Author: David Spiech Page 201 of 283

To Charles Augustus Strong
Avila, Spain. July 22, 1890.

As to my plans for the future, they are simply to take up and put up with what offers. I am content to go on with lectures at Harvard indefinitely, if they want me. If they don’t, something else will probably present itself. Harvard has many attractions and advantages, the main one being the great freedom you enjoy. Royce last year annoyed me a good deal. I took a course he gave in Hegel’s Phenomenologic which was appalling, and he seemed to be bent on converting me to absolute idealism nolens volens. But Royce, although sometimes such a bore, is a good and kind man, and very appreciative, and generous to me. With Palmer I get on well. We never discuss anything. I treat him as if he were a clergyman, and he is nice to me. With James I have much more sympathy, both personal and intellectual I think he is beginning to understand that I am not a dreamer and obscurantist, and that, in spite of certain literary leanings, I am capable of facing questions of fact and evidence without repugnance —and or parti pris. Everett has also become a friend of mine.

Peabody is the only member of the philosophical Committee that seems to think me dangerous and highly improper. The President looks upon me with favor, because as I am told, he thinks I may contribute to the college a little of that fresh air and blood of which it stands in so much need. It is really sad to see how mediocrity Germanised rules supreme there. For all these reasons I think my position at Harvard tolerably stable and honorable. I study to keep apart from the Germans. Royce is the only one I cannot avoid. . . . Altogether I had a good time, and enjoyed what I never had cared for before, the air and sunlight, food and drink, and the consciousness of life—rational and irrational—about me.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

To Henry Ward Abbot
Hotel Miramonti
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. July 21, 1933

Dear Harry,

Your impatience is most flattering, and I am asking the English publisher of the Locke lecture to send you a copy. Scribner seems not to have brought out the American edition yet, I suppose waiting for good times to return. The English edition appeared in May.

As to the Spinoza paper, I am myself a trifle annoyed. Nijhoff, at The Hague, was to have issued the Septimana Spinozana (in which my paper appears) last November, then in January, then in the spring, and now in the autumn. I have not received any explanation, but probably the multitude of languages and of contributors have made a Babel of the editor’s mind, who was not well to begin with.

All this comes, not of my being mad à enfermer, but only weak enough to have accepted invitations to waste my sweetness in the lectureroom air, and surrender my MS to third parties. It won’t happen again.

It is most entertaining living in these times. This Roosevelt is more Caesarian than the spluttering Theodore; we are having Fascism under another name rising in France, in Germany, and in the U.S.! And the English Church—what a comedy that is too! I enjoy it immensely.

Yours sincerely,

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 Richard Edmund Butler
Rome. July 20, 1952

Dear Father Butler,

I do not think you have learned any thing from reading my books; you have read the words and perhaps thought what Saint Thomas might have said about it. This would do nicely for passing an examination; but it would not enlarge your mind: This is confirmed by your saying that “Soliloquies” is (verbally) the best of my books all of them being mere attempts to defend “Interpretations”. It is true that, as to religion, this book had struck the keynote. But as to “reason” and “ideas” all is changed in “Soliloquies”.

G. S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Provincial Archives, Province of St. Albert the Great, Chicago IL

To George Sturgis
Hotel Miramonti
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. July 19, 1931

I did go to Venice early in June, and staid at the Danieli for a fortnight; but it was too warm for comfort or for literary work, and I came on here, where I am comfortably settled for the summer. Strong has also been here for two weeks, and I have had a chance of seeing these mountains from a somewhat higher point of view that my feet nowadays can reach; but there isn’t much variety in the shorter drives possible from here, and I am not sorry, now Strong is gone home, to return to my daily pedestrian round in the valley. It sometimes occurs to me that, since now I could afford it, I might indulge in an automobile of my own: it would be pleasant for travelling and seeing many architectural things of interest, which have hitherto never been within my radius. On the other hand, I don’t like motoring for its own sake; the dust is a terrible nuisance and bad for my throat; and the noise and slight constant tension in passing this road-hog or rounding that steep turn, makes the thing rather tiring.

Moreover, what should I do with a chauffeur, idle most of the time? Perhaps next year, or even this autumn, if I can get Cory or some other youngish friend to come with me, and look after the business trifles involved, I may try hiring a motor for a long trip–say to Naples and Sicily: and that experience would show me whether a motor of my own would be desirable.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

To Charles Augustus Strong
C/o Brown Shipley & Co
123 Pall Mall
At Sea CUNARD R.M.S. “MAURETANIA”. July 18, 1909

Dear Strong,

You may be surprised to see that, at this late date, I am on my way to England. My brother changed his plans, and as my mother is pretty well, I decided after all to take my usual outing. However, I hardly expect to leave England, so that I am afraid I sha’n’t see you unless by some fortunate chance you have finally run off your beaten track and ventured across the Channel. Why don’t you come for a change? It has often seemed to me that you might like England very much if you only went there a little oftener.

Please give my best regards to Margaret—I suppose she is such a young lady that I ought’n’t to send her my “love”, unless it is the uncle-like sort of love which I am now in the habit of dispensing to young people.—Let me have a word from you—

Yours G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY