To Susan Sturgis de Sastre
The Cunard Steamship Company Limited
At sea. June 12, 1910
R.M.S. “Lusitania”.
Although I don’t expect to land for thirty-six hours, I take this opportunity to write a line, which will let you know that I have reached this side of the Atlantic. It has been a voyage remarkable for good weather and good food, and for a dreadful collection of passengers. The very nouveaux riches—the Chicago stock-brokers and dry-goods millionaires,—have “caught on” to these vessels, so that all the horrors of New America (it is not the America you knew) are here in full force.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910–1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Alderman Library, University of Virginia at Charlottesville.