To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Rome. March 10, 1932
Dear Cory,
You say nothing of your health, about which I have felt some doubts during this bad weather; don’t be ill again, because even from the point of view of your strictly professional future, that would be a bad plan.
To Victor Wolfgang von Hagen
Rome, Italy. March 9, 1929
[Y]ou are wrong fundamentally, I think, about Christ: those ravings of Nietzsche’s were excusable in him: but why repeat them?
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928–1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown
To Horace Meyer Kallen
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome. March 8, 1952
Yesterday your friend Loring brought me your letter and “Patterns of Progress” and found me at 11 a.m reading in Lorenzo de Medici some musical verses on the diabolical act of Prometheus in bringing fire down to earth with the dreadful consequences of war, trade, and the devouring of cooked carcasses. All fire wills to go heavenward, where according to Aristotle it belongs, and on earth, according to the love-sick Lorenzo, there should be only vegetables and nude Adams and Eves.
. . . I am with you rather than with Lorenzo, not caring at all for love-making in Paradise, but thinking that knowledge both as a means and an end is the best of acquisitions.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.
To Ezra Loomis Pound
Hotel Danieli
Venice, Italy. March 7, 1940
[Y]ou and T. S. E. are reformers, full of prophetic zeal and faith in the Advent of the Lord; whereas I am cynically content to let people educate or neglect themselves as they may prefer.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Six, 1937-1940. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven CT
To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk
Grand Hotel
Rome, March 6, 1941
I am glad to know that you and Mrs. Onderdonk, with your brother (alone, or with his family?) are safe in the shades of old Cambridge. What an ugly place it was, and yet we had pleasant times there. Now I daresay it is more presentable in spots. the “Houses” by the river, for instance–but also larger and more crowded. I should hate to live there again.
. . . . When the editors or publishers of my books leave me in peace (which is only at intervals) I amuse myself now writing reminiscences, which needn’t be consecutive or complete. I am calling them: Persons & Places, or Fragments of Autobiography. It is great fun recalling old things and seeing them in the mild glow of sunset.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY
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