1. Theo had confided in Vincent about his ‘dramatic’ (letter 336) meeting with his beloved Marie, who was ill in body and soul (letter 301). Her identity is not known. Born on the coast of Brittany (letter 301), she was a Roman Catholic (letter 351), childless and living alone. See also Hulsker 1990-1, pp. 127-129.

2. Very likely borrowed from Victor Hugo’s novel Quatre-vingt treize, which Van Gogh had recently read (letter 286). It does not contain the actual sentence ‘Par dessus la raison il y a la conscience’, but it describes how the character Gauvain is torn between his reason and his feelings: ‘Reasoning said one thing, feelings another; the two pieces of advice were contrary. Reasoning is only reason; feelings are often conscience; the one comes from man, the other from a higher place. That is what makes feelings have less clarity but greater force. And yet what power there is in severe reason!’ (Le raisonnement disait une chose; le sentiment en disait une autre; les deux conseils étaient contraires. Le raisonnement n’est que la raison; le sentiment est souvent la conscience; l’un vient de l’homme, l’autre vient de plus haut. C’est ce qui fait que le sentiment a moins de clarté et plus de puissance. Quelle force pourtant dans la raison sévère!). See Hugo 1965, p. 347.

a. Means: ‘weerleggen’ (refute).

3. It is impossible to say which head of a man this was. Vincent sent two to Theo (see letter 298).

4. Which head of a man this was is impossible to say.

5. For the term non ébarbé, see letter 217, n. 2.

6. It is impossible to say for certain which drawing this was, but Head of a woman (F 1005 / JH 292) is the result of a similar experiment. The ‘glancing lights’ Van Gogh talks about here are the lighter bands along her profile, where the paper has been left blank, and in the forehead, where it has been heightened with white. The face is shaded a fairly even grey (cf. the description ‘in tone’). Judging by the shadows and the fall of light, the light source is obliquely to the right of the woman. The white trim of her cap stands out clearly, despite the fact that the white body colour has turned grey. See cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 192-193, cat. no. 53.

7. The ‘second roll’, which contained five heads, was sent with letter 299; by ‘the first two’ Van Gogh means the first two studies of heads, which were sent with letter 298.

8. For these illustrations to Dickens by Frederick Barnard, see letter 235, n. 7. Where in London and when Van Gogh saw these drawings by Barnard is not known.

9. An allusion to ‘I can do nothing about it, I cannot keep her. She has been mine for a long time and I shall never have her’ (J’ai beau faire, je ne la tiens pas. Elle est à moi depuis longtemps et je ne l’aurai jamais), in Jules Michelet’s, La femme (Michelet 1863, p. 331).

10. A ‘phare à éclipse’ has not been traced in Hugo’s oeuvre, but a ‘phare à feux tournants’ does feature in the poem ‘Les quatre vents de l’esprit’. See Hugo 1972, vol. 2, p. 669.