To William Cameron Forbes
Delta Phi Club
Cambridge, Massachusetts. [Spring 1893]
Dear Cam
I was delighted to get your letter and to know you had seen my sister and liked Avila of which I am very fond although it isn’t an exciting place, as you may imagine. My sister has also written about your visit. She says she was sorry not to be able to ask you to stay at her house, but she thought that as no one but herself spoke English the situation might be a little uncomfortable. You were, she says, a great success with the boys, who were delighted with your stamps. They pitied you very much for not speaking Spanish and being a heretic. However, they realized that it was more your misfortune than your fault.
. . . Ever since my expedition to Naushon I have been developing a great fondness for the country, and now I try to get out of town every Sunday. Last Sunday Boylston Beal and I with two sophomores drove to Concord, had dinner, saw the sights, and drove back in great form, with splendid weather to favour us. I am going again to Groton with Warwick Potter, and also to Amherst, for now I like to visit all sorts of colleges. Yale I think delightful, although it be heresy to say so, and Amherst is very pretty. Even Smith has its charms. I went to lecture there not long ago, and had a fine time. The girls were very attentive, and took me to dinner and supper with them. Twenty eight girls, two matrons, and one man is a novel dinner party, but very charming I assure you. Before long I shall have to return there, for it would never do to have the dear things forget me altogether.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book One, [1868]–1909. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.