Category: LETTERS Page 10 of 274

To John Galen Howard
Roxbury, Massachusetts. Aug. 21, 1882

My dear Howard,

I address myself to you again, not because there is anything which I can impart in the way of interesting information, but partly in order to thank you for your very kind letter which I received some time ago, and partly to ask you to let me know what are your plans, so that if you return to Boston I may have the pleasure of seeing you. It appears from repeated consultation of the calendar that the summer is coming to an end, to say nothing of the chilly weather which has come to enforce the fact through the evidence of the senses. Hence it occurs to me that you may soon be returning to town.

I suppose you have been the happy recipient of a letter from Mr. Merrill similar to the one I have received from him. I doubt, however, that he has put into yours the amount of gush and eloquence and unction he has lavished on mine. At least I hope he has not had the impudence of addressing all the fellows by their first names, as he has done me. If he supposed I would be flattered by being treated with intimacy by him, he was greatly mistaken. If I did not deem it unwise to forfeit anyone’s good opinion merely for the pleasure of speaking out one’s mind plainly, I should have answered him and addressed him as “my dear Moses.”

I have kept busy this summer principally by reading. I have nearly concluded Dante’s Inferno. I thought to have read the whole Comedia this summer, but I find it takes quite long to read a page with my imperfect knowledge of Italian. First I read four or five lines in the original, then the same in a translation, and then reread the Italian to see that I take in the force of each word. Thus I proceed slowly till I get to the end of the Canto when I once more reread the whole. I find it for more beautiful even than I imagined. I have translated some parts for myself in verse like the original in structure, but like all translations it is very unlike the original in effect.

Hoping to hear from you, and also to see you before long, I remain

Sincerely yours,

George Santayana.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley

To John W. Yolton
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. August 20, 1951

You prefer my moral apprehensions to my scientific apprehension of morals in general, including my own morals; and so my naturalism seems to you to belittle all morality. It does, inevitably, belittle it in time and space; and in my personal opinion also in dynamic importance, since in my opinion all forces are inherently physical even when they carry ideal or passionate aims. But the prenatal history of morals, or all natural history, does not belittle morally any of its data. If you think so you are applying an economic criterion to vital facts whose value is intrinsic. It is because our modern world is obsessed with matter and trembling at its possible revolutions (attributed to moral magic) that it clings to that other cosmic point of view—proper to Judaism and to Platonism—that it is a moral aspiration or predestination that rules the world and that our efforts can accelerate that consummation.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Unknown

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Savoia
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. August 19, 1940

It was very pleasant and reassuring to know that you had got Scribner’s cheque and also the money from the Bankers’ Trust. This will keep you going, I hope, until the matter of the Fellowship is settled. As the fund is in America I see no reason why the war should prevent it from being arranged, unless the Trustees in England are too preoccupied to attend to matters not of immediate life or death. I am sorry that my bank account is blocked. I knew it before you informed me, because my poor old friend Mercedes, now 83 years old, had a trying experience. I had sent her a cheque to help fill the yawning void caused by a delay of two months in the receipt of her annuity, which we send her from America; and such is my financial standing—or was—that the Spanish bank gave her the cash at once. But alas, a week or two later they wrote to her that my cheque had been refused in London, and please to give them the money back! Of course, she being a lady accustomed in her youth to satisfy her caprices and to help her poor relations, the money no longer existed, and she wrote to me again in tears for explanation and for help. Well, I can’t send you more cheques on B. S. & Co., but I will pass on any American cheques I may receive—they may amount to $1000 in a year—to help you replenish your new bank-account. When the war is over, if I am alive and the pound is still worth something, I shall be able to pay your extra expenses (assuming you have your Fellowship) in coming to Italy, and doing Strong’s commission, and if need be looking after me.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hôtel des Réservoirs
Versailles, France. August 18, 1932

Dear Cory,

Love is expensive in all its forms. I don’t expect you to get on—yet—entirely without it, and don’t mind an occasional appeal for a little extra cash, especially as it has always been, so far, a mere trifle. But I think you oughtn’t to overdo the part of the spoilt grandson: not that it matters as far as I or Strong are concerned, but that it encourages a sort of weakness in yourself. I told you in a previous sermon that you ought, at your age and with your experience, to consider love a weakness, and not to be proud of it.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928–1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York

To George Sturgis
Hotel Victoria
Montreux, Switzerland. August 17, 1936

I write again to say I have received your letter enclosing one from Rita Ingersoll. She is right in thinking that my Christian name was given me in memory of your grandfather. It was (at least nominally) your Aunt Susie’s doing. You know she was my godmother, and always took that office quite seriously. And she had a great way of encouraging herself in sentiment about old things, working herself up, against the feeling prevalent round her, to enthusiasm for her old impressions. In this way she became intensely Catholic in Puritan Unitarian Boston, and finally married Celedonio, because he had been one of her early beaux. So, remembering her father a little (she must have been hardly seven when he died) she wanted to give me his name. George is not a name familiar in Spain. The national military saint is Santiago (supposed to be St. James, the Apostle) not St. George. But nobody objected, or thought it decent to object, and so George I became, for better or for worse; although they did add Agustín for my father and Nicolás for his brother the Major, who was my godfather.

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