To John Francis Stanley Russell
Colonial Club
Cambridge, Massachusetts. January 2, 1912
Dear Russell
Your letter of some months ago has somehow remained unanswered. Although I had several things to say in reply, and have been thinking about you especially, because in looking over my old papers I have come upon a lot of your letters and reread them all, being carried back to 1887 and the following years, when all that happened to you was so much a part of my life. I can see now how great an influence you had on me. It was an influence for good. It seems almost as if I had gathered the fruits of your courage and independance, while you have suffered the punishment which the world imposes always on those who refuse to conform to its ways. You may say you are content, but with your position and character you ought to have had a greater career. Isn’t it, at bottom, because you have tried to combine liberty with democracy, in your personal as well as political alliances, and liberty and democracy are really incompatible? I will explain what I mean by word of mouth (it would take up too much paper) if you are in England. I expect to reach London on February 1st. Send me a line C/o Brown, Shipley & Co. 123, Pall Mall.
Yours ever
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.