THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking.

Dec 26 [1944]

Dear Bob

Your poem to Ursula is beautiful – thank you for it.
Especially:
“Then let the house
…  royally”¹

This is when I have been trying to explain to my pupils all my life in my clumsy way is the meaning of “technique”.²
My love to Bessie
Yrs

Ralph

1. The poem appears as the dedication of Virgil: The Eclogues and the Georgics translated into English verse by R.C. Trevelyan, Cambridge 1944. The lines in question are:
… Then let the house be swept
And garnished at all hours
Against the arrival of its sovereign Lord,
The bride=groom of the mind, who unannounced
In hisd own time shall come; whom we must watch
And wait for night and day; and when he comes
Must spend our toil to entertain him royally.
2. Check reading since it doesn’t make grammatical sense at the moment