To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santa Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. December 17, 1946
I am glad you have got your $500 safely and that Wheelock says there is no tax on it for any of us; but Wheelock’s good news is rather at a discount with me now, because he has played me a nasty (verbal) trick by writing first that he had $2,500 clear for me, and a month later writing that owing to “certain charges” and to the 30% tax due, my credit (before the $500 were sent to you) was reduced to $280.–somewhat less than the 500 that you were to receive; but that he would send you that sum notwithstand, and things would be settled in my next account. I daresay it is only the desire to be agreeable and encouraging that makes him write in this “diplomatic” way: but though Scribner has always been a little close and mysterious in money-matters, I never felt so cheated as on this occasion, and have written (facetiously) describing my feelings, and asking for an explanation. I had ordered books freely from Scribner, and he was sending me parcels to be charged also to my account (none of which have arrived yet) but the total as I conceive it would still leave me with a thousand dollars margin to my credit, instead of a debt of $220! It is ridiculous that I should be left in debt when T. P. Salmon (my real agent, under Mr Appleton, at the Old Colony Trust Co) informs me that $10,000 have been added to my personal fund, which is independent of my Trust, and can be tapped to at any moment.
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