Dear Theo,

I had hoped to revisit her before her death ¹, but it was not to have been. L'homme s'agite et Dieu le mène [Man proposes and God disposes.]

In the first box that we shall send to Holland you will find a photograph of that picture by Ph. De Champagne of which Michelet says, “It stayed in my memory for thirty years, coming back to me incessantly.” Further, an etching by Daubigny after Ruysdael, “The Bush”; a lithograph after Corot, “Sunset”; a lithograph by Bodmer, “Fontainebleau in Autumn”; and two etchings by Jacque. À Dieu.

Vincent

I do not know how long I will stay here; nevertheless, I hope to go to Helvoirt before returning to London, and I would like to believe that you will be there as well. I will pay for the trip.

You will certainly not forget her, or her death, but it is better to keep that to yourself.

It is one of those things that, as time goes by, we “are sorrowful but always rejoicing”; that is what we have to learn.

1. See letter 26