To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. March 13, 1937
Chess is a contest: but suppose we remove the motive of vanity or love of winning; you might satisfy that by seeing who can drink the other man under the table, rather than who can checkmate him upon it. And suppose we eliminate also any gambling or partisan interest in having one side win rather than the other, even if you are a mere onlooker. Now my question is this: How much of the fascination of chess comes from the excitement of carrying out a purpose under opposition: a suggestion or after-image of difficulties in living? …. The point that touches my philosophy is whether the living interest in non-living things is normal in man, or is a mere eccentricity or illusion, in that nothing can really concern us except our own life.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Six, 1937-1940. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA