To Charles Augustus Strong
New York Hotel
Nice, France. January 3, 1923
Dear Strong,
Good weather seems to be returning after the wintry storms of the last fortnight, and I have now entirely recovered from my cough. The attack was not in itself so bad—not involving so much actual catarrh—as on some previous occasions, but it seemed to shake me more and to be so fatiguing that I called the doctor. . . . He said that I had a slight congestion of the lungs—légère pouscée pulmonaire—and that my heart was larger than it ought to be. For the latter he ordered some minute pills of a drug called “strophantus,” which is evidently the sort of “dope” which attracts the opium-eaters. . . . Anyhow, I seem to have completely recovered: but it is a warning that I am not so sound as I had supposed, and that the machine may behave any day, if I am not careful, like Dr Holmes’s one horse shay.
As you may imagine, I haven’t been making progress with the book; but perhaps by virtue of the strophantus my fancy has been working magnificently and I was never more entertained than during this enforced leisure. The result is that—yielding to force majeure—I have written (in pencil) the four last chapters of the novel, solving the problem of the dénoument in a way which I think satisfactory, and incidentally creating two delightful children, a boy of four and a girl of ten. The novel is not complete yet, and many episodes might be worked up to fill the gaps: but the outline is there, and I think it may not prove a bad thing for the Realms to have that more interesting matter practically disposed of. I hope you are progressing favourably; when you come here in February you will find the place very bright and gay.
Yours ever, G.S.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.