To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol,
Rome. February 24, 1937
Your British news is certainly interesting, but I am afraid not impartial. Everybody who knows anything about the world or about psychology can guess that there is something shady and abnormal about the case of Edward VIII. What the exact facts are it is very hard for the public to gather, and your friend’s father’s god mother who has a servant who is in communication with the father of one of the King’s footmen does not seen a reliable witness.
As to your trip in May and June, it is likely that until about June 15 I shall still be in Rome and then at Cortina, at the Hotel Savoy, in the village. I am afraid this is too far out of your way. My stay in Paris last summer did not leave a very pleasant impression, and I doubt that I shall ever go there again, except possibly in transit. Rafael (who has now also written) invites me to come and see them and the glorious new Spain when it is firmly established, but of course I shall do no such thing. Old people are always a nuisance. Jacques Bainville says: “Old men repeat themselves and young men have nothing to say, so that both are bored”.
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.