Author: David Spiech Page 248 of 283

To Desmond MacCarthy
Hotel Bristol
Rome. November 16, 1928

Please tell Berty Russell,  if you see him, that I was immensely amused at his diagnosis of “Catholic and Protestant Sceptics”,  and in particular of myself. But I don’t like his saying that I dislike the Founder of Christianity: has he read my “Lucifer” or the dialogue about “The Philanthropist”? It may be a biassed interpretation, but I take even the eschatology, and the coming of the Kingdom, in Christ’s mouth, to be gently ironical and meant secretly in a spiritual sense. So understood, I accept his doctrine and spirit in toto.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Bristol,
Rome. November 15, 1934

The other night in bed, when I happened not to be feeling very well, I thought that perhaps I might have to send for you, because in any long illness, it would be rather dismal to have nobody about to look in upon one, and cheer one up. I was all right again the next morning—merely a touch of indigestion—and thought no more of the matter. But now that you suggest coming, as if telepathically, the idea seems doubly attractive. Decide the matter entirely according to your own inclination. You are always free to live where you like: I will simply continue your allowance as usual, and pay your travelling expenses to Rome, if you decide to come. . . . I warn you that you will find me grown much older and uglier; also deafer, and more easily tired, so that you can’t expect much pleasure from my society.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY

To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Hotel Danieli
Venice, Italy. November 14, 1939

As to Florence and Papini, they are not in my line. You don’t know very much about me*. I avoid literary people and Anglo-American centres, like Florence; and I am not “America’s” this or that. I have never been an American citizen, but still travel with a Spanish passport, though I seldom go to Spain, my relations there being all dead as are my best friends in England. Yet I still love them all; and now that my Realms of Being are finished at last, I am turning to writing recollections about them.
Yours sincerely G Santayana
* But you are right in feeling that I sympathize with Peacock’s point of view.²Yet I didn’t like the one book of his that I have read, except the Latin in it. Witty at times, but fault-finding & inconclusive.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Rome. November 13, 1933

An idea has occurred to me that I submit to you, not as a desire exactly on my part, but simply to see if it pleases you. Would you like to join me in the Spring in the Riviera or even at Rapallo, with a view of looking for quarters—either in a small hotel or in an apartment, where I might establish myself for good—somewhere where I could remain all the year round, and have all my books with me? Strong, who seems to have understood that I don’t mean to go often again to the villa (especially now that he is hard up and has his grandchildren with him) actually suggested that I should remove the books I have at his house: and I shouldn’t be sorry to have them back, if I had where to put them. It is a part of my idea that you should spend as much of your time with me in these proposed quarters as you chose or found convenient: and for that reason, as well as for your judgement about particular places, I should like your advice. For instance, does Rapallo really appeal to you, is it warm enough in winter for my catarrh, and wouldn’t it be too small and tiresome for living in for ever? My own feeling is that Nice or Monaco (almost Monte Carlo but just not quite) would be best: because I could still amuse myself in cafés and even at the opera, and pass from monastic solitude to the vulgar world at five minutes notice. Besides, French after all is an easier language for me than Italian, though ideally I prefer Italy.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY

To Nancy Saunders Toy
Hotel Bristol
Rome. Nov. 12, 1931

I feel so much the continual death of everything and everybody, and have so learned to reconcile myself to it, that the final and official end loses most of its impressiveness. I have now lost almost everybody that has counted for much in my life. You are almost the sole exception: because Strong, a lifelong if not at all a romantic friend, has developed an attitude towards me which is as unpleasant as it is unexpected. I have become, philosophically and intellectually, his bête noire.¹ Personally we are still good friends: we keep up appearances, and this summer and autumn he has actually followed me to Cortina and to Naples (where I have been for a month) and spent a few days near me at each place. But there is always a tension beneath. He has reverted to strict Puritanism in his moral sentiments, and regards his father (who had a very red nose and married again at 85) as a model of human character. And he has recovered also all his American pride, and feels that it is unseemly and unworthy that I shouldn’t endeavour to think and write like other American professors. My theory of “essence” is anathema to him, although for some years he innocently adopted it: he doesn’t like my last little book on The Genteel Tradition: and as to the novel, of which at his request I showed him the first three chapters, he told Cory that it ought to be burned. Cory has no doubt been the accidental cause of a part of this transformation. Cory at first was my friend only, and helped me with The Realm of Matter. When this was finished I was going to let him go home and look after himself: but Strong said he envied me such a secretary, and asked him to stay and work with him. And quite naturally, I suppose, Strong began to resent the fact that, in our technical divergencies (which have always existed, and not caused any serious trouble) Cory should follow me rather than himself: and he began to work to convert Cory, partly by persistently and overbearingly imposing his own view, and partly by doing all he could to disparage and condemn me. Isn’t it sad? Let me give you a sample of the process. In one page of an essay on Whitehead which Cory has written—he is partly Irish and has warm feelings—he had said that he was a “disciple” of mine, had called The Realm of Matter a “great book”, and had used the term “essence” once. Strong, in reviewing the essay with him, didn’t rest until “disciple” was changed to “person influenced by”, “great book” to “recent work”, and “essence” to “datum”. If you asked Strong how he could be so mean and ungenerous to his oldest and almost his only friend, I think he would say that he felt it his duty to protect Cory from making unfortunate slips which would discredit him as a critic among the professional philosophers: and that nobody would take him seriously if he began by saying that he was simply following me. There may be some truth in this, and I don’t regret at all that Cory should correct his essay as required. But what do you make out of such want of feeling, and such a bitter undercurrent of tyranny? Poor Margaret! I understand now better than ever what she must have suffered. Cory himself is very unhappy about it all: but what is he to do? Strong is supporting him, and has put him in his will.
I hope I am not indiscreet in telling you all this, but it is very much on my mind, and as I said, you are the only true friend left to
G. Santayana

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