To John Hall Wheelock
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. March 22, 1946
I don’t think these plays [The Marriage of Venus and Philosophers at Court] ought to appear soon after The Idea of Christ. They are ultra-pagan and somewhat licentious, not in language, but in temper and doctrine; they perhaps reflect my prevailing sentiments more than does The Idea of Christ, but they belong before not after the latter: in my youth and in what I deliberate think is the natural common inevitable texture of life: the spiritual reconsideration of existence being something optional and rare, though more satisfying in the end. This order of things can be easily established and cleared up after one is dead: but it would be misleading to the public, and unbecoming in extreme old age, to bring out the epicurean side after the ascetic.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ