To Mary Potter Bush
Hotel Savoia
Cortina d’Ampezzo. July 5, 1935
I am reading Alain’s Les Dieux, the most obscure French book I ever have come upon, ragged and perverse in places, but also full of wonderful insights. Besides, apart from his vulgar politics, I agree with him, and am encouraged to find so penetrating and spontaneous a thinker taking precisely my view of “spirit”. He says: “L’attribut de puissance, délégué à l’esprit pur dans une sorte d’emportement, doit être pris comme la partie honteuse de la religion de l’esprit”. I must quote this in my book, The Realm of Spirit, which I am working on at present, being in the mood for it, although The Realm of Truth should be published first. But my mind isn’t entirely clear for sheer philosophy, as the second proofs of the novel are about to reach me, and I shall have to go over those 723 pages once more. We are having some qualms about the hotels and inns also parsonages mentioned, all real ones, and the possible law-suits that the proprietors might bring for defaming them or their establishments; but I am careful to kill or remove all the persons, and not to say anything not flattering about the houses; so that I hope to escape prosecution. My weakness for real spots and their atmosphere makes me hate to give false names to places, or even to persons, when the true name is not positively out of the question. I hope people won’t think it is impertinence: it is genuine love of truth.
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.