. The early sermon of 3 June could have been one of three possibilities: the Rev. J.C. van Marken preached in the Noorderkerk, the Rev. N.H. de Graaf in the Zuiderkerk, and the Rev. A.H.W. Brandt in the Nieuwezijdskapel. Brandt conducted his service in German, which makes it less likely that his was the sermon Van Gogh heard.

7. Matt. 9:12, Mark 2:17 and Luke 5:31.

8. The Amstelkerk, a wooden chapel of ease in Amstelveld, near Reguliersgracht and Kerkstraat. Stricker’s service was held at 10 a.m.

9. Cf. 1 Cor. 13:13.

10. For the flower market, see letter 109, n. 5.

11. In the 1870s, Jacob Maris painted many Italian flower girls.

13. Ellen Montgomery, the protagonist of Elizabeth Wetherell’s The wide, wide world, grew up in an affluent New York family. After the death of her parents, she is forced to go and live with relatives in Scotland, where she makes friends with the children of a local minister, Alice and John (the latter a divinity student) and associates with the cultured Marshman family. Ellen is an attractive girl who struggles against many sins, discovers Jesus on her difficult path through life, and finally becomes a confirmed Christian. When Margreet Meyboom was staying with the Van Gogh family in Etten, Mrs van Gogh found her to be ‘a dear girl, so refined and uncomplicated’ (FR b2536, to Theo, 17 June 1877).

14. The minister Louis Suson Pedro Meyboom belonged – as did Mr van Gogh – to the Groningen persuasion. J.P. Stricker wrote the ‘Levensbericht van Dr. L.S.P. Meyboom’, Levensberichten der afgestorvene medeleden van de Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde. Bijlage tot de Handelingen van 1875. Leiden 1875, pp. 165-202.

15. The quotation is taken from the poem ‘Under the stars’ (1875) by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik in Thirty years being poems new and old. By the author of “John Halifax, Gentleman” etc. London 1881, pp. 307-308. In the original text: ‘When earth-sounds cease, God’s voice is heard / Under the stars.’

16. There are a number of differences between Van Gogh’s copy and Lamartine’s text as it appears in the sources consulted. The following differences are the most striking with respect to the 1864 Paris edition (in which the text appears on pp. 8-9, 211-214, 235-236, 242-243, 245-257):

l. 56 une contrée ingrate et triste sort la foi vivre, ardente et profonde ] des contrées ingrates et tristes (p. 9)

l. 114 maladie ] agonie (p. 246)

l. 178 capitaine ] républica in (p. 252)

l. 201 repos ] paix (p. 254)

l. 205 nuit d’agonie ] nuit (p. 255)

l. 216 herbe ] paille (p. 256)

Van Gogh’s copy of the text is a combination of a passage from the beginning and parts from the end of the book. Van Gogh added ‘Jeunesse de Cromwell’ as a title for the passages he copied.

17. Van Gogh altered the source text, and the resulting sentence is incorrect. It originally read: ‘La superstition du peuple vit un prodige dans cette coïncidence d’une convulsion atmosphérique avec la dernière convulsion de son Machabée.’