To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. January 28, 1949
It is a mystery to me why I have let more than a month pass without thanking you for your Christmas flowers and the two inhalers. Perhaps the Bidwell’s visit had interfered with the normal direction of my thoughts towards Weston, Massachusetts; or that I had a false dream-impression that having just written to you before the presents arrived I had virtually thanked you for them in advance. Never mind the cause: the facts are that everything arrived and was appreciated; but I was suffering a good deal, especially at night, from cough, which didn’t let me sleep; and I had a great number of visitors and letters, so that I was tempted to postpone everything that was not urgent. Of late, things have got better. I feel as if the back of the winter were broken; there is more sunshine, and the callers and letters have fallen off in number. Moreover, the Benzedrine Inhaler which I had not used at first has proved most useful on a fair trial. It is not so pleasant, and like cologne or a nose-cocktail, as the old liquid Vapex used to be; but for about an hour it actually arrests the flow of mucus and consequently the cough, so that it is a great comfort, allowing me to read or to sleep for a while untroubled almost at any time. The directions suggest that it may be used continually, saying, not oftener than once an hour, which would allow 24 doses a day, and that it lasts for two or three months. I use it at much longer intervals, and hardly ever at night, as I have a sirrup that is supposed to heal as well as relieve; and this carries me over the night fairly well. My catarrh is chronic, and I don’t expect to be cured of it; but often I forget that I have it and pass days and weeks without any sign of trouble. This winter, however, has been trying, although in Rome not at all cold, but unusually dark and rainy: and although now the “central heating” works it does not help as much as the sunshine. Now at last we are having clear weather and I can work in the morning by my open French window. Moral of all this invalid letter: Please send me more of the “Benzedrine Inhaler”, in case my tube should be exhausted.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.