THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

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

Jan 6 [1940]

My Dear
The cream was lovely thank you so much – alas all gone now! You know how greedy I am in every way.
Here is Virginia’s¹ letter which you may like to see.
I’ve found one more Shelley Bridges No. 423² (1^st verse only) – so don’t worry too much – though I c^d do with one or two more.
I like the new poem. I showed the sonnet and your photograph to Herbert Fisher³ and he said “Tell her I like her sonnet very much and I like her face still more”.
Love
RVW

1. Virginia Woolf, a cousin of Adeline’s to whom he had written about Ursula Wood’s poetry. Virginia Woolf refers to having heard from VW, in a letter of 6th April 1940 to Margaret Llewelyn Davies. See Leave the letters till we’re dead: the letters of Virginia Woolf, VI (1936-41) (London, 1980), p.391.
2. A reference to Robert Bridges’ anthology The Spirit of Man (London, 1916). Bridges no. 423 is from Shelley’s On Death. VW used part of the Bridges excerpt to form the text of song no. 1 ‘A Song of Courage’ in his Six choral songs – to be sung in time of war, Catalogue of Works p.178 (1940/1).
3. Brother of Adeline VW, and Warden of New College, Oxford.