To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Savoy
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. August 6, 1935
As a stimulus I am re-reading and annotating the entire works (1,000 pages) of St. John of the Cross. A large part is irrelevant to my purpose, as it is ordinary Catholic doctrine, but I am trying to understand the realities for which these spiritual intuitions or conventions may stand. E.g. With what is the mystic united? And what degree and kind of union is it possible to conceive with that object? I am also amusing myself with making verses—like you—by way of translating those of St. John of the Cross, which are very beautiful and very erotic. The Song of Songs was a great boon to the Catholic Saints: it enabled them to be Freudian without ceasing to be proper.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY