THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

[13th March 1945]

Dear Gerald

Thank you very much for Farewell to Arms¹. But don’t call it “small beer” because it isn’t & you know it isn’t. If you did think so you ought not to have published it but I know you dont & hope But I hope you take a proper pride in your own work – which is quite a different thing from the modesty which sees the vast difference between the final result & what we all feel of our work it might have been – so don’t denigré your own work.
All my love to Joy
Yrs
RVW

1.  For tenor and small orchestra, op.9. Publication was acknowledged in the Liverpool Daily Post on 19 April. Farewell to Arms was broadcast (with music from VW’s Job) on Easter Day, 1 April 1945.