THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

10, Luxemburg Gardens,
Brook Green,
W.

Sunday [29 March, 1914]

Dear R V W
You have really done it this time.  Not only have you reached the heights but you have taken your audience with you.  Also you have proved the musical superiority of England to France.  I wonder if you realized how futile and tawdry Ravel sounded after your Epilogue¹.  As a consequence of last Friday I am starting an anti-Gallic League the motto of which shall be ‘Poetry not Pedantry’.  More when we meet!
I enclose the £30 you so kindly lent me.  It has saved the situation very effectively and I am sorry I could not return it before.  I believe Coles² has talked to you about his affairs – probably he is right although I feel it is risky.
If you are free, do come a walk³ next Sunday.  The Masons⁴ have invited me to hear Boughton play his music drama that evening,
I wish I could tell you how I and everyone else was carried away on Friday.  However, it is unnecessary as I expect you know it already.
Yrs Ever

GV.H.

1.  The first performance of the London Symphony at the Queen’s Hall, 27 March. The programme included Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales.
2. Cecil Coles, a young composer killed in the first world war.
3. sic.
4. Edward Mason gave concerts of British music at the Queen’s Hall during the years just before the first world war.