To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Bristol
Rome. May 25, 1927
Thank you for your card. I am glad you liked Cory—not that I altogether like him myself—but he is going to make himself useful in clearing my Augean stables, and it is as well that he shouldn’t be disagreeable to my friends.
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 Allison Delarue
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 24, 1949
Dear Mr. Delarue,
Your kind note and Eugene Berman’s designs make me think of Paris and the Russian Ballet of fifty years ago rather than of Italy where I live pleasantly but far from all artists and festive shows.
They also make me think of an old friend who I understand has become a sort of patron empressario for ballets in New York, George de Cuevas. His wife is the daughter of Charles Strong, with whom I had my pied-â-terre in Paris for many years; and I took his place (he being at a sanatorium in Switzerland) at his daughter’s marriage. You see how modern the existence of an old recluse may become in this “age-of-troubles”.
The Russian ballet was, of all modern novelties, the one that seemed to me to set the arts really on the highway again. But have they kept to it?
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ
To George Sturgis
Hotel Danieli
Venice. May 23, 1940
In about a month I expect to move to the Hotel Savoia, Cortina d’Ampezzo, and remain there until September. My passport is being renewed for another year by the Spanish consul at Rome, very obligingly, without my having to present myself, as there is now no Spanish consul in Venice. This makes my official position easy; even if the war extends to these parts, I can always find a quiet comfortable place, if Rome isn’t safe, or warm enough (they are limiting the coal for furnaces) like Sorrento or Rapallo, where I now have a friend, the ultra-modern American poet Ezra Pound. The only difficulty would be if I couldn’t draw money from America. I have thought out all the possibilities in that case. You may remember my solid reasons for not wishing to go to Spain, and indeed the journey may easily become impossible. But it might be possible for you to send money to Spain (which is sure to remain neutral) say to Rafael or Pepe, who might forward it to me in Italy. Or if that is impracticable, and you think the U.S. is coming into the war, you might (in time) send me a largish lump sum, say $6000 or $10,000 to be put in a bank here, or kept in a stocking, to pay my way until peace returned. These may all be crazy and unnecessary fancies of mine; but I report them so that you may be stimulated, if the occasion arises, to think up something better. Or I might simply draw out the whole of my new letter of credit when it arrives.
I am very well and happy (in spite of the war) at having my final book safely in print, both in England and in the U.S. and only an entertaining answer to my critics to finish for Prof. Schilpp’s big book about my philosophy. That done, I shall be free to amuse myself with my autobiography.
I am sorry for the alarm and anxiety that the war is causing to you all in America. Here the atmosphere is different, and I personally have my philosophy (not merely theoretical) to prepare me for such things and make me put up with them. My old friend Mrs. Potter writes and writes that I must take refuge in America, and I daresay Mrs. Toy thinks the same thing although she knows it is useless to propose it.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Six, 1937-1940. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA
To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Bauer-Grüenwald
Venice. May 22, 1924
The Germans are certainly numerous here, and as this hotel is their own, one who comes to it can hardly complain of their presence. I looked everywhere, when the Chetwynds left, for a better place, but could find nothing: the rooms are well kept, the first breakfast is appetizing (with Vienna rolls) and I take my other meals out, so that the Teutonic invasion does not annoy me. In the late afternoon I explore “Venice on foot,” guided by a book with that title which I got in Rome and which I have cut up into sections (each with its own map) which go conveniently into the pocket. I have also found a very pleasant modest restaurant, where I eat at a little table with a shaded lamp close to the street-door (which is wide open) and where there are only Italians and an occasional elderly British pair who have come on their travels after the marriage of their last daughter. It is warm, but as yet quite tolerable, and the evening in the Piazza is a great sight.
I am making progress in the Book, though as yet there is no sensational result to announce. I have nothing to read for the moment, but don’t mind so much as there is so much to look at, and I go to bed (by the lights in the terrace outside) as soon as I get back in the evening from a stroll by the sea-front, the Piazza, and the cafés. When I am ready to go to Cortina I will order some books to be sent there from Oxford as there I shall not be able to lead the life of a flâneur and a boulevardier.
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 Carl Sadakichi Hartmann
C/o Brown Shipley & Co 123 Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Rome. May 21, 1927
I have not received any of your passports, nor do I know anyone who wants at present to cross that frontier—if you mean immortality in another world—or who cares a fig for it in this world, if the papers will only talk about him now.
[O]f course there ought to be provision made for genius without a market. The trouble is that if society supported the artist, it would expect to educate him in its own beliefs and tastes, and to see these honoured in his works. The heretic and the stranger would be starved out, if not stoned. There is perhaps more mercy in our anarchy.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene
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