Author: David Spiech Page 197 of 283

To Susan Sturgis de Sastre
Oxford, England. Aug. 13, 1901

Dear Susie,

I have given up all idea of going even to Paris this year, and expect to remain here until I sail. It is a disappointment not to see you, but on the whole it seems best to put off that trip for another year, as I am in the midst of steady work and well and happy in this place. It has rained more or less lately so that the air is fresh and the country like an emerald. I drive about a good deal with some friends of mine, one of whom is a horse-dealer and the other (his brother) an actor. The horse-dealer runs a coach and four to Blenheim twice a week and sometimes takes me when he is driving himself. You may think this very low company for a philosopher to keep, but you would be quite mistaken. He is a gentleman and in fact a great swell who has taken to keeping horses as the most congenial possible business.

England is full of singular people of that sort. I have also been seeing something of Anglican monks who have a toy monastery here where they work in the garden with an expression of self-conscious beatitude on their faces. These contrasted types (I was introduced to the monks by the actor) keep me amused when I need a little change from my books and papers, so that I am having a good vacation and at the same time doing considerable work. England is not, as you naughtily say, the best possible world but it is the best actual country, and a great rest after America.

What you say about Rafael makes me very sorry for the poor chap; he must be feeling rather sore. Farming is a good thing, but I am afraid there is not enough at Zorita for so many candidates as you have at home. You must tell us in your letters how the new projects for a carrera turn out.

Give my love to the family and tell them I hope to see them all next year.

Your affectionate brother, George

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Alderman Library, University of Virginia at Charlottesville

To George Jean Nathan
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123, Pall Mall, London
Paris. August 12, 1923

The title “The Smart Set” suggests a world where I don’t belong: but if you will send me a number, and if I have any thing on hand that would seem suitable to such a superior environment, I should be glad to let you have it.

G Santayana

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

To Cyril Coniston Clemens
C/o Brown Shipley & Co
123, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. August 11, 1937

Dear Clemens,
Mr. Phillips duly sent me the medal, and I don’t understand how I have neglected to thank you for it until now. I had already thanked you for the honour: the material pledge slipped from my mind. You know I am not a collector of possessions.

Thank you also for this new nomination to your “Philosophical Committee,” provided it is merely nominal. A real committee that meets is, according to my experience, incompatible with philosophy. I have renounced them all.

Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC

To Charles Augustus Strong
UNIVERSITY CLUB
Address SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco. August 10, 1911

My departure from here cannot be until Aug. 27; and as I am going by Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, and Boston, I am afraid it will be impossible for me to get to New York before the 7th of September.

The Summer School at Berkeley (now over) has not been very agreeable on the whole—the farce of it is too marked. But there have been pleasant moments, and San Francisco has a delighted climate (better than Berkeley) and the Bay is comparable to Naples or Constantinople. I also like the air of the people—except the academic set, which is worse than at Cambridge. The whole country from the Rockies west is fine and noble, and ought eventually to have a chastening influence on the inhabitants.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

To Charles Augustus Strong
66 High Street
Oxford, England. August 9, 1914

It is useless to talk about the war, the subject is too vast, too absorbing, too imperfectly comprehensible. And yet we talk glibly about the universe, nous antres philosophers!

It seems that the line to Paris via Boulogne is still running, and if in the next two weeks events are favourable to the allies, and the way remains open, I may go back to Paris after all, to gather my things together, pack my books, and migrate Southward—very likely to Spain rather than to Italy, because the emotions of the moment make me feel the need of being near my own, and it is in Avila, with my sister, that I have the oldest and tenderest ties of my old and untender being.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY