THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Leith Hill Place
Nr Dorking

[September 1897]

Dear Randolph

You are the best man in the world – as I always knew – and so I am serious when I ask you to adopt that particular pose at my wedding also on the trustee matter – I can’t tell you what it is to find you willing to do these things for me but I won’t slide into the sentimental. When are you next in London? We must try and see a lot of each other. You may like to hear our plans. Immediately on being married we start for Berlin and spend 6,7, or 8 months there, or go on at half time to Vienna.
Sotheboys¹ has written to ask me if I will return to him if he keeps the place open for me – this we have thought it best to accept – so by June you will find a ménage à deux established in S. Lambeth towards which you must often find yourself impelled.
I wish you could have got to know Adeline better before we are married but I daresay it will do as well after – and you will have the additional excitement of making a new friend – only you may get into the way of thinking of me and my wife instead of getting to know both as separate atoms.
I will tell you the actual date as soon as I know[;] it might be Saturday – it is splendid your being so obliging as to dates – It will probably be Friday.²
Yours affecntely

Ralph Vaughan Williams

1.  ?Vicar of St Barnabas.
2. The actual date of the wedding was Saturday 9 October 1897.