To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. December 9, 1924
The Society (or League) of Nations is now sitting here, and it is supposed to be an “Anno Santo” or sort of Jubilee Year in religious circles; but I observe no great change in Rome in consequence. I usually go to lunch at a small restaurant in a side street, where there are usually the same people every day. English, for the most part; and everything is very cosy and familiar, including Beppino, the proprietor’s son and chief waiter, who turns down my coat-collar and chooses a good pear for me out of pure affection; but yesterday we were startled by an invasion of American reporters who talked so loud that they set all the other tables shouting too in rivalry in French and German (the British remained inaudible) and the general hubbub became frightful, so that Beppino, noticing my distress, explained apologetically that this was all due to the League of Nations, which he called La Conferenza della Discordia.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.