1. An allusion to a passage in Michelet’s L’amour, book 5, chapter 6, entitled ‘L’unité, est-elle obtenue?’, in which it is said of love that it develops with time: ‘It was the Virgin’s thread, and in the end it’s a cable that would defy storms’ (C’était le fil de la Vierge, et c’est un câble à la fin qui défierait les tempêtes) (Michelet, L’amour, p. 397).

2. This idea that a thought alone is not enough, that it should lead to ‘action’, to a deed, may be borrowed from Carlyle: see letter 274, n. 11.

a. Means: ‘ik was er niet mee ingenomen’ (I was not pleased).

3. Van Gogh began working at Goupil’s in 1869.

4. Van Gogh could have encountered this saying in (among other places) Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge. A tale of the riots of ‘Eighty’. Ed. London 1890, chapter 20, p. 78.

5. In Le peuple (1846), Jules Michelet describes the spirit and qualities of the French working class. He discusses various economic and political transformations as France and Europe shifted from an agrarian to an industrial society, and examines the condition of the social classes.

6. Jules Michelet, La femme (1860; see letter 186, n. 2); L’amour (1858; see letter 26, n. 6); La mer (1861; see letter 143, n. 33) and Histoire de la Révolution française (1847-1853; see letter 143, n. 2).

7. The ‘periwig period’ was the last part of the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth century – when the upper classes wore wigs. The term also denotes a stylistic era associated with a loss of intellectual vigour, artificiality and formalistic, regimented affectation.

8. Van Gogh means: as honourable, effective and ‘natural’ as the men in Rembrandt’s Syndics

(cf. letter 121).

b. Figurative, means: ‘ongeïnspireerd’ (uninspired).

9. Taken from the second stanza of the poem ‘Levensvoorwaarde’ (Living condition) by P.A. de Génestet. See De Génestet 1869, vol. 2, pp. 61-62.

10. A reference to the passage in Madame Thérèse ou les volontaires de 92 in which Madame Thérèse – a republican – is badly wounded in fighting between the French and the Austrians. Thanks to the good care given her by Dr. Wagner, she recovers and her memories come back. The sickbed and the nursing are described movingly and in detail. Erckmann-Chatrian heralds the final recovery as follows: ‘The woman, very pale and very thin, appeared to be asleep; you could hardly hear her breathe. But after a moment she opened her eyes, and looked at us in turn, as if amazed, then at the end of the alcove, then at the windows, white with snow, the wardrobe, the old clock, then at the dog, who had stood up, its paw on the edge of the bed. This lasted a good minute; finally, she closed her eyes again, and her uncle said, very softly: “She has come to herself again”.’ (La femme, bien pâle et bien maigre, semblait dormir; on l’entendait à peine respirer. Mais au bout d’un instant elle ouvrit les yeux, et nous regarda l’un après l’autre, comme étonnée, puis le fond de l’alcôve, puis les fenêtres blanches de neige, l’armoire, la vieille horloge, puis le chien qui s’était dressé, la patte au bord du lit. Cela dura bien une minute; enfin elle referma les yeux, et l’oncle dit tout bas: “Elle est revenue à elle”). See Erckmann-Chatrian 1867, pp. 19-29 (quotation on p. 28).