To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome, May 9, 1945
My dear Rosamond:
The new parcel from you has duly arrived. The tea and sugar have been committed to the guardianship of Sister Angela, the housekeeper, who says that I have now tea enough for all summer and all next winter: but that may be a pious prophecy. Anyhow, I am now assured of always having my afternoon tea, which as I have written to you is my greatest fleshly comfort. And now it is turned also into a luxury by your rich and solid Festive Fruit Cake, which I keep among the bookshelves in my room, and cut slices off horizontally, with a sharp knife, after my gross appetite has been quieted by some jam or pâté-de-foie-gras sandwiches. You may take it for granted that the jam in this case is not jam and the pâté-de-foie-gras not genuine either: but I call them so out of courtesy and because they are really very good.
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