To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Miramonti-Majestic Hotel
Cortina d’Ampezzo
Dolomiti, Italy. September 6, 1934
Dear Cory,
“The novel” was finished on August 31st. My notion is to let this 5th Part and Epilogue lie for a few weeks—say till I reach Rome—and then revise it before having it typed. It will seem quite fresh to me, now that I forget everything so readily. After that, we can make our grand revision of the whole work. . . . These corrections are dangerous things: often the original turns out to be better on a third reading. But you will be able to guide me there, if my new phrases are decidedly wrong, as they well might be.
I think now there would be no real objection to publishing the book at once. I am old enough and far enough not to mind the spitballs that the small boys may hurl at me.
. . . Thank you for your letter. I wonder whether I have really been of any use to you; but now it is too late to make things take a different turn. . . . Yours affly G.S.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.