THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

June 5 [1931]

Dear Mrs Coolidge
Thank you very much for the great compliment which you and the London String Quartet have paid me.¹ Such an occasion as this demands one’s best work and, Alas!, I have nothing ready at the moment, and I am a slow worker and could not trust myself to produce something worthy if I had any feeling of hurry – which a date so comparatively soon as November would involve. So I am sure that for your sake as well as my own I ought not to accept.
I write this with the greatest regret.
Yours sincerely
R Vaughan Williams

1.  Coolidge had sought to commission a quartet from VW for a performance in Paris, for a fee of one thousand dollars.  Her letter is with this one in the files.