Author: David Spiech Page 215 of 283

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. May 7, 1928

The vagueness of the bequest to Harvard was intentional. It may be hard to find just the right man for the Fellowship even in the wide field of poetry, philosophy, theology, and the Harvard Lampoon: and when you remember that I hope to die a novelist, almost anyone not a chimney-sweep can hope for my legacy.

You are right about the reason for a Spanish child not having the same last name, although he has the same surname, as his father: the last is his mother’s family name. As to the middle name, as in the case of Manuela Ruiz de Santayana y Zabalgoitia, it is not necessary. Ruiz was originally our family name, Santayana being a place; but my father and his brothers got into the habit of using Santayana exclusively, for the sake of brevity. But the addition of the mother’s surname, now usually without the “y” prefixed, is legal, and necessary in a document. So you will find that your aunt’s will is signed “Susana Sturgis Borrás”. The Parkman is optional, and the husband’s name is not, in Spain, a wife’s name at all. She may be described as the wife, or politely, the lady, of so-and-so: but her name remains what it was originally. Calling your aunt, as she liked to be called, Susana Sturgis de Sastre, is not strictly correct; she was Doña Susana Sturgis y Borrás, señora de Sastre. The last words are a title or description, not a part of her name, as if you called me G. S, wedded to Metaphysics.

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 Augusto Guzzo
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 5, 1948

According to Catholic dogma, in Christ himself, in Jesus, God existed as in no other man. But I am not discussing that doctrine, but only the teaching of the Gospel (especially in John) that God and Christ himself will come to dwell within others, Christ’s disciples. Here it is evident that God and Christ are forms of thought and with which may be infused into other spirits. God is an ideal in them; whether he exists also hypostatically in himself, is a question of fact, objective information conveyed by faith and dogma, not a question of the complexion of spiritual life in a man when he or others say that God is dwelling in him.

When I say that Christ, being God, can reflect the whole divine nature, I am talking of the idea of Christ as conceived by Christian faith. I think that a myth: what I think real is the ideal and partial presence of divine will and knowledge and love in humain beings.

What you mean by “God humanised” is not clear to me. The divine nature in Christ, according to Christian faith, was not humanised: it remained simply divine. But it was conjoined with a human psyche, so that the latter became sacred, utterly united in intent, by faith and love, to the divine nature, yet preserving the temporal, successive, limited experience proper to a human being. And I should add, proper to existence itself. For the life of God in eternity is an idea only: it has moral reality, but does not designate an actual fulfilled existence. But this is an endless subject.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Unknown

To Max Harold Fisch
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 4, 1951

Dear Mr. Fisch,
My doctor here, as well as the aggravation of my various complaints (which you must have noticed when you were good enough to come to see me) has advised me not to receive visitors for the present, and I am afraid I shall not be able to receive Dr. Enzio Boeri on this occasion. Perhaps later, if he should be again in Rome, I may be able to welcome him.

The phrase about Pierce in your remarks about me was perfectly natural because, as you say, I doubt that I have ever mentioned him in my books; and he was not much talked of at Harvard in my day. Once, however, I heard him give an evening lecture there, where he was staying with William James It was about signs, and made a lasting impression on me; that all ideas, in so far as they convey knowledge, are signs has become a favourite doctrine of mine. But I have never studied his published works, and it is from your book I have first gained a general view of his achievement. If he had built his philosophy on signs I might have been his disciple.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Bristol
Rome. May 3, 1939

I will send you Chestov’s book in a few days, when I have finished it. His history is weak, and his views of other philosophers out of focus and arbitrary; but I like him for being unworldly or anti-mundane, as apparently Russians are. Sorry I haven’t anything else, but nowadays I don’t send for philosophy books, and get only some American ones sent me by the publishers. Would you like “Dewey’s Logic?” I see The Times Lit. Sup. calls it a major work, I find it utterly unreadable. Perhaps it is important, at any rate it is a ponderous tome, and you shall have it if you want it. I still preserve calm about the danger of trouble. People like excitement—at home.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY