Author: David Spiech Page 236 of 283

To George Sturgis
Rome, Jan. 22, 1927

Dear George,
I have received your two letters, the new letter of credit for $4000, and my yearly account, for all of which many thanks. Reduced to the terms which ultimately interest me, the account amounts to this: that my last year’s income was about $7000, of which I spent one half; and that the other half, together with the non-recurring extra “income” of another $7000, was added to my capital, which is now about $140,000. This, according to my standards, is a vast sum, and I am naturally highly pleased at being so comfortably off in my old age. I am following your advice in not being too economical, and have had guests here–a very easy way of amusing myself–in the persons of two of the Chetwynd children, nephew and niece of my late friend Moncure Robinson. Betty Chetwynd, aged 19, has now returned home to London, but Randolph, aged 23, is staying on, and is excellent company, without interfering at all with my habits or being, I hope, too much bored, as he does what sightseeing he likes in the morning and goes to teas, dinners, and dances when he is asked by his other friends in Rome, of which he has a good many.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

To Oliver Wendell Holmes
C/o Brown Shipley & Co London
Seville, Spain.  Jan. 21, 1914

Dear Mr. Holmes,
I need hardly say that it is a great satisfaction to me to have your letter and to see that my book pleased you enough to make you write it. I think there is a sort of background of agreement among all men, especially those of the same generation, although publicists often obscure rather than represent it, being taken up with party controversies or special causes. I am not a great philosopher, but in my separation from the world of action, and now even from the academic world (for I have retired from teaching) I feel that I can distinguish the normal and inevitable lines of human opinion from the modish flourishes that overlay it. This is my solid standingground outside and around special systems, of which you speak with an insight which goes to my heart. In “Winds of Doctrine” this fund of human orthodoxy is assumed rather than formulated: but I am trying to give it a more explicit expression in a book on which I am now at work. I daresay you, and most judicious people, would have much to quarrel with and to correct in this systematization of common sense which I am attempting: but after all my training has been that of a technical philosopher, and I feel I owe it to my Fachgenossen1 to put my conclusions into their language, and not retain the unfair advantage of seeming reasonable by not admitting clearly the implications of my suave opinions.
. . . .
It was really very kind of you to write and to give me the encouragement of so much sympathy from so welcome a quarter.

Yours sincerely,
G. Santayana

1. Professional Colleagues

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Roma. Jan. 20, 1945

Perhaps the years since we last saw each other, and the many since we saw each other often–34!–have made me more inhuman than ever; but public and private tragedies move me now much less than they did. I think of all the empires reduced to filthy little heaps of ruins; of all the battles and sieges in the histories, and all the horrible fates of potentates, tyrants, patriots, and saints; and what now happens to us seems almost a matter of course. But the advance of the U.S. to the full glare of the footlights, and the corresponding moral and intellectual effects to be expected in the American character, interest me very much. I almost wish I were young and could live to see this development. But no: I am glad I am old, very old; and I hope to leave the scene with gentle emotions and good will towards everybody.

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 Isabella Stewart Gardner
3 Prescott Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jan. 19, 1909

Dear Mrs Gardner,
I am so sorry that I sha’n’t have the pleasure of seeing you in my audience at the Plaza. Of course the evening is an impossible time for lectures at this season. I didn’t know myself, when I talked to the Berensons about it, that the hour would be 8.30, else I should have warned every body.
I sincerely wish I might be at the opera with you, instead of discoursing to the lecture-goers. But such is fate.
Yours sincerely
G Santayana.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA

To Nancy Saunders Toy
Hotel Bristol
Rome. Jan. 18, 1932

Dear Mrs. Toy,
What you say about Miss Hopkinson–anent my trouble with Strong, about which you are most sympathetic and wise–reminds me of something in one of the Trivia booklets of Logan Pearsall Smith: namely, that when people have been friends for forty years, distance and mercy alone can save the situation–or something to that effect: I am not quoting his words. We old people (though you are evidently an exception) live more and more on our old stock of principles and impressions: anything else–including our best friends–seems wrong and unnecessary. We haven’t vitality enough to lend to a life at all different from our own: we hate it, and malign it. Hence this strange hostility in our old friends. As you say, it needn’t kill old affection or produce a rupture: we too can get on without that inner sympathy which seemed so precious when we were younger: we can get on very well alone with the Alone. (You know these are the last words of the Enneads of Plotinus.) Since I wrote about the matter, my relations with Strong have become more normal again. He keeps writing about his own achievements, which now include poetry. I enclose his last, which I think is also the best. What do you think of it? But I am afraid I must have said something misleading about Cory. He wasn’t at all to blame: perhaps not guarded enough in repeating things said to him unguardedly, but otherwise not at all treacherous to either of us. On the contrary, I think it is our fault if his position is rather difficult and he isn’t earning his own living.

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