To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Versailles, France. August 25, 1932
Dear Cory,
Thank you very much for looking at the rooms at 7, Park Place, St. James’s. From what you say and from the Manageress’s letter I judge that it is just the thing I wanted, and I have written engaging the rooms for the week beginning Sept 11th and saying that probably I should wish to keep them until Oct. 21st. This makes it possible for me to arrive in London and settle down with a minimum of friction.
Of course the 6 gineas are for the rooms alone: as exchange is now, that is only $3 a day, for 3 rooms: I count on paying service (fees at least) and food extra. My idea is to have breakfast and dinner in my rooms, as in Rome, and to go out for luncheon and tea. It will be very pleasant to revisit my old haunts (if they still exist) and I hope you will join me for lunch as often as you find it convenient. I can offer you Italian food, more or less.
A man named George Howgate, who is writing a doctor’s thesis about me, was here yesterday, with a frightening list of all my writings, including articles and reviews—and yet not complete. I have been doing a little work on the novel, although Locke is not finished, but I am not alarmed about Locke: the only thing that would prevent me from finishing the paper in London would be illness, and in that case I could beg off the lecture altogether.
I feel myself already walking in Hyde Park. Unfortunately, it will be getting too chilly to sit down.
Yours affly,
G.S.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928–1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York, NY