To Logan Pearsall Smith
Richmond, England. June 20, 1919
Dear Smith,
You see, I am still where you last saw me—or rather, very nearly in the same place, because after going away to town in the hope of getting my passport properly endorsed, I have returned to a still better room on the top floor of Wick House, with a really magnificent view on two sides and the feeling of being in a castle tower overlooking some smiling champaign. It is quite delightful as a retreat for working: only marred by the necessity of descending to the dining room two or three times a day. The reason for my return here, as you may conjecture, is the obduracy of the French authorities who will not give a visa for one’s beaux yeux, but require all sorts of proofs of business activities, services during the war, living to earn, wife to rescue from starvation or dishonour, or some other work of moral or national importance. It is still possible that I may get away next week, if Cerberus is satisfied with a sop (which he has asked for and promised to be appeased by—but what are promises to Cerberus?) in the form of an affidavit that I really lived in Paris before the war. I wonder how Berenson manages to travel so like a lord or an Irish emissary: is it his business or his fame that propitiates people, or his American nationality? I should be sorry not to see Strong, who has been philosophically rather lonely as well as laid up physically for the last year: otherwise I should be really glad to give up all thought of travel and return to peace and happiness at Oxford. You are very generous in wishing me to have all the profit of the Little Essays, if profit there is to be: let us not have a quarrel of disinterestedness about it. But it would really be simpler for me if you took half the royalties, let us say, to invest in the beautiful book which should serve as a memento of your labours. I am not a connaisseur in books; but it occurs to me that the right thing would be a copy of the great Essays of Bacon or Montaigne, with an inscription witnessing that seeing thou hast been faithful over little essays, thou shalt be made master over great essays. If I return to Oxford, I will ask Blackwell if he has an attractive edition of either of these, and send it to you so inscribed.
Thank you very much for wanting me to come to Big Chilling. Of course I should like to, but can make no plans at present. Thank you, too, for Mrs Berenson’s card, from which I am happy to infer that she is quite well again.
Yours,
G. S.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Library of Congress, Washington DC