Author: David Spiech Page 229 of 283

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. Feb. 24, 1937

Your British news is certainly interesting, but I am afraid not impartial. Everybody who knows anything about the world or about psychology can guess that there is something shady and abnormal about the case of Edward VIII.1 What the exact facts are it is very hard for the public to gather, and your friend’s father’s god mother who has a servant who is in communication with the father of one of the King’s footmen does not seen a reliable witness.

As to your trip in May and June, it is likely that until about June 15 I shall still be in Rome and then at Cortina, at the Hotel Savoy, in the village. I am afraid this is too far out of your way. My stay in Paris last summer did not leave a very pleasant impression, and I doubt that I shall ever go there again, except possibly in transit. Rafael (who has now also written) invites me to come and see them and the glorious new Spain when it is firmly established, but of course I shall do no such thing. Old people are always a nuisance. Jacques Bainville says: “Old men repeat themselves and young men have nothing to say, so that both are bored”.

1. The public reason given for Edward VIII’s abdication of his throne was his wish to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson; however, there were no doubt political motives involved, such as the belief that Simpson (and, therefore, Edward) held extremely pro-German sympathies. Wallis Warfield Simpson (1896-1986), of the United States, divorced her second husband to marry Edward VIII (1894-1972). Edward, the eldest son of King George V, was the only British monarch to abdicate the throne voluntarily and married Simpson in 1937. They lived in exile as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, mainly in Paris. Simpson was the first woman chosen as Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” (1936).

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 John Hall Wheelock
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. 23rd February, 1952

Dear Mr. Wheelock,
Some time ago I heard of Mr. Scribner’s death, and what you tell me gives me more reasons for regretting this loss to us all. I seem to have laid my social as well as philosophical eggs twenty or thirty years, systematically, before they were hatched. Those, like you and Mr. Scribner, who ventured to read and publish my “Sense of Beauty” when I wrote it, have never seen me alive; I vanished into another sphere before I became distinguishable. And my books, when supposed to represent a new phase, regularly contain my discoveries of the previous decade or even century.

By the way, Cory and I have both been surprised to find “The Life of Reason” so much like my latest views. The difficulty will be to choose the out-of-date passages. He is very much interested in the work and has already revised it all in a cursory way. I have stopped before the last volume, having fallen a victim of influenza on top of my double catarrh. But he will be able and happy to do everything himself.

Thank you for the royalty reports and especially for letting me used your office as a sort of bank. I hope “Vendome” and my occasional calls for $500 do not give too much trouble

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 Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. Feb. 22, 1947

Dear Cory: The last two days have been spent devouring Guénon’s book, which has not disappointed me, although he leaves the reader rather in suspense about the nature of the “First Principles” or “Superior Knowledge” on which he makes everything hang. To digest him I have to reverse him, making the “first” last and the “superior” ultimate. In that way I can follow almost all his steps. Of course, he is a doctrinaire and shows no sympathy with sinners and jolly fools: but if you are thinking of spiritual liberation and the beatific vision, certainly modern life is a sad mess.

Father Benedict here has given me (to read) a book by a Don at Magdalen, Oxford, named Lewis, about the machinations of the devil and his police against the soul of a young Anglican. The picture of society is much like Guénon’s: and Mr. Wheelock has sent me a novel about New York life, “Am I asleep or awake,” to the same effect. People are calling for the Last Judgment as in the time of Christ.

Yours as ever,
G Santayana

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

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. Feb. 21, 1928

Dear George,
I have practically decided not to move from Rome for the present. The nervousness and distress which attacked me when I was on the point of starting a week ago, return whenever I think of fixing another date for my departure: my inner man, “The It”, as the Germans call it, has decided that I sh’an’t go to Avila again, although the first impulse of my outer man, “The I”, was to rush there at once. I think there is something prophetic and wise in this pathological No! But events will show in time if it is so.

Several telegrams and letters have passed between Celedonio and me. Your Aunt Josephine is well–she has written herself, quite rationally—and my maiden (and only) cousin, Manuela Santayana, is with her. She hasn’t said whether she means to stay in Avila. That house, without your aunt Susie, would be intolerable to me: this is one of the things that prey on my mind, and hold me back. Celedonio seems anxious that I should go: he wants to rope me in into the affairs of your Aunt’s estate, and he may be much offended when he understands, as he soon will, that I am not coming. But I am afraid he would be offended also if I went, and made any observation which was not to his liking: so that I will make the best of a quarrel if it is inevitable: but I hope to avoid it. My illness has not been a mere pretext: it is real: but it is a sign of a profound disinclination which will outlast it.

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 Isabella Stewart Gardner
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
7 Bennet Street
St. James’s
London, England. Feb. 20, 1912

Dear Mrs Gardner,
It was very good–and like you–to remember me at the moment of my loss. I was then at Windsor with Howard Sturgis, a most sympathetic person, who had learned to esteem my mother from his father, always a most devoted friend of hers. As you probably know, my mother had lost all her mental faculties long before the end, so that our loss has been gradual and the final part of it almost a relief, though not on that account less momentous to us in its finality.

I didn’t attempt to say good-bye to you before my departure partly because it is supposed to be only temporary and partly because it is not natural to say good bye to a person whose charm and influence is always with her friends, wherever they may find themselves. You have always been the bright spot in my Boston.

Your grateful friend,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA