THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

November 14 [1935]

dictated

Dear Buckland
I am sorry I have not answered either of your letters – but I was waiting for a free Sunday. How about November 24th? Come for lunch – I suggest your leaving Waterloo by 11-40 train and we would meet you at the station
I should like to see your work and I think it quite a good plan your going in for the competition. But you must only regard it as a sporting adventure and comfort yourself – as I used to do in my young days – by saying that the best work never got a prize.
I hope you are happier in your work now – I can’t help feeling that technical skill of any kind – even in motor cars is a good discipline and training for the artist.
With regard to what you say about my work I know well that any merit it may possess would not be there except as a result of hard work & a good deal of dull grinding and study – and I intend to go on grinding and studying to try and make my work approximate more to what I should like it to be.
Yrs sincerely
R Vaughan Williams