To Paul Arthur Schilpp
Hotel Danieli,
Venice, Italy. June 14, 1940
Dear Professor Schilpp,
During these last five days we have had various alarms, moral and physical, but nothing to interfere seriously with our plans. In a few days, as soon as I can get things ready, I expect to move to Cortina d.Ampezzo, as arranged, and there, at the Hotel Savoia, I shall doubtless find Pepper’s essay and perhaps also Dennes. Am I to await Russell’s, or to proceed without him?
Once in Cortina, which is in a sort of lunar landscape, I shall be able to give undivided attention to my Apology, which is already well advanced in composition and complete in plan. There may be some delay and uncertainty about getting it to America, as the military barriers are extending on all sides, but there remains the air route to Spain, and hence directly or indirectly to New York, and the mails through Switzerland, or even through Jougoslavia and Greece or Turkey–perhaps also via Kamschatka!
My greatest personal difficulty might be in getting money to live on; but so long as the United States remains non-belligerent, and Spain (my legal government) also, I can manage; and even in the worst case, the hotel proprietors who know me well, the one here, for instance, would be willing to accept my securities, even if not negotiable until peace returns.
I may make another attempt, in September to secure permission to settle down for a while in Switzerland; but it would be morally more agitated than Italy. My relations keep urging me to return to Spain, and my friends to return to the United States; but I am too old to travel except under compulsion, and in my Italian haunts I have the advantage of fixed habits, that allow my remaining energies to be employed in my writing.
It may be impossible for me to get my Apology typewritten. The lady who typewrites for me is employed at the British Legation to the Vatican. The Minister is now domiciled in the Vatican City itself, but I doubt that his typists are, and my friend may have gone back to England. In that case I will keep a complete copy (the rough draft) of my Apology and send you the corrected manuscript. Should this be lost, I could write you another, or perhaps by that time war will be over, and we can live more at ease.
Yours sincerely,
G. Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Six, 1937-1940. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale