To William James
75 Monmouth Street
Brookline, Massachusetts. Thursday. [1908]
I find your note here when it is too late to profit by it. I am very sorry, not so much for not gratifying Mr Gordon’s morbid desire to look upon the Devil, as for not giving him a chance to make the sign of the cross over me (or whatever is the Old South equivalent) and perhaps drive the Father of Lies out of me into some dumb and non-literary animal where he wouldn’t do so much harm.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book One, [1868]-1909. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA