THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

[4th October 1938]

My Dear

What a lovely picture – though not half pretty enough of course (this is truth – I always tell you the truth). It will require a cupboard all to itself!
Well we seem out of the mess for the moment¹. The truth is we are being really Xtian & giving the other cheek etc & realizing that the ungodly do prosper & that if we are to try & be civilized ourselves it can only be at the expense of letting the ungodly prosper. All very horrid.
I’m glad you liked the symph². I did rather myself after many years. It is really war time music – a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night in the ambulance wagon at Ecoiv[r]es & we went up a steep hill & there was a wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset – its not really Lambkins frisking at all as most people take for granted.³
Take care of yourself my dear & forgive all my vagaries. I am sending back the poem – rather too personal to show round, though I like it (and your hair)
Yrs

RVW

1.  A reference to the Munich Agreement, of 29 September 1938.
2.  Symphony no.3, the Pastoral Symphony which had been given at the Queen’s Hall on 29 September (See note to VWL1375).
3.  From ‘It is really war time music…’ published in R.V.W.: a biography, p.121.