Dear Theo,

As I heard from Father that there is a chance of your being in Etten next Sunday, and that it would be well for me to be there also, I start thither today.

So I hope to meet you soon, and am looking forward to it very much, particularly because I have sketched two drawings at Rappard's, “The Lamp Bearers” and “The Bearers of the Burden,” and should like to consult you about how to go on with them. I must somehow have the necessary models to finish them, and then I trust the result will be good, that is, I shall have a few compositions to show to Smeeton Tilly, or to the editors of L'Illustration or the like.

So I leave today and am letting you know, so that you will not look for me in Brussels. I should like to make a few sketches of the heaths at Etten, which is why I am starting a few days earlier.

So I hope to meet you soon, and now shake hands with you in thought.

Yours truly, Vincent

I am sending you three krabbelingen [scrawls] which are clumsy as yet, but from which you will see, I hope, that I am gradually improving. You should take into account that it is only a short time since I started drawing, although I made little sketches when I was a boy. And that during this winter I thought it most important to make rigidly accurate anatomical studies, not my own compositions.