Author: David Spiech Page 243 of 283

To Pierre de Chaignon la Rose
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123 Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Rome, Dec. 21, 1923

Dear la Rose¹
It is a great pleasure to receive your letter. From time to time I have felt an impulse to write, or to send you a book–particularly the Soliloquies–but the small impediment of not knowing your precise address or some other trivial obstacle has always intervened. Not long ago Lapsley and I spoke of you at length, and with a unanimity of sentiment which he and I are now developing on a good many subjects. Anglicanism not included, although even there we seem to have an inexpressible depth of agreement beneath the tacit disagreement of our opinions. I mean that I think I know
why he believes, and he thinks he knows why I disbelieve. It is a sympathetic opposition.
As to the occasion of your letter, what could be more grateful to a parent than the resurrection of a dead child? I have not yet received Fituski’s books,² but I am sure the outer form he would give to Lucifer would be more than satisfactory. Not long ago some one sent me a copy with a request that I should write something in it, and before doing so I reread the whole–which I hadn’t done for many years. My impression was that I had done what I meant to do, but that here and there feeble or unfortunate phrases occurred. I should not venture to suggest revision of the style. I should do it much less convincingly now; but perhaps in the proof we might change a word here and there, to strengthen the rhythm or avoid platitude. If you have marked any very bad places, I should be much obliged if you would point them out. Duffield has the copyright, but as he has disposed of that of the Sonnets I expect he would make no bones of getting rid of Lucifer as well. As to the $200 which you offer me, I should much rather take nothing, and let the money remain to insure Mr Fituski against loss in his venture. I have much more money than I need in my manner of life, which is that of the perpetual travelling student: so that do not let money be mentioned in this pleasant affair.³
Since you say you have 20 volumes of mine (which I think is more than I have written) I infer that you have various editions of the poems: if you have not the nice one (in white and gold) of the English edition published last year, will you let me know and I will have one sent you? Or would you prefer the English edition of the Soliloquies? I meant to send it you (it is probably much nicer than the American) only there is the circumstance of passing the custom-house–which, however, I can get round without trouble.
I am at work on many things, including a novel about which I should be particularly glad of a chance to talk with you. Don’t you ever come to Paris? It would be such a pleasure.
Yours sincerely GSantayana

1. Pierre de Chaignon la Rose (b. 1871) was one of Santayana’s Harvard friends (A.B., 1895) and a lecturer in Harvard’s English Department (1897–1902). Santayana described him as a man of excellent taste and talent as a designer (he designed the 1924 edition of Lucifer). (Persons, 407.8)
2. Maurice Firuski worked at Dunster House, the publishing firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which issued the new edition of Lucifer in 1924.
3. Dunster published a revised version of Lucifer in 1924. The headpieces, initial letters, and end papers were designed by and the typography arranged by La Rose.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The New York Public Library, New York City

To Charles Augustus Strong
22 Beaumont St.
Oxford, England. Dec. 20, 1918

What a year this has been for wonderful events! I have often wished we might have been able to talk them over as they occurred, although for my own part I am hardly able to take them in, and all my attention seems to be absorbed by the passing moment, or the immediate future. The past will loom up, I suppose, when it begins to recede into the distance. Just now I am wondering what Mr. Wilson is up to: I rather think he is more to be trusted than the tendency of his political catchwords would suggest. He once told the Philosophical Association at Princeton (were you at that meeting too?) that in that college they had a radical purpose but not a radical manner in philosophizing: but it seems—and is to be hoped—that in politics he has not a radical purpose but only a radical manner. And I wonder what he has by way of manners! From what I hear—the papers can’t tell us what is most interesting—Mrs Wilson, not being able to make a fool of herself, because she is one already, is making a fool of her husband. My own feeling is, however, that he will yield to the experience and also to the fascinations of the European statesmen he is encountering, and that he won’t do any mischief.
Oxford seems to me more beautiful every day. I walked three times round Christ Church meadows this afternoon, under the most romantic of wintry skies and the softest of breezes, in a sort of trance; and I should certainly come to live and die in Oxford, if it weren’t for the Oxonians.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

To Christopher George Janus
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. Dec. 19, 1946

Dear Janus,
Several inquisitorial reporters, disguised in the lamb’s clothing of soldiers, have inveigled me into “interviews” which I took at first for innocent conversation. No great harm came of it, as far as I know, except that my English was transformed into the dialect of day. You can’t catch me so easily in writing. If people really cared to know what I think about politics in America, they would read the last chapter of my old “Character & Opinion in the U.S.” . … But people only want “copy”, and I think I might make them wait until the book on “Dominations & Powers” which I am at work on sees the light. I may not live to finish it, but enough is already written to make my position clear. It is independent of all parties, nations, or epochs: and this is easier for me than for most philosophers because my native Spanish attachments are not close (although I have scrupulously retained my legal Spanish nationality) and speculatively I am a naturalist.
Yours sincerely
G Santayana

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

To Evelyn Tindall
Hotel Danieli
Venice, Italy. Dec. 18, 1939

Dear Miss Tindall,
The double copy of my two chapters arrived today in good order. Apparently the parcel hadn’t been opened.
As to the MS, if it isn’t in your way, the simplest thing would be for you to keep it until next September, when I hope to return to Rome. The earlier chapters are stored there, with my books, so that the MS of the whole could then be assembled. Not that I have any use for it, but there are collectors who might pay my heirs five pounds or even more for it, so that I hesitate to throw it away. If I should disappear before September, you may consider yourself my heir to the extent of these two chapters, and perhaps some collector would relieve you of the burden.
I send you what, as far I can gather, is the approximate equivalent of your dues in pounds. If there is a nest-egg all right: if there is only a vacuum, I think it will soon be filled, because I am booked to write a long paper this winter for another volume by various authors, and I will send you the MS perhaps in March or April. With best wishes for the New Year.
Sincerely yours,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

To George Sturgis
Hotel Marini
Rome. Dec. 17, 1921

What you tell me about your aunt Josephine wanting her whole income surprises me not a little, as I know how disinclined she is to undertake the burden of a more elaborate way of life–and the same thing happens to me. In our old age, she can only live like a younger daughter in the family, and I like a travelling student. Anything else is too much bother for us. I am writing to ask her what is up, if it isn’t a secret. She may be thinking of buying or setting up a separate house in Madrid or in Avila, with the two little old ladies, whom we call las maestras, the teachers, because they once kept a school; this is the only new arrangement of which I have any inkling. I hardly think she wants her money in order to invest it in Spain: but that is natural in the case of your aunt Susan, or rather of her husband, because they count on distributing it some day among the Sastre boys, and it would be very cumbersome for them to have the capital in America. They are very deserving young men, and it is pleasant to think that they will be distinctly more comfortable for this inheritance when it comes to them, although, of course, they have no right to it, even morally, as their relation to their step-mother has never been more than correct.

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