THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The Warren
Meldreth
Cambs

[July 1906]

My Dear V.

It was nice to open y^r parcel and find my initials over your pieces¹ – I don’t know what you owe to me – but I know all I owe you – if I ever do anything worth doing it will be greatly owing to having such a friend as you “at my command” as the folk-songs say, always ready to help and advise – and someone whose yea is always yea & nay, nay – which is a quality one really wants in a friend and so seldom gets.
I do thank you from the bottom of me – because I know that you don’t do these things unless you mean them.
I’ve just finished scoring the 2nd movement of the ocean.²
Yrs

RVW

1. Holst’s Two songs without words for orchestra, op.22, H.88, were dedictaed to VW.
2. i.e. of  A Sea Symphony, on which VW worked for about seven years. Partly quoted in R.V.W.: a biography, p.78.