To Nancy Saunders Toy
Rome. December 13, 1931
You asked me in a previous letter whether I liked the idea of building a chapel at Harvard for a war-memorial. Yes, I like it. A chapel isn’t a meeting-house; it is, or may be, just a shrine or a monument. Here in Rome there are often two or three churches in the same square; they are not needed for popular worship; they are acts of homage in themselves, as public statues would be. And at Harvard, where the existing Chapel is so hideous, the new one might serve its commemorative purpose and at the same time (in one transept, perhaps, or in one corner) supply a place in which morning prayers could be recited for those who wish to hear them. The main part could be left open, without pews, and could be a sort of Harvard Westminster Abbey for monuments to her distinguished sons. They might set up even a bust of ME there some day, in the philosophers’ corner. By all means, a Memorial Chapel!–but not in the style of Memorial Hall.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928-1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.