To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 10, 1947
Dear Clemens,
Mr. Thomason, unless I confuse the persons, came to see me not long ago. He seems a troubled person, with religious needs. He ought to become a Catholic. The disgust with “literature” and “aesthetics” is common now and I welcome it as as return to realism. They will tell you that I am “literary” and “aesthetic”; but only in form, because I belong to the 1890’s; in substance I laugh at all that as much as any saint or any Philistine.
No: I have not seen your Roosevelt, and don’t send it to me. He is too near in time and too far off in philosophy.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC.