To Mary Whitall Smith Berenson
Hotel Bristol
Rome. December 31, 1925
Dear Mrs Berenson,
Why didn’t I answer your previous kind letter? Because for a month I have had no note-paper and have forgotten every day to get it. But now a fresh box has been actually acquired in your honour. I well remember the luxury and freedom which I enjoyed at I Tatti when I was last there, and I am particularly sorry not to renew those delights now that your brother is there. Isn’t he coming to Rome later? But as my father, who had some nautical experience, used to say, I am here anchored with four anchors, Sloth, Prudence, Work, and Minor Engagements; and they are impossible anchors to drag at this moment. As to work, about which the whole net is supposed to be woven, it really amounts to very little. I sit down to it every morning, but without tangible results; my brain seems to be drying up. However, this is no reason for travel, at least to Florence, because if I went there, how could I come to stay with you, who besides your domestic society (such society!) have so many friends coming and going, and how could I abandon Strong who I suppose is all alone? I have heard nothing of Margaret’s movements or decisions but I understood that if nothing materialized in Paris she meant to go to America Thank you very much for writing again, it is very kind of you, but inertia is the primary force in nature, at least in mine.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Italy