Author: David Spiech Page 220 of 283

To Hugo Münsterberg
Hotel Du Parc
Cannes, France. April 11, 1906.

Dear Münsterberg, I have come here to spend a part of my easter holiday with my friend Strong. My provincial lectures, of which I have given those at Nancy, and at Montpellier, has been very pleasant so far for myself, but as an audience who really understands English is not easy to find, I have been reduced rather to a phonetic machine, with the function of emitting interesting if unintelligible sounds. The audiences nevertheless have been large and religiously attentive, while the rectors and other professors have shown me every possible courtesy.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library, Boston MA

To Charles Raymond Bell Mortimer
22 Beaumont St
Oxford, England. April 10, 1918

Shall I like you the less for being a Catholic? I shall like you much more, and feel that I have a new avenue of approach to your feelings, and a sort of double insurance (besides instinctive sympathy) against misunderstanding you. The question is rather whether you will like me as well, or rather, whether you will feel as comfortable in my company as you did before you gave me this mortgage, so to speak, on your reactions. I shall insist on your being quite orthodox: if you hedge at anything I shall laugh at you, and put you down for an amateur. Amateur Christianity is what you ought to escape by the step you are taking: you ought to live hereafter in the settled belief that the world of the Catholic imagination (a very articulate and realistic world) surrounds us in deadly and sober fact. It is a hard belief to keep vivid and consistent in this age, and for the matter of that in any age: but it is not impossible, and I will go further and say that it is not impossible that that belief should be true; I mean, not inwardly or logically impossible. It is plainly contrary to fact, as it seems to me: but fact or truth, when it lies beyond the most immediate material realm, naturally interests most men very little: and nature has not given them either the wish or the power to discern it. By choice, when we can, we live histrionically, intent on the eloquent embroideries we make upon things and people; it is a sort of dream or play which we wrap our actual life in. And the Catholic Hypnosis is a very nice one, fitting the facts in a very acceptable wise way when one has decided that the facts themselves are not decent, and can’t be allowed to go about naked. I like civilized artifices of this sort.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ

To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. April 9, 1949

Dear Clemens,
No: I have no long-distance (or short-distance) radio, and no desire to listen to any broadcasting, which with my deafness I should not understand. It is not in my . . . power to regulate what people may say or publish about me, but I have repeatedly begged you not to busy yourself about me. I don’t think you are the right man to do so; but I suppose publicity is your profession and you are willing to take up any subject that seems to supply “copy”.

It is the same with visitors and interviews. People come to see me without asking leave or needing introductions, and between 5 and 7 p.m. I see them, and occasionally feel that perhaps it has been of some interest, and not merely a passtime, like going to see the oldest old woman in the village.

If you write me more letters and get no answer, please understand that, as far as my consent is required for any useless project, I do not give it, but that the thing may nevertheless be realized if the essor vital in the persons concerned is irresistible. I like to be quiet, but do not undertake to stop the steam-roller of modern enterprise.

Yours sincerely G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC

To Susan Sturgis de Sastre
Madrid, Spain. April 8, 1912

Dear Susie: During Holy Week I tried to see the things you recommended, not always succeeding; but I got glimpses that were interesting of several functions. Mercedes got me a ticket, through the Duquesa de la Conquista, for the Lavatorio in the royal palace; but evidently they had been very lavish with them, for it proved impossible to get into the hall, and inside there were shrieks and fainting-fits. I saw the procession, however, in the gallery, very well; and I have of course seen the King and Queen, and other royalties, on many occasions. Yesterday I went (as you suggested) to San Francisco el Grande, and heard the music. It was a mass by Perosi, very nice in itself, but sung as I thought too furiously, and without taste. The organist was the most obstreperous, and the singers seemed to catch the infection. But they had fine voices.—The singing in the body of the Church seems to have been given up.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Alderman Library, University of Virginia at Charlottesville

To Victor Wolfgang von Hagen
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. April 7, 1945

I have never seen so many people as have come to visit me in this nursing home; I have become the oldest inhabitant of the village, that all strangers are taken to look at.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Unknown