To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Bauer-Grüenwald
Venice. May 22, 1924
The Germans are certainly numerous here, and as this hotel is their own, one who comes to it can hardly complain of their presence. I looked everywhere, when the Chetwynds left, for a better place, but could find nothing: the rooms are well kept, the first breakfast is appetizing (with Vienna rolls) and I take my other meals out, so that the Teutonic invasion does not annoy me. In the late afternoon I explore “Venice on foot,” guided by a book with that title which I got in Rome and which I have cut up into sections (each with its own map) which go conveniently into the pocket. I have also found a very pleasant modest restaurant, where I eat at a little table with a shaded lamp close to the street-door (which is wide open) and where there are only Italians and an occasional elderly British pair who have come on their travels after the marriage of their last daughter. It is warm, but as yet quite tolerable, and the evening in the Piazza is a great sight.
I am making progress in the Book, though as yet there is no sensational result to announce. I have nothing to read for the moment, but don’t mind so much as there is so much to look at, and I go to bed (by the lights in the terrace outside) as soon as I get back in the evening from a stroll by the sea-front, the Piazza, and the cafés. When I am ready to go to Cortina I will order some books to be sent there from Oxford as there I shall not be able to lead the life of a flâneur and a boulevardier.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY