THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy

Letter No. VWL3553

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Michael and Eslyn Kennedy

Letter No.: VWL3553


From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.

December 27th 1957.

Dear Eslyn & Michael

Thank you so much for both the books.  I expect the Metaphysical poets are more for Ursula, but I have a particular interest in Robert Graves as I know him slightly.  I think I told you of our last meeting, but will repeat it, in case I haven’t.  It sounds like a game of consequences!  We discovered that we had both been at Charterhouse, where upon we both started singing the Carmen Carthusianum in a majorcan restaurant in loud voices – this caused a thunder storm, whereupon Robert Graves upset his coffee over Ursula and a cat.1
Our love to you both and hopes for a happy new year.
Ralph2


1.  The Kennedys had given VW for Christmas a revised edition of Robert Graves’s memoir Goodbye to all that originally published in 1929.  For the full story of the encounter with Graves in Majorca see R.V.W.: a biography, p. 375.
2.  This letter printed in part in Michael Kennedy, Works of Vaughan Williams, p. 390.