To Porter Garnett
San Francisco, California. August 15, 1911
I am struck in California by the deep and almost religious affection which people have for nature, and by the sensitiveness they show to its influences; not merely poetically, but also athletically, because they like to live as nature lives. It is a relief from business and the genteel tradition. It is their spontaneous substitute for articulate art and articulate religion, and is perhaps the substance out of which these may some day be formed afresh.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Unknown