To Upton Beall Sinclair
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. April 21, 1951
Dear Mr. Sinclair,
I do remember your first book very well, not its title or details, but one scene describing childbirth, and the general impression that it was a cry from the deep. My background, my motives, my tastes were, I felt, entirely different from yours; we could not walk in the same path or belong to the same party. But my intention was never to belong to any party, and I have not followed your career. The world was full, and is now trembling, with the groans and rumblings from the depths; I have tried to disregard them, not because I thought them unimportant, but because my interest was never in meeting or reforming the currents in the world, but in being saved from them, as far as possible. I don’t know how far your sympathies now are communistic: but I read what comes in my way that seems to express the vital and genuine side of the present revolution. I know what its recognized spokesmen say, but that is plainly worthless philosophically. I should be very glad to read your latest book, if you think that it would enlighten me on the real dynamism of our times; but I am too old to recast my own opinions.
Yours sincerely, G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington