To Josiah Royce
7 Stoughton
Cambridge, Massachusetts. March 6, 1892
Dear Prof. Royce,
I have been waiting to thank you for your book [The Spirit of Modern Philosophy: An Essay in the Form of Lectures (1892)], which I got long ago, until I had read enough in it to have some just sense of the value of the gift. I perceive now that it is much more than a mere record to your lectures, as we heard them; a thousand things that one overlooked or forgot in the hearing stand out in the printed page and stick in the memory. It is marvellous to me that you should have been able to write a book so full of enthusiasm and humanity in circumstances of such external pressure and distraction. I have read the appendices with special care, and feel much enlightened by them not only in regard to Hegel, but even in regard to Kant. Many things that are vaguely before one are not made really known until one comes upon the just and brief expression of them. It must be a great satisfaction to you to have brought into the world so attractive and inspiring a book, and I am grateful to you for having sent me a copy of it.
Always faithfully yours, G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book One, [1868]-1909. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA