Notes

Notes

 

Chapters

Chapters
121 1. "night prowlers" BVG 518, 8/6/1888.

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "'Night prowlers' can take refuge there when they have no money to pay for a lodging, or are too drunk to be taken in."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "This way the 'night prowlers' can find a refuge when they don't have the price of a lodging, or if they're too drunk to be admitted."

2. considered himself one of them BVG 518, 8/6/1888: Clearly, the "us" in this context refers to Vincent's kinship with his fellow patrons of the café, not to his relationship with Theo, who, because of his intense involvement with family and business in Holland, certainly did not qualify as someone who "[does] without a native country, as well as a family." (See Ch. 8, n. 1.)

Context:
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "All these things, family, native country, are perhaps more appealing in the imagination of such as us -- who do fairly well without a native country, as well as a family -- than in any reality" (emphasis added).

3. "family and native land" BVG 518, 8/6/1888.

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "All those things -- family, native land -- are perhaps more attractive in the imaginations of such people as us, who pretty well do without native land or family either, than they are in reality."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "All these things, family, native country, are perhaps more appealing in the imagination of such as us -- who do fairly well without a native country, as well as a family -- than in any reality."

4. "I am a traveler" BVG 518, 8/6/1888.

Context:
BVG 518, 8/6/1888: "I always feel I am a traveller, going somewhere and to some destination. If I tell myself that the somewhere and the destination do not exist, that seems to me very reasonable and likely enough."
JLB 656, 8/6/1888: "It always seems to me that I'm a traveller who's going somewhere and to a destination. If I say to myself, the somewhere, the destination don't exist at all, that seems well argued and truthful to me."

5. even a subway BVG 82, 11/25/1876.

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "That night I was back here at half past ten, I went part of the way with the underground railway."

6. mostly he walked De Maré, p. 55. Train travel was so cheap that it had virtually monopolized long-distance travel between population centers, which mean that most of England's inter-city roads were virtually deserted when Vincent walked them. 7. three miles an hour BVG 69, 6/17/1876: This reckoning is based on his pace in the city. His pace undoubtedly picked up in open country -- that is, when the country was not hilly, which it often was.

Context:
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "First a long walk from one end of the city to the other, something like 10 miles (each taking 20 minutes)."

8. he walked the beaches BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "After eating we went for a walk by the sea, it's beautiful there."

9. He walked the dockside BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "There's a harbour full of ships, closed in by stone jetties on which one can walk."

10. the huge jetties BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876: These jetties and the lighthouse, at their end, were the last sight of home for thousands of British soldiers who sailed from Ramsgate to fight Napoleon. (See Ch. 8, n. 9.)

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "There's a harbour full of ships, closed in by stone jetties on which one can walk."

122 11. gnarled hawthorne bushes BVG 63, 4/28/1876.

Context:
BVG 63, 4/28/1876: "Arriving there, we saw to our left a high steep ridge of sand and stone as tall as a two-storey house. On the top of it were old, gnarled hawthorn bushes, whose black and grey moss-grown stems and branches were all bent to one side by the wind; there were also a few elder bushes."
JLB 79, 4/28/1876: "When we got there we had on our left a high, steep wall of sand and stone, as high as a two-storey house, on top of which stood old, gnarled hawthorn bushes. Their black or grey, lichen-covered stems and branches had all been bent to the same side by the wind, also a few elder bushes."

 12. "That is quite a stroll" BVG 69, 6/17/1876. For Theo, Vincent describes this "walk" and his adventures along the way as if it were a lost chapter of Candide: "when I left it was awfully hot and it remained so until the evening, when I arrived at Canterbury. That same evening I walked a bit further until I came to a couple of large beeches and elms next to a small pond, where I rested for a while. In the morning at half past 3 the birds began to sing upon seeing the morning twilight, and I continued on my way. It was good to walk then. ... In the afternoon I arrived at Chatham, where, in the distance, past partly flooded, low-lying meadows, with elms here and there, one sees the Thames full of ships. It's always grey weather there, I think. There I met a cart that brought me a couple of miles further, but then the driver went into an inn and I thought he might stay there a long time, so I walked on and arrived towards evening in the well-known suburbs of London and walked on towards the city down the long, long 'Roads.'"

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "That is quite a stroll, the moment that I started on my way, it became very hot, and the same heat waited for me on my arrival at Canterbury."
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "That's a long walk indeed, and when I left it was awfully hot and it remained so until the evening, when I arrived at Canterbury."

13. A steamboat up the Thames Although steamboats as a means of intra-city commuter transport had mostly died out by this time, they were still highly active on the route to the coastal resorts, competing fiercely with the railroads well into the twentieth century. According to Whyman, steamboats carried more than 1.7 million passengers to Margate (near Ramsgate) during the 1890s, which was three times the number they had carried in the 1880s (Whyman, in Cates and Chamberlain, eds., p. 86). 14. a handful of pennies Whyman, in Cates and Chamberlain, eds., p. 84: According to Whyman, one-way ticket prices were as low as 1-2 shillings. A shilling was 12 pennies (pence). 15. He slept one night BVG 85, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877. At the time, Vincent told Theo that he spent two nights in London, the first night with "Mr." (presumably George Robert Reid, an English artist and dealer whom Vincent had befriended during his previous stay in England (see n.6-122 and JLB 82, note 7); the second night with Harry Gladwell's father, Henry Gladwell (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). However, the following winter (1877), Vincent gave a different account of his stopover in London, recalling “the streets of London in the rain with the street-lamps, and a night spent there on the steps of an old, small grey church, as happened to me this summer after that journey from Ramsgate" (JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877). There are two possibilities: that he did not stay with Reid (such a stay would have been difficult for Theo to confirm), or that he stayed in London for more than two nights. The latter seems unlikely as neither Reid nor Gladwell would have turned him out to sleep in the street. The natural assumption, therefore, is that he spent the first night on the church steps, perhaps because he arrived too late to seek out either “friend.” (As far as is known, Vincent had not yet met the senior Gladwell.) The possibility that Vincent invented the night on the church steps would appear to be undercut by his subsequent accounts.

As early as July 1876, Vincent’s parents knew about his trek “from Ramsgate to London and from there to Welwyn” and “the night he spent outside” (b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876). In 1882, Vincent recalled to Theo “those years when I was abroad without friends or assistance, in great misery (so that I often had to sleep in the streets in London)" (JLB 221, 4/26/1882). Apparently to avoid the implication that Vincent lied to his brother, Hulsker proposes an especially improbable alternative explanation: that Vincent backtracked to Ramsgate before going to Isleworth, thus creating a second "arrival" from Ramsgate (Hulsker, pp. 38-39).

Context:
JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877: "… the streets of London in the rain with the street-lamps, and a night spent there on the steps of an old, small grey church, as happened to me this summer after that journey from Ramsgate …"

16. only two restless days BVG 69, 6/17/1876. The reliability of this account is suspect; (see Ch. 8, n. 15.). One thing seems clear, however during this short stopover in London, Vincent stayed on the move: "I often ran from one end of the city to the other" (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). Context: JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "I spent one night at Mr. Reid's and the next at Mr. Gladwell's, where they were very, very kind." 17. before setting off againVincent wrote that he set off from London for Welwyn “about four o'clock in the morning.” It is unclear when or how or even if this trip was planned.. When Vincent left Ramsgate for London, he did not declare his intention to visit Welwyn. He wrote only: "Last Monday I left Ramsgate for London," which suggests that London was the original intended destination (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). We suspect that the goal kept moving because movement, pure and simple, was the ultimate purpose of the trip. 18. twenty-five miles to Isleworth Hulsker suggests the possibility that Vincent returned to Ramsgate from Welwyn, before traveling to Isleworth -- a back-track of almost two hundred miles (Hulsker, p. 38). If true, it would certainly support the argument in the text: that Vincent was traveling for traveling's sake. However, such a trip seems highly unlikely to us (see Ch. 8, n. 15). 19. walked the route again and again Pickvance, pp. 8-9: Pickvance lists the trips to London that can be deduced from the letters, of which there are six or seven. 20. in all weathers b2773 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/29/1876: "Vincent left Saturday to go to London to do some visiting. It rains so often." 21. two or three times BVG 70, 7/5/1876.

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Last week I was in London a couple of times to find out if there's a possibility of my becoming one."

22. a dozen lesser trips BVG 82, 11/25/1876. Vincent gives a perfect example of this sort of “mushrooming” journey in a letter from November: "The day before I'd gone on a long journey to London, I left here at 4 in the morning, arrived at Hyde Park at half past six ... from there on to Whitechapel, that poor district of London, then to Chancery Lane and Westminster, then to Clapham to visit Mrs. Loyer again, her birthday was the day before. I also went to Mr. Obach's to see his wife and children again. ... Then from there to Lewisham, ... That night I was back here [in Isleworth] at half past ten, I went part of the way with the underground railway." (JLB 99, 11/25/1876.) 23. see his old workplace BVG 75, 10/3/1876.

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "In London I visited one or two people and also went to the gallery of Messrs Goupil & Cie …"

24. visit a former associate BVG 76, 10/7/1876: In October, Vincent reported that he went to see Elbert van Wisselingh, with whom he had worked in Paris. Wisselingh had come to London the previous year to work in the art dealership of Daniel Cottier.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "Afterwards I went to see [Van Wisselingh]."

25. view a a landmark church BVG 76, 10/7/1876. In October, Vincent reported touring St. Paul’s Church after visiting Harry Gladwell’s father, whose gallery was located at 20-21 Gracechurch Street in The City.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "In the City I also went to see Mr. Gladwell and to St Paul's [Church]."

26. to keep moving BVG 76, 10/7/1876: Even when he stayed in Isleworth, Vincent was rarely stationary. At every opportunity, he ventured out to neighboring communities along the Twickenham Road or the London High Road, or the Thames. In June, he walked almost seven miles south to Hampton Court. In the same letter, Vincent reported taking “a lovely walk to a village an hour away from here" (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). At Vincent's pace, an hour's walk would have taken him about three miles, which means that the village he visited could have been located anywhere from Hounslow on the west to Twickenham on the south to Ealing on the north to East Sheen on the east. Given the circumstances (a school outing), he probably headed west, toward the Hounslow heath (now the site of Heathrow airport). 27. to visit sick students BVG 76, 10/7/1876. Vincent makes clear that these visits were not solely motivated by compassion; they also were intended to verify that the student was actually sick and not just delinquent, in which case the school fees might be lost. Bailey quotes the minutes of the Turnham Green teacher's meeting of November 19, 1876, at which Vincent was officially accepted into the group: "Finally, it was agreed that 'Mr. Vincent be supplied with all the names & addresses of the scholars in the school & that he go round to each class for particulars of those who require visiting’" (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 93-94).

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "… I visited a boy who had left Mr. [William] Stokes's school because of illness, and I found him completely recovered, outside in the street."

28. school fees BVG 76, 10/7/1876.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "[I went] from the City to the other end of London … Then on to the place where I had to collect the money for Mr. [Slade-]Jones."

29. city's remotest neighborhoods BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. Vincent appears to be referring not just to the distantness of these neighborhoods, but to their otherworldliness – especially their poverty.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "Tomorrow I have to be in two remote parts of London, in Whitechapel -- that extremely poor area which you'll have read about in Dickens."

30. considered going to Liverpool BVG 75, 10/3/1876.

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "I heard about a situation that might be of future interest. The clergymen in such seaside places as Liverpool and Hull, for example, often have need of assistants who speak various languages."

31. sailing to South America b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876: Dorus wrote to Theo in astonishment: "We try to put heart into [Vincent] and write him in a friendly tone, but still: when contemplating a matter like South America one must first and foremost use common sense." 32. "One sometimes asks" BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "A man sometimes says, how shall I manage it?"

33. spoke about breaking chains BVG 82, 11/25/1876: In November, Vincent reports reading Acts 12:5-17, in which an angel breaks Peter's chains, releasing him from Herod's prison. The image of a man being freed from chains also figures prominently in a picture that was a cornerstone of Vincent's spiritual quest in the fall of 1876: Ary Scheffer's Christus Consolator. In July, Vincent specifically cited the inscription on his print of the painting: "He is come to preach deliverance to the captives" (JLB 86, 7/8/1876; emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "I read Acts V: 14-16. Acts XII: 5-17, Peter in prison, and Acts XX: 7-37, Paul preaching in Macedonia, and then I told the story of John and Theagenes yet again."

34. "safety" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "I like teaching Bible history to the boys better than walking [in Paris]; one feels more or less safe in doing the former."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "But I think that I prefer doing biblical history with the boys to walking [in Paris]; one feels more or less safe doing the former."

35. escaping from the sin BVG 72, 8/2/1876: In an unusually opaque passage (typical for Vincent when the subject was painfully self-disclosive), Vincent wrote generally about the torment that converts to Christ suffered when forced to acknowledge their previous sins. "[T]hey -- look, their eyes sometimes grow moist with tears of wistfulness as they think back on their young years and on 'the good things with which He satisfied them.' True rest and peace begin only 'when there is nothing more in which to rest' and when there is ‘none upon earth they desire beside God.’ ... Then there is a 'woe is me' in them, and a beseeching 'who shall deliver me from the body of this death', and yet that is the best time of life, and blessed are they who reach that high peak." (JLB 87, 8/2/1876; emphasis in original.) 36. "deceitful tranquility" BVG 72, 8/2/1876. Continuing his confessional catharsis (see Ch. 8, n. 36), VIncent compares the state of converts before and after conversion.

Context:
BVG 72, 8/2/1876: "Their sublime peace they have now is nevertheless worth more that their deceitful tranquility of before, because tranquility and real peace begin only from the moment where 'there is nothing left in which to rest" and that "one no longer loves anything on earth, except God.'"
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "Yet their exalted peace is better than the deceptive peace of bygone days. True rest and peace begin only 'when there is nothing more in which to rest' and when there is 'none upon earth they desire beside God.'" (Emphasis in original.) 37. He read books about criminals BVG 73, 8/18/1876. The book was A Life for a Life (1859) by Dinah Maria Mulock (later Craik), an epistolary novel about two sinners, a murderer and an adulteress, who flee together to Canada. Vincent referred to the novel by Craik, who also wrote John Halifax, also using its Dutch title, Uit het leven voor het leven (JLB 88, 8/18/1876).

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "Have you ever read 'A life for a life,' I think in Dutch it's called 'Uit het leven voor het leven,' by the woman who wrote John Halifax?"

38. the ultimate escape of death BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: Typically, Vincent uses a convoluted construction to reveal this embracing view of death (startling for a twenty-three-year-old).

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "How often has the memory of one who is already departed to our Father's house where there are many mansions warmed me and made my heart glow with Love in the streets of London."

39. kept them elaborately informedb2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876. Vincent did not wait long after his self-punishing walk from Ramsgate to Welwyn to inform his parents about it. Dorus wrote to Theo complaining about it in early July: “[Vincent] walked from Ramsgate to London and from there to Welwyn, and he even spent a night outside.” The report had its inevitable (and probably intended) effect: “Those are excesses that aren't right,” Dorus added. “I hope things will take a turn for the better and he will become a more normal and practical person.” The same week, Anna sent Theo a despairing letter related to the worrisome (and, apparently, ambiguous) reports from Vincent: "He wrote us that he had arrived safely in London; we don't know if he indeed walked there. He wanted to talk to a Reverend in London. That seems to be his wish; I hope he gets around to it and is subsequently satisfied … Those futureless wanderings made us so melancholic." (b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876.) 40. lapsed into ominous silenceb2755 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876.) In July, Anna complained to Theo that Vincent "doesn't write anything about his stay. But it's no wonder he forgets things from time to time and that he is consumed with his own affairs, so are we, as you can imagine, although we try to put courage into him, for he needs it." Four months later, Anna was still complaining: "nothing from Vincent" (b2787 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/26/1876). 41. a combination perfectly designed Illuminating in this regard is a letter from Anna to Theo from 1873, which shows the relationship in the parents' minds between physical and moral wandering. It laments over the fate of a relative named Bertha: "I fear that she has set foot on the slippery path ... her reputation is not very favorable either and it is said that she often wanders around ... I should give you the advice to keep your distance. Try to remain polite but avoid going out with her ... It is sad for her parents." (b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873; emphasis added.) 42. punish them with worry b0954 V/1962, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/15/1876: Vincent's parents' anxiety was already in a stretched state. Only a month after Vincent left Etten, his fourteen-year-old sister Wil returned from England unaccompanied -- to the horror and exhaustive worry of her parents. "Our hearts beat faster when we think of that sea voyage," Dorus wrote, "and all alone, too. But we pray God will accompany her." (b2749 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/12/1876.) Other members of the family saw the toll Vincent's wanderings were taking on their parents. Lies, normally sympathetic to Vincent, wrote Theo: "Do you hear from Vincent once in a while? I don't. How much worry this boy is causing Pa and Ma. You can really see it in their faces." (b2766 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/18/1876.) 43. "He keeps making" b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876. 123 44. "In those years" BVG 191, 4/15/1882-4/30/1882. Vincent wrote this assessment six years later.

Context:
BVG 191, 4/15/1882-4/30/1882: " ... in those years when I was abroad without friends or help, suffering great misery (so that in London I often had to sleep in the open air ..."
JLB 221, 4/26/1882: " … in those years, when I was abroad without friends or assistance, in great misery (so that I often had to sleep in the streets in London) …"

45. huge burden of guiltAnother example of Vincent’s obsession with guilt, not mentioned in the text, is his obsession with Dinah Craik’s novel A Life for a Life (see Ch. 8, n. 29), which is an extended dialog on the themes of guilt and reparation. 46. "Keep me from being" BVG 67, 5/31/1876. This entire passage aches with shame: "Keep me from being a son that maketh ashamed; give me Thy blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my mother's sake. Thou art love, cover all things.” Vincent sounded the same themes of guilt and self-reproach in an autobiographical sketch he wrote in Ramsgate: "When I think of my past life,” he wrote, incorporating a passage from Luke 15:21, “‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me.’” (JLB 84, 6/17/1876.)

These feelings of guilt and shame were no doubt what prevented Vincent from taking a side trip to see Theo during his long layover in Rotterdam on the way from Etten to Ramsgate. Rather than admit as much to Theo, however, Vincent offered only a weak excuse for his failure to visit: "When I was in Rotterdam and saw that I'd have to wait there a long time, I very nearly came to The Hague, even went to the station. And yet I didn't do it, I hope that later I'll be able to see everyone and everything there again with a calmer eye." (JLB 78, 4/24/1876.) The same guilt may explain why Vincent instructed his brother "Don't tell them about me" with regard to friends like the Tersteegs and the Rooses (JLB 86, 7/8/1876).

Context:
BVG 67, 5/31/1876: " Keep me from being a son that maketh ashamed; give me Thy blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my mother's sake. Thou art love, cover all things."
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: " Keep me from being a son that causeth shame, give me Your blessing, not because I deserve it, but for my Mother's sake. Thou art Love, beareth all things."

47. "great inadequacy" BVG 69, 6/17/1876. Vincent offers this confession as one of his two justifications for seeking a vocation in the church.

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "But the reason I would much sooner give for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and everything to do with the church, which may lie dormant from time to time but always reawakens; and, if I may say so, although with a sense of great inadequacy and imperfection: the Love of God and of man."
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "But what I should prefer to give as my reason for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and that which concerns the church, which has at times lain dormant, though it awakened repeatedly, and -- if I may say so, despite feelings of great inadequacy and shortcoming -- the Love of God and of humankind."

48. "imperfection" BVG 69, 6/17/1876.

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "But the reason I would much sooner give for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and everything to do with the church, which may lie dormant from time to time but always reawakens; and, if I may say so, although with a sense of great inadequacy and imperfection: the Love of God and of man."
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "But what I should prefer to give as my reason for commending myself to you is my innate love of the church and that which concerns the church, which has at times lain dormant, though it awakened repeatedly, and -- if I may say so, despite feelings of great inadequacy and shortcoming -- the Love of God and of humankind."

49. "unworthiness" BVG 69, 6/17/1876.

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "I started to write with the sentiment of 'Father, I am not worthy' and 'Father, have pity on me.'"
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "… the feeling I have as I start out is 'Father, I am not worthy!' and 'Father be merciful to me!'"

50. "hating his own life" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: We have altered the translation slightly.

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "Whoever doth not hate his own life cannot be a disciple of Christ."
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "He who hate not his own life, he cannot be Christ's disciple."

51. "forget the sins of my youth" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. We have altered the translation slightly.

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "And then, boy, as I told you before, there is a strong craving for the day when He will no longer remember the sins of my youth."
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "And then, old boy, as I said earlier, there is a strong yearning for the day when He will no longer remember the iniquities of our youth."

52. "Who shall deliver me" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. (See also Ch. 5, n. 240.)

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: " Who shall deliver me completely and forever / From the body of this deed; bowed down beneath the yoke, / How long shall I have to fight against myself / Before I can tear this heart away from the service of sin?"
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: " Who shall free us fully and for ever / From the body of this death, bent beneath the yoke? / How long must I still combat my nature / Ere this heart from sinful service be revoked?"

53. excited Vincent's imaginationVincent’s fascination with wandering may have been rooted in childhood adventures to the creek bank and the heath in Zundert. The sense of a wider world to be explored would have been brought literally to his doorstep on the Markt by the big coaches from Breda and Antwerp that discharged their passengers, even through-passengers, while their teams were changed at the nearby stables. The tree-lined Napoleonsweg that ran through the town brought all manner of exotic travelers. In addition, letters from his globe-trotting uncles, especially Jan and Cent, reported on faraway lands, strange cultures, and opportunities for adventure. Vincent’s fascination with leave-takings and homecomings (rare events in the island parsonage) was only compounded by his painful exile of schooling and his deep reading in Romantic poetry and Victorian bildungsromans. But his departure from Paris in 1876 marked a feverish upsurge in this old obsession. 54. Longfellow's Evangeline BVG 51, 1/1/1876.

Context:
JLB 66, 1/17/1876: "I'd like to send you a Longfellow and 'Andersen's fairy tales,' I'll see if I can find them. If I do send them, read especially Longfellow's Evangeline …"

55. same author's Hyperion BVG 55, 2/19/1876. Vincent described this book as "beautiful" even before reading it (i.e., based on rumor). Given his fondness for all things Longfellow, he surely read it subsequently and admired it.

Context:
JLB 70, 2/19/1876: "I haven't read Hyperion yet, but have heard that it's beautiful."

56. Tales of a Wayside Inn BVG 57, 3/25/1876. Vincent was drawn especially to one of these tales: "King Robert of Sicily," about a young man who found "the world he loved so much / Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). Vincent recommended the poem to Theo in January 1876, shortly after his dismissal from Goupil, at a time when Theo was taking English lessons (JLB 66, 1/17/1876).

Context:
JLB 72, 3/23/1876: "You know that I once went to Brighton on foot. I always think back on it with pleasure. Lodging-houses in England are often so pleasant, Longfellow describes this well in Tales of the wayside inn."

57. The Wide, Wide WorldElizabeth Wetherell was the pen name of American novelist Susan Bogert Warner. Published in 1850, The Wide, Wide World went through fourteen editions in only two years. It has been referred to as "a feminist Huckleberry Finn" (Foster and Simons, p. 38). 58. read the book to his students BVG 64, 5/1/1876. 

Context:
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "I've also tried to get them to read, I have quite a few things that would be suitable for them, 'The wide, wide world' &c. &c."

59. sent a copy to Theo BVG 68, 8/16/1876-8/17/1876. It is not clear if Vincent intended the Wetherell book for Theo or for Caroline Haanebeek.

Context:
JLB 91, 9/16/1876-9/22/1876: "Herewith the 'Wijde wijde wereld' and another little book, give one of them to Caroline."

60. Le conscrit Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813 (1864). 61. he copied out in pages Vincent copied out extended passages from Le conscrit at least twice: once in a letter to Theo (JLB 89, 8/26/1876), and once in the visitor's book for the Slade-Joneses (reproduced in Pabst, p. 65-66). 62. "The hour of leavetaking" Le conscrit (Paris 1855), pp. 20-25, reproduced in Pabst, p. 65-66. Here is the larger passage in the parting scene from which the bit in the text is taken: "The hour of leavetaking has struck! ... Squeezing his mother's hand, [the conscript] looks around him, taking in with a loving eye the humble cottage which housed his cradle, the heath land and the woods where he spent his childhood. ... [H]e covers his face in his hand to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks and says in an almost unintelligible voice: 'Adieu.' ... [but] his mother cannot let her child go. With her kisses she staunches the bitter tears which run down his cheeks, and utters unimaginable words of love and affection, and weeps on his shoulder ... He kisses her forehead and in a heart-rending voice cries 'Adieu!'"

Here is the passage in the original French: “Tout est prêt: it va partir. Déjà il a serré la main de sa mere d’une étreinte plus vive et fait un pas en avant; mais il jette les yeux autour de lui, embrasse d’un regard affectueux l’humble chaumière qui abrita son beceau, la bruyère et les bois témoins de son enface et les champs arides si souvent fécondés par les sueurs de sa jeunesse! Puis son œil s’arrête tour à tour sur les yeux de tous ceux qu’il aime, sur les yeux de ce bœuf aussi, le compagnon de ses rudes travaux; il courve son visage de sa main, cache les larmes qui coulent sur ses joues, et dit d’une voix preque inintelligible: -- Adieu!” (Henri Conscience, Le conscrit [Paris: Michel Lévy, 1862], 33-34.) 63. Les adieux BVG 49, 12/13/1875. Les Adieux (The Farewell) by Gustave Brion. In addition to recommending this print to Theo (along with some sexual self-restraint advice), Vincent also gave a copy of it to his sister Anna (JLB 54, 10/6/1875). (See Ch. 8, n. 427.)

Context:
JLB 62, 12/13/1875: "Take the portrait of Father and Mother and take 'Farewells' by Brion, and then read Heine with those three before your eyes; then you'll see what I mean." 64. he sent a version of itBVG 66, 5/12/1876.  The print, a photogravure called, Après le depart. Plage de Scheveningue (Pays-bas) ("After the departure. Beach at Scheveningen" [Netherlands]) was by Philip Lodewijck Jacob Frederik Sadée. The plan was apparently carried through, as Vincent’s parents later gave the same print, which hung on the wall in their living room in Etten, to their daughter Anna as a wedding present. (See JLB 82, 5/12/1876; n. 6.) Unaddressed in later correspondence is the issue of what role Vincent played in the “plan” to give this work in particular to his parents. It appears to have been technically a gift from Theo to their parents (“your plan to give Pa and Ma”). Perhaps it was a joint gift. Perhaps Vincent advised or guided the choice. Some role is clearly implied by Vincent’s dispositive “that’s agreed, then” (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 82, 5/12/1876: "I think your plan to give Pa and Ma 'After the departure' by Sadée is very good; that's agreed, then."

65. the road of life b2228 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/16/1876: Anna, Vincent's mother, was the original symbolist in the Van Gogh house: "our Heavenly Father sees us and wants to help us even when we stumble, fall, and get up, and fall again ... That road is required for our development." (Emphasis in original.) 66. his father treasured a printThe image was Jacobus van der Maaten's Burial in a Cornfield, depicting a mournful procession moving its way half-hidden on a path through high stalks of corn. (For its presence in the Zundert parsonage, see Ch. 3, n. 44.)  In 1875, Vincent hung on his wall  -- and later pasted into his scrapbook of his favorite images -- a similar image: Richard Parkes Bonnington's "Une route" (JLB 37, 7/6/1875; see Bailey, Van Gogh in England, pp. 37 and 43, n. 4). The painting on which the print was based is now called Near Boulogne. In Bonnington's image, a wheel-scarred road leads straight back toward a storm-shadowed town in the distance. 67. path through a cornfield Perhaps as a result of his early exposure to images like van der Maaten's Burial in the Cornfield, Vincent always looked for the path when he painted landscapes. "Yesterday I saw around 6 paintings by [Georges] Michel," he wrote Theo in 1876, "sunken roads through sandy soil leading to a mill, or a man going home over the heath or sandy ground with a grey sky above, so simple and so fine" (JLB 73, 3/28/1876). Also note that two of the few paintings Vincent ever mentioned from the National Gallery in London involved landscapes with roads or paths: Meindert Hobbema's The Avenue at Middelharnis, and John Constable's Cornfield (JLB 453, 8/4/1884). 68. showing a rough country road (See Ch. 8, n. 66.) 69. "Does the road go uphill" BVG 41, 10/6/1875: The poem is Christina Georgina Rossetti's “Up-hill”. Vincent must have committed this poem, or at least the first stanza, to memory. When he appended it to a letter to Theo in 1875, he made a number of small errors, clearly indicating that he was working from memory:
"Does the road go uphill then all the way?
Yes to the very end.'
'And will the journey take all day long?
'From morn till night, my friend.'"

He included the exact same paraphrase of Rossetti’s poem when he rendered it again in a letter almost a year later (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). This is the poem in its entirety:

             Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
             Yes, to the very end.
             Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
             From morn to night, my friend.
             But is there for the night a resting-place?
             A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
             May not the darkness hide it from my face?
             You cannot miss that inn.
             Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
             Those who have gone before.
             Then must I knock, or call when 'ust in sight?
             They will not keep you standing at that door.
             Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
             Of labor you shall find the sum.
             Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
             Yea, beds for all who come.

 124 70. a pilgrim in every traveler Thomas Carlyle's heroic portrait of Oliver Cromwell may have ushered puritans and pilgrims into Vincent's imaginative world. Vincent first mentioned Puritans in the fall of 1873 in the context of a painting by his early London favorite, George Boughton, Puritans Going to Church. (JLB 11, 7/20/1873 and JLB 14, 10/16/1873 and 10/31/1873). At that time, however, his interest appears to have been more in the artist than in the subject matter. It was not until the winter of 1875-76 (the winter he read Carlyle) that depiction of pilgrims first appeared on his wall: a print after The Pilgrims of St. Odille by Gustave Brion (JLB 55, 10/11/1875). Vincent apparently saw the Boughton painting God Speed! Pilgrims Setting out for Canterbury at the Royal Academy in 1874, but it did not make any significant impression on him until 1876, after he had read Carlyle. 71. "If you want to" Kempis, p. 21. 72. for the Holy City Pabst, p. 42: "A pilgrim aspiring to higher things / Sets out for the holy city." The poem’s first, second, penultimate, and final stanzas give a good sense of its religio-romantic rapture. The following is a version of this poem from The Songs and Ballads of Uhland (translated by W. W. Skeat, pp. 191-192):

             A pilgrim, urged by impulse strong,
             To God's Blest City takes his way,
             The city of celestial song
             For which the Spirit bids him pray.

             'Clear stream, within thy mirror bright
             Its gates shall soon reflected lie;
             Ye rocky hills suffused with light,
             E'en now from far its towers ye spy.

             I hear a sound like distant bells,
             Eve tints the grove with crimson light;
             Had I but wings o'er lonely dolls
             And mountain-peaks to waft my flight!'

             A lofty joy his thoughts o'erpowers,
             He feels by welcome toil o'ercome;
             And, sinking down 'mid fragrant flowers,
             Lies musing on his heavenly home.

             'Too lengthy still the distance seems
             To satisfy my hope's fierce fires;
             Enflold my spirit, soothing dreams!
             Show me the Vale my soul desires!'

             The parted clouds asunder fly,
             His angel bright looks down from thence:
             'Can I to thee the strength deny,
             To whom I gave the hope intense?'

             Such hopes, such dreams, with promise rife,
             Are to the fainting soul as dew;
             But nobler is the strenuous strife
             That makes each pleasant dream come true!

             Mid morning's balms he fades again --
             The pilgrim wakes with strength renewed;
             O'er hills and clefts he toils amain,
             Soon at the golden gates he stood.

             And lo! Spread out like Mother's arms,
             The City opes each folding door;
             Its heavenly music soothes and charms
             The Son whose toilsome course is o'er.

 73. a book of Dutch poetry De Leeuw, pp. 55-56: De Leeuw argues persuasively that this poem was on Vincent's mind as he prepared his first sermon in October 1876. When Vincent was still in Paris, his father had given him the volume by Petrus de Génestet in which the poem appears, but Vincent did not admit reading in it until October (JLB 94, 10/13/1876). In February of the next year, he copies it out in a letter to Theo (JLB 104, 2/28/1877). 74. copied into a letter( See Ch. 8, n. 73.) 75. "uphill road to a better life" De Leeuw, pp. 55-56. This quote is actually from another De Génestet poem which Vincent quoted around the same time (JLB 94, 10/13/1876). 76. The Pilgrim's Progress The full title is The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that Which is to Come: Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream. Some distraction has been caused by Vincent's statement almost a year later that Harry Gladwell had given him a copy of Pilgrim's Progress. The terms of his announcement can be taken to suggest that he had not previously owned a copy of the book (JLB 130, 9/7/1877; see De Leeuw, p. 54-55, n. 10). As indicated in the text, the book would likely have been available in every house in which Vincent stayed from the time he arrived in London in 1873. The Englishman Gladwell might well have had a copy when the two shared a boarding house in Paris in 1875-76. 77. "If you ever" BVG 82, 11/25/1876.

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "If you can ever get Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress, it's very worthwhile reading."

78. abandons home and family It should be noted that, as the book's full title suggests (see Ch. 8, n. 76), Bunyan framed his entire story as a dream. 79. a dangerous journey Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 55: The "subtitle" of the original (1678) edition is: "Wherein is Discovered, the manner of his setting out, His Dangerous Journey; And safe Arrival at the Desired Countrey." Faithful (a character) reports what Christian's neighbors back in Destruction (a city) are saying about his departure: "I heard some of them deridingly speak of you, and of your desperate Journey (for so they called this your Pilgrimage) ..." 80. beside the BibleMendes da Costa, “Personal Reminiscences of Vincent van Gogh,” in Stein, ed., p. 44: According to Mendes da Costa, Vincent’s tutor in Amsterdam in 1877, Vincent placed Bunyan's book beside the Bible. Da Costa quotes his student as saying: "John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is of much more use to me, as is Thomas à Kempis and a translation of the Bible; more than that I don't need." The Romantics hailed Bunyan as a "natural genius" for fusing the immediacy of real life with the immanence of a higher reality (John Bunyan, p. 482). Charles Spurgeon gave credit to Pilgrim's Progress for his conversion and he himself was often praised as "a second Bunyan" (Drummond, p. 573). 81. "For my part" BVG 82, 11/25/1876. Bunyan's own story may also have been a source of inspiration and comfort to Vincent's wanderings -- reassurance that his journey, in fact, led someplace. (Bunyan's equally remarkable autobiography, Grace Abounding [1666] was widely available and Vincent was a glutton for biography. A tinker by profession and preacher by calling, Bunyan confessed to "all manner of vice and ungodliness" in his youth, as well as abnormal sensitivity, nervous intensity, and feelings of guilt so severe that he suffered delusions (he was posthumously diagnosed with "epilepsy") (John Bunyan, pp. 481-482). It was the "storm" of these early years of spiritual despair, according to Grace Abounding, that made him a successful lay preacher. "I went myself in Chains to preach to them in Chains" (Bunyan, The Entire Works of John Bunyan, Volume I, p. 36). After more trials and several imprisonments, Bunyan finally arrived at his own promised land -- what he called the "Country of Beulah” (Pilgrim's Progress, p. 126 (a reference based on Isaiah 62:4) -- in a final decade of literary achievement and spiritual fulfillment not unlike the productive last act of Vincent’s life. Bunyan was released from prison for the final time in 1672. Pilgrim's Progress was published in 1678. Bunyan died in 1688. His other two major works were The Holy War (published in 1682) and The Pilgrim's Progress, Second Part (1684).

Interestingly, one of the works Bunyan also published was A Book for Boys and Girls (1686), a volume of poetry to accompany (and comment on) emblematic pictures. Vincent may well have seen a copy of this book. It was a format with which he was familiar and this was a time when he was himself involved in shaping a religious curriculum for young children. In our opinion, the latter task foreshadows in many ways Vincent's approach to art-making. Sund argues that Pilgrim's Progress is "autobiographical at its core" (Sund, pp. 29-30). While Bunyan, like his hero Christian, did endure years of spiritual "wandering" before his conversion, there is no reason to believe that Vincent would have detected autobiographical elements in Progress's "mythical rendering of Bunyan's own conversion" (ibid.). It is much more likely that Vincent searched out the real and readily available autobiographical material.

Also, we do not see the basis (either in Bunyan or in Vincent's writings) for Solomon's elaborate argument about Bunyan's "inversion of religious redemption" and Progress's influence on Vincent's "localization" of salvation in the lower classes (Bailey, Van Gogh in England, pp. 96-102). First, as discussed in the text, Vincent considered but then shrank from working with the poor at this time; second, Solomon's socio-economic reading of Bunyan is anachronistic. The truly poor, even farm laborers, have almost no presence in Progress (a few pastoral shepherds are seen, but rarely heard from). In his laser focus on salvation, Bunyan largely ignores issues of class. Most of his characters are drawn as human types without clues as to (or apparent regard for) their socio-economic status except that most seem to belong to the same class as Bunyan himself: i.e., the "middle class" of townspeople such as shopkeepers, tradesmen, artisans, etc. This consistency may have been an artistic choice or perhaps just a function of familiarity. To some extent, no doubt, it was imposed by the obvious requirement that the characters speak articulately.

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "For my part I love it with heart and soul."

82. In another book Van Tilborgh and Pabst, p. 100: From Les Derniers Breton by Émile Souvestre. Here is the larger passage: "The life of a rag and bone man is a hard one. He is on the road, in the pouring rain, and all he has for shelter are the ditches by the roadside. He eats a morsel of black bread and drinks from the ditch with the frogs. People close their doors when they see him ... He is a stranger in the village where he was baptized ... He does not know what is happening in his own family." (Souvestre, pp. 180-181.) 83. "People close their doors" Souvestre, pp. 180-181. 84. "He walks, he walks" Souvestre, p. 180. (See Ch. 8, n. 82.) 85. bug-infested house BVG 72, 8/2/1876.

Context:
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "The sea is beautiful all the same; there were lots of bedbugs at Mr. Stokes's, but that view from the school window made one forget them."

86. beloved Dickens stories This comparison is hardly original to us. (See, e.g., Verkade-Bruining, p. 14.) 87. William Post Stokes c. 1832-1890. 88. Twenty-four boysBVG 61, 4/17/1876. Bailey suggests that some of the boarders came from “as far away as London” (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 76). Vincent is ambiguous on the issue of whether all of the boys were boarders and where they came from: "It's a boarding school and there are 24 boys between the ages of 10 and 14" (JLB 77, 4/17/1876). He does report, however, that four boys lived with him in the house at 11 Spencer Square (JLB 77, 4/17/1876). Vincent does report, however, that four boys lived with him in the house at 11 Spencer Square (JLB 76, 4/17/1876).

Context:
JLB 77, 4/17/1876: "It's a boarding school and there are 24 boys between the ages of 10 and 14."

89. ages of ten and fourteen BVG 61, 4/17/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 88.

Context:
JLB 77, 4/17/1876: "It's a boarding school and there are 24 boys between the ages of 10 and 14."

90. crowded into the narrow townhouse Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 75: Stokes and his wife Lydia lived upstairs. Vincent lived nearby, in the tiny attic room of a smaller house on a public square that the students used as an exercise yard (JLB 78, 4/24/1876). Based on Vincent's description of the view from his window, Brown establishes that the room in which Vincent stayed was located at 11 Spencer Square (Brown, n.p.). Meyers says the room was smaller than twelve square meters (Meyers, p. 96). According to Brown, Stokes's name appears on the rate books for the Spencer Square house, but it is inconceivable that he bore the burden of the entire house just to house Vincent, the other assistant teacher, and four students (Brown, n.p.). Therefore, we have assumed that Stokes crowded his staff and students into as little space as possible -- probably the servants' rooms on the third floor -- and rented out the rest. 91. only a hundred yards Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 75-76. 92. the building's rotten floors BVG 67, 5/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Another extraordinary place is the room with the rotten floor ..."

93. broken windows BVG 67, 5/31/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 92.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Another extraordinary place is the room with the rotten floor where there are 6 basins at which they wash themselves, with only a feeble light falling onto the washstand through a window with broken panes. It's quite a melancholy sight, to be sure."

94. dim light BVG 67, 5/31/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 92.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Another extraordinary place is the room with … only a feeble light falling onto the washstand through a window with broken panes."

95. dark passages BVG 67, 5/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "I'd also like you to see them going down the dark stairs and small corridor to table."

96. "A rather melancholy sight" BVG 67, 5/31/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 92.

Context:
BVG 67, 5/31/1876: "It is a rather melancholy sight."
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "It's quite a melancholy sight, to be sure."

125 97. bread and tea Verkade-Bruining, p. 14. 98. the boys looked forward BVG 67, 5/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "They have so little apart from their food and drink to look forward to and to get them through the day."

99. From six in the morning BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "The boys go to bed at 8 o'clock and get up at 6."

100. "assistant teacher" BVG 61, 4/17/1876: Vincent's co-worker was only seventeen years old, barely more than a boy himself.

Context:
BVG 61, 4/17/1876: "There is another assistant teacher seventeen years old."
JLB 77, 4/17/1876: "There's another assistant teacher, 17 years old."

101. bore full responsibilityIf Stokes spent money on other, real teachers, Vincent never mentioned them. When Vincent arrived, a man whom Vincent identified as Stokes's son was taking Stokes's place (JLB 76, 4/17/1876). Vincent described him as "a teacher in London." In fact, Stokes had no son of record (see Ch. 8, n. 116) and the man disappeared from Vincent’s letters immediately after Stokes’s return, indicating that he never shared any of the teaching duties at the school. 102. "a little of everything" BVG 64, 5/1/1876.

Context:
BVG 64, 5/1/1876: "You ask me what I teach the boys. Mainly French basics; only one student is starting the study of German. For the rest, a little of everything, mainly sums, examinations, their dictation, etc."
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "And now you ask what I have to teach the boys; chiefly French, fundamentals, one boy has started to learn German, and also a variety of things like sums, hearing them their lessons, giving dictations &c."

103. French BVG 64, 5/1/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 102.

Context:
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "And now you ask what I have to teach the boys; chiefly French, fundamentals, one boy has started to learn German, and also a variety of things like sums, hearing them their lessons, giving dictations &c."

104. German BVG 64, 5/1/1876. Only one student had "started to learn German" (JLB 80, 5/1/1876).

Context:
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "… one boy has started to learn German ..."

105. "dictation" BVG 64, 5/1/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 102.

Context:
BVG 64, 5/1/1876: "You ask me what I teach the boys. …a little of everything, mainly sums, examinations, their dictation, etc."
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "And now you ask what I have to teach the boys … a variety of things like sums, hearing them their lessons, giving dictations &c."

106. led them on walks BVG 61, 4/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 77, 4/17/1876: "I must go out with the boys, adieu."

107. he bathed them BVG 64, 5/1/1876. This apparently was not part of his job description.

Context:
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "Last Saturday night I washed 6 or so of the young gentlemen; I did this for fun, though, and because it helped us to finish on time, not because I had to do it."

108. maintenance work and odd jobs Verkade-Bruining, p. 14: "Vincent spent two months there [i.e., at Stokes’s school] and appears to have [had] the somewhat vague job of overseer, which in reality meant that he was a sort of odd-job man." 109. "It's a heavy task"b2745 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/30/1876. Vincent's mother reported this to Theo after Vincent's first week in Ramsgate: "We hope you will hear from Vincent as well and that you too are curious to know how his work is going. It's a heavy task to be amongst 24 boys all the time, he wrote us cheerfully." But Anna clearly did not trust Vincent's "cheerful" tone. "Still, this doesn't mean that this is his calling," she confided to Theo, "but whatever his calling is, we hope it will make him content and happy." Even as gray skies lingered long after Vincent’s arrival (JLB 77, 4/17/1876), and storms kept him virtually imprisoned in the dark school ("The wind was blowing so hard here yesterday afternoon that Mr. Stokes didn't want the boys to go out" [JLB 80, 5/1/1876]), Vincent bravely maintained to his parents that his "first impression" was "not too unfavorable," according to report that Dorus sent Theo (b2743 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/29/1876).

Other family letters support the assessment that Vincent's initial reaction was, at best, ambivalence; at worst, a forced and false optimism. The former can be detected in Vincent's very first missive from Ramsgate, a telegram sent early on April 17: "Think all is ok," he wrote hesitantly (quoted in b2222 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/18/1876). About two weeks later, Vincent’s sister Wil reported that she had received two letters from Vincent but could conclude only: "It seems that he likes it there" (b2748 V/1982, "Gogh, Willemina van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/30/1876). Later, Vincent reported to Theo a similarly mixed message: "These are really happy days, the ones I'm spending here, day after day, and yet it's a happiness and peacefulness that I don't trust entirely" (JLB 81, 5/6/1876). He found some foreboding solace in the inscription on the wall of the church where he took his charges on Sundays: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (JLB 76, 4/17/1876; see Matthew 28:20).

110. a bald pate BVG 62, 4/21/1876.

Context:
JLB 78, 4/24/1876: "Mr. Stokes didn't come back until today; he's a rather large man with a bald head and whiskers."

111. bushy side-whiskers BVG 62, 4/21/1876

Context:
JLB 78, 4/24/1876: "Mr. Stokes didn't come back until today; he's a rather large man with a bald head and whiskers."

112. could start a school Pickvance, p. 17: Stokes had better credentials than some: his mother had established several similar schools in Isleworth, a community near London. "[Lydia] Ann Stokes ran, at the same Wrotham House, a preparatory school for girls (1862), a ladies' school (1867) and a boarding school for young gentlemen (1874 and 1878)." 113. "but one goal" BVG 332, 10/12/1883. Vincent wrote this seven years later. Although he does not mention Stokes’s name, we believe he is referring to Stokes because the comment comes immediately after a recollection of being dismissed from Goupil (in 1876) and Stokes was his first "new employer" after leaving Goupil.

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "Now imagine your new boss to be a man whose business is rather mysterious, imagine him to have but one goal, 'money.' "
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "Suppose that your new employer is a man whose affairs are very mysterious, and suppose that he has just one goal, 'money.' "

114. "mysteriously" BVG 332, 10/12/1883. See Ch. 8, n. 113.

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "… a man whose business is rather mysterious ..."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "… a man whose affairs are very mysterious …"

115. never talked about the past Pickvance, p. 17: Pickvance writes that "[Stokes's] movements between 1861 and his arrival in Ramsgate in 1872 are so far untraced. He may well have continued his profession of drawing master, in which case he was simply following his father." Indeed, according to Pickvance's research, Stokes had long identified himself as primarily an artist: "Already in the 1851 census, where [Stokes's] age is given as 17, he is called a 'painter (artist)'; in 1855, his profession is given as 'artist,' in 1861 as 'drawing master.' [He] exhibited one picture in London: at the 1855 exhibition of the British Institution he showed 'The Mendicant.'" Moreover, Stokes's father, James Stokes, "was a much more successful artist than his son," according to Pickvance, "exhibiting between 1846 and 1863 two works at the Royal Academy, twenty-one at the British Institution and two at the Society of British Artists. These were predominantly landscapes from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and several English counties." What is interesting about this, of course, is that Vincent apparently heard none of it. If he had known that Stokes was an artist or even just a drawing instructor, or that his father had also been an accomplished painter, surely Vincent would have mentioned it in a letter to his art-dealer brother. 116. odd comings and goings BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876. Vincent reported strange doings upon his arrival in Ramsgate: "I arrived at Mr. Stokes's around 1 o'clock. He was away from home but will be coming back this evening. During his absence his place was taken by his son (twenty-three years old, I think), a schoolmaster in London." (JLB 76, 4/17/1876.) Who was this young man who had temporarily replaced the absent headmaster when Vincent arrived? Vincent identifies him as Stokes's son, but Stokes had no son -- at least none on record. (Pickvance, p. 17) Vincent gave the man’s age as twenty-three – exactly Vincent’s age. However, Stokes did not marry until 1855. So either he was a bastard or Vincent was wrong about his being Stokes’s son. Strangely, as soon as the headmaster returned, the man disappeared, never to be mentioned in Vincent’s letters again. 117. a moody master BVG 67, 5/31/1876. Stokes’s volatility is reflected in the mixed attitude Vincent reports that the boys had toward him: "The boys seem to respect him yet love him all the same; he was already playing marbles with them, only a couple of hours after he got back" (JLB 78, 4/24/1876).

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Mr. Stokes was sometimes moody during those days, and when the boys were too boisterous for him."

118. playing marbles BVG 62, 4/21/1876. See Ch. 8, n. 117.

Context:
JLB 78, 4/24/1876: "The boys seem to respect him [Stokes] yet love him all the same; he was already playing marbles with them, only a couple of hours after he got back."

119. flying into fits of rage BVG 67, 5/31/1876. Vincent touchingly described the pall that descended on the boys when their meager meals were canceled: "You should have seen them then, standing at the window looking out, it was really rather sad. They have so little apart from their food and drink to look forward to and to get them through the day." (JLB 83, 5/31/1876.)

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Mr. Stokes was sometimes moody during those days, and when the boys were too boisterous for him."

120. moving to Isleworth BVG 63, 4/28/1876: According to Pickvance, Isleworth was Stokes’s father's last home (Pickvance, p. 17) and where his mother's schools were located (see Ch. 8, n. 112). Indeed, Vincent may have misunderstood (or misreported) what actually happened. Stokes did not "move" his Ramsgate school to Isleworth so much as combine his students with his mother's there, suggesting that the “franchise” venture on the coast had not worked out financially. He may have been simply running from creditors. Vincent appears to have been clueless about the family connection, writing Theo that Stokes would move to Isleworth “then furnish the school somewhat differently and perhaps expand it" (JLB 79, 4/28/1876).

Context:
JLB 79, 4/28/1876: "Mr. Stokes told me that he intends to move after the holidays -- with the whole school, naturally -- to a village on the Thames, around 3 hours from London."

121. a battering rainstorm BVG 67, 5/31/1876: Here is Vincent’s description: a classic example of his evocative, allusive, layered word-paintings, simultaneously observant and inventive.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "The sea was yellowish, especially close to the beach; a streak of light on the horizon and, above this, tremendously huge dark grey clouds from which one saw the rain coming down in slanting streaks. The wind blew the dust from the small white path on the rocks into the sea and tossed the blossoming hawthorn bushes and wallflowers that grow on the rocks. ... [I]n the distance, the town ... looking like the cities Albrecht Dürer used to etch."

122. "spectacle of the sea" BVG 72, 8/2/1876.

Context:
BVG 72, 8/2/1876: "Mr. Stokes' home is infested with bugs, but the spectacle of the sea, contemplated from the window, is unforgettable."
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "The sea is beautiful all the same; there were lots of bedbugs at Mr. Stokes's, but that view from the school window made one forget them."

123. a hard job even harder BVG 67, 5/31/1876: Despite his best efforts, Vincent seems to have made no connections whatsoever with his students, with his fellow assistant, or with Stokes and his family. On the eve of the school's move, he still wrote as an outsider looking in: "How I'd like to spend ... a winter with them, to know what it's like" (JLB 83, 5/31/1876). 124. "It is not easy" BVG 64, 5/1/1876.

Context:
BVG 64, 5/1/1876: "So for the present, there is nothing too complicated in all this, but it is not easy to see that what they are learning is what we are teaching them."
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "For the time being, then, giving the lessons isn't so difficult, but it'll be more difficult to make the boys learn them."

125. miserliness BVG 332, 10/12/1883. Stokes may have tried to convince Vincent to stay on without a salary by promising him a stake in a larger, mysterious profit-making scheme. This is the implication of Vincent's later recollection of his relationship with Stokes: "Suppose that your new employer is a man whose affairs are very mysterious, and suppose that he has just one goal, 'money'. With all your energy, can you really immediately, at once, help him a very great deal in that?" (JLB 394, 10/12/1883; emphasis added.) This conversation, too, may have taken place after the move to Isleworth when Stokes refused for at least the second time to make good on promises to pay Vincent a salary. 126. "disgusting" BVG 332, 10/12/1883.

Context:
BVG 332, 10/12/1883: "But he [Stokes] wants money, money 'quand même'; you want to know a little more about the business, and what you see or hear is rather disgusting."
JLB 394, 10/12/1883: "And yet he [Stokes] wants money, money come what may; you want to know something more about the business, and what you see or hear is pretty disgusting."

127. a one-month trial BVG 59, 4/1/1876-4/30/1876. When he first reported the job offer from Ramsgate, Vincent wrote: "[Stokes] suggested that I come there for a month (without pay) in order to see whether he can use me at the end of that time" (JLB 74, 4/4/1876). By this formulation, the offer of an eventual salary, while contingent (“[if] he can use me), was clearly implied. Vincent clearly took it that way (JLB 74, 4/4/1876).

Context:
JLB 74, 4/4/1876: "On the morning before my departure from Paris I received a letter from a teacher in Ramsgate who suggested that I come there for a month (without pay) in order to see whether he can use me at the end of that time."

128. "[I] can get teachers" BVG 70, 7/5/1876: Vincent reported this exchange in early July, but it is not clear when it took place. It was almost certainly not the first time the subject had come up given that Vincent had expected to receive a salary after the first month (i.e., by mid-May) if he was retained (see Ch. 8, n. 127). Stokes, obviously something of a con man, may have talked Vincent into continuing to work for room and board until the move to Isleworth, with a real or implied promise that, after that, a salary would be available. Apparently, Vincent felt compelled to quit when Stokes disavowed that promise as well.

Context:
BVG 70, 7/5/1876: "Mr. Stokes says that he definitely cannot give me any salary because he can get teachers enough for just board and lodging, and that is true."
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Mr. Stokes says he definitely cannot give me a salary, for he can get plenty of people who'll work for board and lodging alone, which is certainly true."

129. looking for something else BVG 65, 5/6/1876-5/8/1876. Even with all his woes, Vincent's final verdict on Ramsgate was equivocal: "These are really happy days, the ones I'm spending here, day 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." (JLB 81, 5/6/1876.) This equivocation -- a reach for serenity, probably -- explains why Vincent stayed in Ramsgate until mid-June, long enough to help dismantle and remove the furniture from the townhouse, even though he and Stokes parted ways not long after the school was reassembled in Isleworth (b2753 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/17/1876).

Context:
JLB 81, 5/6/1876: "A person isn't easily satisfied, one moment he finds things far too good and the next he's not satisfied enough."

130. "We must continue quietly" BVG 65, 5/6/1876-5/8/1876. Vincent’s phrasing suggests both quiet suffering and a request for Theo not to tell their parents about his latest setback. (See Ch. 8, n. 129.)

Context:
BVG 65, 5/6/1876-5/8/1876: "But this is in parenthesis; we must not talk about it, but continue quietly on our way."
JLB 81, 5/6/1876: "But I'm saying this by the by, we would do better not to talk about it, but rather continue quietly on our way." 126 131. he sent to his parents BVG 51, 1/1/1876. Initially, Vincent sent Felix Holt to Theo with the instruction: "when you've read it please send it to Etten" (JLB 66, 1/17/1876). Later in the same letter, apparently struck by a greater sense of urgency, he changed the instruction to: "do your best to ensure that it arrives in Etten on Pa's birthday. Perhaps you could … read it after it's been in Etten, that might be the best thing." Theo apparently did as Vincent instructed because a few weeks later, Dorus wrote: "Today we start reading [Felix Holt] and will send it to you later. I mostly read to Ma” (b2234 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/17/1876). By a month later, apparently, they had finished it: "[Vincent] also writes about Felix Holt, we read it with interest" (b0954 V/1962, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/15/1876). The fact that Vincent was inquiring about their reading of the book suggests its importance to him. Vincent recommended Scenes of a Clerical Life to his parents as early as August 1876 (JLB 88, 8/18/1876), and in 1877, sent three Eliot books (Adam Bede, Silas Marner, and Scenes of a Clerical Life) to his father for his birthday (JLB 142, 3/3/1878; see JLB 142, 3/3/1878; n. 14). 132. "rough" BVG 280, 4/21/1883-4/22/1883: "There’s something broad and rough in [Felix Holt] that pleases me greatly,” Vincent wrote in 1883 after yet another reading (referring to the character more than the book). "A man who evidently doesn’t seek civilization in outward things but is much further inwardly, much much much further than most people" (JLB 337, 4/21/1883; emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 280, 4/21/1883-4/22/1883: "There is something broad and rough in him which appeals to me very much -- something of the roughness of torchon."
JLB 337, 4/21/1883: "There's something broad and rough in him that pleases me greatly --something like the roughness of torchon."

133. "failure"BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. Vincent makes this point (as he does most points bearing on his guilt) obliquely, even enlisting scripture: "[T]here is a strong yearning for the day when He will no longer remember the iniquities of our youth. Who rejoices in grey hair? As far as the east is from the west, so far do I remove your transgressions from you [Psalms 103:12] ... Who rejoices in grey hair? Who sees behind it as Felix Holt saw behind the word 'failure?'" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876; emphasis added.) Vincent is no doubt referring to the following line in the novel, spoken by Felix: "But I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best." (Eliot, Felix Holt, p. 434.)

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "Who rejoices in grey hairs? Who can look behind it, like Felix Holt did behind the word failure?"
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "Who rejoices in grey hair? Who sees behind it as Felix Holt saw behind the word 'failure'?"

134. achieve heroic martyrdom BVG 55, 2/19/1876. To find this theme in Scenes of a Clerical Life, Vincent had to elevate a secondary character in the third of Eliot's three tales ("Janet's repentance") -- a pathetic, self-dramatizing minister who eats only "badly cooked mutton and watery potatoes" -- to the status of the book's hero: "He died at about the age of 34, and was nursed during his long illness by a woman who had previously been given to drink but, through his words and by leaning on him, as it were, had got the better of herself and found peace for her soul. And at his funeral they read the chapter with the words 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'" (JLB 70, 2/19/1876.) In Adam Bede, Vincent found yet another example of a charismatic, self-abnegating preacher: in this case, an evangelical Methodist who preaches to the workers in a mill town. That Eliot's preacher was a woman would not have frustrated Vincent's search for self-affirmation (he always assumed Eliot was a man). 135. Freely ignoring Sund, p. 24: Sund has a very lucid way of putting this: "[Vincent] siphoned off only the most positive images of religious fundamentalism from Eliot's often disparaging portrayals of clerical training, motivation, and pedagogy." 136. There is such a longing BVG 66, 5/12/1876. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 66, 5/12/1876: "There is such a longing for religion among the people in the large cities."
JLB 82, 5/12/1876: "There's such a yearning for Religion among the people in those big cities."

 137. "the kingdom" BVG 66, 5/12/1876. Eliot, of course, meant this to be read ironically. Vincent always took himself and his reading far too seriously to recognize or respond to irony.

Context:
BVG 66, 5/12/1876: Eliot wrote in one of his works that the life of most workers, etc., who had established a little community and performed religious services in a chapel in Lantern Yard -- and he concludes: 'It is the kingdom of God on earth, no more, no less.'"
JLB 82, 5/12/1876: "In one of his books, Eliot describes the life of factory workers &c. who have joined a small community and hold religious services in a chapel in 'Lantern Yard', and he says it is 'God's Kingdom upon earth', nothing more nor less.' "

138. "[It] should tend toward" BVG 69, 6/17/1876.

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "If I find work it will tend towards a position between clergyman and missionary in the suburbs of London, mainly to the working class population."
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "Should I find anything it will probably be a situation somewhere between minister and missionary, in the suburbs of London among working folk."

139. guilty half-truths BVG 69, 6/17/1876. E.g., "I was 11 years old I started going to school and stayed there until I was 16"; and "various circumstances [compelled me] to quit the firm, however, [and] I left Messrs G.&Co" (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). 140. hopeful inflations BVG 69, 6/17/1876. In support of his application, Vincent touts his "past life of travelling, living in various countries, associating with a variety of people, rich and poor, religious and not religious, working at a variety of jobs, days of manual labour in between days of office work &c" (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). At least two of these are clearly inflated: the associations with "rich and poor" and the "days of manual labour." 141. "Father ... make me" BVG 69, 6/17/1876.

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "And also, when I think of my past life and of my father's house in the village in Holland, a sense of: 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son: make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me a sinner.'"
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "And also, when I think of my past life and of my father's house in that Dutch village, a feeling of 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me.'"

 142. he sent the statement BVG 69, 6/17/1876. According to JLB, the pastor to whom Vincent probably sent the letter was Edmund Henry Fisher, vicar of St. Mark's (JLB 84, n. 3), a church in London near Vincent's house (called Ivy Cottage) on Kennington Road (JLB 92, n. 7). JLB identify the house on Kennington Road as belonging to John Parker and wife. (Regarding the death of the Parkers' daughter Elizabeth, see JLB 28, n. 11 and JLB 32, n. 1.) It is at least possible that the pastor to whom Vincent refers is Charles Spurgeon (or more likely one of his assistants), whose empire included religious training schools, missions, and orphanages -- or perhaps one of the many preachers who worked with and for Spurgeon as part of the many religious enterprises centered around the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Context:
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "I stayed in London for two days and often ran from one end of the city [London] to the other in order to see various people, including a minister to whom I'd written. Herewith a translation of the letter."

143. "When I lived in London" BVG 69, 6/17/1876.

Context:
BVG 69, 6/17/1876: "When I lived in London I often attended your church and have not forgotten you. Now I would ask for your recommendation as I look for a position, and also that you keep your fatherly eye on me should I find such a position."
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "When I was living in London I often attended your church and I have not forgotten you. Now I am asking you for a recommendation in my search for a situation, and to keep a fatherly eye on me should I find such a situation."

 144. Restive workers lacked faith Porter, p. 298: "Religion had no hold upon London's masses ... Three surveys (1851, 1886 and 1903) documented this popular paganism. East and South London had the nation's lowest church attendance. In working-class inner areas, fewer than one in five attended a place of worship. London was no city of God: on Sunday 30 March 1851 only 874,339 of London's population of 2,362,236 attended any form of public worship." 145. charity and religious instruction De Maré, p. 141. 146. money poured Mayhew, p. xvii: "There is not another nation in the world, where eleemosynary institutions have obtained such a permanent hold upon the sympathies of all classes of society, nor where such vast sums are realized by voluntary and private contributions." Elsewhere Mayhew proclaims, "it may be safely asserted that never in the entire history of the Church was there a period when such extraordinary efforts have been made to evangelise the poor" (Mayhew, p. xii). De Maré reports how churches, religious schools, reformatories, orphanages, homes, and asylums, went up across London at an astounding rate during this period (De Maré, p. 141). 127 147. five hundred charitable societies Mayhew, p. xvii. 148. seven million pounds annually Inwood, p. 509: Inwood's figure is for "the late 1860s" and was, according to Inwood, "about three times the budget of the London Poor Law." In 1861, Mayhew confusingly cited two figures: £2,000,000 for the amount of money spent by charitable societies and £3,500,000 for "the amount of alms bestowed altogether" by these groups (Mayhew, p. xvii). 149. half a million free copies Mayhew, p. xx. 150. the belief in the benefits Mayhew, p. xx: "The lowest strata of society are thus reached by an agency which takes the Bible as the starting point of its labours, and makes it the basis of all the social and religious improvements which are subsequently attempted." 151. "among classes almost inaccessible" Mayhew, p. xx: Strangely, most colporteurs sold their Bibles rather than give them away, charging even the poorest people a small weekly fee, presumably on the assumption that if it were offered free it might be more readily deemed valueless. 152. "Bible carriages" Mayhew, p. xx. 153. Society for Open-Air Preaching Mayhew, p. xxi: According to Mayhew, these street-corner preachers were typically students from the Church Missionary College. 154. Bibles chained in waiting rooms Taine, p. 13. 155. dozens of lay preachers Taine, pp. 192-193. 156. a Bible in one hand Taine, pp. 190-191: Also in Hyde Park, Taine reports the following encounter: "A tall, sallow, bony fellow hands me two printed pages about Moses' bronze serpent, with applications to the present day." 157. more than a thousand Mayhew, p. xxii: In 1861, Mayhew reported the figure as 381. We have inflated the number to account for the fifteen-year interval between Mayhew’s account and Vincent’s arrival in London. Also in 1861, Mayhew reported 50,000 Bible classes conducted, half a million scripture readings held, and almost two million unspecified "visits" resulting in 1,230 "drunkards reclaimed" and 681 "fallen females rescued." These figures, too, would have to be adjusted upward to account for more than a decade of increasing population and rising missionary fervor. 158. provided many of the troops Mayhew, p. xxi: As of 1863, The London City Mission maintained a staff of 389 missionaries to bring the city "under the saving influences of the Gospel." 159. specialized aid societiesDe Maré recounts how missionary "brigades" of born-again shoe-blacks and flower-girls were formed. Some missions offered free meals; others built "model dwellings for the Industrious Classes" (De Maré, pp. 135-136). Society figures like Angela Burdett-Coutts, friend of Charles Dickens, helped create a fashion for charity, expending a huge fortune on philanthropic projects to "save" the poor through work -- the so-called “Gospel of Toil” (De Maré, p. 28). De Maré notes that the definition of "slumming" changed between the 1860s and 1870s: from "to go into or frequent slums for discredit-able purposes" to "to visit slums for charitable or philanthropic purpose, or out of curiosity, especially as a fashionable pursuit." He notes a comment in the satirical review Punch that slumming was the new way to climb the social ladder "because you meet so many Duchesses in the East End now." In typical Victorian fashion, Burdett-Coutts's projects tended to emphasize the relationship between work and salvation: a sewing school, training ships for navy and merchant service, and farming and fishing businesses for destitute peasants in Ireland. (Angela Burdett-Coutts lived most of her long life with her former governess and female companion until, at age sixty-seven, she married her twenty-seven-year-old American secretary. Hers was the last body buried in Westminster Abbey without being cremated.)

Octavia Hill was another heroine of the new missionary fashion who dedicated her life to improving the horrific living conditions of slum-dwellers squeezed by railroad construction, crumbling neighborhoods, and misguided housing policy (ibid.). Porter tells the similar story of Arnold Toynbee who established a library and art gallery in one of London's most blighted slums, Whitechapel (Porter, p. 304). Speaking to workers in the 1870s on behalf of his privileged class, Toynbee, who was only a year older than Vincent, begged his audience for forgiveness and promised them that "many of us would spend our lives in your service." Porter quotes Toynbee's astonishing confession to the workers who attended his lectures in the East End in the 1870s: "You have -- I say it clearly and advisedly -- you have to forgive us, for we have wronged you; we have sinned against you grievously -- not knowing always; but still we have sinned, and let us confess it" (ibid.). Other idealistic youth joined him in droves, manning the trenches of the new war on poverty and sin. 160. save the souls of drinkers Mayhew, p. xxiv. 161. penitent prostitutes Mayhew, p. xxxvi: Mayhew lists twenty-one institutions devoted to the "rescue and reformation" of fallen women. He reports that the number of such women in London had been calculated at 80,000. 162. wayward servants Mayhew, p. xxvii: To judge by the number of aide societies dedicated to them, wayward servants must have been -- or were at least perceived as – a significant problem. Mayhew lists six such organizations: The Girls' Laundry and Training Institution for Young Servants, The National Guardian Institution, The Marylebone Philanthropic Servants' Institution and Pension Society, The Provisional Protection Society, The General Domestic Servants' Benevolent Institution, and The Servants' Provident and Benevolent Society. It is interesting that the two most active outreach ministries by far were directed to servants and women, the two groups whose old roles, ultimately, would be most transformed by the incoming industrial society. 163. abused children De Maré, p. 135. 164. "win back" Inwood, pp. 682-683. 165. combination of street-corner evangelism Inwood, pp. 682-683. 166. the Salvation Army De Maré, p. 213: When William Booth and his wife Catherine launched their mission in 1865 -- ten years before Vincent arrived in London looking for missionary work – they gave it the awkward name "Christian Mission for the Heathen of our own Country." Booth was infamous for using imperial imagery to describe his mission. "As there is a darkest Africa," he asked rhetorically, "is there not also a darkest England?" This history throws an unfortunate light on his ultimate choice of a name. 167. "to find out if" BVG 70, 7/5/1876.

Context:
BVG 70, 7/5/1876: "Last Sunday, I went to London two or three times to find out if there was a chance of becoming one of them."
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Last week I was in London a couple of times to find out if there's a possibility of my becoming one."

168. "mixed with people" BVG 70, 7/5/1876. By "mixing” or “associating” with people from the poorer classes, Vincent must have been referring to his walking tours through poor neighborhoods or perhaps his brothel visits (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). Throughout this period, Vincent's concern for the poor seems to have remained a largely abstract notion, shaped by his reading more than his experiences. His only mention of the poor prior to his arrival in England was this strange reference to a passage from Job: "His children shall seek to please the poor" (JLB 67, 1/24/1876). In context, however, the passage actually demeans the ambition to assist the poor. In the biographical sketch he prepared in Ramsgate, Vincent made a vague allusion to "associating with a variety of people, rich and poor" (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). And there is similar vague language in a letter he wrote after his application was rejected in which he describes missionary work as going “around among the workers and the poor spreading God's word" (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). In September, he echoed the earlier Job passage, indicating that he was, in fact, taking it out of context. "[S]eek to please the poor, and to find favour in their eyes," he wrote, creating an odd mandate that existed nowhere in the Bible or in contemporary thought (JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876). A passage in a letter from October 1876 indicates that Vincent’s view of the poor never changed,during this period at least, from being essentially picturesque. Recalling fondly his walks in Paris with Gladwell, he wrote: "Notre-Dame is so absolutely beautiful in the autumn evenings among the chestnut trees. There's something in Paris, though, that's more beautiful than the autumn and the churches, and that is the poor people there. I sometimes think of many a person there." (JLB 92, 10/3/1876.)

Context:
BVG 70, 7/5/1876: "Last Sunday, I went to London two or three times to find out if there was a chance of becoming one of them, as I speak a number of languages and have mixed, especially in Paris and London, with people of the lower classes and foreigners. Being a foreigner myself, I thought I might be fit for it and might become increasingly so."
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Last week I was in London a couple of times to find out if there's a possibility of my becoming one. Because I speak various languages and have tended to associate, especially in Paris and London, with people from the poorer classes and foreigners, and being a foreigner myself, I may well be suited to this, and could become so more and more."

169. as a foreigner BVG 70, 7/5/1876.

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "… being a foreigner myself ..."

170. "looking for work" JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876.

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Being a London missionary is rather special, I believe; one has to go around among the workers and the poor spreading God's word and, if one has some experience, speak to them, track down and seek to help foreigners looking for work, or other people who are in some sort of difficulty, etc. etc.

171. But to no availSpurgeon, for one, was "exceedingly selective" in admitting men to his pastor's college, which had just opened its new building next to the Tabernacle in 1873 (Drummond, p. 415). If, indeed, Vincent hoped to enter missionary work through a ministry like Spurgeon's, he may have been roundly rejected, given the high standards for admittance (e.g., Spurgeon required that his candidates have prior preaching experience). Spurgeon approved all candidates personally, but, for that very reason, the selections could be idiosyncratic in a way that might have favored Vincent. Some candidates were admitted even though they were deficient in the rudiments of English; others, despite being "deficient in various areas of learning"; a few, despite being illiterate (ibid., p. 409). "Spurgeon always said that piety had a priority over Greek or Latin" (ibid., p. 408). Spurgeon admitted a black candidate from Africa in 1878 (although never a women). For Spurgeon, the most important qualification was a "true calling from God" (ibid., p. 409). "Spurgeon made it clear that the college did not exist to make ministers, but to train them. Only God could make a minister," He said. (ibid., p. 408.) This selection process, focused as it was on a "true calling," would have made Vincent’s rejection by Spurgeon, if he applied there, far more hurtful than a rejection based on his poor English skills. 172. "One would think" b2755 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876. 173. "I see a light" BVG 70, 7/5/1876. Later in the same letter, Vincent reiterated his uncertainty, hedged with the usual reservations and denials: "It's very questionable whether I'll go far in this profession ... I believe, however, that on no account can I turn back now, even if part of me should wish to (later, this isn't the case now)." (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876; emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "I so clearly see light in the distance, and if that light disappears now and then it's mostly my own fault."

128 174. Vincent offered Vincent offered this same excuse multiple times for different rejections. At the time, Vincent offered it to his parents for his failure to find a position as a missionary in London's "poor neighborhoods" (b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876). "[T]hat fell through because he is not of the required age," Dorus reported to Theo less than two weeks after Vincent's London visit (ibid.). A few days later, Vincent himself explained his lack of success to Theo: "one has to be at least 24 years old, and so in any case I still have a year to wait" (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). Two years later, Vincent wrote Theo using the same explanation for his failure to get a different position (and inexplicably added a year to the minimum age): "Back during my time in England I applied for a position as an evangelist among the coal-miners, but they brushed my request aside and said I had to be at least 25 years old" (JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878). 175. a single improbable explanationThe age of twenty-four does appear to have been a common minimum for certain kinds of employment. In December 1876, Dorus wrote Theo about a job prospect for sister Anna, saying "It was meant for someone who is at least 24 years of age" (b2802 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/18/1876). Of course, this was presumably in the context of an in-home position for a young woman (Anna was twenty-one). We believe that Vincent probably was given this explanation for a rejection at least once, perhaps by Spurgeon or by Edmund Henry Fisher. On the other hand, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men under twenty-four were employed or were volunteering for missionary work in the London area at this time, including university students (Porter, p. 304). In Whitechapel, a push to resettle middle-class young people into slum areas had galvanized into a movement (Inwood, p. 681). If Vincent had truly wanted such work, he could have found it -- at least in return for room and board, if not for a salary -- a proposition no worse than the one to which he returned in Isleworth. There are at least two possible conclusions, which are not mutually exclusive: (1) he did not put much effort into his search for a position as a missionary because he was easily frustrated, and/or was paralyzed by the prospect of rejection; or (2) his overriding requirement for a new position was that it paid a salary. Both say something about his commitment to missionary work. 176. "one must be at least" BVG 70, 7/5/1876.

Context:
BVG 70, 7/5/1876: "However, one must be at least twenty-four years old, and at all events I shall have to wait another year."
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "To do this, however, one has to be at least 24 years old, and so in any case I still have a year to wait."

177. wrote both Theo and his parentsFor Theo, see Ch. 8, n. 176. For parents, see: b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876. 178. "It is very doubtful" BVG 70, 7/5/1876.

Context:
BVG 70, 7/5/1876: " It is very doubtful whether I shall make great progress in this profession, whether the six years spent in the house of Messrs. Goupil and Co.,-- during which time I ought to have prepared myself for this profession -- will not always remain an insuperable obstacle."
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: " It's very questionable whether I'll go far in this profession, whether those 6 years spent in the firm of Messrs Goupil & Co., during which I should have been training for this situation, won't always be a thorn in my flesh, as it were" (emphasis in original).

179. to minister to the miners BVG 126, 11/15/1878. Vincent doesn’t tell his brother about this failed job application until two years after the fact: “Back during my time in England I applied for a position as an evangelist among the coal-miners, but they brushed my request aside and said I had to be at least 25 years old." (JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878.) At the earlier time, Vincent used the same excuse for failing to find a job as a missionary to the London poor." (b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876). (See Ch. 8, n. 175.)

Context:
JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878: "Back during my time in England I applied for a position as an evangelist among the coal-miners, but they brushed my request aside and said I had to be at least 25 years old."

180. a mission to South Americab2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876. Dorus wrote Theo in 1876: "There was also some talk of [Vincent] becoming a missionary to South America." According to Drummond, Spurgeon sent missionaries to South America (as well as to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Haiti, South Africa, and Amsterdam (!)) (Drummond, p. 413). Vincent’s parents reacted to the suggestion of a South American venture with disbelief, even implying that Vincent had floated the plan just to get attention: "I can't say his letters show a real desire to do that," his father wrote (b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876; emphasis in original). 181. barely more than a monthOur dating begins with Vincent’s statement on May 12 about "a yearning for Religion among the people in those big cities" (JLB 82, 5/12/1876), to his statement in early July: "It’s very questionable whether I’ll go far in this profession …" (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). Vincent makes much of his continued determination in the later letter (“I believe, however, that on no account can I turn back now, even if part of me should wish to (later, this isn’t the case now)” [emphasis in original]), but this appears to be mostly face-saving for Theo's benefit (and, no doubt, his own). In fact, Vincent raised the topic of finding missionary work only one more time, three months later, in early October, when he reported going to London to inquire about "a situation" (not an actual job, apparently) helping preachers who work in seaport towns with sailors and foreigners -- presumably, once again, trying to leverage his language skills (JLB 92, 10/3/1876; BVG 75, 10/3/1876).

BVG is much clearer that this “situation” was an employment opportunity, referring to it as “a kind of a job” (BVG 75, 10/3/1876). Not only is this prospect, like the mission to South America or to the coal mines, largely conjectural, but the tone in which Vincent reports it is less than enthusiastic (“I heard about a situation that might be of future interest” [JLB 92, 10/3/1876) and the best he can say about it is that "such a situation would be salaried” (ibid.). This suggests that Vincent reported this job prospect primarily to quell concerns that Theo (and their parents) had expressed about Vincent’s ultimate ability to support himself as a preacher. It is possible that the prospect did not exist at all, or that Vincent did not pursue it. In any event, he said nothing further about it, and the subject of missionary work was not raised again until 1878 (JLB 148, 11/13/1878 and 11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878). 182. a martyrdom of rejection BVG 70, 7/5/1876: Vincent’s reference to thorns is unmistakeable.

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: " But, old boy, no matter what the case, I think I can tell you this again, that these couple of months have bound me so closely to the sphere ranging from schoolmaster to clergyman, both through satisfactions associated with those situations and through thorns that have pricked me, that I can no longer turn back. Onward, then!"

183. "light in the distance" BVG 70, 7/5/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 173.) Context: BVG 70, 7/5/1876: "And yet I see a light in the distance so clearly; if that light disappears now and then, it is generally my own fault." JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "And yet I so clearly see light in the distance, and if that light disappears now and then it's mostly my own fault." 184. frustrating BVG 64, 5/1/1876.

Context:
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "For the time being, then, giving the lessons isn't so difficult, but it'll be more difficult to make the boys learn them."

185. "humiliating" BVG 71, 7/8/1876: By the time Vincent wrote this, he was already at Slade-Jones's school, so the feelings were not specific to Stokes's school.

Context:
BVG 71, 7/8/1876: "Don't delude yourself about the liberty I have; I am bound in different ways, some even humiliating, and these will become still worse in time."
JLB 86, 7/8/1876: "Don't have too great illusions about the freedom I have; I have my bonds of various kinds, humiliating bonds some of them, and this will only get worse with time."

186. broken promises BVG 69, 6/17/1876. Stokes appears to have made a small concession in mid-June: he would try to give Vincent time off to tutor private students in order to supplement his pay, or, "if there's no free time,” Vincent reported, his salary would be raised to “at most 20 pounds a year" (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). Within two weeks, however, when Vincent reported not being able to find any paying students, Stokes apparently reneged on even this stingy compromise (b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876). "Mr. Stokes says he definitely cannot give me a salary, for he can get plenty of people who'll work for board and lodging alone, which is certainly true" (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). This reneging was apparently what drove Vincent finally to take another job. "But can that be kept up for long? I'm afraid not; it will be decided soon enough." (ibid.) 187. futile bargainingAfter having his demand for a salary rejected again (see Ch. 8, n. 186), Vincent developed the offer from Slade-Jones without telling Stokes. When Stokes found out about it (or Vincent told him), he apparently offered to pay Vincent a salary of "25 shillings a month," gave him one month in advance, and promised to lighten Vincent’s workload so that he could teach some other pupils (presumably Slade-Jones's students) for additional pay (b2757 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876). This arrangement either broke down or was superseded at Vincent’s meeting with both Stokes and Slade-Jones on July 7 to settle the issue of Vincent’s employment. This, we assume, is what Anna, his mother, was referring to when she wrote to Theo: "July 7th will be a hard day for [Vincent] amongst those gentlemen" (b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876). 188. he left Stokes's school b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876. Stokes moved into a house called Linkfield House at 183 Twickenham Road in Isleworth. It has since been demolished (Hulsker, p. 38). 189. Stokes had fired him BVG 332, 10/12/1883. In his disguised and cryptic commentary seven years later, Vincent suggested that Stokes pushed him out of the job: "He [Stokes] wants money, money come what may; you want to know something more about the business, and what you see or hear is pretty disgusting. And soon it's: 'someone without a situation', I don't need you any more." (JLB 394, 10/12/1883; emphasis added.) The speed with which Vincent's situation changed also suggests a traumatic break. The first sign of a serious problem came in a letter written July 5: "Mr. Stokes says he definitely cannot give me a salary ... But can that be kept up for long? I'm afraid not; it will be decided soon enough” (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). The next day, Dorus reported that Vincent had already discussed a job with Slade-Jones and referred him to Carl Obach, Vincent's old boss at Goupil, for a recommendation (b2757 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876). The same day, Anna reported that Vincent "remains where he is" (b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876). However, by two days later (presumably before Obach’s recommendation could have been secured), Vincent had already moved into Slade-Jones's school (JLB 86, 7/8/1876). On the other hand, Dorus had written in mid-June: "Vincent is considering other options as well, and it may very well be that he is therefore looking around and making inquiries" (b2753 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/17/1876). 190. or was about to b2756 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876: It would have been typical of Vincent to quit if he felt he was about to be fired; and that is the import of this somewhat muddled passage from his father's letter: "[Vincent] thinks that Mr. Stokes would be willing to let him go, and if this becomes even more obvious, he wouldn't mind leaving of his own accord." There is also a vague suggestion in Vincent's letters that his departure from Stokes's may have been prompted by more sinister goings-on. "I can assure you that very distinct difficulties will present themselves very soon," he wrote Theo at the time of his departure, "and others are visible on the horizon, and as if one is in a different world from the firm of Messrs Goupil & Co" (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). This cryptic allusion may relate to the very negative recollection seven years later in which he refers to Stokes's business as "mysterious" and "disgusting" (JLB 394, 10/12/1883). 191. Meanwhile, he drifted There is no indication, as some claim, that Vincent moved to the new job because he thought it would bring him closer to his ambition of working with the church -- although that possibility subsequently arose and Vincent took advantage of it. (It should be noted that, for most of July, neither the students nor the Slade-Joneses were in residence so the specific character of the job was probably not clear to him, although he was certainly aware that Slade-Jones was a Reverend.) At the time, the single reason for leaving Stokes's school (assuming that Stokes did not fire him) appears to have been Vincent's desire to secure a salary after it became clear that Stokes would not provide one. 192. a few hundred yards away Holme Court (the home of Slade-Jones's school) sits only a few hundred yards down Twickenham Road from the site of Stokes's school on the same road. 193. By July 8 BVG 71, 7/8/1876. In early July (JLB re-date Vincent’s letter a day or two earlier than July 5), Vincent warned Theo: "my address may change soon" (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). Less than a week later, Vincent wrote: "As you see, I've ended up at the other school after all" (JLB 86, 7/8/1876). For unspecified reasons, Bailey lists July 3 as the moving date (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 85). 194. moved into Holme Court Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 85, n. 44: Built in 1715, the house, now called Garvin House, survives at 158 Twickenham Road. 195. Reverend Thomas Slade-Jones Pickvance, p. 47: 1829-83. 196. work part-time for Stokes b2757 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876. Upon hearing about the job offer from Slade-Jones, Stokes reversed himself and offered Vincent the salary of 25 shillings a month (about £20 annually) that he had promised him at the time of the move (JLB 84, 6/17/1876), but then reneged on (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). In early July, apparently as a sign of good faith, Stokes actually gave Vincent one month's salary in advance. It is this advance, undoubtedly, that obligated Vincent to continue working at Stokes's school for the rest of July, even after moving to Slade-Jones's school. 197. initially welcomed the move b2753 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/17/1876: Vincent's parents never reconciled themselves to the fact that Vincent was working hard but not being paid. They believed Stokes was exploiting their son. "I fear that Mr. Stokes is a little like Hans Laban, who wanted to take advantage of his nephew (or 'cousin') without it costing him much." At first, however, the parents' dissatisfaction was undercut by their confusion. For a while, Anna was under the impression that Vincent worked for both Slade-Jones and Stokes. ("[Vincent] remains where he is and receives a small salary, and gets paid at the other school as well. And to profit from the knowledge of that preacher and the teacher at the other school" [b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876].) And weeks after Vincent had moved to Slade-Jones's school, Dorus still believed that Slade-Jones worked for Stokes ("Vincent sends word that he is no longer with Stokes, but with Stokes's other teacher, Jones" [b2759 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/17/1876]). 198. "more fashionable" b2757 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876: The mistake may have been inadvertent, arising from Vincent's description of the house, Holme Court, as "noble." The Van Goghs apparently mistook this for a reference either to its patronage or its clientele. 199. "Oh! nothing is clear" b2759 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/17/1876. 200. melancholy lettersSee, for example: b2761 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 7/24/1876. 201. his loneliness b2763 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/2/1876: The students and the Slade-Joneses were away at the same time in August. "[Vincent] expected the family to be back on Tuesday. He had been very much alone." 202. "He is going through" b2763 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/2/1876: “He had been very much alone. He expected the family to be back on Tuesday. I hope his new job will give him satisfaction. He is going through a difficult time. May God grant him wisdom and a good outcome.” 203. "his life is not easy" b2768 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/30/1876. 204. "I think it's a matter" b2761 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/24/1876 205. "I think he is afraid" b2761 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/24/1876 206. "will not be able to stay" b2761 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/24/1876 207. "mold him for everyday life" b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876. 208. "make his life happier" b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876. 209. "I wish he could work" b2761 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/24/1876: Anna maintained this hope despite Vincent's apparently vehement rejection of the suggestion that he return to the art trade. With genuine puzzlement, she wrote Theo: "Do you think he loathes all types of trade or just the art trade?" (b2755 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/1/1876). 210. with his family outside LondonThe Gladwells lived in Lee, a small community about six miles southeast of London. Vincent placed the Gladwell house in Lewisham (JLB 88, 8/18/1876). But here, as elsewhere, his understanding of London geography was flawed. Lewisham was, in fact, very close by Lee. (In 1899, Lee was amalgamated with Lewisham to form the Borough of Lewisham.) However, in 1876, Lee was a separate community less than a mile south and east of Lewisham. In a letter dated 1989 in the Vincent van Gogh Foundation Archives, Bruxner gives the Gladwell address as 10 Lee Place, High Road, Lee. The High Road is now called the Lee High Road. 211. riding accident BVG 73, 8/18/1876. Gladwell’s sister's name was Susannah. Although he apparently never met her, Vincent painted a compelling miniature portrait for Theo: "His sister, a girl full of life, with dark eyes and hair, 17 years old, fell from her horse while riding on Blackheath. She was unconscious when they picked her up, and died 5 hours later without regaining consciousness." (JLB 88, 8/18/1876.)

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "Something very sad happened to his family: his sister, a girl full of life, with dark eyes and hair, 17 years old, fell from her horse while riding on Blackheath."

212. "from one end" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "I left at eleven o'clock; and had a long walk to Lewisham. I crossed London from one end to the other and didn't arrive at my destination until almost five o'clock."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "I left here yesterday morning at 11 o'clock, and had a long walk to Lewisham, the road went from one end of London to the other."

213. He arrived just as BVG 73, 8/18/1876: Vincent walked to Lee on Thursday, August 17. Susannah Gladwell died on August 16; the funeral service took place the next day, the 17th. Three months later, recounting a return trip to the Gladwells, Vincent appears to have mis-remembered the day of the funeral: "It was exactly 3 months ago that I was there that Saturday their daughter was buried" (JLB 99, 11/25/1876). This mistake is taken up in a letter dated from October 17-24, 1989, from David Bruxner to Fieke Pabst in the Van Gogh Foundation Archives. 214. "spectacle of pain" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "I was happy to have come, but confused, truly upset by the spectacle of a pain so great and so venerable."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "… it did me good to be there. I had feelings of embarrassment and shame at seeing that deep, estimable grief, for these people are estimable."

215. "something truly holy" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "The atmosphere of that house was truly holy."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "There was something hallowed in that house yesterday."

216. "I felt a kind" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: " I felt a kind of shyness and shame on witnessing that great impressive sorrow."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: " I had feelings of embarrassment and shame at seeing that deep, estimable grief, for these people are estimable."

129 217. "I wanted to console [them]" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "I wanted to console the father, but I felt embarrassed in front of him."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "I'd have liked to comfort the Father, but I was embarrassed."

218. "about everything" BVG 73, 8/18/1876: Vincent describes this farewell in rapturous terms.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "I chatted for a long time, until evening, with Harry, about everything, the kingdom of God, the Bible; we chatted further, we walked up and down the station platform. Never will we forget the moments before we said goodbye."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "I talked with Harry for a long time, until the evening, about all kinds of things, about the kingdom of God and about his Bible, and we walked up and down on the station, talking, and those moments before parting we'll probably never forget."

 219. "the ordinary world" BVG 73, 8/18/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 218.) We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "So then, we walked up and down the platform of the station, an ordinary world, but we were animated by thoughts that were not ordinary."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "So we walked back and forth on that station, in that everyday world, but with a feeling that was not everyday."

220. "unspeakable consolation" Mackay, pp. 34-35: Mackay quotes a famous summary of the Dutch conception of a watchful, participatory God: " We believe that the same good God, after He had created all things, has not dismissed them or given them up to chance or fortune, but governs them and rules them according to His holy will; so that nothing happens in this world without His ordinance . . . . This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation, since we are taught by it that nothing can befall us by chance, but by the disposition of our most bountiful Heavenly Father, who watches over us with a Fatherly care, keeping all creatures in such wise under His care.” According to this conception, “not a little sparrow can fall to the ground” except according to Providential plan. 221. "healing words" b2515 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 3/17/1877. 222. Ary Scheffer's Christus "Ary Scheffer, De Christus Consolator (1837) en de Christus Remunerator (1848)": The original painting of Christus Consolator was sold by Goupil through Uncle Cent's gallery in The Hague 1862. 223. "I have come to heal" "Ary Scheffer, De Christus Consolator (1837) en de Christus Remunerator (1848)": The biblical passage that inspired the Christus Consolator was Luke 4: 18-19: "I have come to heal those who are of a broken heart, to preach deliverance to those in jail, and to give freedom to the suppressed." 224. favorite religious images "Ary Scheffer, De Christus Consolator (1837) en de Christus Remunerator (1848)": “In religious circles in the 19th century, the Christus Consolator was an extraordinarily popular work. One could find everywhere engravings and lithographs [of it], printed in all kinds of formats.” 225. oppression "Ary Scheffer, De Christus Consolator (1837) en de Christus Remunerator (1848)." Vincent does not mention, and may not have been aware of, the elaborate political symbolism of the painting. According to the artist's own notes, the figure in the right foreground of Consolator is a “Pole” who is lying on the bloody national flag -- "symbols of the failed insurrection of 1831 against the Russians." Next to the fallen Pole is an African slave "beseechingly extending his fettered arms to Christ," and behind him, figures representing Africa’s previous slave-trading eras, from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Also in the picture, according to Scheffer’s notes, is a Greek "who only achieved his freedom in the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the long fight for freedom against the Turks." 226. despair "Ary Scheffer, De Christus Consolator (1837) en de Christus Remunerator (1848)." According to the artist's notes, the figure at the top left of the painting, clutching a dagger, represents a suicide (or intended suicide). In the same group are a castaway holding the broken rudder of his ship and an exile holding his walking stick. In front of this group is a laurel-crowned poet (Torquato Tasso), representing unrecognized talent. The three figures in the lighted left foreground represent the three stages of womanhood -- each, presumably, with unique cause for despondency. 227. "Sadness does no harm" BVG 36a, 9/7/1875: Vincent relayed this message from his father to his brother.

Context:
JLB 46, 9/9/1875: "Melancholy does not hurt, but makes us see things with a holier eye."

228. "fine gold" JLB 46, 9/9/1875.

Context:
BVG 36a, 9/7/1875: "This is the true 'still sadness,' the pure gold, but we have not got as far as that, not by a long shot."
JLB 46, 9/9/1875: " That is true 'quiet melancholy', fine gold, but we aren't that far yet, not by a long way" (emphasis in original).

229. new forms of suffering Perrot, ed., p. 520. 230. "quiet melancholy" JLB 46, 9/9/1875.

Context:
BVG 36a, 9/7/1875: "This is the true 'still sadness,' the pure gold, but we have not got as far as that, not by a long shot."
JLB 46, 9/9/1875: "That is true 'quiet melancholy,' fine gold, but we aren't that far yet, not by a long way" (emphasis in original).

130 231. "Deep, unspeakable suffering" Eliot, Adam Bede, p. 427. 232. "the great consoler of life" Renan, p. 103. 233. "Your acts of penance" Kempis, pp. 151-154: This is among Kempis’s long list of the benefits to be enjoyed in heaven, some of which were especially alluring to the guilt-ridden but persecuted-feeling Vincent: “There I will give you glory for the insults you sustained, a mantle of praise to replace your sorrow, and for the lowest place that was yours on earth, I offer you a throne in the eternal kingdom. There the fruitfulness of your obedience will be made manifest to everyone; your acts of penance will be transformed into joy, and the humble subjection of yourself will receive its crown of glory.” 234. "sorrowful, yet always"The Biblical source is 2 Corinthians 6:10. Not uncharacteristically, Vincent takes the passage out of context and invests it with vast new personal meaning. In fact, it is one in a long sequence of instructions/encouragements that Paul gives to his followers in Corinth, mostly in the form of apposites or paradoxes: "But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses … as deceivers, and yet true; As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." 235. discovered a perfect expression BVG 28, 6/19/1875. In June 1875, Vincent used these words to console Theo on the death of a friend. He used the expression again in September 1876: "There are words that accompany us and grow up with us, as it were -- which are, 'sorrowful, yet always rejoicing'" (JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876). In Paris, in 1875, Vincent was moved by a sermon with a similar message: "Heureaux ceux pourqui la vie a toutes ses épines" (Happy are they for whom life has all its thorns) (JLB 41, 8/16/1875-9/1/1875). The same paradox of joyful sorrow lay at the core of the "comfort" that Vincent offered Theo, and himself, in poetry albums filled with images of loneliness and despair; in the consolation he offered homesick schoolboys, and himself, when he read to them at bedtime about the perilous journeys of Longfellow and Craik or the grief-stricken mothers of Andersen and Conscience.

Context:
JLB 35, 6/19/1875: "This is one of those things that, little by little, makes us 'sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing'; and that we must become."

236. "I've found a joy" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: Vincent is quoting "Joy in Sorrow," from Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (Bliss and Sankey, n. 18):

             I've found a joy in sorrow,
             A secret balm for pain,
             A beautiful tomorrow
             Of sunshine after rain;
             I've found a branch of healing
             Near every bitter spring,
             A whispered promise stealing
             O'er every broken string,
             A whispered promise stealing
             O'er every broken string.

             Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: " I've found a joy in sorrow, a secret balm for pain."
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: " I've found a joy in sorrow, a secret balm for pain."

237. "Sorrow is better" BVG 78, 10/24/1876.

Context:
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: "Sorrow is better than laughter."

238. "to get myself ready" BVG 77, 10/13/1876.

Context:
BVG 77, 10/13/1876: "I shall have to buy a pair of new boots to get myself ready for new wanderings."
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "I hope to buy a new pair of shoes to prepare myself."

239. Methodist church in Richmond Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 95. The fact that Vincent assisted at and preached his first sermon in a Methodist church misled Jo Bonger to believe that Mr. Slade-Jones was a Methodist minister (Bonger-van Gogh, p. xxvi). He was, in fact, a Congregational preacher, although, as Bailey points out, the two churches were doctrinally similar (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 94). 240. "visiting the people" BVG 76, 10/7/1876.

Context:
BVG 76, 10/7/1876: "Mr. Jones has promised me that I shall not have to teach so much in future, but that I may work in his parish, visiting the people, talking with them, etc. May God give His blessing to me."
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "Mr. Jones has promised me that I won't have to teach so much any more, but that I may work in his parish from now on, visiting people, talking to them, and so on. May God give this His blessing."

241. "speak a few words" BVG 75, 10/3/1876.

Context:
BVG 75, 10/3/1876: "Last night, I went on foot to Richmond; I thought of you all the time, it was a beautiful grey evening. You know that every Monday I go to the Methodist church at Richmond; yesterday I spoke a few words on the subject 'Nothing pleases me except Jesus, and everything pleases me in God.'"
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: " Yesterday evening I walked over to Richmond and I thought about you the whole way, it was a beautiful, grey evening, you know that I go there every Monday evening to the Methodist church, yesterday evening I even said a few words on 'Nothing pleaseth me but in Jesus Christ, and in Him all things please me.'"

242. Slade-Jones agreed BVG 80, 11/10/1876. Slade-Jones did more than just agree to let Vincent assume more of a pastoral role, he took affirmative steps to make that possible. Around this time, he hired another assistant to lighten Vincent's teaching load at school, freeing up more of his time for pastoral work at Turnham Green (and in Richmond, where he continued to assist at Monday prayer sessions). Vincent showed some sympathy for the new assistant, although, preoccupied with home, he never gave Theo his name or, it seems, established a relationship with him. Vincent said of him only: "He has never been away from home before, and won't find it easy in the beginning."

Context:
JLB 97, 11/10/1876: "There's a new assistant teacher at the school, because I'll have to work more at Turnham Green from now on."

243. less on academic instruction BVG 76, 10/7/1876.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "Mr. Jones has promised me that I won't have to teach so much any more."

131 244. the twenty-one boys BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "I often teach the boys biblical history, and last Sunday I read the Bible with them. We did that at Ramsgate, too, and when those 21 sons of the London markets and streets."

245. their Bible study BVG 74, 8/26/1876. "Every day I teach them biblical history, and that is something more than a pleasure," Vincent wrote (JLB 88, 8/18/1876). According to Vincent's sister Lies, the school's students were drawn mostly from lower class London homes. She describes them as "sons of small butchers ... sons of cobblers or of small shopkeepers." Thus, the curriculum favored religious devotion over academic instruction (Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 13). Lies clarifies that she is referring to a lower rung of butchers: "sons of small butchers, if one may give them the dignified name of butchers; men who bought and sold meat that reputable firms had refused to purchase" (ibid.). In his memoir, P.C. Görlitz, Vincent's friend in Dordrecht in 1877, recalled Vincent describing his students in Isleworth as "neglected boys and worse" (Görlitz, "Among the People," in Stein, ed., p. 42). Elsewhere, Görlitz appears to recall Vincent referring to "those boys from the London slums" (Görlitz, "Brief van P.C. Görlitz aan Frederik van Eeden," p. 333).

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "I often teach the boys biblical history, and last Sunday I read the Bible with them. We did that at Ramsgate, too, and when those 21 sons of the London markets and streets."

246. prayed with them BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "Mornings and evenings we all read the Bible and sing and pray, and that is good."

247. told inspirational stories BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I just told the story of John and Theagenes -- first in the room where most of the boys sleep and then in the room upstairs where there are 4 others -- in the dark, but when I'd finished they had all fallen asleep unnoticed."

248. Vincent prepared BVG 78, 10/24/1876.

Context:
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: "Yesterday I was in Mr. Jones's church to help get everything ready for this evening."

249. the little iron church Pickvance, p. 47. The Turnham Green Congregational Church is often referred to as a "tin" church. Apparently, it was not tin but iron. The church was built in 1875 and demolished in 1909. (See also Clegg, p. 106, and Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 102.) 250. meetings and services BVG 78, 10/24/1876.

Context:
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: "Last Monday there was a 'tea-meeting' at that church, it had been one year since the church was opened."

251. "Mr. van Gof" Quoted in Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 93-95. 252. "Mr. Vincent" Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 93-95: In the transcript of the Turnham Green teachers' meeting on November 19, Vincent is referred to as "Mr. Vincent van Gof." At the next meeting, two weeks later, he is referred to in the minutes as "Mr. Vincent." The frustration may have been theirs, not his. 253. visiting sick and absent Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 93-95: From the minutes of the teachers' meeting at the Turnham Green church: "Another motion decided that 'it be optional with teachers whether they visit their own scholars or Mr. Vincent visit them.' Finally, it was agreed that 'Mr. Vincent be supplied with all the names & addresses of the scholars in the school & that he go round to each class for particulars of those who require visiting.'" 254. Soon afterward BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. Vincent made his inaugural visit to the Petersham Chapel on Sunday, November 19.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "Next Sunday evening I have to go to Petersham to a Methodist church; Petersham is a village on the Thames, about 20 minutes beyond Richmond; I don't know yet what I'll talk about, the prodigal son or Ps. 42:1."

255. a tiny Methodist chapel Cloake, p. 95: The Methodist Chapel, also known as the Wesleyan Chapel, was built in 1866 and demolished in 1891. 256. a Sunday evening service BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. By December, Vincent was shuttling back and forth between three churches with services three nights a week: "Last Sunday evening I went to a village on the Thames, Petersham. In the morning I had been at the Sunday school at Turnham Green, and went after sunset from there to Richmond and then on to Petersham." (JLB 99, 11/25/1876.) In addition to his ceremonial duties, Vincent visited students' homes during the week, and conducted both morning and afternoon Sunday school classes (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). All this was in addition to his teaching duties at Holme Court, which included singing, praying, Bible-reading with the boys every morning, teaching them unspecified classes at 1:00 in the afternoon every day, and putting them to bed every night. Vincent also had continuing responsibilities as tutor to Slade-Jones's children and tutored "a couple of boys in town," presumably for extra money (ibid.). Amidst this demanding schedule, it is important to remember (but seldom noted) that Vincent's term as a preacher in England was incredibly short. He worked at Turnham Green for about two months, and at Petersham Chapel for only about two weeks.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "Next Sunday evening I have to go to Petersham to a Methodist church; Petersham is a village on the Thames, about 20 minutes beyond Richmond; I don't know yet what I'll talk about, the prodigal son or Ps. 42:1."

257. shuttle of pious activity BVG 77, 10/13/1876. In a letter the parents wrote Theo in September, Anna reported that Vincent had had a long conversation with the Reverend Slade-Jones, "but [Vincent] wrote that it didn't go anywhere" (b2772 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/13/1876). By mid-October, Vincent had secured some kind of commitment from Slade-Jones regarding some pastoral duties at Christmastime. "It is indeed wonderful that Christmas falls in the winter. Oh how I'm looking forward to it, old boy, to make my rounds here and there at Turnham Green when it's cold." (JLB 94, 10/13/1876.) This suggests a prolonged period of discussion and persuasion. The letters contain similar evidence that when Vincent asked to go back to Holland to be with Theo during his illness in October, there was a similar extended period of negotiation in which Vincent's repeated pleadings wore down his employer’s objections. 258. weekly prayer meetings BVG 77, 10/13/1876. The subject of the second talk that Vincent reported giving at the Monday prayer meetings in Richmond was "He hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor."

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "Last Monday I was in Richmond again and took as my text 'He hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor.'"

259. They sometimes fell asleep BVG 74, 8/26/1876. He admitted that it was probably his own fault: "My speaking of Him is nothing much as yet," he wrote, "[b]ut I'll learn by practice" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876).

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I just told the story … in the dark, but when I'd finished they had all fallen asleep unnoticed. It's no wonder, because they ran around a lot today in the playground."

260. "sermon book" BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: Vincent first mentions his “sermon book” in November (JLB 98, 11-17/1876-11/18/1876). We are assuming that he starting keeping a similar book no later than early October, as soon as he began preparing for his first sermon later that same month.

Context:
BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "And then in the evening and between times I write in my sermon book."
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "And then in the evening and in my spare moments I write in my sermon book."

261. undoubtedly drew from itVincent’s outpouring of consolation in the fall of 1876 was prompted by problems in Theo's life: first an emotional crisis in August and September -- to which the huge letter, JLB 89, 8/26/1876, responds-- and then a severe physical illness in September and October. Both of these will be discussed later in this chapter. Much of the consoling material that Vincent included during Theo's physical illness is omitted from the printed editions of the letters. Hulsker lists two complete poems by De Génestet ("On the Mountains of Sorrow" and "When I was a Boy") and a page of religious texts that introduces with this cozy note: "And now I'll copy some more for my brother" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876) (see Hulsker, p. 33). Just by itself, Vincent’s letter of August 26, the longest so far in their correspondence, is an exhaustive compendium of consoling miscellany including not just dozens of Biblical verses, but transcribed poetry, personal recollections, and references to Eliot (Felix Holt) and Michelet (now rehabilitated) (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). In its manic insistence and ardent incoherence, this collection of materials is clearly a rehearsal for Vincent’s first sermon -- and similar campaigns of persuasion in the future. 262. "Whoever wants to preach" BVG 77, 10/13/1876.

Context:
BVG 77, 10/13/1876: "Monday last, I was again in Richmond, and my subject was, "He has sent me to preach the Gospel to the poor"; but whoever wants to preach the Gospel must carry it in his own heart first."
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "Last Monday I was in Richmond again and took as my text 'He hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor'. But he who wants to preach the gospel must first have it in his own heart."

263. fall asleep with a Bible Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 86-87. 264. "I am a stranger" Bonger, p. 87: Psalms 119:19: "I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me." Vincent has substituted "on" for the King James Version's "in": I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me" (emphasis added). 132 265. Christus Consolator BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. At Vincent's request, Theo actually sent both the Christus Consolator and its pendant, Christus Remunerator (JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876). For a while, Vincent hung both prints "above my reading-desk in my room" (JLB 86, 7/8/1876). But by November, Vincent reported only the Consolator hanging on his wall (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). For Vincent, the Remunerator never achieved the same iconic significance as the Consolator.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall, Christus Consolator and Good Friday and the Women at the sepulchre and The old Huguenot and The prodigal son by Ary Scheffer and the little boat on a stormy sea and one etching, an autumn landscape, view of the heath, which I got from Harry Gladwell on my birthday …"

266. Sunday, October 29 BVG 79, 10/31/1876: Speaking of himself in an elated, ethereal (and rare) third person, Vincent wrote his brother after the sermon. Other commentators (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 95-96; Pickvance, p. 8; and, more recently, Druick and Zegers, p. 19) have placed the date of the sermon a week later, on November 5. But JLB confirm that the sermon was given on October 29 (JLB 96, 11/3/1876).

Context:
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "Theo, your brother spoke for the first time in God's house last Sunday, in the place where it is written 'I will give peace in this place'. I'm copying out what it was herewith. May it be the first of many."

267. It was a clear autumn day BVG 79, 10/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "It was a clear autumn day and a lovely walk from here to Richmond along the Thames, which reflected the large chestnut trees with their load of yellow leaves and the clear blue sky, and between the tree-tops the part of Richmond that lies on the hill, the houses with their red roofs and windows without curtains and green gardens, and the grey tower above it all, and below, the large grey bridge with tall poplars on either side, with people crossing it who looked like small black figures."

268. "Abba, Father" BVG 79, 10/31/1876: The Biblical verse Vincent invokes is Mark 14:36, part of the Gospels’ account of Christ’s ordeal in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to his crucifixion: “And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” We have combined elements from both the BVG and the JLB translations of the relevant passage in Vincent’s letter.

Context:
BVG 79, 10/31/1876: "Your brother was indeed deeply moved when he stood at the foot of the pulpit and bowed his head and prayed: 'Abba, Father, in Thy name be our beginning.'"
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "Your brother was indeed moved when he stood at the foot of the pulpit and bowed his head and prayed 'Abba, Father, let Thy name be our beginning.'"

269. "emerging from a dark cave" BVG 79, 10/31/1876.

Context:
BVG 79, 10/31/1876: "When I was standing in the pulpit, I felt like somebody who, emerging from a dark cave underground, comes back to the friendly daylight."
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "When I stood in the pulpit I felt like someone emerging from a dark, underground vault into the friendly daylight."

270. "preaching the Gospel" BVG 79, 10/31/1876. We have altered the translation slightly.

Context:
BVG 79, 10/31/1876: "It is a delightful thought that in the future wherever I go, I shall preach the Gospel; to do that well, one must have the Gospel in one's heart. May the Lord give it to me."
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "… it's a wonderful thought that from now on, wherever I go, I'll be preaching the gospel -- to do that well one must have the gospel in his heart, may He bring this about" (emphasis in original).

271. "It is an old belief" Bonger, p. 87. 272. spoke English accurately b0985 V/1962, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/22/1878: In July 1878, the Reverend Slade-Jones briefly visited the Van Goghs in Etten and accompanied Vincent and his father to Brussels for an interview at an evangelical school (see chapter 11). The visit and the interview gave Dorus a chance to hear Vincent converse in English. Impressed, he wrote Theo: "[Jones] also gave a good recommendation for Vincent in Brussels, and caused, by his presence, the conversation to be held mostly in English. Because of which Vincent had the opportunity to show that he spoke it fast and accurately, resulting in a plus for him." 273. with great speed b0985 V/1962, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/22/1878. 274. an unfamiliar language Bonger-van Gogh, pp. 87-91: There are many examples in Vincent’s sermon of muddled syntax and odd word choice, but surprisingly few examples of outright error, which may suggest either that Vincent was well-schooled in the grammatical rules of English or perhaps that he checked and rechecked his work for errors (the transcription that he sent to Theo is, like his poetry albums, relatively correction-free). The closest he comes to an outright error is this: "we have a strife to strive and a fight to fight" (Bonger-Van Gogh, p. 88). 275. But though to be bornSee Bonger-Van Gogh, p. 90. In this passage, Vincent loosely cobbles together John 3:3 ("born again"), 1 Corinthians 13:13 ("Faith, Hope, and Charity"), Luke 9:62 ("hand to the plough"), and perhaps Matthew 4:18 ("casting a net into the sea"). 276. "Have we not often felt" See Bonger-Van Gogh, p. 89. 277. Metaphors mixed and morphedSee Bonger-Van Gogh, pp. 87-91. At one point, Vincent compares a pilgrim's journey to "sailing on a river," then subsequently to a voyage on a stormy ocean ("My bark is so small and Thy sea is so great") (ibid., p. 88). He describes a man's heart as "like the sea," with its own "storms." Elsewhere, he presents the sea as a marvelous place, filled with "the works of the Lord and His wonders." (He is probably thinking of Psalms 107:24: "These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep"); while in another place the sea becomes a metaphor for life and is filled with joys and sorrows. On this sea, God guides pilgrims through storms "into their desired haven" (ibid.) but "calms can also be “treacherous" (ibid., p. 89) – or, alternatively, pilgrims can find "peace even in the storm," (ibid., p. 90). 133 278. "We want to know"See Bonger-Van Gogh, p. 89. We have not been able to identify any scripture upon which Vincent might have based this outburst, even loosely. 279. preach in "simplicity" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: This was part of a broader rule for living that Vincent tried to follow.

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "'Strengthen thine heart' also in this sense; eat thy bread in simplicity of heart; at least I do this, I cannot do otherwise, God help me, if there be peril in doing it: 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' Eat your bread but live simply, and smoke your pipe, which I do myself whenever I can manage to go out once in a while."

280. "fullness of heart"BVG 70, 7/5/1876. Elsewhere, Vincent said: "he who wants to preach the gospel must first have it in his own heart" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876); and,"I'll be preaching the gospel -- to do that well one must have the gospel in his heart" (JLB 96, 11/3/1876; emphasis in original). Vincent appears to have borrowed this expression from Les oraisons funebres (Funeral Orations) by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, an influential French bishop who advocated the rights of the French church against papal authority. Bossuet also wrote funeral panegyrics for historic personages (such as Charles I), using them as opportunities to teach lessons about morality and piety. In addition to the Orations, Vincent reported reading at this time François Guizot’s L’amour dans le marriage. Etude historique (Love in Marriage: an Historical Study) (1855), a fantastical account of the blissful relationship between the Englishman Lord William Russell and his pious wife Rachel (see JLB 85, note 22). It reveals something about Vincent’s persistent class-consciousness that at a time when he was professing a burning ambition to preach to the poor that he was reading these accounts of the high-born, and seeking examples of imitable piety among the nobility.

Context:
BVG 70, 7/5/1876: "And involuntarily I thought of the persons who had lived there at Hampton Court, of Charles I and his wife … at whose tomb Bossuet spoke from the fullness of his heart."
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "And I couldn't help thinking vividly of the people who have lived at Hampton Court, of Charles I and his wife … at whose graveside Bossuet spoke from the abundance of his heart."

281. rehearsing his sermonJLB 89, 8/26/1876. This letter and the following one (JLB 90 (9/2-8/1876) are the best surviving examples of how Vincent used his letters to “rehearse” his sermons. They are also the longest letters up to this point in Vincent’s correspondence with Theo. Surely this is exactly the kind of leaden, confusing compendium of scripture that Dorus complained to Theo that he, too, received from Vincent: “It is not a letter that gives a lot of satisfaction! I wish he would learn simple things as a child does and not exaggerate, over-exert, and play with Bible texts.” The letter referred to by his father, written around the same time as JLB 89 and JLB 90, is lost, but the exasperation Dorus describes is not unlike that felt by the modern reader confronting these two letters. 282. "If only he learned" b2770 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/8/1876. We have benefitted from the translation of this letter in Hulsker (p.40). 283. "I do not speak" BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I speak with some difficulty and I don't know what it sounds like to English ears."

 284. "You are going to hear" BVG 82, 11/25/1876: Vincent wrote in November that he had “warned” the congregation in Petersham.

Context:
BVG 82, 11/25/1876: "At Petersham, I warned the community that it was going to hear bad English."
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "At Petersham I told the congregation that they would be hearing poor English."

285. "I shall be unlucky" BVG 80, 11/10/1876.

Context:
BVG 80, 11/10/1876: "Theo, I shall be unlucky if I cannot preach the Gospel, if my lot is not to preach, if I have not given all my hopes and all my trust to Christ. Well, misery is truly my lot, while what I need now is a little courage in spite of everything."
JLB 97, 11/10/1876: "Theo, woe is me if I don't preach the gospel, and if I didn't have my sight fixed on that and didn't have hope and faith in Christ, then I would only have woe" (emphasis in original).

286. the tug of hymns b2352 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus, Anna C. en Willemina van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/11/1875: Hymns are mentioned occasionally in the family correspondence. In 1875, Dorus cited a hymn by number (ibid.). A year later, Dorus complained about the singing at the church in Hoeven that it "leaves much to be desired" and vowed to find a "small Harmonium" for the church, suggesting that the singing needed reinforcement and/or guidance (b2768 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/30/1876). Leo Jansen notes, in a letter to the authors, that “many of Vincent’s biblical quotes are in fact taken from hymns.” 287. "intoxicated with the sweet" Van Gogh-Bonger, in Van Gogh, p. xxvi. Vincent benefited from arriving in England at a time of revival in interest in Anglican hymn singing (and liturgical music in general) thanks to the influence of the Oxford Movement. (See Young, p. 126.) While in Paris, Vincent sought out English-language services. He described them as "simple and beautiful" (JLB 69, 2/7/1876). This had to be primarily because of the music. It was at one such service in Paris that Vincent first heard his favorite hymn, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story" (JLB 82, 5/12/1876). 288. "[He] likes the organ" b2639 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/2/1873. 289. Vincent surely added his voice As mentioned before, there is no documentary proof that Vincent attended Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle. The evidence is all circumstantial: given (1) Vincent’s religious obsession at the time, (2) the proximity of the Tabernacle to Vincent’s lodgings at the time, and (3) the celebrity status and overwhelming charisma of Spurgeon at the time, it is highly unlikely that Vincent did not join the throngs in Spurgeon’s thrall. 290. "a huge sea of melody" "A Biography of Charles Haddon Spurgeon." 291. He asked Theo to send BVG 41, 10/6/1875.

Context:
JLB 54, 10/6/1875: "I'd very much like to have the Dutch hymns. When you get the opportunity, do you think you could manage to send the cheapest edition that can be found?"

292. sent him in return BVG 64, 5/1/1876; BVG 65, 5/6/1876-5/8/1876.

Context:
JLB 81, 5/6/1876: "Herewith you'll find the 2 books I promised you."

293. He carried a popular hymnal Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs by P. P. Bliss and Ira D. Sankey, as Used by Them in Gospel Meetings (1875). This collection of popular hymns was compiled with selections from two earlier publications, P. P. Bliss's Gospel Songs (1874) and Ira D. Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos (1873). The volumes associated with Sankey were widely known as the "Moody and Sankey hymns" after the team of American evangelists who popularized them. Sankey, a gospel singer, and Dwight Lyman Moody, a preacher, first collaborated in 1870. After surviving the Great Chicago Fire together in 1871, their career flourished and they toured in England between 1873 and 1875.

Vincent was familiar with a number of the "Moody and Sankey hymns," and several references in his letters suggest that he owned at least one copy of Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (1875). In September, Vincent quotes the lyrics of the hymn "Joy in Sorrow" (number 18 in Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs):
"I've found a joy in sorrow, a secret balm for pain,
A beautiful tomorrow of sunshine after rain;
I've found a branch of healing near every bitter spring,
A whispered promise stealing o'er every broken string."
(JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876.)

In an earlier letter, Vincent cited another selection from the same hymnal (number 37) as one of his favorites: “I also like ‘Tell me the old, old story’ very much. I first heard it sung in Paris, in the evening in a small church I used to attend sometimes. No. 12 is also beautiful.” (JLB 82, 5/12/1876.) He added, "I regret not having gone to hear Moody and Sankey when they were in London" (ibid.). The fact that "Tell Me the Old, Old Story" appeared in only one of the two "Moody and Sankey" hymnals in circulation at the time strongly suggests that Gospel Hymn and Sacred Songs was one of the "English hymnals" that Vincent sent to Theo in early May (JLB 80, 5/1/1876; see also JLB 81, 5/6/1876). By "English hymnals," Vincent probably meant "English language hymnals." Vincent never paid much attention to distinctions between English-speaking peoples, so this mistake isn't surprising.

294. referred to his favorites by number BVG 66, 5/12/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. [He carried a popular hymnal].)

Context
JLB 82, 5/12/1876: "I also like 'Tell me the old, old story' very much. I first heard it sung in Paris, in the evening in a small church I used to attend sometimes. No. 12 is also beautiful."

295. his students in Bible study BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "Mornings and evenings we all read the Bible and sing and pray, and that is good."

296. "hum a snatch" BVG 73, 8/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "How I wish you could see the playground and the garden beyond, now, in the twilight. The gas is flickering in the school and one can hear the companionable sound of the boys at their lessons. Now and then one of them starts to hum a snatch of some hymn or other, and then there is something of the 'old faith' in me."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "How I wish you could see the playground now, and the garden behind it, in the twilight, inside the school the gas-lamps flicker and one hears the congenial sound of the boys learning their lessons, from time to time one of them starts humming a snatch of melody from some hymn or other, and there's something of that 'faith of old' in me."

297. the old faith BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "Now and then one of them starts to hum a snatch of some hymn or other, and then there is something of the 'old faith' in me."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "… from time to time one of them starts humming a snatch of melody from some hymn or other, and there's something of that 'faith of old' in me."

134 298. up from the piano BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "When I was telling the story, I heard one of them playing 'Tell me the old, old story' on the piano downstairs."

299. inexplicable tears BVG 74, 8/26/1876. The evidence that Vincent had fits of crying is circumstantial but strong. In late August, Vincent sent Theo the following Longfellow poem, which appears to be a justification for unexplained outbursts of tears (and clearly a favorite of Vincent's as he used it again in his first sermon): "Sometimes hearts that are drooping / Grow full to the o'erflowing / And they that behold it / Do wonder and know not / That God at their fountains / Far off has been raining." (JLB 89, 8/26/1876.)

In addition, throughout this period, the letters are full of very pointed references to tears and crying -- far more than can be explained by the conventions of Romantic excess. Breton's "Illusions" (see chapter 7, n.7-636), with its “great prism of tears” is only one of many. Here are some additional examples: (1) In August 1876, Vincent wrote Theo an impassioned "sermon" on the temptations of carnality (JLB 87, 8/2/1876). Referring ostensibly to Theo, but clearly also to himself, Vincent explained that sinners undergo "[baptisms], as it were, with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" and afterwards "their eyes sometimes grow moist with tears of wistfulness as they think back on their young years" (JLB 87, 8/2/1876). (2) A month later, again in the context of atoning for past sins, Vincent cited a pamphlet that his father had given him after his sexual misdeeds in The Hague in 1872-73 (see Chapter 5): "I weep, Lord, though my heart is full of gladness I bow my head -- but, Father, in thy bosom" (JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876). (3) In the same letter, Vincent recalled in detail the archetypal tearful moment in his life, the departure of his parents from the school in Zevenbergen and his father's tearful return two weeks later (ibid.). (4) Less than a year later, he spliced two unrelated Biblical passages (Luke 24:29 and Psalms 30:5) in a distinctly autobiographical way: “’Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent’” and “‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning’" (JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877).

Some of these passages clearly refer to joyful tears (what Vincent called "thankful tears" [JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877]) -- i.e., tears of a heart "full to the o'erflowing" -- exactly the same kind of tears that hymns elicited: the product of divine comfort (ibid.). We would argue that these "good" tears are probably more closely related to tears of grief and remorse than Vincent recognized, or would have admitted, although Vincent acknowledged their relationship in his notion of "sorrowful yet always rejoicing." In a letter to Theo in October 1875, Vincent listed "some beautiful English hymns" (JLB 54, 10/6/1875). One of these was "Oft in Sorrow, Oft in Woe." Vincent wrote out all the lyrics, which included this couplet: “Let not sorrow dim your eye, / Soon shall ev'ry tear be dry” (ibid.). (For music and complete lyrics, see: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/f/oftinsor.htm.)

300. sing them softly to himself BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. The autobiographical implication of Vincent's marginal instruction to Theo is unmistakable: “Do not be afraid to sing a hymn in the evening when you are out for a walk and nobody is about.” Vincent even prompts his brother with some of his own particular favorites: ‘As pants the hart [sic] for cooling streams, when heated in the chase,’ or, ‘Oh my soul, why art thou bowed down,’ or, ‘Centre of our craving,’ or, ‘I know to Whom I entrust myself.’”

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: “Don't be afraid, when you're out walking in the evening and there's no one near by, to sing a psalm: ‘The panting hart, the hunt escaped,’ or ‘O why art thou cast down, my soul?’ or ‘Centre of our longing’ or ‘I know in Whom my faith is founded.’” 301. "nobody is about" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 200.)

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "Do not be afraid to sing a hymn in the evening when you are out for a walk and nobody is about: 'As pants the hart for cooling streams, when heated in the chase,' or, 'Oh my soul, why art thou bowed down,' or, 'Centre of our craving,' or, 'I know to Whom I entrust myself.'"
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "Don't be afraid, when you're out walking in the evening and there's no one near by, to sing a psalm: 'The panting hart, the hunt escaped', or 'O why art thou cast down, my soul?' or 'Centre of our longing' or 'I know in Whom my faith is founded.'"

302. "There are so many" BVG 64, 5/1/1876; BVG 65, 5/6/1876-5/8/1876. Here are two good examples of the kind of comfort hymns afforded Vincent, taken from the many that he copied out in albums. These two were also copied in at least one other letter to Theo and can therefore legitimately be considered among his favorites (JLB 54, 10/6/1875):

             Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
             However dark it be:
             Lead me by Thine own hand
             Choose out the path for me."

             Nearer, my God, to Thee.
             Nearer to Thee.
             E'en though it be a cross,
             That raiseth me;
             Still all my song shall be,
             Nearer, my God, to Thee,
             Nearer to Thee.

A subsequent stanza of "Nearer, my God, to Thee" offers another example of the way in which hymns spoke to Vincent's imagination at this time:

             Though like a wanderer,
             the sun gone down,
             Darkness come over me
             My rest a stone.

Here is another example from one of the poetry albums Vincent prepared (Pabst and Uitert, p. 82):

             Oft in sorrow, oft in woe,
             Onward, Christians, onward go.

Pabst and Uitert suggest that Vincent substituted "sorrow" for "danger" in the first line of this hymn when he transcribed it, which may be true, although we have found "sorrow" used in some versions of the hymn (ibid.). (For music and complete lyrics, see http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/w/twaynotm.htm.)

303. lyrics as poetry BVG 64, 5/1/1876.

Context:
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "One of these days you'll be receiving a couple of English hymnals, I'll mark a few of them."

304. "Especially when heard" BVG 64, 5/1/1876.

Context:
BVG 64, 5/1/1876: "There are so many beautiful ones, and especially when heard often, one grows so fond of them."
JLB 80, 5/1/1876: "There is so very much that is beautiful in them. One grows very fond of them, especially when one has heard them here so often."

305. His favorite BVG 66, 5/12/1876. Vincent never specifically said that this was his single favorite hymn, but he mentioned it more often and in more loving terms than any other. ("When I was telling the story, I heard one of [the boys] playing 'Tell me the old, old story' on the piano downstairs" [JLB 89, 8/26/1876].) He also laboriously copied out the words in Annie Slade-Jones’s visitors' book (see Pabst, p. 63). For all these reasons, it is generally assumed in the literature that this is his favorite hymn. (See Bruxner, "In Praise of Hymns," n.p.)

Context:
JLB 82, 5/12/1876: "I also like 'Tell me the old, old story' very much. I first heard it sung in Paris, in the evening in a small church I used to attend sometimes."

306. "Tell me the old, old story" BVG 66, 5/12/1876. Words by Arabella Catherine Hankey (1866). The lyrics are similar to those of "I Love to Tell the Story." Both are drawn from Hankey's poem "The Old, Old Story":
“Tell me the old, old story
Of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory,
Of Jesus and His love.
Tell me the story simply,
As to a little child;
For I am weak, and weary,
And helpless, and defiled.” (JLB 82, 5/12/1876; n. 1.)

For music and complete words, see:
 http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/e/tellmoos.htm.

Context:
JLB 82, 5/12/1876: "Thanks for your letter; I also like 'Tell me the old, old story' very much."

307. "to say something" BVG 531, 9/3/1888.

Context:
BVG 531, 9/3/1888: "And in a picture I want to say something comforting as music is comforting. I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we seek to confer by the actual radiance and vibration of our colourings."
JLB 673, 9/3/1888: "And in a painting I'd like to say something consoling, like a piece of music. I'd like to paint men or women with that je ne sais quoi of the eternal, of which the halo used to be the symbol, and which we try to achieve through the radiance itself, through the vibrancy of our colorations."

308. Vincent's parents wrote BVG 75, 10/3/1876. There is good reason to believe that Vincent knew of Theo's illness before he heard about it from their parents, and that he knew (or thought he knew) the cause of it, if not the exact nature of it. Vincent's letters from this period suggest that he believed the cause of the illness was melancholy arising from yet another amorous misadventure (both brothers believed that physical and emotional health were linked). The timing of the huge letter JLB 89 (in August, suggests that Vincent was aware of Theo's illness before Dorus and Anna first heard about it from Uncle Jan at the end of September (b2773 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 9/29/1876).

Vincent's ministrations in JLB 89 were directed primarily to melancholy and lust, not to physical illness. The passage from Michelet's L'amour ("from here I see a lady") -- always a subject when Theo found himself in love with an "inappropriate" woman -- was prominently discussed. He quoted from a poem that spoke of "waywardness," “ininquities,” and “transgression leading to his blight," as well as the weakness of the flesh and the forgiveness of sins. (JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876.) The same letter contains much talk of love: the inevitability of love ("He that hath not loved knoweth not God; for God is Love" [1 John 4:8]); and the exculpatory power of love ("And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" [ibid.], which is a combination of Peter 4:8, 1 Peter 1:22, and James 5:20. To bolster his arguments, Vincent constructed another pastiche of scripture, this one from the Old Testament prophets, which he was reading at the time: "For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee, even if all thy lovers have forgotten thee. I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds" (a combination of Jeremiah 30:11, 30:14, and 30:17). (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). The curious addition of "and I will heal thee of thy wounds," which appears nowhere in Jeremiah or elsewhere in the Bible, may suggest that Vincent was aware of Theo's illness before his comment, weeks later, in apparent surprise, "I heard from home that you were ill" (JLB 92, 10/3/1876). It is curious that Theo did not inform his parents of his illness; they learned of it only through the timely intervention of his Uncle Jan. All of this points to the existence of another, previously unrecorded amorous misadventure by Theo in 1876 (or perhaps just the early stages of the documented one the following year [see Chapter 9).

A cryptic passage in a letter from Dorus to Theo in August may be relevant to this issue. In it, Dorus chastised Theo for having spoken directly to an applicant for the position of governess in the Van Gogh household (for Wil and Cor). "[W]e are almost sorry that you spoke to the person in question herself. We were advised in no uncertain terms never to consider hiring a governess, and certainly not one who isn't of the highest class, since the instruction and especially the education demand as much. And we now fear that this person has more or less pinned her hopes on this position. I think this whole situation is very sad and difficult, but at the same time I have to say -- do you think it is wise to contact her personally? To prevent this I enclose a note. Dear Theo! Please don't think that I don't have any confidence in you, but believe me: as unhappy as I think her fate is, you should avoid having any further contact with a person like that." (b2764 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/18/1876; emphasis in original.)

Dorus's frantically worried tone about his son's possible involvement with this lower-class woman (governesses were widely regarded as sexual temptations to social debasement) suggests that Theo was already well known for his wayward heart, and it casts a new and different light on Vincent’s subsequent extended affair with the prostitute Sien Hoornik in The Hague (see Chapter 17), especially his anger at Theo both for condemning the relationship and for joining their parents in opposing Vincent’s plan to marry the woman (see Chapter 19).

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "I heard from home that you were ill."

309. Theo had fallen seriously illb2522 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 4/29/1877. The exact nature of Theo's illness is unknown. The family letters say only that he was seen by a doctor ("Dr. Blum Cortez" [b2773 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/29/1876] and "Dr. Coster" [b2786 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus and Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/23/1876]); that he had a lingering fever (b2775 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/30/1876); and that he was treated with quinine ("Chinnine") (b2773 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/29/1876). Later, Anna referred to "the dreadful disease," but did not name it (b2804 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/31/1876). Given the timing so soon after Theo’s presumed dalliance with a governess candidate (see Ch. 8, n. 308), the actual problem may have been a sexually-transmitted disease – an affliction that would not have been identified in the family correspondence. 310. Dorus rushed to his son's b2782 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/7/1876: Dorus was in The Hague by October 7. He had returned to Etten by October 19 (b2785 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1876). 311. Anna followed close behind b2786 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus and Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/23/1876. Anna apparently arrived at Theo's bedside soon after October 7 (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876), and had returned to Etten by October 23 (b2786 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus and Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/23/1876). 312. an avalancheHulsker, p. 33. Much of the consoling material that Vincent included during the period of Theo's physical illness is omitted from the printed editions of his letters. Hulsker lists the two complete poems by P.A. de Génestet ("On the Mountains of Sorrow" and "When I was a Boy") and a page of religious texts introduced by Vincent’s words, "And now I'll copy some more for my brother." All of these are included in JLB 94, 10/13/1876. We would also include in the inventory of consoling materials that Vincent sent Theo the letter he wrote in late August (JLB 89, 8/26/1876Even though Vincent may have sent it before he knew the exact nature of Theo's physical illness, he certainly had a general idea of its cause and the circumstances that lead to it (see Ch. 8, n. 308). 313. "How I long to see you" BVG 76, 10/7/1876: When Vincent discovered that his father had gone to Theo's bedside, he longed to join them. But the image of his mother at his brother's bedside seemed especially to unsettle him with guilt and remorse. "When I think of you like this, as of 'one whom his Mother comforteth and who is worthy of being comforted by his Mother,'" he wrote Theo, "it is with envy" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876;). Vincent appears to have once again drawn his inspiration for these sentiments from tdhe Bible, or at least tried to bolster them with the sanctity of scripture. Isaiah 66:13: “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted " Jeremiah 3:4: “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of youth?" and Jeremiah 3:19: "Thou shalt call me, My Father, and shalt not turn away from me."

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "I'm longing so much to see you again, oh, I can long for it so much sometimes."

135 314. begged Reverend Slade-Jones BVG 77, 10/13/1876. Vincent's mother's response to Vincent’s request is dealt with later in this chapter.

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "I asked Mr. Jones to let me go and see you in these three days, my heart is so much with you. It now depends on you two, if you say, 'you may come', then Mr. Jones will let me go."

315. "Besides longing to sit" BVG 77, 10/13/1876.

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "Besides wanting so much to sit at Theo's bedside, I should also like so very much to talk to my Mother, and if possible to go to Etten once more to see and speak to my Father again."

316. painful memories BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "How much I thought of Anna on the boat; everything there reminded me of our journey together."

317. the school's bay window BVG 61, 4/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 77, 4/17/1876: "I arrived here safe and sound yesterday afternoon at 1 o'clock, and one of my first impressions was that the window of the not-very-large school looks out over the sea."

318. think of his homeland BVG 65, 5/6/1876-5/8/1876.

Context:
JLB 81, 5/6/1876: "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."

319. "melancholy" BVG 67, 5/31/1876.

Context:
BVG 67, 5/31/1876: "I wish you could see them [i.e., the students] looking from the window then, it is rather melancholy."
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "You should have seen them then, standing at the window looking out, it was really rather sad."

320. sent it homeActually, Vincent made two drawings of the scene from the school’s front window. He enclosed one with a letter to Theo (JLB 83, 5/31/1876). The fate of the other is not clear. According to Van Heugten,"Van Gogh may have sent it to his parents or to one of his sisters in a letter that has not survived" (Van Heugten, p. 61). 321. "None of us" BVG 67, 5/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Many a boy will never forget the view from that window."

322. he walked with them BVG 63, 4/28/1876. Later, Vincent wrote, "I walked over there with the oldest boy in the school and told him several of Andersen's fairy tales, including 'The story of a mother'" (JLB 97, 11/10/1876).

Context:
JLB 79, 4/28/1876: "I'd like to walk with you both sometime through the Bosjes [woods] to Scheveningen."

323. made sand castles with them BVG 62, 4/21/1876.

Context:
JLB 78, 4/24/1876: "We go to the beach often; this morning I helped the boys build a sand-castle like those we made in the garden at Zundert."

324. showed them prints BVG 69a, 6/17/1876. On one of Vincent’s visits to Welwyn to see his sister Anna, the latter reported to Theo that “Vincent is busy showing engravings to the children.” “The children” here refers to the children of Anna’s employer, Miss Applegarth. We are assuming that Vincent took advantage of similar opportunities in Ramsgate and Isleworth to show his collection of prints to his charges. JLB have omitted this portion of the letter from their new translation of the Van Gogh letters, presumably because it was written by Anna and only enclosed in a letter Vincent sent to Theo (JBL 84, 6/17/1876).

Context:
BVG 69a, 6/17/1876: "Vincent is busy showing engravings to the children."

325. put them to bed BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I just told the story of John and Theagenes -- first in the room where most of the boys sleep and then in the room upstairs where there are 4 others -- in the dark, but when I'd finished they had all fallen asleep unnoticed."

326. "I would have preferred" BVG 80, 11/10/1876. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 80, 11/10/1876: "I should have liked to have you with me last Thursday evening in the little church at Turnham Green. I walked there with the oldest boy in the school, and told him some of Andersen's tales, including 'The Story of a Mother.&apos"
JLB 97, 11/10/1876: "I should have liked you to be in the little church at Turnham Green last Thursday evening; I walked over there with the oldest boy in the school and told him several of Andersen's fairy tales, including 'The story of a mother.'"

 327. two sprigs of beach moss BVG 61, 4/17/1876. Vincent thought he was sending two bits of seaweed: “Yesterday evening and this morning we all took a walk by the sea. Herewith a bit of seaweed.” (ibid.) According to JLB, however, the enclosures preserved in the letter are “two sprigs of something looking like seaweed ... [but] in fact they are not seaweed. The larger is a moss animal, a bryozoan: Flustra foliacea (hornwrack); the smaller is a hydroid: Hydrallmania falcata, to which three minuscule mussels adhere. Both were formerly considered zoophytes.” (JLB 77, 4/17/1876; n. 1.) Luitjen charmingly describes the “seaweed” enclosure as "this 120-year-old little English sprig" (Luijten, pp. 99-100).

Context:
JLB 77, 4/17/1876: "Yesterday evening and this morning we all took a walk by the sea. Herewith a bit of seaweed."

328. On a visit to Hampton Court BVG 70, 7/5/1876. On July 5 (a Wednesday), Vincent wrote that he had paid this visit "last week," which would put the trip between Monday, June 26 and Sunday, July 2.

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Last week I was at Hampton Court to see the splendid gardens and long avenues of chestnut and lime trees where masses of crows and rooks have their nests, and also to see the palace and the paintings."

329. he retrieved a feather BVG 70, 7/5/1876.

Context:
JLB 85, 7/3/1876 or 7/4/1876: "Herewith a feather from one of the rooks there."

330. asked Theo to help him BVG 71, 7/8/1876. Specifically, Vincent asked his brother to “go and find” a catechist named “Hillen … and tell him that I've become a schoolmaster and, who knows, may later find some kind of situation connected with the church.” He gave Theo only the man’s surname and street, "Bagijnestraat" (JLB 86, 7/8/1876). Vincent underscored his serious intent both by using a stern, instructive tone ("Now I have a request to make of you") and by including a drawing to give to Hillen. According to JLB, “the Dutch Reformed (‘Nederlands-Hervormde’) catechist named Johannes Hillen lived at Bagijnestraat 3 until sometime in 1870.” By 1876 had moved to Juffrouw Idastraat 20” (ibid.; n. 4).

Context:
JLB 86, 7/8/1876: "Now I have a request to make of you. Back then in The Hague I went to a catechist, Hillen, who was living in Bagijnestraat at the time. He took great pains over me and, although I didn't show it, what he said made an impression on me, and I have a mind to write a word or two to him, perhaps it would give him pleasure. Go and find him if you have the time and can discover his address, and tell him that I've become a schoolmaster and, who knows, may later find some kind of situation connected with the church."

331. find a job there BVG 71, 7/8/1876. At the same time Vincent was trying to find a position in The Hague, he was rejecting his parents' vociferous invitations for him to come home during his school "holiday" in June and July. Dorus wrote Theo on June 17, 1876: "We insisted that he spend his vacation with us, but he thought it better not to" (b2753 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/17/1876). Apparently, Vincent’s sister Anna also urged him to go home for his vacation when he came to visit her in Welwyn in June. "Anna will likely urge him to do so; she wanted it so much. But if it would benefit him to stay where he is, he should (and probably will) do so." (b2753 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/17/1876.)

A few weeks later, his parents expressed a preference for Vincent to find a job in Holland (specifically, in Amsterdam) (b2755 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 7/1/1876). But when they raised the subject with Vincent, he did not respond, presumably because of their insistence that he needed to undertake additional academic studies -- which would have incurred more expense, something Vincent was desperate to avoid. This would explain his seeking a position in The Hague apparently without telling his parents about it.

Context:
JLB 86, 7/8/1876: "Go and find him if you have the time and can discover his address, and tell him that I've become a schoolmaster and, who knows, may later find some kind of situation connected with the church."

332. "in connection with" BVG 71, 7/8/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 330.) Context: BVG 71, 7/8/1876: "… I have become a schoolmaster and am looking out for some other situation in connection with the church." JLB 86, 7/8/1876: "… I've become a schoolmaster and, who knows, may later find some kind of situation connected with the church." 333. other family members Including Uncle Cor ("Do you still visit Uncle Cor now and then? Sometimes I long to see him so much; just yesterday I wrote to him"); cousin Mauve ("And herewith a letter for Mauve. You may read it, I believe it's good not to forget one's old acquaintances" [JLB 88, 8/18/1876]); and "poor Aunt Bet" ("what old friends we are") (JLB 92, 10/3/1876). "Aunt Bet" is Elisabeth (Betje) Petronella van der Burg (JLB 92, 10/3/1876; n. 5). Note that Uncle Cent is not on this list. 334. sister Anna in WelwynVincent eagerly jumped back into the struggle to find Anna a better job, writing more newspaper ads and even paying to place them (JLB 78, 4/24/1876). Anna wanted a job in France or Belgium so she could improve her French (b0953 V/1962, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 3/15/1876 and b2768 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/30/1876). Her parents wanted her to return to Holland to find a position closer to home. The advertisement Vincent refers to in JLB 78 was probably placed by Theo in a newspaper in The Hague (b2745 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 4/30/1876). None of these efforts bore fruit. Anna returned to Etten on July 16 (b2759 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 7/17/1876) accompanied by one of her employers' daughters but, unable to find work, returned to Welwyn on August 25, where she continued to work (at a lower salary) for the rest of the year (b2768 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/30/1876).

It is interesting to note that Anna may have been in London, looking for a new position, when Vincent passed through on Easter weekend in 1876. Mother Anna wrote on Easter Sunday: "We received letters from London, which Anna wrote in a hurry because she is very busy" (b0958 V/1962, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 4/16/1876). Having just left Etten, Vincent would have known his sister was in London, which makes his failure to visit her on his way to Ramsgate somewhat puzzling. It may be further evidence of the anxiousness of his flight and/or of his uneasy relationship with the peevish Anna. When he visited her in June, however, he fell in love with the charming, ivy-covered cottage where she lived, and envied her idyllic en famille situation ("I saw so clearly how everyone there loved her" [JLB 110, 4/8/1877]). Perhaps for that very reason, the visit apparently ended in yet another fight between the siblings. The fracas, as always with the Van Goghs, is evidenced mostly through omission.

The visit seems to have begun amicably enough. Anna wrote Theo while Vincent was still in Welwyn: "You can well imagine how delightful it was meeting Vincent again." (BVG 69a, 6/17/1876). Anna included her letter with a letter Vincent had written to Theo, and therefore surely assumed that Vincent would read it (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). Something seems to have happened afterward to spoil this initial comity, however. Both Anna and Vincent were silent about the visit in subsequent letters to their parents, which the parents took as a sign of trouble. "We were glad you told us some news about Anna from Vincent's letter," their mother wrote Theo two weeks after the visit, "because Anna hasn't written us since [Vincent’s] departure and although we asked Vincent about it, he doesn't write anything about his stay" (b2755 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 7/1/1876). A possible subject of dispute was Anna's effort to convince Vincent to go home to Holland during his holiday -- as reported by their mother: "Anna will likely urge him to [return home]; she wanted it so much" (b2753 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/17/1876). Why Anna was so eager for Vincent to return to Holland is not clear. The other (in our opinion, more likely) cassis belli was Vincent's envy of Anna's loving family situation -- the exact situation that he so desperately sought -- which either sparked a dispute or rendered Vincent a surly guest. It did not take much to generate friction between the two eldest Van Gogh siblings. 335. even Tersteeg BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "Herewith a few words for Mr. Tersteeg."

336. Frans Soek BVG 73, 8/18/1876. Soek was an employee at Goupil & Cie in Paris.

Context:
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "You may read it, I believe it's good not to forget one's old acquaintances, that's why I'm writing again to some of them, also those in Paris, to [Frans] Soek and others."

337. Harry Gladwell BVG 75, 10/3/1876. Vincent hung on the wall of his room in Isleworth (and probably in his previous room in Ramsgate) the print that Harry Gladwell had given him for his birthday on the eve of his departure from Paris in 1876. He described the image as "an autumn landscape" after Théophile Chauvel. (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). (See De Leeuw, p. 56.) In the same letter, Vincent reported a rush of related memories about his time with Gladwell.

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "Paris will also be beautiful now in the autumn, last year Gladwell and I went every Sunday to as many friends and churches as we could, we left in the morning and came home late."

338. his boss Obach BVG 82, 11/25/1876. On Saturday, November 18, Vincent visited Obach and his family at their home near Clapham. It is likely that Vincent saw Obach at Goupil on a previous trip into the city, such as the one on October 7 ("in the gallery of Messrs G. & Cie, I saw beautiful paintings" [JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876]).

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "I also went to Mr. Obach's to see his wife and children again."

339. former Goupil colleagues BVG 76, 10/7/1876. "When I came to the neighbourhood in the city where most of the galleries are, in the neighbourhood of the Strand, I met a lot of acquaintances" (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). This claim should probably be discounted for exaggeration. Indeed, when Vincent's former co-worker from The Hague, Teunis van Iterson, showed up unexpectedly, he only reminded Vincent of his estrangement from his former life: "It's as though he were a person from another world," Vincent wrote, "so much lies between the time when we were in the firm together and now" (JLB 91, 9/16/1876-9/22/1876). Curiously, perhaps out of politeness, Van Iterson's report to Vincent's parents of this meeting was more positive than Vincent’s. Anna summarized it to Theo: "It's good that Iterson visited Vincent and that he found him healthy and content. For the moment, we are already happy with that, so that we can now start hoping he will have a bright future ahead of him." (b2777 V/1982, ''Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/2/1876.)

There are discrepancies in the literature about the date and nature of Vincent's reunion with his old colleague Van Iterson. Bonger originally dated BVG 68 to mid-August. Luitjen first questioned that date ("As it Came Into My Pen," p. 98), and JLB re-dated the letter to mid-September (See note on dating for JLB 91, 9/16/1876-9/22/1876). The new dating is supported by the letter from Vincent's parents to Theo of October 2 which indicates the visit was recent ("We are so happy that Mr. Itterson [sic] brought such good messages from Vincent"). We would only suggest that perhaps the meeting did not take place in London as both Luitjen and JLB conclude, but in Isleworth, which would explain why Vincent wrote, "Van Iterson just came and surprised me" (JLB 91, 9/16/1876-9/22/1876), and it would make more sense of Dorus's comment that Vincent "had Itterson [sic] with him" (b2773 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/29/1876). It would also explain Vincent's ready access to gifts to send back with Van Iterson. (He gave him two books: an English Hymnal and The Wide, Wide World by Elizabeth Wetherell -- the latter in Dutch, which he could not have laid his hands on quickly in London.) As JLB point out, Vincent does claim to have made a trip to London on the same weekend as the visit with Van Iterson (JLB 92, 10/3/1876), but the reason Vincent gave for that visit was to see Harry Gladwell's father (JLB 91, 9/16/1876-9/22/1876). Vincent could still have gone to London on September 23 to see "the drawings that Van Iterson had brought," (JLB 92, 10/3/1876) but Van Iterson was not necessarily present at that time.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "When I came to the neighbourhood in the city where most of the galleries are, in the neighbourhood of the Strand, I met a lot of acquaintances."

340. Elbert Jan van Wisselingh BVG 76, 10/7/1876. Elbert Jan van Wisselingh was working at Daniel Cottier's gallery at 8 Pall Mall, a distinguished address. "Afterwards I went to see Van Wisselingh, where I saw sketches for two church windows,” Vincent wrote. “In the middle of one of the windows the portrait of an elderly lady, such a noble face, with the words 'Thy will be done' inscribed above; in the other window the portrait of her daughter, with the words 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'" (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876.) These sketches of church windows were probably by Mathijs Maris, although it is odd that Vincent did not mention that.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "Afterwards I went to see Van Wisselingh, where I saw sketches for two church windows."

341. George Reid BVG 76, 10/7/1876. The identity of this pair of Englishmen, whom Vincent identifies as “old friends by now” is discussed in detail in Chapter 6.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "First of all, I met a young clergyman who used to preach here and with whom I became acquainted at that time, then Mr. Wallis's clerk and then one of the Messrs Wallis himself, in those days I went to their house once or twice -- he already has two children -- and then I ran into Mr. Reid and Mr. Richardson, who are old friends by now."

342. Henry Wallis BVG 76, 10/7/1876. Vincent referred to this person only as "one of the Messrs Wallis," but he almost certainly meant Thomas Wallis, an art dealer in London and son of William Henry Wallis, the founder of the French Gallery at 120 Pall Mall. Wallis père retired from the gallery in 1871 (Nonne, p. 43, n. 40).

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "First of all, I met a young clergyman who used to preach here and with whom I became acquainted at that time, then Mr. Wallis's clerk and then one of the Messrs Wallis himself, in those days I went to their house once or twice -- he already has two children -- and then I ran into Mr. Reid and Mr. Richardson, who are old friends by now."

343. "I love those people" BVG 73, 8/18/1876. The depth of Vincent's craving for parental warmth can be seen in his reaction to Harry's family the very first time they met, on the second night Vincent spent in London after his long walk from Ramsgate (probably June 14, 1876) (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). (Also see: Pickvance, p. 8.) (It is possible that Vincent had met Harry's father or other family members previously in Paris when Vincent and Harry shared an employer and a boarding house, although Vincent does not mention any such visit.) After his first stay with Gladwells, Vincent wrote in a thrall: "they were very, very kind. Mr. Gladwell kissed me good-night and that did me good" (JLB 84, 6/17/1876). Two months later, when Vincent joined the family mourning after Susannah's funeral, his eagerness to belong almost unhinged him. "[H]is life was my life, and it was given to me to see so deeply into their family affairs, I think, because I believe that I love them, not so much because I know the particulars of those affairs, but because I feel the tone and feeling of their being and life" (JLB 88, 8/18/1876). Note that this is the same intense curiosity that he had brought to the Loyers' history, also so he could "feel the tone and feeling of their being and life."

Context:
BVG 73, 8/18/1876: "From him, I have been given an urge to dive into the history of this family; I love these people, more now that I know their history in detail, because now I can sympathize with them on their existence and style of life."
JLB 88, 8/18/1876: "…it was given to me to see so deeply into their family affairs, I think, because I believe that I love them, not so much because I know the particulars of those affairs, but because I feel the tone and feeling of their being and life."

344. visit Harry's father BVG 76, 10/7/1876: "In the City I also went to see Mr. Gladwell." The visit took place in early October. The "Gladwell Brothers Fine Art Gallery" was located at 69 Queen Victoria Street in the City. According to Bailey, the shop, which dated from the mid-eighteenth century, was "probably the longest-established art dealer in Britain" (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 90). The Gladwell family owned it until the 1950s. The firm still exists.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "In the City I also went to see Mr. Gladwell."

345. see the family in LeeSeveral times Vincent mentions plans to go see the Gladwells in "Lewisham" (the community in which Vincent thought the Gladwell house was located). It is not clear if he made all of the visits he planned, but it appears that he probably visited the house in Lee in mid-October (JLB 94, 10/13/1876), mid-November (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876), and on 11/25/76 (JLB 99, 11/25/1876) (although the last two may have been the same visit). 346. transcribed an album BVG 82, 11/25/1876: Whether this was just an isolated transcription or a more elaborate effort is not known. If it was an album, it has been lost, perhaps along with all the other Gladwell-Van Gogh correspondence destroyed in the bombing of London during World War II.

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "It's night-time now, I'm still doing a bit of work for the Gladwells at Lewisham, copying out one thing and another etc.; one must strike while the iron is hot and soften the human heart when it is burning within us."

347. their six children Meyers, p. 206: The Slade-Joneses had five girls and one boy between the ages of one and eleven. 348. seemed perfectly suited to fillThere are only two sources for Vincent's relationship with the Slade-Joneses. The less reliable is his sister Lies's memoir in which Vincent purportedly describes the forty-seven-year-old Thomas as “a long, lean man, bent with the care of a large family" and a care-worn face "the color of a wooden-looking saint"; and his wife Anne, 38, as a "delicate little woman" (Du Quesne-van Gogh, pp. 11-12). Lies presents this as information based on a letter from Vincent to his parents in which "he gave a description of his present situation in the neighborhood of London" (ibid., p. 11). The original letter, if it existed, has not survived. As always, we are dubious about the reliability of Lies's account and have used only those parts that are generally descriptive and/or reminiscent of the Van Gogh family mood.

The picture Vincent presents of the Slade-Joneses at the time is far different. He describes the Reverend as, at best, a taskmaster; and the Missus as a bossy, implacable woman who rode her servants hard. "Today one of the maids left, they don’t have it easy here and she couldn’t stand it any longer …" (JLB 97, 11/10/1876). Nor, apparently, did Annie Slade-Jones have had much patience for her strange Dutch boarder. The only substantive story Vincent told about her is hardly flattering. On a trip to London he bought some scented violets for Mrs. Slade-Jones "to make up for the pipe I smoke here now and then" (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). It is not even clear whether these flowers were meant as a peace offering for Mrs. Slade-Jones or just to cover the foul smell of Vincent's pipe tobacco. Vincent may have meant the suggestion of a "gift" as a wry joke.

Nevertheless, some commentators, notably Bailey, have inferred a "close friendship" between Vincent and Mrs. Slade-Jones (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 86-87). Their evidence is primarily the existence of the six pages of transcriptions in Mrs. Slade-Jones's visitors' book, even though there is nothing personal written in the book and most of the entries are in languages that Mrs. Slade-Jones probably did not understand. Nor does the fact that she subsequently kept the visitors' book (it was auctioned at Sotheby's in 1980 [Pabst, p. 60]) prove any special fondness. Mrs. Slade-Jones began the book in 1855 and kept it until a year before her death in 1924 (Pabst, p. 60). Vincent's contribution represented only six out of one hundred and eighty pages. We believe that Vincent’s entries in the visitors' book, like his album for Matthijs Maris, are probative only of Vincent’s obsessions and longings, not of his actual relationships.

Later in his life, especially toward the end, he would build similar fantasies of maternal/amorous relationships with women he barely knew, or who actively disliked him (Madame Roulin and Madame Ginoux, for example), except that the "evidence" of those relationship would take the form of paintings, not poetic transcriptions. Only a year after leaving Isleworth, Vincent commented positively on Mrs. Slade-Jones in describing another fantasy candidate for surrogate motherhood, Mrs. Jeremie Meyes. "She reminds me of Mrs. Slade-Jones," he wrote. Reverend and his wife “are such nice people," he wrote. (JLB 135, 11/24/1877-11/25/1877). 349. great trees shading BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "It's a magnificent morning, the sun is shining through the large acacias on the playground, flashing on the roofs and windows visible behind the garden."

350. vines overgrowing its walls BVG 72, 8/2/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 353.) According to Lies's memoir, the grounds of Holme Court also featured clematis, and roses (Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 12; see Ch. 8, n. 348). Vincent reports there was also a garden in which they grew potatoes in winter (JLB 86, 7/8/1876). Context: JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "There's a lot of holly in the garden here, and a few old trees have had all their branches chopped off. These are now full of new branches, pure white or yellowish, with a small pink leaf here and there, which is absolutely beautiful, I picked a large bunch of them to put on the table." 351. contingent of barnyard animals BVG 74, 8/26/1876. Vincent describes the "small yard" (probably the kitchen courtyard) "where the pig lives for most of the year." We are assuming the presence of other animals appropriate to a household of this size -- chickens, at the very least.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "Just now I smoked my pipe in the playground, it was so beautiful outside, even in the small yard where the pig lives for most of the year, though it's not there at the moment."

352. He worked in the garden BVG 71, 7/8/1876.

Context:
JLB 86, 7/8/1876: "Your letter and the prints came as a wonderful surprise this morning while I was weeding the potatoes in the garden."

353. he decorated the house BVG 72, 8/2/1876. When the students and the Slade-Joneses returned from their summer break on August 1, Vincent welcomed them back in the Dutch style he had learned in the Zundert parsonage: "Mr. Jones came home yesterday, and his family, I'd made the boys' dining room green with Welcome home on the wall in holly and ivy and large bouquets on the table. There's a lot of holly in the garden here … These are now full of new branches, pure white or yellowish, with a small pink leaf here and there, which is absolutely beautiful, I picked a large bunch of them to put on the table." (JLB 87, 8/2/1876.)

Context:
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "Mr. Jones came home yesterday, and his family, I'd made the boys' dining room green with Welcome home on the wall in holly and ivy and large bouquets on the table."

136 354. transcribed his favorite hymns In addition to six Dutch hymns, Vincent copied "Tell me the Old, Old Story," "O Sacred Head once Wounded," and "Tossed with Rough Winds and Faint with Fear." For a complete listing, see Pabst, p. 69. 355. Bible versesVincent transcribed passages from scripture in various languages. In Dutch: Psalm 91:1-8, Psalm 42:1, Psalm 42:3, and Psalm 84. In English: 1 Corinthians 13, Psalm 121, and Psalm 133. In German: Psalm 126. In French: 2 Corinthians 6:10, Psalm 148:13, Proverbs 16:9, and Psalm 107: 1-22. For a complete listing, see Pabst, p. 69. 356. poetryAmong the poets whose works Vincent transcribed (in their original languages) were Dirk Rafaelsz Camphuysen (Dutch); Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American); and Friedrich Rückert (German). For a complete listing, see Pabst, p. 69. Like many of Vincent's entries in the Slade-Joneses' visitors' book, Camphuysen's Daar moet veel strijdts gestreden sijn (Many battles must be fought) (see JBL 95, note 31), and Longfellow's "Afternoon in February" both appear elsewhere in Vincent's oeuvre of writings (the sermon and the second poetry album for Theo, respectively). 357. and proseVincent transcribed passages in French from Jules Michelet, Émile Souvestre, and Henri Conscience (a Belgian). The transcribed passages included Vincent's favorites from Michelet's L'amour, Conscience's Le conscrit, and Souvestre's Les derniers Bretons, all of which appear elsewhere in Vincent's writings: the first two, frequently. For a complete listing, see Pabst, p. 69. 358. wish Ursula a happy birthday BVG 82, 11/25/1876. Ursula Loyer's birthday fell on November 17. Although her age has been a matter of some controversy, JLB determine that "Sarah Ursula Loyer had turned 61 on November 17" (JLB 99, 11/25/1876; n. 14).

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "The day before I'd gone on a long journey to London, I left here at 4 in the morning, arrived at Hyde Park at half past six, the mist was lying on the grass and leaves were falling from the trees, in the distance one saw the shimmering lights of street-lamps that hadn't yet been put out, and the towers of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and the sun rose red in the morning mist -- from there on to Whitechapel, that poor district of London, then to Chancery Lane and Westminster, then to Clapham to visit Mrs. Loyer again, her birthday was the day before." 359. "Oh Zundert!" BVG 75, 10/3/1876.

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "Oh that Zundert, the thought of it's almost too much at times."

360. "intense delight" BVG 76, 10/7/1876.

Context:
BVG 76, 10/7/1876: "There, and in the gallery of Messrs. Goupil & Co., I saw beautiful pictures and drawings. It is such an intense delight to be so often reminded of Holland by art."
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "There, as well as in the gallery of Messrs G.&Cie, I saw beautiful paintings and drawings, it's such a deep pleasure to be reminded time and again of Holland through art."

361. paintings of Holland BVG 75, 10/3/1876. TOn a visit to the Goupil gallery in London, Vincent saw a painting of Holland and found it “delightful to see once more the Dutch towns and meadows in that way.” Vincent identified the painting as "Mill on the Canal" by David Adolph Constant Artz. According to JLB, this painting is “unknown” (JLB 92, 10/3/1876; n. 8). Even an ordinary rainy days reminded Vincent of his watery native country. “There was a view from the window there that reminded me very much of Holland,” he wrote in November, “a flat, grass-covered area, which the torrential rains had turned almost into a morass" (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876).

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "In London I visited one or two people and also went to the gallery of Messrs Goupil & Cie, and there I saw the drawings that Van Iterson had brought, and it was a pleasure to see the Dutch cities and meadows again."

362. "the land without hills" Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 12. 363. "houses and streets" Du Quesne-van Gogh, p. 12. 364. "How delightful it will be" BVG 78, 10/24/1876. We have altered the translation slightly.

Context:
BVG 78, 10/24/1876: " How delightful it will be to sail down the Thames and across the sea, and see those friendly Dutch dunes and the church spire that is visible from so very far away."
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: " How wonderful it will be to sail down the Thames and across the sea, and then those friendly Dutch dunes and that small tower that one already sees from a great distance."

365. He reread the poetry BVG 77, 10/13/1876: In particular, the Dutch clergyman/poet Petrus De Génestet, his father's favorite.

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "It is indeed a beautiful poem, that one by [Petrus] De Génestet."

366. I see the lights BVG 75, 10/3/1876. In mid-September, Vincent's former colleague at Goupil in The Hague, Teunus van Iterson, visited him (see Ch. 8, n. 348). Vincent wrote Theo soon afterward: "Is Van Iterson back yet? I was very glad indeed to see him again." (JLB 92, 10/3/1876.) The surprise visitor from Holland summoned up this couplet from the second stanza of Longfellow's "Day is Done," which Vincent copied into the same letter. The third stanza, no doubt, also resonated with his homesickness:
"A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain." (ibid.)

Context:
JLB 92, 10/3/1876: "I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist." 367. It was visions like these BVG 78, 10/24/1876. One of the examples cited (relating to the river Thames) comes from the same letter in which Vincent reported that his mother had refused his request to come home, although the nostalgic sentiment Vincent described could very well date from before he received word of her refusal (JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876). Another example (relating to the view out the window) refers specifically to an incident that occurred a month after Vincent received his mother's letter (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). It is used here only to illustrate the type of feelings Vincent was experiencing as he anticipated going home to visit Theo and the rest of his family. All the other examples cited in the text date from the period between Vincent's learning that his brother was sick and his receipt of his mother's rejection. 368. pleaded and cajoled BVG 77, 10/13/1876. This is certainly the implication of Vincent's elliptical account of Slade-Jones's volte face: "Yesterday I asked Mr. Jones to let me go, but he didn't want to give his consent and said at last, write to your Mother, if she thinks it's all right then so do I'" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876). Clearly, Vincent did not take "no" for an answer, even from his employer.

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "Yesterday I asked Mr. Jones to let me go, but he didn't want to give his consent and said at last, write to your Mother, if she thinks it's all right then so do I."

369. "Write to your mother" BVG 77, 10/13/1876. Elsewhere, Vincent suggested that the decision was in the hands of both his mother and Theo. "It now depends on you two, if you say, 'you may come', then Mr. Jones will let me go" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876). But this was merely rhetorical: Theo would never have offered his consent to a visit rejected by their mother.

Context:
BVG 77, 10/13/1876: "Yesterday, I asked Mr. Jones to let me go to Holland, but he would not allow it, and at last he said, 'Write to your mother; if she approves, I will too.'"
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "Yesterday I asked Mr. Jones to let me go, but he didn't want to give his consent and said at last, write to your Mother, if she thinks it's all right then so do I."

370. But she did not approve BVG 78, 10/24/1876. On October 13, Vincent wrote about Reverend Slade-Jones's agreement to leave the decision about the trip up to Vincent's mother. In the very next letter, dated October 24, Vincent wrote: "I was so grateful for your short letter and for what Ma wrote, so we'll wait until Christmas" (JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876). Clearly, Anna's letter withheld permission for the trip. Whether it was a persuasive argument or a blunt veto is not known, nor does it much matter. But a contemporaneous letter from Dorus suggests that it was a gentle rejection. "[I]t is sweet of Vincent that he wanted to come," he wrote Theo on October 19 (b2785 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/19/1876). Either way, Vincent was surely devastated.

Context:
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: I was so grateful for your short letter and for what Ma wrote, so we'll wait until Christmas, and then may God let us see one another again in peace.

371. In a devastating blow BVG 78, 10/24/1876: It may be a sign of how his mother's rejection unhinged him that Vincent repeated the following line, word for word, at the beginning and end of a short letter written soon after he received the bad news.

Context:
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: "No, being ill and supported by God's arm, and acquiring new ideas and resolutions during the days of one's illness, which couldn't occur to us when we weren't ill, and acquiring clearer faith and firmer trust during those days, that's not a bad thing."

372. "and may God give" BVG 78, 10/24/1876.

Context:
BVG 78, 10/24/1876: "How grateful I was for your little note, and for Mother's letter; so we shall wait until Christmas and may God give us a happy meeting then."
JLB 95, 10/23/1876-10/25/1876: "I was so grateful for your short letter and for what Ma wrote, so we'll wait until Christmas, and then may God let us see one another again in peace."

373. knew his mother read BVG 77, 10/13/1876. The letter of October 13 was even addressed "Dearest Mother and Theo" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876).

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "Dearest Mother and Theo, …"

374. The journey of our life BVG 79, 10/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "The journey of our life goes from the loving breast of our Mother on earth to the arms of our Father in heaven."

 375. Has any one of us BVG 79, 10/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "Has any of us forgotten the golden hours of our early days at home, and since we left that home -- for many of us have had to leave that home."

 376. nothing but a burden BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. Six months earlier, Vincent would have reveled in this fever of pious activity. Now it seemed more and more like a distracting duty. "Last Thursday Mr. Jones let me take his turn," Vincent grumbled when Reverend Slade-Jones canceled a scheduled sermon at Turnham Green (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). Vincent does not say this event was at Turnham Green, but Thursday was the night for the youth meeting there. Vincent was in charge of this meeting and apparently had arranged for Slade-Jones to speak to the attendees. When Slade-Jones withdrew at the last minute, Vincent was forced to give the talk. His text was Acts 26:29. "I would to God, that not only thou, but all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "Last Thursday Mr. Jones let me take his turn, and I took as my text 'I would to God, that not only thou, but all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.'"

377. cause for complaint b2797 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/24/1876: This is the clear implication of passages like this: "We received a letter last Monday from Vincent again. Mr. Jones tells him to walk great distances. A few nights ago he woke up at 4:00 a.m. to go walk. That is too early and I don't see much improvement in his position." (See also Ch. 8, n. 379.) 137 378. "walking boy"b2800 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/6/1876: The derisive term was introduced by Vincent's father: "Sometimes I fear that Reverend Jones uses Vincent as a walking boy, and I cannot believe that the road he is on now will actually lead him to a normal existence." 379. "superhuman journeys"b2803 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/18/1876: Reporting to Theo on a letter she had received from Vincent, Anna wrote reproachfully: "Vincent finally had a cold, he wrote. He is convinced that he has made some superhuman journeys." The next sentence makes it clear that (1) the reference to "superhuman journeys" is a complaining one, not a proud or positive one; and (2) Vincent had come to see these journeys as an unwelcome duty: "He didn't see a bright future ahead of him, but made himself carry on because he thought he needed to." 380. collecting unpaid tuition bills BVG 76, 10/7/1876. Vincent’s first trip for debt collection was in early October. It is likely that all of his subsequent trips into London had debt collection as their initiating purpose -- although Vincent stopped describing that aspect of the trips almost immediately after the first one. There is one other mention of it. After a trip in late November, Vincent reported as part of a dialog the brothers were having about Vincent's financial prospects: "Fortunately I’d received some money for Mr. Jones" (JLB 99, 11/25/1876; BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). It was this repeated mention, apparently, that served as the basis for sister Lies's wildly imaginative account of Vincent's debt-collecting duties in her memoir (see Du Quesne-van Gogh, pp. 13-14). Needless to say, there is not a scintilla of evidence for any part of this account (which was taken up by Tralbaut, p. 50 and Cooper, n.p.).

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "While I was writing to you I was summoned to Mr. Jones, who asked if I felt like walking to London for him to collect some money."

381. slow to pay BVG 77, 10/13/1876. On October 7, Vincent was expecting Slade-Jones to pay him "some money for my new work" the next day (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). On October 13, apparently, the payment was still owed. "The boys will be going home tomorrow and then I'll get my money" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876). As Vincent mentions only one other payment (sometime prior to October 7), it is fair to assume he did not receive a regular (i.e., weekly) salary (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876).

Context:
JLB 94, 10/13/1876: "The boys will be going home tomorrow and then I'll get my money."

382. "God takes care of those" BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "…God takes care of those who work for Him."

383. the coming of Christmas BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. Vincent first mentioned Christmas in September: "I'm already looking forward to Christmas" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). But in July, he had returned 25 guilders that his father sent him with instructions to save it for his travel expenses at Christmas (Hulsker, p. 39).

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I'm already looking forward to Christmas …"

384. "How I am longing" BVG 79, 10/31/1876. Vincent arranged to accompany his sister Anna on the crossing home (JLB 94, 10/13/1876), and laid plans with Theo to walk from Etten to Zundert during the holiday (JLB 92, 10/3/1876). When he learned that Theo would go home early (in mid-November) to finish recuperating, his anticipation flamed even more brightly. "You will spend delightful days at home," he wrote, "I almost envy you, old boy" (JLB 97, 11/10/1876). By the next letter, written to his parents on November 17 or 18, Theo was home [JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876]. However, he must have left Etten again within a few weeks because he was not home on Saint Nicholas Day [December 5] (b2800 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/6/1876) and his father wrote him a letter discussing his Christmas plans on December 18 (b2802 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 12/18/1876). The later report that Theo had recovered enough to take a walk in the snow with their father was almost more than he could bear: "how I'd have liked to walk along with you both" (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876).

Context:
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "How I long for Christmas and to see all of you, old boy, it seems to me that I've grown years older in these few months."

385. photographs of his parents BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall …"

386. "the moon shone" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. Despite the passage of time and the fact that he had never before committed it to words, Vincent's account combined the immediacy of a diary entry and the sentimental simplicity of one of the prints on his wall: "I rode from Den Bosch to Helvoirt in an open cart, it was awfully cold and the road was slippery, ... how friendly Helvoirt looked that evening, and the lights in the village and the tower between the snow-covered poplars, seen from a distance on the road to Den Bosch" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). It is possible, although unlikely, that Vincent had already recalled this Christmas Eve arrival in letters to his parents or siblings other than Theo. What seems certain, however, is that others in the family shared Vincent's favorable memory of that night.

Immediately after the event, Vincent's mother wrote Theo: "We still live with the memory of the good time together, they were such good days, that we will not easily forget, and then Vincent joined us on that cold night and when we all sat around the stove …" (b2311 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/9/1875). A year after Vincent wrote of it to Theo in 1876, Theo wrote his sister Lies about it. She replied: "Last time, you wrote about that beautiful evening in Helvoirt. I thought of it, when I was looking out of the window last night." (b2557 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/23/1877.)

Vincent may well have been primarily responsible for keeping the memory alive within the family. We have altered the translation, which is unfortunately clunky for a passage in which Vincent was clearly reaching for poetic effect: "how friendly Helvoirt looked that evening, and the lights in the village and the tower between the snow-covered poplars, seen from a distance on the road to Den Bosch." For clarity, "Den Bosch" ('s-Hertogenbosch), the town from which Vincent traveled to Helvoirt (into which he had arrived by train from Paris), is omitted from our alteration. In the same passage, he described Bois-le-Duc in similarly sentimentalized terms: "how beautiful Den Bosch looked, the marketplace and the streets with snow and the houses dark, with snow on the roofs."

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "… two years ago we took a walk in the snow in the evening, do you remember? And saw the moon rise over the Marienhof? I also quite clearly remember the night, that same Christmastide, I drove from Bois-le-Duc to Helvoirt in a little open cart, it was terribly cold and the road was slippery; how beautiful Bois-le-Duc looked, the market square and the streets covered with snow and the dark houses with snow on the roofs. [I] viewed from the distant road to Bois-le-Duc, how pleasant Helvoirt looked that evening and the lights in the village and the steeple amidst the snow-covered poplars."
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "… two years ago we took that walk in the snow in the evening, do you remember it, when we saw the moon rise above Mariënhof? I still remember very well that evening at Christmas-time when I rode from Den Bosch to Helvoirt in an open cart, it was awfully cold and the road was slippery, how beautiful Den Bosch looked, the marketplace and the streets with snow and the houses dark, with snow on the roofs; And how friendly Helvoirt looked that evening, and the lights in the village and the tower between the snow-covered poplars, seen from a distance on the road to Den Bosch."

387. the lights of the village BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 575.) We have changed the word "in" to "of."

Context:
BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876: "[I] viewed from the distant road to Bois-le-Duc, how pleasant Helvoirt looked that evening and the lights in the village and the steeple amidst the snow-covered poplars."
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "And how friendly Helvoirt looked that evening, and the lights in the village and the tower between the snow-covered poplars, seen from a distance on the road to Den Bosch."

388. "breathed on variously" Eliot, Silas Marner, Part I, ch. 3, p. 23. Eliot makes this ravishing comment in describing the subtle texture of "country life" in the town of Raveloe. 389. he preached the story BVG 80, 11/10/1876. He preached it at Richmond Methodist Church on November 13 and may have preached it again at Petersham Chapel on November 19 (it was one of two texts he was contemplating) (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876).

Context:
JLB 97, 11/10/1876: "Next Sunday evening I have to go to Petersham to a Methodist church; Petersham is a village on the Thames, about 20 minutes beyond Richmond; I don't know yet what I'll talk about, the prodigal son or Ps. 42:1."

390. autobiographical levensschets BVG 69, 6/17/1876.

Context:
JLB 84, 6/17/1876: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants. Be merciful to me."

391. he hung a print BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall, Christus Consolator and Good Friday and the Women at the sepulchre and The old Huguenot and The prodigal son by Ary Scheffer and the little boat on a stormy sea and one etching, an autumn landscape, view of the heath, which I got from Harry Gladwell on my birthday …"

392. Ary Scheffer's L'enfant prodigue Vincent refers to the work as "L'enfant prodigue" in a letter to Theo: "If you can, send a Carte de visite to Ma on her birthday, No. 669, The prodigal son by Scheffer" (JLB 90, 9/2/1876-9/8/1876). He mentions it again in a letter to his parents: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall, Christus Consolator and Good Friday and the Women at the sepulchre and The old Huguenot and The prodigal son by Ary Scheffer and the little boat on a stormy sea and one etching, an autumn landscape, view of the heath, which I got from Harry Gladwell on my birthday …" (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.) Scheffer's original painting of 1857 is now part of the Wallace Collection in London. 393. He sent a copy BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: If you can, send a Carte de visite to Ma on her birthday, No. 669, The prodigal son by Scheffer.

394. poetry as well as art BVG 74, 8/26/1876. Of the poetry Vincent cited during this period (most of which he copied out either in his letters or in Annie Slade-Jones's visitors' book), these took regret and return as their subject: "King Robert of Sicily," by Longfellow; "Two Lovers," by George Eliot (which Vincent renamed "The Journey of Life" ); and "The Three Little Chairs," by the English composer James Giles. (The latter two Vincent copied out in full in JLB 99, 11/25/1876.) One should also place on this list a hymn in Bliss and Sankey, which Vincent does not specifically cite, but which immediately follows a hymn that he does cite ("Tell Me the Old, Old Story"). Given its title and words, and his obsessions at the time, it is impossible to believe it did not catch his attention, despite the evidential issues raised in the final note to this chapter. The hymn is "The Prodigal Child" (Bliss and Sankey, no. 38):

             Come home! come home!
             You are weary at heart,
             For the way has been dark,
             And so lonely and wild;
             O prodigal child!
             Come home! oh come home!

             Come home! come home!
             For we watch and we wait,
             And we stand at the gate,
             While the shadows are piled.
             O prodigal child!
             Come home! oh come home!

             Come home, come home!
             From the sorrow and blame,
             From the sin and the shame,
             And the tempter that smiled,
             O prodigal child!
             Come home! oh come home!

             Come home! come home!
             There is bread and to spare,
             And a warm welcome there,
             Then, to friends reconciled,
             O prodigal child!
             Come home, oh, come home!

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I hope to tell them the story of John and Theagenes this evening in their bedroom. I often tell them stories in the evening, such as Le conscrit by Conscience, and Madame Therèse by Erckmann-Chatrian and Oudejaar by Jean Paul [Johann Paul Richter], which is enclosed herewith, and Andersen's fairy tales, 'The story of a mother, The red shoes, The little matchseller', King Robert of Sicily by Longfellow, etc."

395. He studied it BVG 74, 8/26/1876. One variation on the Prodigal Son story that particularly captivated Vincent was the apostolic legend of "John and Theagenes" about a boy who runs away to a life of crime then returns, penitent and pious. Vincent probably knew this story through the adaptation by Bernard ter Haar: "Joannes en Theagenes. Eene legende uit de Apostolische eeuw" [John and Theagenes. A legend from the Apostolic age] (1846). When Vincent wrote that he "escaped briefly and walked between the hedgerows with 'John and Theagenes' in order to memorize it," this is probably the volume he was referring to (JLB 89, 8/26/1876).

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I'm writing to you between lessons; today I escaped briefly and walked between the hedgerows with 'John and Theagenes' in order to memorize it."

396. preached it BVG 79, 10/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 96, 11/3/1876: "On Thursday week I hope to speak at Mr. Jones's church."

397. included it BVG 74, 8/26/1876. Also: "I read Acts V: 14-16. Acts XII: 5-17, Peter in prison, and Acts XX: 7-37, Paul preaching in Macedonia, and then I told the story of John and Theagenes yet again." (JLB 99, 11/25/1876.)

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "I hope to tell them the story of John and Theagenes this evening in their bedroom."

398. "word paintings" Sund, pp. 15-16: Sund's summary of the nineteenth-century tradition of word painting (or "word pictures") as it relates to Vincent's descriptions is lucid and illuminating. That Vincent was consciously working in this tradition is suggested by phrases such as, "Now I look out over rolling pastures" (JLB 76, 4/17/1876) and, "Now I'll tell you about my walk to London" (JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876). Piérard uses the wonderful expression "little pen-pictures" (Piérard, p. 28). Here is a particularly good example from Vincent's time in Ramsgate: "Have I already written to you about the storm I saw recently? The sea was yellowish, especially close to the beach; a streak of light on the horizon and, above this, tremendously huge dark grey clouds from which one saw the rain coming down in slanting streaks. The wind blew the dust from the small white path on the rocks into the sea and tossed the blossoming hawthorn bushes and wallflowers that grow on the rocks. On the right, fields of young green wheat, and, in the distance, the town with its towers, mills, slate roofs and houses built in Gothic style, and, below, the harbour between the 2 jetties running out into the sea, looking like the cities Albrecht Dürer used to etch." (JLB 83, 5/31/1876.) Long before Vincent painted with oils, he painted with words. 399. brilliant descriptive passages Sund, p. 24: Sund refers to Eliot's "trademark pictorialism." Both Vincent and Theo, apparently, shared an appreciation for Eliot's pictorialism and attempted to imitate it. Vincent complimented a passage in one of Theo's letters describing a character in Adam Bede: "Bravo Theo -- You well understood that girl in Adam Bede. That landscape -- in which a dull yellow sandy road leads over the hill to the village, with mud or whitewashed huts with green, moss-covered roofs and here and there a blackthorn, on either side brown heather and bunt and a grey sky, with a narrow white strip above the horizon." (JLB 30, 3/6/1875.) (See Sund, pp. 18-19.) How an "appreciation" of a girl resembled a description of a landscape is unclear, although this may be something of a sexual joke between the brothers. 400. "a real Easter sun" BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876.

Context: BVG 60, 4/14/1876-4/17/1876: "The bank of grey clouds had disappeared and there was the sun, as simple and grand as ever I saw it, a real Easter sun."
JLB 76, 4/17/1876: "The bank of grey clouds had disappeared and there was the sun, so simple and as big as possible, a real Easter sun."

401. a sexton's house BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. Here is another example from around the same time: "It grew dark early and I wasn't sure of the way, it was a surprisingly muddy road over a kind of embankment or rise on the hill covered with gnarled elm trees and shrubs. At last I saw below the rise a light in a small house, and scrambled and waded over to it, and there I was told the way. But, old boy, there was a beautiful little wooden church with a kindly light at the end of that dark road." (JLB 99, 11/25/1876.)

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "This week I had to go on a journey for Mr. Jones with one of the boys to Acton Green, which is that grassy area that the sexton's window looks out on. It was surprisingly muddy there, but it was a beautiful sight when it began to grow dark and the mist rose and one saw the light of a small church in the middle of the green. And to our left were railway tracks on a rather high embankment, and at that moment a train came, and that was a beautiful sight, the red glow of the locomotive and the rows of lights inside the carriages in the twilight. To our right a few horses were grazing in a meadow surrounded by a hedge of hawthorn and blackberry bushes."

402. a quiet riverbank BVG 82, 11/25/1876.

Context:
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "In the morning it was so beautiful on the way to Turnham Green, the chestnut trees and clear blue sky and the morning sun were reflected in the water of the Thames, the grass was gloriously green and everywhere all around the sound of church bells."

403. "The chestnut trees" BVG 82, 11/25/1876.

Context:
BVG 82, 11/25/1876: "In the morning it was so beautiful on the road to Turnham Green -- the chestnut trees and the clear blue sky and the morning sun mirrored in the water of the Thames; the grass was sparkling green and one heard the sound of church bells all around."
JLB 99, 11/25/1876: "In the morning it was so beautiful on the way to Turnham Green, the chestnut trees and clear blue sky and the morning sun were reflected in the water of the Thames, the grass was gloriously green and everywhere all around the sound of church bells."

404. He introduced contradictions BVG 74, 8/26/1876. Describing the morning view outside his window at Holme Court, Vincent wrote: "the sun is shining through the large acacias on the playground, flashing on the roofs and windows visible behind the garden. There are already threads of gossamer in the garden, and it's cool in the morning and the boys run back and forth to get warm." (JLB 89, 8/26/1876; emphasis added.) This is in August, not November. 405. and impossibilities According to Vincent's memory of his parents' departure from Zevenbergen in 1864, which first finds its way into words in this year, he watched their carriage disappear down a road through a field in the distance period (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). In fact, no fields were visible from the front steps of the Provily School. One can see Vincent's urge to embellish for emotive effect at work between these two versions of the same memory, separated only by five months. The later version is far more detailed and emotional. Vincent's word paintings were often recorded after the fact -- some, like this one, long after the fact. Also like this one, they often involve leaps of imagination -- seeing objects from great distances or in the dark or freed of obstruction.

On a walk from London to Isleworth, Vincent wrote of seeing "tree-tops" the high-lying part of the distant Richmond (JLB 96, 11/3/1876). Among the details he provides is that the windows were "uncurtained" and the gardens were green; neither of which would have been visible from the angle he describes at the distance he describes. Vincent writes about the scenery on the train trip from Harwich (where he disembarked from Rotterdam) and London: "it was beautiful to see in the morning twilight the black fields and green pastures with sheep and lambs, and here and there a hedge of thorn-bushes and a few large oak trees with dark branches and grey, moss-covered trunks" (JLB 76, 4/17/1876). But the sun doesn't rise, in Vincent's account, until later, as the train approaches London. Later in the same letter is another example that perhaps is Vincent's observation on the boat trip from Rotterdam that, after the sun set: "the water was quite dark blue as far as one could see, with rather high waves with white crests."

Vincent's descriptions of seeing towns and buildings from afar never allows for rain or fog. Rainfall was unusually heavy in the autumn of 1876 (according to the London Metropolitan Office Archives, rainfall for the last four months of 1876 was 144 percent of average), and autumn was also typically the season of the heaviest fog/smog. Vincent must have complained about the frequency of the rain in letters home because Dorus wrote Theo in September that "it rains too often [in London]" (b2773 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 9/29/1876). Another interesting example of this selective vision occurs in one of Vincent's drawings from this period. As Van Heugten points out, Vincent "moved" a lamppost in order to be able to include it in his drawing from the Royal Road schoolhouse in Ramsgate (Van Heugten, p. 60). Van Heugten describes this as "fudging reality" -- exactly the text's point. (See also Bailey, Van Gogh in England, n. 11).

406. compressed time Vincent's description in late October of chestnut trees "with their load of yellow leaves" appears to be postdated (BVG 79, 10/31/1876). Almost three weeks earlier, Anna, who lived in Welwyn, not far from Vincent , wrote: "The trees have changed a lot and some have already lost so many leaves that you can clearly see the branches" (b2784 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 10/12/1876). 138 407. embellished with favorite tropesDespite their apparently different subjects, Vincent's word paintings determinedly share similarities of detail. In them it is almost always sunrise or sunset, light is almost always reflecting off water, objects frequently appear in silhouette, larks often sing, church spires dominate the horizon and distant lights flicker in the darkness. 408. description of a London slum BVG 76, 10/7/1876.

Context:
JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "It was like that yesterday evening, and later I did so wish that you had seen the streets of London when it began to grow dark and the street-lamps were lit and everyone was going home, it was obvious from everything that it was Saturday evening, and in all that hustle and bustle there was peace, one felt, as it were, the need for and joy at the approach of Sunday. Oh those Sundays and how much is done and striven for on those Sundays, it's such a relief to those poor neighbourhoods and busy streets."

409. no mention of povertyIn November 1876, Vincent visited Whitechapel, one of London’s most horrifically blighted neighborhoods. It was in Whitechapel that Carlyle famously asked Emerson: "Now do you believe in Hell?" (quoted in Cooper, n.p.). But Vincent never recorded a word of outrage or indignation, or even concern, in relation to his visit there. In fact, just the opposite. Despite his exposure to Whitechapel and places like it, Vincent was still able to talk about the picturesqueness of poverty when he wrote Theo in October, fondly recalling his walks in Paris: "Notre Dame is so splendid in the autumn evening amid the chestnut trees. But there is something in Paris more beautiful than the autumn and the churches, and that is the poor. I think often of many a one over there." (JLB 92, 10/3/1876; emphasis added.) Inexplicably, Pickvance cites this passage as proof that Vincent "knew well the poor of Paris" (Pickvance, p. 25). The closest Vincent came to expressing sympathy for the plight of the poor was his resolutely upbeat, picturesque description of his trip to East London, also in October (see n.8-696). Compare this to Coquiot's vividly inventive description of Vincent's visits to such neighborhoods (Coquiot, pp. 43-44). 410. poor bustling about BVG 76, 10/7/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 408.) Context: JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: "It was like that yesterday evening, and later I did so wish that you had seen the streets of London when it began to grow dark and the street-lamps were lit and everyone was going home, it was obvious from everything that it was Saturday evening, and in all that hustle and bustle there was peace, one felt, as it were, the need for and joy at the approach of Sunday." 411. "which is such a comfort" BVG 76, 10/7/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 408.) Context: BVG 76, 10/7/1876: "Oh, those Sundays and all that is done and accomplished on those Sundays, it is such a comfort for those poor districts and crowded streets." JLB 93, 10/7/1876-10/8/1876: Oh those Sundays and how much is done and striven for on those Sundays, it's such a relief to those poor neighbourhoods and busy streets. 412. the illustrated books Kôdera, p. 25: Kôdera discusses examples of Vincent's annotating images and provides an illuminating discussion of these emblem books or "bijschriften-poezie" (ibid., pp. 15-17). We believe, however, that this phenomenon is broader on both ends than Kodera's description would suggest: that is, the marriage of image and word pervaded Vincent's childhood (and world) in ways that went far beyond the specific genre of emblem books; and Vincent's way of "layering" images (as discussed in the text) went far beyond any precedents he may have encountered in emblem books or elsewhere. Leo Jansen notes in a letter to the authors: "I've always found this one of the most crucial passages in the letters: 'Books and reality and art are the same kind of thing for me' [JLB 312 2/11/1883]." 413. he grafted words to images According to Druick and Zegers, "[Vincent] habitually saw books and read pictures, perceiving no distinction between verbal and visual imagery or (arguably) between the observed and the represented" (Druick and Zegers, p. 16). 414. and images to words Pabst, p. 68: After copying dozens of hymns and Bible verses into the Slade-Joneses' visitors' book, Vincent pasted an engraving of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (by an unknown artist), as if words alone could not suffice. (See Ch. 8, n. 354 and n. 357.) 415. paired pictures with poetry In this respect, Vincent was following in a tradition of poetry inspired by pictures. In London, in 1875, he sent Theo a rough copy of an etching by Corot (L'Étang au Baterlier [The Pond and the Boatman]) which illustrated a poem ("L'Étang") which the poet, Edmund Roche, had dedicated to Corot, in the collection Poésies Posthumes (1863). (JLB 32, 4/18/1875). Another connection like this is the one between the passage from Michelet's L'Amour ("Je vois d'ici une dame ...") and the portrait Vincent believed to be by Philippe de Champagne, which is explicitly cited in the Michelet passage.

The text makes the point that Vincent began to make his own associations, divorced from the stated intentions of the author or artist involved: associations based on his own "artistic" vision. Vincent paired a Thijs Maris painting with a Heinrich Heine poem: "Didn't I copy out Meeresstille [Calm Sea] by Heine in your little book? Some time ago I saw a painting by Thijs Maris that reminded me of it." (JLB 31, 4/6/1875.) He compared a George Michel landscape with a description in Adam Bede: "Michel, though, isn't nearly so beautiful as that landscape described in that passage in Adam Bede, which we both found so moving" (JLB 44, 9/4/1875). He imagined the reading preferences of sitters in portraits (always consistent with his own), as when he promised to send Theo a copy of Imitatio Christi because "[t]his was probably the favourite book of that woman whom P. de Champaigne painted" (JLB 38, 7/15/1875). In another painting, he "remembered" seeing a book that wasn't there. "[I]n the Louvre there's a portrait, also by P. de C." he wrote; "… she has L'imitation lying on a chair next to her" (ibid.). (The first portrait by Philippe de Champagne that Vincent describes is no longer attributed to that artist.) The other portrait does include a book but it does not have a title.

416. sometimes transcribing lines Mendes da Costa, "Personal Reminiscences of Vincent van Gogh," in Stein, ed., p. 44: "[His prints] were always completely spoiled: the white borders were literally covered with quotations from Thomas à Kempis and the Bible, more or less connected with the subject." 417. This process of layering We are hardly the first to recognize Vincent's way of layering images. Druick and Zegers refer to "an associative network constantly enriched by accrued experience" through which Vincent sees the world (Druick and Zegers, p. 16). De Leeuw -- who refers to the same process as "fusion" (De Leeuw, pp. 59-60), "amalgamation" (ibid., p. 61), and "conflation" (ibid., p. 51) -- defines it simply as "incorporating a stock of texts, ideas, and images drawn from the Bible, literature, art and experience" (ibid., pp. 59-60). 418. "a very beautiful picture" Bonger-Van Gogh, in Van Gogh, p. 90. 419. The Pilgrim's Progress BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "Have I ever told you about that painting by Boughton, 'The pilgrim's progress'?

420. painting by George Boughton The painting was God's Speed! (1874). Bailey and De Leeuw detail the painting's history and "rediscovery" (Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 97 and De Leeuw, p. 51). It is a subject of no small controversy whether Vincent intentionally altered the details of Boughton's "God's Speed!" in order to construct his homily or whether he simply "misremembered" it (Druick and Zegers, p. 19), "mistook" it (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 98-99) or "confused" it (De Leeuw, p. 60). JLB throw doubt on the entire proposition that "God's Speed!" was the painting that Vincent was trying, however imperfectly, to recall (JLB 89, 8/26/1876; n. 12). Their argument again appears to rest on the marked differences between Vincent's "word painting" and Boughton's picture. It bears repeating in this regard that Vincent's memory of images was astonishingly precise, over far longer periods than the two years between the time he presumably saw the Boughton painting and his use of it in his sermon (see Ch. 8, n. 421). On the other hand, if the image did not speak to his concerns (emotional or artistic) at the time of viewing, it is more likely that its details did not register very sharply or deeply. (The enormous size of the painting [48"x 72"] would have made it hard to ignore.) We would reserve the possibility that Boughton's painting was, indeed, the starting point for the image that Vincent created in his sermon (and in a letter to Theo around the same time [JLB 89, 8/26/1876]). In late November, presumably by chance, Vincent encountered the same or a related image on a visit to his former boss, Mr. Obach: "At Mr. Obach's I saw the painting, or rather the sketch, by Boughton: the pilgrim's progress" (JLB 99, 11/25/1876). It is a subject of additional disagreement how this image related to the God's Speed! on which Vincent may (or may not) have based his sermon image. There is no record of any work by the name of "Pilgrim's Progress" in Boughton's oeuvre, but the timing complicates Bailey's suggestion that Vincent's "mistakes" about the painting in his sermon "resulted from seeing the picture in black and white" at Obach's (Bailey, Young Vincent, pp. 98-99). De Leeuw disputes whether the work that Vincent saw at Obach's was, in fact, a black-and-white sketch, or just a smaller painted version of the very large original (De Leeuw, p. 54). 421. seen at the Royal Academy Pickvance, p. 23. That Vincent saw this painting is conjectural, although highly likely. He did report going to the exhibition in which it appeared, although the subject matter would not have interested the aspiring young dealer whose tastes ran to the bourgeois and commercial at the time (see Chapter 6) as much as it would later, after his fall from Goupil and his turn to religion. Such a shift would explain why he registered the painting on his first viewing, but recalled its details so vaguely that he felt free to invent them two years later. The only painter from the 1874 Academy show that Vincent did mention in his letters to Theo at the time was James Tissot (JLB 23, 6/16/1874). 422. on their dusty journey Bailey, Young Vincent, p. 97. In Boughton's painting, the pilgrims are on their way to Canterbury. The painting's full, ungainly title is God Speed! Pilgrims Setting out for Canterbury; Time of Chaucer. Vincent seems not to have remembered (or ignored) this allusion. Although some commentary suggests that the fortified town in the background of the painting is Canterbury (De Leeuw, p. 52), it is clear from the title and from the direction in which the pilgrims on the distant road are traveling (i.e., away from the town), that it is not meant to represent Canterbury. Pickvance identifies the town as medieval London, in accordance with Chaucer's Tales (Pickvance, p. 23). This is another way in which Vincent's vision differs from Boughton's (ibid.). Vincent's pilgrim "has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired." 423. an angel in black De Leeuw suggests several other possible sources for the angel in black: the "malheureux vêtu de noir" mentioned in the eighteenth couplet from Alfred de Musset's poem La nuit de décembre which Vincent quoted in a letter in April 1875 (JLB 31, 4/6/1875), and the portrait of a woman in the Louvre that Vincent attributed to Philippe de Champagne and was mentioned by Michelet in L'amour in an excerpt that Vincent quoted and referred to often (De Leeuw, pp. 57-59). With less enthusiasm, De Leeuw also suggests that the woman could be Anne of Brittany as portrayed in a print by Charles Bargue (ibid., p. 59, n. 21; see also JLB 136, 12/4/1877). We believe that the symbolic (not to say ominous) function of the angel, and the site of the encounter, is redolent of similar figures in Andersen. As the text suggests, however, the problem may lie in the effort to isolate a single source. All these "layers" could be at play. And another one as well, perhaps. In late October, right before giving his first sermon, Vincent reported a mysterious twilight encounter on the bank of the Thames near Richmond with an "old lady (dressed in black) with lovely grey hair ... " (JLB 96, 11/3/1876). The obsession with his parents' aging, expressed in terms of graying hair, also appears in the sermon. And the image of the angel appears in an almost hallucinatory account in August, only with his father's face "like that of an angel" (JLB 87, 8/2/1876). The combination of images suggests that the angel is also a parental figure, giving the pilgrim Vincent the blessing on his wanderings that he never felt he received in real life. 424. Vincent's favorite poetry BVG 41, 10/6/1875: Vincent makes the same errors of memory he made before (see Ch. 8, n. 69). His pilgrim also "thinks of" a translation of Daar moet veel strijds gestreden zijn (after Psalm 62) by Dirk Rafaelsz Camphuysen:              Much strife must be striven
             Much suffering must be suffered
             Much prayer must be prayed
             And then the end will be peace. Context: JLB 54, 10/6/1875: "Rain and sunshine alternate on 'the road that goes uphill all the way, yes to the very end', and from time to time one also rests on 'the journey that takes the whole day long, from morn till night'." 425. it was Theo See Ch. 7, n. 144. Vincent first saw himself in this image, then later Theo. 426. a Golden Age burgher BVG 37, 9/12/1875.

Context:
JLB 47, 9/12/1875: "You know the etching by Rembrandt, Burgomaster Six standing in front of the window, reading. I know that Uncle Vincent and Cor like it very much, and I sometimes think that they must have looked like that when they were younger."

139 427. tender, caring parents BVG 49, 12/13/1875. A year earlier, Vincent had proposed a strange, sexual-restrain ritual to his brother: "Take the portrait of Father and Mother and take 'Farewells' by Brion" (JLB 62, 12/13/1875). Brion's print shows a tearful parental farewell was an icon of homesickness and parental fondness (see Ch. 8, n. 63). Then, Vincent went on; Theo should "read Heine with those three before your eyes; then you'll see what I mean." Vincent's stated purpose here was to discourage Theo from reading Heine. The clear thrust of the procedure Vincent recommended was prophylactic: trying to read the amorous longings of Heine in the presence of their parents' images would make Theo ashamed -- and therefore restrain him from acting on his libidinous urges. 428. a poem by George EliotIn the poem "Two Lovers," Eliot describes how a happy, elderly couple
"... drew their chairs up side by side
Their pale cheeks joined, and said, 'once more'
O memories!
O past that is!"

Vincent attached another, similar poem, The Three Little Chairs, by James Giles, to a letter in November (JLB 99, 11/25/1876). This poem gives Vincent another opportunity to re-cast his mother and father as loving parents sitting at home staring sadly at the empty places of their departed children, especially his own. 429. image of happy home life BVG 48, 12/10/1875. Vincent’s ability to merge his own life into works of art also allowed him to imagine his family walking to church in Émile Breton's idyllic winter landscape.

Context:
JLB 61, 12/10/1875: "We have 'Sunday morning' by Emile Breton here at present. You know it, don't you? It's a village street with farmhouses and sheds, and at the end the church surrounded by poplars. Everything covered with snow and little black figures going to church. It tells us that winter is cold but that there are warm human hearts."

430. Felix HoltIn addition to Eliot's Felix Holt, another clergyman in whose image Vincent saw himself was Edward Tryan, the protagonist of “Janet's Repentance,”one of the stories that makes up Eliot's Scenes of a Clerical Life (1857). He also saw himself in the redeemed sinner Max in Dinah Maria Craik’s A Life for a Life. 431. "Can a woman forget" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. Isaiah 49:15.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?"

432. Father and father Commenting on this blurring of the line between "Father" and "father" in Vincent's sermon, Verkade-Bruining observes trepedaciously: "In this sermon we note the curious interchange from and identification with the heavenly and earthly father, possibly inspired by a very literal assimilation of St. Luke XV (Chapter XV, 11:32) and a result of Vincent's veneration of his own father" (Verkade-Bruining, p. 17). 433. "The nature of every" BVG 85, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877.

Context:
JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877: "… the nature of every true son somewhat resembles that of the son in the parable who 'was dead, and is alive again.'"

434. "Those who are above" BVG 72, 8/2/1876. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context: BVG 72, 8/2/1876: "But Those who are above can make us brothers of father, they can also make us increasingly intimate one to the other."
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: " He above can make us Pa's brothers and can also join us intimately to one another …"

435. "Love of this sort" Eliot, Adam Bede, p. 39. 436. approached the delusional BVG 72, 8/2/1876. Vincent's memory of a sermon in Paris appears to be a delusional conflation of images: in this case, from his religious learning and from his own life. The subject is the plea "Who shall deliver me of this dead body" (JLB 87, 8/2/1876). Vincent recalls hearing this first from the Paris preacher "Bersier” (Bercier) and then from his father on the morning of the Good Friday on which he left Etten. "Though it had a keener edge than the other, and [Pa] followed it with (and his countenance was like that of an angel) 'the blessed above, they say "what you are now, I used to be: what I am now, you will one day be.’ Between Pa and those above there is still a part of life, between us and Pa there is also still life." (ibid.) Vincent sees his father as not just speaking the solution (i.e., reconciliation), but as the face of that solution -- his face is the angel's face -- God's face. The only difference between his father and the angels, according to Vincent, is that his father is alive.

Another example of Vincent's ardor bordering on delusion is his strained effort to create a "Mother" deity to rival the traditional "Father" of Christian theology -- and thus complete the parallel between divine reconciliation and the personal reconciliation he seeks. Speaking of the "love" of 1 Corinthians: 13, Vincent says, "That Love is the life in Christ, that love is our Mother, all the goodness of the earth belongs to her, for everything is good if enjoyed with thanksgiving, but she extends much further than that goodness of the earth. To her belongs a drink from the brook during a walk or from a fountain in the hot streets of London and Paris, to her also belongs 'I shall make your bed in sickness', 'as one whom his Mother comforteth, so will I comfort you'." (JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876.) And in the same letter: "Let us continue in life as long as our legs will carry us, even though our feet grow tired, and the oppression great, ... and even if our whole head is tired, and the going is difficult, let us continue in life because our Father and our Mother tell us to 'go forth and don't look back', and if we can do good along the way, let us not neglect to do so; and yet it is more our heart than our work that God desires. Pa and Ma say 'go forth' and they love us." (JLB 90, 9/2/1876 and 9/8/1876.) The capitalizations, the tone, the syntax, and the sentiment, all sound like Vincent in sermon mode. Indeed, the deification of "Mother" is continued in the opening of the sermon with its bold parallelism: "there is only one who remembereth no more her sorrow and her anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. She is our Mother. The end of our pilgrimage is the entering in Our Father's house."

Context:
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "I've heard two men say that, one in Paris, the Rev. Bersier, who, out of fear of a great bodily suffering that awaited him, exclaimed during his sermon, 'Who shall deliver me of this dead body' in a tone of voice that I believe made everyone in the church tremble. And I heard Pa say it (when I was home in April, in his sermon), but he said it in a soft voice, though it had a keener edge than the other, and he followed it with (and his countenance was like that of an angel) 'the blessed above, they say "what you are now, I used to be: what I am now, you will one day be.'"

437. the gloss of fantasy BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876. Vincent's description of his sister’s return for Christmas the previous December (recorded ten months after the event) is a perfect example of an account that sounds, in no small part, invented -- an exercise in wished-for memories. There are also conflicting accounts of a similar event: the farewell Vincent received at the station when he left Etten in April. According to one account, his parents did not stay at the station to see his train off (JLB 76, 4/17/1876). (It was Good Friday, after all: a busy day for Parson Van Gogh.) But in a later letter to Theo, Vincent reported: "through the small window I saw Pa and little brother [Cor] in the road, watching the train leave" (JLB 78, 4/24/1876). Given the iconic place of goodbyes – specifically as seen from either side of a carriage window-- in Vincent’s cosmology of imagery, we believe that both of these memories are suspect as factual accounts.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "[Lies] and Albertien [Brugsma] came from Breda in Uncle Vincent's carriage. Pa, Cor and I walked up the road to meet them, and when we saw the carriage in the distance I walked on ahead. It was twilight, and dark in the carriage. Through the window one saw the road with rows of trees on either side, and the fields. At the end of the road the church, dark against the sky. Behind the church the large, dark evening clouds, dark but with silver edges."

438. He stared at BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and when I think of all of you and then of all those here ..."

439. "Unite us, O Lord" BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "Finish Thy work in me that Thou hast begun and unite us, O Lord, firmly together and may the love for Thee strengthen that bond more and more."
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "And O Lord, join us intimately to one another and let our love for Thee make that bond ever stronger."

140 440. "But when he was" BVG 80, 11/10/1876. This is the conclusion of the story of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15:20).

Context:
JLB 97, 11/10/1876: "But when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and had compassion."

441. On the eve of ChristmasFor the Dutch in general, as for the Van Goghs, Christmas began on Saint Nicholas Eve, December 5. 442. "We shall be moved" BVG 82a, 9/1/1876-9/15/1876.

Context:
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: Then we'll be moved to hear the name of God spoken, just as we're moved to see our father again after a long time away from home.

443. the real world no longer held BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. Vincent juxtaposes his life in England ("all those here") with what awaits him at home ("when I think of all of you") and acknowledges the circular nature of his route in his reference to "when I left my parent's house” (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876).

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "… when I think of all of you and then of all those here ... then I feel 'Stay, Lord, and hear the prayer my Mother said for me when I left my parent's house: ... Lord, oh if Thou would only make me, not only almost but altogether, as it were, my Father's brother, a Christian and a Christian worker. Complete Thy work in me which Thou hast begun."

444. returning home BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876. (See Ch. 8, n. 443) Context: JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and when I think of all of you and then of all those here ..." 445. the hymn he carried[He carried a popular hymnal]. 446. Come home, come home!"The Prodigal Child" is number 38 in Bliss and Sankey's Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (1875), a hymnal that Vincent owned in some version (see Ch. 8, n. 415). Although Vincent did not specifically cite this hymn, it occurs immediately after one of his favorites, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story" (JLB 82, 5/12/1876). Given its title and words, and his obsessions at the time, it almost certainly caught his attention.