To Desmond MacCarthy
Hotel Bristol
Rome. November 16, 1928
Please tell Berty Russell, if you see him, that I was immensely amused at his diagnosis of “Catholic and Protestant Sceptics”, and in particular of myself. But I don’t like his saying that I dislike the Founder of Christianity: has he read my “Lucifer” or the dialogue about “The Philanthropist”? It may be a biassed interpretation, but I take even the eschatology, and the coming of the Kingdom, in Christ’s mouth, to be gently ironical and meant secretly in a spiritual sense. So understood, I accept his doctrine and spirit in toto.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928-1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.