Author: David Spiech Page 15 of 283

To Charles Augustus Strong
New York Hotel
Nice, France. January 3, 1923

Dear Strong,

Good weather seems to be returning after the wintry storms of the last fortnight, and I have now entirely recovered from my cough. The attack was not in itself so bad—not involving so much actual catarrh—as on some previous occasions, but it seemed to shake me more and to be so fatiguing that I called the doctor. . . . He said that I had a slight congestion of the lungs—légère pouscée pulmonaire—and that my heart was larger than it ought to be. For the latter he ordered some minute pills of a drug called “strophantus,” which is evidently the sort of “dope” which attracts the opium-eaters. . . . Anyhow, I seem to have completely recovered: but it is a warning that I am not so sound as I had supposed, and that the machine may behave any day, if I am not careful, like Dr Holmes’s one horse shay.

As you may imagine, I haven’t been making progress with the book; but perhaps by virtue of the strophantus my fancy has been working magnificently and I was never more entertained than during this enforced leisure. The result is that—yielding to force majeure—I have written (in pencil) the four last chapters of the novel, solving the problem of the dénoument in a way which I think satisfactory, and incidentally creating two delightful children, a boy of four and a girl of ten. The novel is not complete yet, and many episodes might be worked up to fill the gaps: but the outline is there, and I think it may not prove a bad thing for the Realms to have that more interesting matter practically disposed of. I hope you are progressing favourably; when you come here in February you will find the place very bright and gay.

Yours ever, G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.

To John Francis Stanley Russell
Colonial Club
Cambridge, Massachusetts. January 2, 1912

Dear Russell

Your letter of some months ago has somehow remained unanswered. Although I had several things to say in reply, and have been thinking about you especially, because in looking over my old papers I have come upon a lot of your letters and reread them all, being carried back to 1887 and the following years, when all that happened to you was so much a part of my life. I can see now how great an influence you had on me. It was an influence for good. It seems almost as if I had gathered the fruits of your courage and independance, while you have suffered the punishment which the world imposes always on those who refuse to conform to its ways. You may say you are content, but with your position and character you ought to have had a greater career. Isn’t it, at bottom, because you have tried to combine liberty with democracy, in your personal as well as political alliances, and liberty and democracy are really incompatible? I will explain what I mean by word of mouth (it would take up too much paper) if you are in England. I expect to reach London on February 1st. Send me a line C/o Brown, Shipley & Co. 123, Pall Mall.

Yours ever

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.

To Eugene Rodman Shippen
Rome. January 1, 1945

Dear Shippen:

The first feeling and regret that occurred to me on reading your letter and your poem was. How came it that Shippen and I were not friends in college? Yours is the second poem that has been written about me. The other was Lionel Johnson’s “To A Spanish Friend.” I prefer yours. It is more flattering, and at the same time truer, which makes the flattery more flattering. Thank you for the gift that comes on New Year’s Day, and encourages me to go on with my senile compositions.

Yours sincerely,

G Santayana

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

To Mary Williams Winslow
Florence, Italy. Dec. 31. 1912

My sister-in-law Ellen has written me a Christmas letter in which she speaks of you and says your children are splendidly healthy, which is all that can be required of them at their tender age; and I hope they will continue to look angelic and to behave accordingly. Nowadays, I daresay the angels play tennis and football, just as formerly they used to brandish flaming swords and to spear dragons. I have also heard from Mrs. Toy, your favourite Fuller, and the Schofields (this last on business, but with friendly and social frills) all of whom put together give me a vivid picture of Boston, with its old heart and its new subway vibrating merrily together. It doesn’t seem to me much more remote than when I was there; and I am surprised to see how much life everywhere is now like life in America. Except Boylston Beal, I hardly know anybody who seems to stop to consider what it all comes to–and he is a trifle captious in his judgments. It is a sort of tobbogan-slide; but I assure you it is far more comfortable and far more interesting to roll off as soon as possible into the soft snow by the way, shake oneself together, and look on. My friend Strong does the same thing and we sympathize entirely on every subject except mind-stuff (which I insist on calling by another name) but he doesn’t get as much fun out of it as I do. He is far more charitable and hasn’t an enormous sense of humour. And I am a little afraid, when his villa at Fiesole is built (a part of it was washed down by the rain the other day) he will find the moral atmosphere of the place less satisfactory than the Tuscan air. He will be roped into the Anglo-American aesthetic ring, and the sparring ladies will make him dizzy. On Christmas he actually had to go to Lady Sybil Cutting’s fancydress party, dressed like a decadent Roman, with a ridiculous false beard, a hired tunic with tinsel embroideries glued on, pink stockings, and a scroll in his hand (the plans for his villa, I suppose). Margaret went as an ancient Egyptian. He was ill the next day in consequence.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.