THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

September 7th 1958

My dear Grace – if I may?
I am so glad Ralph heard, & was able to discuss with you, your Hopkins cycle,¹ and see the flowering of your work that he had watched lovingly so long. I feel that he was like a gardener, cherishing the growth of a generation, & only leaving us when he saw that all was secure, & well for the future. I know he felt that time would prove, & the fashions & fancies melt away unless they really had some final value – time had already given him a longer perspective.
With affection
Ursula

1.On 14 July 1958 at the Cheltenham Festival was a chamber concert including Grace Williams’s Six Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins for contralto and sextet, sung by Helen Watts with an augmented Allegri String Quartet. VW had died on 26 August.