To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Hotel Bristol
Rome. June 11, 1937
Dear Clemens,
The quotation about a world that lets us laugh at it may be mine: I don’t remember where it is, but I am willing in any case to subscribe to the sentiment.
As to the medal and other honours, thank you for your flattering intention, but my one desire is to escape unobserved, as far as my old person is concerned. If people will crown my ideas in their own minds, that is a sufficient bond.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Six, 1937-1940. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC