THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

[1934?]

…nice letter to me.
Have a good holiday – I wonder if you will go abroad.
I’ve just been reading Dent’s life of Busoni¹ – very interesting – but too many sneers at the “inarticulate” English – what people don’t realize is that every nation (community) has got to have an artistic medium of its own – they can’t take on some one else’s ready made – their creation is at the bottom of all artistic life – for if the artistic medium does not lead to creativeness
(1) there is something wrong about the medium
or (2) there is no creativeness in the nation (community) & that therefore all artistic activity should cease as something alien to their nature – I don’t believe in an art which is the privileged possession of a few dilettantes who can afford to go to Salzburg & Bayreuth. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world & lose his own soul”²
Love from
Uncle Ralph

1. Edwrad J. Dent, Ferruccio Busoni (Oxford University Press, 1933).
2. Quotation from the New Testament; Mark 8: 36.