Author: David Spiech Page 241 of 283

To Otto Kyllmann
New York Hotel
Nice, France. Dec. 30, 1922

Dear Mr Kyllmann,
It had not occurred to me that you would have any interest in not sending the preface to my “Poems” to Scribner, together with the rest of the sheets; nor do I now understand what that interest is. Messrs Scribner had written asking for a signed photograph to put in the volume; and in giving my reasons for not desiring that, I mentioned that at your request I had written a preface, which I thought might partially satisfy the same curiosity to which a portrait would have appealed; and that this preface would be a godsend to the critics who didn’t wish to read the poems themselves. I took for granted that you would send the preface with the book: so that, having raised that expectation, I should certainly prefer to have you send it, if you have no objection to doing so.
I see that misunderstandings can arise from having two publishers for the same book, and in future, as in respect to “Scepticism and Animal Faith,” I shall remember this fact, and endeavour to have all communications between me and Messrs Scribners pass through your hands, so that complications may be avoided.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia PA

To Edward Joseph Harrington O’Brien
3 Prescott Hall
Colonial Club
Cambridge, MA. [September 1908–January 1912]

Dear Mr. O’Brien:¹
We are besieged at this moment by soi-disant² philosophers from all over the country, and I shall not be my own master until Saturday. If you could come to tea then or on Sunday, at about four o’clock, I should be delighted to see you. Perhaps you would explain to me then some of the things you refer to in your letter, which I don’t quite understand. The tempests of the Olympians to not reach my catacomb.
Yours very truly G Santayana

1. Born in Boston, Edward Joseph Harrington O’Brien (1890–1941) was a poet, editor, anthologist, and critic.
2. Self-styled.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Alan Denson, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

To Miguel de Unamuno
Ávila, Spain. 28 de Diciembre, 1913¹

Sr Don Miguel de Unamuno²
Muy Señor mio: Acaba de llegar á mis manos el tomo de su obra “El sentimiento trágico de la vida” que ha tenido V. la amabilidad de dedicarme. Estimo en lo que vale este obsequio inesperado, y me apresuro á darle las mas expresivas gracias. Basta con ojear el primer capitulo para cerciorarse de que brilla en esta obra cómo siempre su conocido ingenio, y anticipo el mas exquisito gusto en saborearla, admirando detenidamente, los variados horizontes que descubre y la espontaneadad de pensamiento que la distingue.
Hace dos años que dejé la Cátedra que ocupaba en América para renovar, despues de largo intérvalo, los Wanderjahre estudiantiles. Siendo español y encontrandome en este momento en ciudad tan puramente castellana cómo Avila, no he querido escribir á V. sinó en la lengua materna, aunque sea con la torpeza propria de quien se sirve habitualmente de otro idioma.
Me es muy grata esta ocasión de enviarle un saludo respetuoso y de profesarme su atento y seguro servidor q.b.s.m³
Jorge Ruiz de Santayana

1. Translation:
Dear Sir: I have just received a copy of your work “The Tragic Sense of Life” which you have had the kindness to dedicate to me. I know the worth of this unexpected gift, and I hasten to express my most sincere thanks. It is enough to glance through the first chapter to realize that as always your well-known talent shines in this work and I look forward to the greatest pleasure when I savor it, admiring at length the varied horizons it opens and the spontaneity of thought that distinguishes it.
Two years have passed since I left the professorship that I had in America, to renew, after a long interval, my student years of travel. Being Spanish and finding myself at this time in a city so purely Castillian as Ávila, I have not wanted to write to you except in the mother-tongue, even though it be with the clumsiness of a person who usually uses another language.
I take great pleasure in this opportunity to send you a respectful greeting as your faithful servant who kisses your hand.
2. The distinguished Spanish poet, novelist, playwright, and critic Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936) was educated at the University of Madrid and was professor of Greek at the University of Salamanca. Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos, his best-known work, was published in Madrid in 1913.
3. Que besa su mano.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: University of Salamanca, Casa Museo Unamuno, Salamanca, Spain

To George Sturgis
New York Hotel
Nice, France. Dec. 27, 1922

If my health doesn’t play me false, I hope to have time for finishing all my half-written works, before the end comes. I shall turn out to have been a prolific writer; and if there should ever be a complete edition of my works it will look like one of those regiments in uniform that stand on the shelves of libraries which are not disturbed except to be dusted. However, I have no hopes of rivalling Voltaire whose complete works in 69 volumes I possess in Paris, having got them second hand in a very nice edition (1793, I think) for 400 francs.

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 Edward Joseph Harrington O’Brien
3 Prescott Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dec. 26, 1910

Poetry in words, like fiction in life, is something which has ceased to be natural to me…. No doubt the faculty of dreams may be as precious as waking, and less wearisome than insomnia; but when one falls into prose, it is hard to rise again out of it. Another fiction which you amiably weave is the “quia multum amavit”¹  which you apply to me. Any love while we have it seems great; but we must, in retrospect, reduce things to some proportion.

1. Because he much loved.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin