THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

10 Barton St.
Westminster

April 9th, [1900]

My dear Herr Gatty
We haven’t had any news of you for so long: we do want to hear from you when you feel inclined enough to write to us.  What are you doing.  I feel rather jealous of y^r poem in the ‘Queen’.  I shall try to get some of y^rs last I have here taken by it.  Last year we were at Hooton¹ with you all – we have had another kind invitation to go again but we are resisting as I am wanted at home.  Do you know that Ivor² is painting me!  I always come out like a charwoman in photographs & portraits!  I feel I have missed my true calling, but it is too early to pronounce on Tom’s work of art yet – he has left it unfinished & is recovering at home.  Herr Nicholas says he is doing nothing but I believe he has a great work pursuing its quiet way in the background, his sympathies are all military just now like most people’s.  I expect every day to meet him in khaki.
Ralph gives himself very important airs as a householder, turning off his gas & locking every window & door every night.  But he has set Matthew Arnolds ‘Dover Beach’³ to music & has got an article accepted by the ‘Londonder’ a new rag (weekly) w^h. has just started up – his literary aspirations are growing at this unexpected success.
Are the Liebermanns coming to England? And are You?
How are you spending yr Easter.⁴  In the dutch cafe?  Ralph send his love, we do hope to see you here before very long.
yrs sincerely
Adeline Vaughan Williams

1.  Hooton Roberts, a village in South Yorkshire.
2.  Ivor Gatty.
3.  Kennedy, Catalogue of Works (1996), p.10.  Dover Beach is only known from this letter.
4.  Easter Sunday was 15 April.