Author: David Spiech Page 105 of 283

To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Continental
Vigo, Spain. September 8, 1928

Dear Strong,

My journey has been done approximately on time, and with the usual mixture of pleasant and unpleasant incident. The first day, in France, was very hot; then my predestined companion in the compartment rebelled against his fate, bribed the guard to put him elsewhere, and left me in happy solitude and quietness. From Paris to Orléans and from Bordeaux to the Spanish frontier, and some distance beyond, the main line is now electric, so that at least there are no smoke and cinders. . . .

Oporto is magnificently situated and staged—comparable to Naples or Constantinople, with a variety of romantic castles, steeples, and rococo churches crowning all the heights, and the specialty of two dizzy and graceful bridges spanning the river high in air. The cathedral, which is a castle as well, has a remarkable cloister (not in Baedeker, and discovered by my own eyes) Gothic done into baroque, and with blue tile compositions representing the Song of Solomon, by rolly-polly shepherds and shepherdesses of the 18^th century, at once rustic and classical. The Latin text is conspicuously introduced, and the whole is one of the most amusing architectural jokes I have ever seen. And there is another smaller cloister within, most peaceful, like an ancient house in an acropolis. Altogether, Oporto was worth the trouble of getting there.

All Portugal, and this part of Spain, seems to be covered with pinewoods, sparsely planted, with occasional interludes of vineyard or maize—too green, for my taste, but pretty because hilly. Vigo Bay or la Ria de Vigo is magnificent, but the town insignificant, and Bayona, where I went yesterday for the day, is a fishing village with a castle in ruins, very picturesque, but not looking out on the open sea as I had expected. I found my sister well and apparently contented, but looking a hundred years old, and not giving any clear expression to her ideas. . . . For the moment I am remaining in this hotel, where I have a room looking out on the harbour, full of war-ships. It is cool & often hazy here. Yours ever

G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928–1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. September 7, 1931

I am always glad to get your letters and post-cards and to see that you are well. The ups and downs of one’s relations with Strong are nowadays a little troublesome, but I think with prudence and forebearance we may weather all storms. I feel rather as if my friendship with him were a family corpse, to which nevertheless it is right to show respect and consideration. He never writes without saying something unpleasant; but I think he doesn’t perceive the effect which his attitude must have on others, and he expects everything to go on as usual. I am perfectly willing to let it do so: only one has no sense of security with a friend in so hostile a mood.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Miramonti-Majestic Hotel
Cortina d’Ampezzo
Dolomiti, Italy. September 6, 1934

Dear Cory,

“The novel” was finished on August 31^st. My notion is to let this 5th Part and Epilogue lie for a few weeks—say till I reach Rome—and then revise it before having it typed. It will seem quite fresh to me, now that I forget everything so readily. After that, we can make our grand revision of the whole work. . . . These corrections are dangerous things: often the original turns out to be better on a third reading. But you will be able to guide me there, if my new phrases are decidedly wrong, as they well might be.

I think now there would be no real objection to publishing the book at once. I am old enough and far enough not to mind the spitballs that the small boys may hurl at me.

. . . Thank you for your letter. I wonder whether I have really been of any use to you; but now it is too late to make things take a different turn. . . . Yours affly G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Glion-sur-Territet, Switzerland. September 5, 1929

Dear Cory,

It is very nice to have news of you so soon, and I am glad you are trying the system of eating out. It is more Parisian, and although I daresay you will like to go back later to your pension, this will give you a taste of the other method, useful for future occasions.

. . . I went yesterday to Val-Mont and was thoroughly examined, my urine distributed into several parti-coloured phials, my heart photographed, and my lungs sounded. My superfluous flesh was also pressed down in various places to discover how soon it would rise again. Dr Hannelé ? was agreeable, and said my bronchitis was not of the bad infectious kind, that the bottom of both my lungs contained a deposit, and that it was better to attack the predisposition to bronchial colds indirectly through the heart. This sentimental organ he said was organically sound but sluggish (moux) and he thought there was too much blood in one vessel and not enough in the other: but the photo would make that point clear. In general, he said I might drink wine, there was no harm in that, but that there was too much water in my body. He means to stimulate my heart somehow so as to correct that dropsical (or lymphatic?) tendency: and he said the pleasure of prescribing for such cases as mine was that they might be cured. We shall see.

Have a good time, don’t spend all your money at once, get nice clothes, don’t forget the Realm of Matter, and forget, as soon as possible, the Realm of Venus. With “these few precepts in thy memory”, remember also your old friend  G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To Enrico Castelli
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. September 4, 1948

Dear Professor Castelli,

My best thanks for your “Fenomenologia della nostra Epoca” which I have read with exceptional interest and pleasure. I wish it were longer and, although the theme is evident throughout, more systematic in arrangement. I say this because I am afraid that the succinct and informal way of making your observations may lead some readers to take it more lightly than it deserves. And the public in England if not in the United States is now ready to be convinced that something has gone radically wrong at least since the Reformation or at least since the French Revolution. Toynbee, in his great “Study of History” says since the 13^th century.

Modern “idealism” or “psychologism” which reduces reality to appearance, and, in America, truth to opinion, removes all conception of external control or preformed standards: and the acceleration of actions without a purpose has turned subjective frivolity into a compulsory nightmare. Looking back to the 13^th or even to the 19^th century we feel that mankind has lost its way.

You say that it is impossible to turn back and recover the circumstances and sentiments of the past. Of course it is impossible in the concrete or pictorially: we can’t dress or fight or speak as in the 13^th century. But many of us can retain or recover the faith, supernatural and moral, that animated that age: although even the Church does not hope to convert the whole world: so that the best that can be aimed at in that special form is that a Catholic community should always survive, scattered or concentrated in particular places, until the day of Judgement. As to what may ensue then we may have different expectations. I think that a revelation of supernatural control and destiny is not necessary to secure a valid principle of order in morals and politics. This would be secured if scientifically we made out clearly two things: 1^st The real conditions of life on earth, and 2^nd , The real needs and potentialities of human nature in each man or group of men. The Greeks had a rational view of human existence. We, with more experience and modesty, might frame various social systems, realistic and humane, by which to live according to our variable natures.

The paper I hope to write for the translation of your book will not be on these lines, but expressly written for the American public.

Yours sincerely

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Enrico Castelli Gattinara di Zubiena.