To Martin Birnbaum
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. October 12, 1945
As to Sargent, I once made a voyage with him (by accident) from New York to Gibraltar, and then (by spontaneous agreement) we went together, in company with Dr. & Mrs. William White of Philadelphia, to Tangiers. I have a faded photograph of us four in a group, watching him sketching some picturesque corner of the town. Then, in 1893, the place was most primitive and he was chiefly interested in procuring genuine costumes for his Prophets in the decorations he was planning for the Boston Public Library. He was afterwards going to search in Spain for a characteristic image of the Mater Dolorosa, which he meant then to introduce into the same composition, but at the other end. I looked for it later, but could see nothing that corresponded to what, on board, he had explained to me was his project. We both felt the force of what might be called the impure wealth of Spanish art, passion in black velvet and seven gold daggers. I never saw Sargent after that trip, but always felt that I had a private cue to a certain side of his work.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Unknown