To George Sturgis
C/o Brown Shipley & Co 123 Pall Mall
London, S.W.1
Venice, May 13, 1924
Thank you for your letter of April 28 with its enclosures. I am answering Scofield Thayer’s inquiries. I hardly think my autobiography would be interesting, as there have been no events in my life and I have known few distinguished people. My novel will contain most of my observations on human nature, freed from personalities; and besides I am writing something which I call “Persons and Places” in which I mean to give some account, historically accurate but selective, of some scenes and characters that have remained in my memory. I tremble to think what nonsense Miss Munsterberg may be writing about me and my father and mother: and Thayer will not be much nearer the mark. Perhaps I will after all follow your suggestion in composing if not an autobiography, at least a chronology of my life, with a few notes about the leading facts, so as to correct the inventions that may see the light in the impertinent press. I foresee that when I die there will be a crop of stories, most of them sentimentally benevolent and reminiscent, and some a little spiteful, about my supposed life and character: and although all this will blow over in a few weeks, it may be as well that there should be an authoritative document to which anyone may appeal who may be really interested in the facts. If I write such a chronology I will send you a copy, because (as this incident shows) you too are not very well informed about this branch of our family history.
I came to Venice from Rome about a week ago, accompanied by two of the Chetwynd children, a boy of eighteen and a girl of sixteen. Their mother, formerly Augusta Robinson of New York, and sister of a great friend of mine, was detained in Rome by the illness of another child, and was glad to have me take charge of the two elder ones, so that they might not miss seeing Venice. It is rather a curious experience to stand in this way in loco parentis to two young persons, and I find it pleasant enough, especially as they look after me much more than I look after them: but I shall not be sorry when, in two or three days, I regain my usual bachelor solitude.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA