To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 26, 1946
We are in the midst of a political crisis here which may become disturbing, although I hope on the contrary that it may serve to settle matters and give us a period of steady peace, at least internally. It is hard for a mere spectator like me to estimate the strength of the various movements concerned.
In America, in another way, you are also having trouble. Doesn’t everything point to state control of industry and trade? I am reading Stalin, and like his honesty and frankness. But he paints like the Chinese and Japanese, without shadows. In a picture that seems all right to your old friend.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY