To George Sturgis
Grand Hotel
Rome, May 4, 1941
Yesterday I went to the Credito Italiano and received lire 12,600 and odd, which with what I had on hand gives me ample funds for two months more in Italy in any case, counting doctors’ bills, and possible journey to the frontier. This in case communication with the U.S. should be interrupted before you send me the next draft. I asked the now amiable gent at the Credito Italiano whether he thought the interruption was likely to occur, and he said no: that it would not be in the American interest. But people so seldom do what is for their own interest that I am not at all confident, and wish to be prepared for the worst. If all goes well until June 15 and you then send me $1000, I shall be all right until October at least; so that I should be able to spend a peaceful summer writing my amusing Autobiography—amusing at least to myself.
I am now practically well, except for a gouty knee that keeps me from taking long walks; but I can walk well enough for short distances, and take a cab when I wish to go farther. Cory has sent me Russell’s new book, which I am now reading with interest; and I can always fall back on the classics, Latin or Italian, which are to be had here; but being cut off from current books in French, particularly, is the most disagreeable effect, for me, of the present restrictions. Those in food do no harm: although beef, veal, and pork are limited to two days a week now, we can still have mutton, chicken, ginea fowl, partriges, tongue, liver, sweetbreads, and fish at all times—enough for an abstemious philosopher.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA