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.