THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Hotel Bendinat
Palma de Mallorca

Saturday [29th September 1956]

Dearest Joy

Since [Gil’s?] letter came early this morning we have thought about you all the time.¹ It seems to me that you have made something between you that has enriched many people. We were so happy with you, and so glad that we had those lovely few days, & that drive onto the downs, – and that’s only one, of many many times, for which we are glad. And Gerald – ‘all that I do is me, for this I came’² could be most truly and wholly said of him. We shall be home next Sunday, and if you’d like to come to us and if I could help you with letters – or in any other way please let me.
We were going out today – & we sat in a remote hermitage high on a mountain with the island & the sea below us in a pale blue haze, & Ralph dictated the letter he is sending to the Times.³ It all seems very fitting, & there were swallows – perhaps some of yours on their way south.
Nothing counts much just now, but when you want us, we are here.
Love to you all
Ursula

1. Gerald Finzi had died on 27th September.
2. Quotation from Gerald Manley Hopkins ‘As kingfishers catch fire’:
“ Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.”
3. An appreciation of Gerald Finzi which appeared on Wednesday 4th October – see VWL3427.