To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Rome. July 1, 1952
Your second letter arrives today, and one has come also from Mr. Wheelock evidently very seriously and permanently alarmed by you about my approaching death. It is approaching, and my accident was a warning of how accidentally the “One Horse Shay” could collapse at any moment. But every Christian knows that this collapse is possible for him at any age. The probability of its coming tomorrow is hardly greater at ninety than at nineteen. I don’t feel that it is imminent for me now, or during this summer.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY