THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.

January 22nd 1956.

Dear Michael,

With regard to the last movement of my No 6.¹ I do NOT BELIEVE IN meanings and mottoes as you know, but I think we can get in words nearest to the substance of my last movement in
“we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded by a sleep.”²

Love to Eslyn
RVW

1. Catalogue of Works 1947/3.
2. From Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Act iv, Sc. 1.  See VWL3258 and also Works of Vaughan Williams, p. 302, where Michael Kennedy discusses this response to his question.