Author: David Spiech Page 108 of 283

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Savoy,
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. August 25, 1935

Your maturing ideas about your novel seem to me excellent, and I hope when you come to the end you will make the solution genuine, and not merely perfunctory, or as you say, to please the ladies. A man doesn’t want to be possessed by his wife, or by anything else, but he wants, if he is normal, to be devoted. Freedom and self-expression eat themselves up, and become nothing, unless we find persons or arts or ambitions that we can live for whole-heartedly.

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 Susan Sturgis de Sastre
London, August 24, 1914

Dear Susie,

. . . The Spanish papers, although of course they are belated, contain a more impartial view than the papers I see here, which even when they quote German reports, emphasize only what is obviously exaggerated or false in them, so as to make them seem absurd. The interview with a German officer of the general staff, for instance, in the ABC of the 15^th instant, is very illuminating. It shows how competent the Germans are, even when their vision is dense and their sentiment narrow. He gives out the exact plan which is being carried out, and I almost think he foresees what must be the result, at least of the campaign in Belgium. This sort of thing gives me more perspective, and helps me to prepare for the disappointments which are in store for us here—I say “us”, because it is impossible not to share the sentiment of people about one, when it is strong and steady and one has no contrary passion of one’s own. My natural sympathies are anti-German, but I can’t help admiring the sureness and the immense patient effort which characterizes their action. If they overpower “us”, I am not sure that the world will be ultimately the worse for it. I say this, I confess, partly to console myself for the news of the German victory—I don’t know yet how complete—which has been given out this afternoon. We are told that “Namur has fallen”—but we are not told if that is all, and I fear there is a lot more to tell. Perhaps the Avenue de l’Observatoire may be bombarded, and Strong be relieved of the trouble of deciding what to do with his furniture, and I with my books! It would be rather amusing, and as far as that is concerned, I shouldn’t weep over it. But how much anguish everywhere, and all for what?

Yours affly Jorge

From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Alderman Library, University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

To Mary Williams Winslow
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123 Pall Mall, London
Paris, August 23, 1921

What a kind letter this is which I receive from you this morning! I always felt that you and Fred were the best friends I had during these later years in Boston, and there was no house where I was happier and felt more at home, so that all the kind things you say do not surprise me, although they bring a fresh pleasure, and I believe you mean them. It would be a treat to find myself once more in Clarendon Street, and to see the children in the present stage of their existence—because you and Fred, I know, would be just the same; but it is impossible to combine everything as one would wish, and with the years it becomes harder and harder for me to interrupt the routine into which I have fallen.

Robert, like others of the Sturgis tribe, was a very loyal, affectionate, candid soul; he loved whole-heartedly what he felt was good and what appealed to his feelings. Once won over, he spared no pains or trouble, and lived without stint in the life of others. But his misfortune throughout his life was that his perceptions were not equal to his feelings; he irritated people, and that was the reason why he had comparatively few friends, especially among men. I very well remember him as a boy—how pertinacious he was. We had pillow-fights—very unequal contests, as he was twelve and I was three: and as he had been forbidden by our mother—who had a very severe sense of justice—to take away any part of my supper without my consent, he used to put out his tongue and say that, if I liked, I might give him a bite of my omelette; and he did this so persistently, that I sometimes gave him a little—a very little—to get rid of him. He meant this as a lesson in generosity, to teach me to be unselfish; but I am afraid that I was a poor pupil, and that it was only he that learned to distribute his omelette in generous portions to everybody about him. During the last few years he and I have been on better terms than we had ever been on before. He said, after seeing me in 1913 in Paris, that my moral character was much improved; and I too came to appreciate better the value of his strong points, and to rely on his judgement in a way which, I dare say, conciliated him. He was a treasure in the way of taking all earthly cares off my back and that of our sisters, and we have to thank him not only for being relatively well off, but for the sense of being devotedly and untiringly looked after, where we were incompetent. I don’t know what will become of us now; but I rely on the momentum he has given to things, to carry them on more or less smoothly until our own end comes . . .

I have been working very hard all summer on the Soliloquies—which will be my next book—and which are now finished. This leaves the field comparatively clear for the magnum opus; but as I can never reduce myself to one project, I have taken up again an old one, which is to write a novel. It is to be entitled The Last Puritan, and to contain all I know about America, about woman, and about young men. As this last is rather my strong point, I have two heroes, the Puritan and another not too much the other way. To make up, I have no heroine, but a worldly grandmother, a mother—the quintessence of all New England virtues—and various fashionable, High Church, emancipated, European, and sentimental young ladies. I also have a German governess—in love with the hero—of whom I am very proud. I did a good deal on this novel last winter in Toledo, where I was absolutely alone for two months; but I reserve it for slack seasons, and am not at all sure that it will ever be finished, much less published. But if I ever have a respectable fragment in good shape, I will have it type-written and submit it to your private perusal. One of my friends—a widow—tells me she is sure I shall fail in the love scenes. I Sha’n’t, because there won’t be any.

From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To George Sturgis
Palazzo della Fonte,
Fiuggi, Italy. August 22, 1941

Dear George: Your telegram received on Aug. 17, saying: “Five hundred monthly permitted you in Switzerland. Hopeful of increasing Italian remittances. Writing.” completely changed the prospect opening by your previous telegram, received on July 29, and made me less impatient to receive the letter then promised, which has not yet arrived. . . . Now, it seems clear that I had better go to Switzerland. Even if my allowance in Italy were increased it would probably be insufficient for me to live on comfortably; and what is more, it would stop if there were actual war with the U.S. Now, if I am to leave Italy this autumn, I don’t need any more Italian money. If you send more, I shall have to stay on and spend it here, as I am not allowed either to change it or to carry it out of the country, unless by special leave . . .

Mercedes was overjoyed to find your $100 awaiting her in Vigo. . . . When it seemed that I too was to be reduced to $100 a month, I seriously considered the possibility of going to live with her at least in winter, in Madrid. I could have given her $80 a month, restoring thereby her old allowance; but she would have had to give me board and lodging. But the change and the endless great and little troubles that Spanish families are always having, would have shortened my life and prevented me from finishing my Autobiography. Scribner would have been distressed! Now, unless you suggest something better, I shall probably go for the winter to Lugano, Hotel Bristol, as I had intended three years ago. I think, with the evidence that I can count on $500 a month, the Swiss authorities will not refuse me admission. I will see to this in Rome.

Thank you for your energetic and successful action in this matter.

Yours affly

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To Benjamin F. Hazen
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome. August 21, 1947

Dear Mr. Hazen,

Your article about my philosophy—not about The Last Puritan—in Cronos goes very much into the heart of things and represents my views accurately: the only side of my sentiment, if not my doctrine, which you neglect is the enthusiasm for Greece and for England which I felt in my middle years, and which appeared principally in The Life of Reason and Dialogues in Limbo, as well as in Soliloquies in England and the Last Puritan. I have outgrown that enthusiasm, so that you, standing at the end, do well, perhaps, to ignore it; yet the sentiment remains an ingredient in my humanism. It keeps me from being a cynic about the possibilities of mankind. You were lucky to strike upon my Introduction to Spinoza; it set you out on the right key: whereas many of my American friends, who strike the key of The Life of Reason, never understand my true meaning.

You have chosen the better part, and I am much gratified at what you say about my last book, and about the analogy between “Realms” and the Christian Trinity. If I am able to finish the book I am still at work on you will get a different final impression, however, more naturalistic and humane.

Yours sincerely,

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.