To John Galen Howard
Roxbury, Massachusetts. Aug. 21, 1882
My dear Howard,
I address myself to you again, not because there is anything which I can impart in the way of interesting information, but partly in order to thank you for your very kind letter which I received some time ago, and partly to ask you to let me know what are your plans, so that if you return to Boston I may have the pleasure of seeing you. It appears from repeated consultation of the calendar that the summer is coming to an end, to say nothing of the chilly weather which has come to enforce the fact through the evidence of the senses. Hence it occurs to me that you may soon be returning to town.
I suppose you have been the happy recipient of a letter from Mr. Merrill similar to the one I have received from him. I doubt, however, that he has put into yours the amount of gush and eloquence and unction he has lavished on mine. At least I hope he has not had the impudence of addressing all the fellows by their first names, as he has done me. If he supposed I would be flattered by being treated with intimacy by him, he was greatly mistaken. If I did not deem it unwise to forfeit anyone’s good opinion merely for the pleasure of speaking out one’s mind plainly, I should have answered him and addressed him as “my dear Moses.”
I have kept busy this summer principally by reading. I have nearly concluded Dante’s Inferno. I thought to have read the whole Comedia this summer, but I find it takes quite long to read a page with my imperfect knowledge of Italian. First I read four or five lines in the original, then the same in a translation, and then reread the Italian to see that I take in the force of each word. Thus I proceed slowly till I get to the end of the Canto when I once more reread the whole. I find it for more beautiful even than I imagined. I have translated some parts for myself in verse like the original in structure, but like all translations it is very unlike the original in effect.
Hoping to hear from you, and also to see you before long, I remain
Sincerely yours,
George Santayana.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book One, [1868]-1909. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley