To Clifton Paul Fadiman
Rome. [1941]
. . . It was a curious occasion, that lecture of mine in Oxford. I was entrusted to the care of a scientific Don, doubtless of the committee for the Spencer Lectureship; and when I called at his house by appointment an hour before the time for the lecture, his wife said he was so sorry but had been called away to receive 4000 butterflies that had just arrived for him from South America. He turned up later, however, and took me to the Natural History Museum, to a lecture-room with a deep pit, and large maps on the walls, and instead of introducing me he only said, “Oh, you might as well begin.” The audience was small, a few ladies, and a good many Indians and Japanese: However, I recognized old Professor Stewart of Christ Church and F. R. S. Schiller. This audience, however, was most sympathetic, didn’t mind the length of the lecture, and applauded heartily at the end. But there was nothing Oxonian about the occasion: might have been at Singapoor . . . I think it is one of the most reasonable things I have written, reasonable yet not cold, and I am encouraged to find that it has not been altogether forgotten.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.