1. Van Gogh’s father’s 61st birthday was on 8 February 1883.

2. Biblical expression derived from Matt. 26:41, ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’.

3. For this article on Lhermitte, see letter 307, n. 4, which speaks of ‘a rude, massive, and primitive strength’.

4. It seems that Theo had written saying that Léon Augustin Lhermitte had made a drawing of Judas, but no such subject has been found in his oeuvre. Since Lhermitte is here mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt, it is possible that this is a reference to the latter’s painting of 1629, Judas returning the thirty pieces of silver (Yorkshire, Mulgrave Castle, Normanby Collection). Ill. 350 .

5. For Daumier’s Leaving the theatres , see letter 309, n. 5.

6. For Daumier’s The four ages of the drinker , see letter 267, n. 33.

7. For Daumier’s The barricade, see letter 305, n. 6. This could also refer to Daumier’s The Revolution , a painting about which Theo had written earlier (see letters 280 and 283).

8. For Balzac's Le père Goriot, see letter 170, n. 8.

9. For the eventual solution to controlling the fall of light by means of shutters, see letter 318, and the letter sketches in it. This torn-up letter was mentioned in letter 308.

10. The word ‘weak’ (‘laffe’) was added later.

11. Cf. Mark 4:29.

12. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ‘The courtship of Miles Standish’, part 2: ‘Love and friendship’: ‘That’s what I always say; if you wish a thing to be well done, / You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!’ See Longfellow 1886-1891, vol. 2, p. 292.

13. The ‘gift houses’, also known as Trinity houses, were the row of dwellings with gardens for the poor at Hogezand 2-24. The originally seventeenth-century houses were taken over by the city government in 1818; and from then on they were in the gift of the local council. See Johan Schwencke, Oude Haagse hofjes en godshuizen. Zaltbommel 1975, pp. 25-27.

14. It is possible that Van Gogh wrote ‘benaauwder’ (more anxious) instead of ‘benaauwden’ (anxious).

15. Josserand is a character in Emile Zola, Pot-bouille. For him cf. letter 286, n. 5.

16. These drawings of the ‘gift houses’ are not known.