Author: David Spiech Page 202 of 283

To Guy Murchie
King’s College
Cambridge, England. July 17. 1897

I am now at work on an exposition and defence of Plato’s bad treatment of poets, whom, as you may know, he banished from his republic as trivial and demoralizing persons. There were solid reasons for that judgment even then—what would he have said of an age that believes in the moral dignity of a Wagner and a Browning?  At the same time—and the vulgar logician might see an inconsistency here—I am giving the finishing touches to my own Lucifer—now a prodigious tragedy in five fat acts, with melodramatic situations and lyrical episodes all designed to effect the purgation of souls by pity of the author and dread of having to peruse his complete works. That, as Aristotle says, is the true function of tragedy.

I wish you all joy in your summer solitudes. When you return to Cambridge you may find me wandering homelessly about the streets and the Colonial Club, where I dare say you also now dine. In that case we shall have many a chance of exchanging our impressions of the past two years. I am not to have a room in Cambridge, but to live in Longwood with my mother. There are several reasons for this: that three days in the week will thus be quite clear of interruptions and temptations; that it will be an economy; that it will mark more clearly the merely temporary status which I have, while they don’t make up their minds about promoting me; and that it will make it easier for me than it was last year to give up Harvard altogether, if such is the final issue of things. I have had two Harvard lives already; this, if it lasts or not, must be a wholly different one. If they make me an assistant professor and I decide to stay indefinitely it will be time to look for a domicile, for I believe on the whole it would be better to live in Cambridge and do one’s share in maintaining or establishing the academic traditions of the place.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Guy Murchie, Jr.

To Charles Augustus Strong
Avila, Spain. July 16, 1925

I have sat down to work almost every morning, but have practically accomplished nothing, and the article on Dewey is still in an amorphous state. It seems to me as if perhaps my faculties were waning, and that I ought not to write any more philosophy.

The weather has been cool, with some rain, and as this is a house all in pieces, with an open courtyard to cross and all degrees of exposure to sun, damp, draughts, and close air, I have caught a cold which has had the usual sequel of a bronchial cough. Being armed with Experience and all the requisite medicines, I have kept it down within moderate limits, and it is now almost in abeyance, but there is no security against a recrudescence so long as I am not absolutely free to avoid occasions that may aggravate it. Nevertheless this time, I don’t sing “If ever, ever, ever” and fully expect to return to Avila before long, perhaps for a long residence, if my sisters should be living by themselves in their own house.

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 William Lyon Phelps
9 Avenue de l’Observatoire
Paris. July 15, 1928

Dear Phelps,

It is very pleasant to hear from you and I hope and believe that I shall be here when you pass. Strong and I keep planning to go somewhere, together or separately, in order to avoid the heat and idleness which have settled upon us here, but neither of us can think where to go. I admire your courage and that of Mrs. Phelps in going to Madrid in August. We might apply to it a story Strong likes to tell about a delegate’s description of the summer breezes of Chicago: that not content with coming out of the very mouth of hell, they had first blown over the State of Texas. For Texas read the plains of La Mancha, and you will know what awaits you.

Do drop me a line when you reach Paris, and we will arrange a meeting.

Yours ever,

GSantayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven CT

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Miramonti
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. July 14, 1933

This veiled threat of discontinuing your allowance is not new on S.’s part: he has spoken to me in the same sense repeatedly; and the collapse of the dollar, added to a great fall in capital, will reduce his income, in Italian money, to perhaps half what it was. As he can’t very well give up his villa or motor, or take in boarders, he may be really compelled to dismiss you with his blessing. When he has talked of leaving you (for your own good, of course) to make your way in the world, I have always said that perhaps it might really be for your ultimate interest. I feel partly responsible for having kept you so long dangling, and I should do what I could to help you in any difficulty. After all, how long are S. and I likely to live? The important point for you is that he shouldn’t revoke the legacy in which you are concerned. There is a trick about it, even as it stands; but with the old value of the dollar it would probably and ultimately have provided you with an income sufficient for all your needs, especially if you remained unmarried. But if the dollar settles down to be half a dollar, or 66 cents, that prospect becomes less smiling. Still, that is the point that really matters: and I have besought S. not to rescind his arrangements in that particular: and when he last spoke to me about it, perhaps a year ago, he seemed definitely determined not to make any change. In order to keep him in this mood, it is in your interest to continue doing what you can to keep his conscience satisfied. You know his character as well as I do: in fact, better, perhaps; because until lately I took him so completely as a matter of course, and as a . . . thoroughly conscientious and just man, that I may not have seen to the bottom of the well. His attachments are not matters of personal affection. . . . He has moments in which he is enthusiastic about you: but it is because he then imagines that you will fit in beautifully into his plan of work. He has never cared for anything but for his work, his health, and his duty: his health, because necessary to his work, and his work, perhaps, because necessary to make it an absolute duty to nurse his health. He loves you, he loves us all, when, and in so far as, we fall into this picture: otherwise he feels no bond. You are therefore always in real danger of being erased from the tables of the truly deserving.

My nephew wrote the other day, saying that my income for the halfyear ending on the first of this month had been nearly $8000; even if the dollar should drop to 50 cents, or to the value of the Mexican or silver dollar which has always fascinated the democratic mind, provided American securities don’t depreciate further, I shall still have all that is requisite for keeping up my present way of life: and I could transfer something from my American capitalist income to my London bank-account, if my literary earnings are not enough to replenish the latter. It is probable, therefore, that I shall be able to keep sending you what I send at present, in any case: but the dream of wealth that visited me two or three years ago has vanished.

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 Lawrence Smith Butler
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. July 13, 1946

Dear Lawrence,

Your box has arrived, adding a lot to the luxury of life for a while, the variety of things–especially those Basle cookies–being a danger to the idea of asceticism that is appropriate to a monastery. I feel a little ashamed to have sent you any suggestions for a second box: don’t bother to send it unless it is fun to do so. For me it is childish fun to open a box and see what Santa Claus has provided. Nothing is wasted, because this establishment is not austere–for a religious house–and there are sometimes children attached to invalid parents, and always young Sisters and young lay nurses who have not vowed abstinence from sweets.

My days seem short. With nothing apparently to do, I seem always to be called away by visits, or letters, or meals, from what I had set myself to work upon. However, it is of no great consequence. I wish one of these interruptions might be caused by you.

Your old friend,

GSantayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: The University Club, New York NY