To Paul Arthur Schilpp
Hotel Bristol
Rome. February 14, 1939
As to a possible volume on me. Here I see there are going to be many difficulties and perhaps misunderstandings, and I feel that we had better at least postpone that project. I am now at work on the Realm of Spirit, my last word, as it were, and find it a most difficult book to put into proper shape, partly no doubt because my power of synthesis and system, never very great, has diminished with age. While this is pending, I can.t promise to do any other considerable task. If and when it is done, I might feel differently. . . . let us put off this . . . project to some later time. You doubtless have a sufficient list of living philosophers to occupy you for a year or two, and then, if I am still alive, you can reopen the question.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Six, 1937-1940. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale