Category: LETTERS Page 10 of 274

To John Hall Wheelock
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. February 17, 1945

I am now writing this by an open French window in the sun, already springlike here at this season. So that although we are deprived of many old conveniences or luxuries, we are not more uncomfortable than everybody used to be always two hundred years ago. My experience of life in Avila has made the little privations of the war seem quite tolerable.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ.

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome. February 16, 1947

We have been having a severe winter with cold rain and little sun since Christmas; but I have kept very well. It is only my work that has suffered because without the sun I felt more like lounging in my chaise longue, well wrapped up, and reading, than like sitting up to write. But there is no hurry about my political book which must last me until my wits give out, as this is the last number in my programme. However, if the lights don’t go out when it is finished, I have an impromptu ready for the audience, who being only future readers, can’t run away visibly. It is a set of afternoon lectures for imaginary ladies on The False Steps of Philosophy: would be better in French: Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie. She began her deviations from the straight path very early, with Socrates, whom I should show not to have been such a sound moralist as he is reputed to be, and really a rogue. After him, I should expose (pleasantly of course) the errors of Saint Paul, in preaching total depravity (while dear Saint John was preaching universal love) and making Christ the Scapegoat instead of the Lamb. Then I should skip to Descartes who misled the whole chorus of modern philosophers, except Spinoza, by making them fall in love with themselves. But all this is a waste of time, because I shall never get to it.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To Augusto Guzzo
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome. February 15, 1948

Dear Professor Guzzo,

Your tremendous book has arrived and I have read the Introduction and the Summary. How I wish that you could have sent me this book fifty years ago, when I was writing my superficial “Life of Reason”. Now it comes at a moment when I am absorbed not in the critical or dramatic elucidation of conscious existence, not in my Self or in a rational conduct of my beliefs or duties, but in the fate of Mankind, conceived or found as a race of animals living in a material world. And as it is too late in my life for me to recast for myself the transcendental problem, or any problem of Existence or knowledge, I don’t dare to drop the train of thought that I am engaged in: “les moments me sont chers”. So I am afraid I shall never do justice to your profound revision of things from within outwards. Except that I know how that problem imposes itself on the self-questioning mind, and how dramatic is the order of evidence, the causa cognoscendi, that reflection can construct by intense criticism. However, I come in my descriptions of “Dominations and Powers” upon distinctions between “vital liberty” and “empty liberty”, between “growth” and “militancy”, between “economic” and “liberal” arts, and many other logical or moral questions; and I shall not forget to consult your pages on these points when I find myself in a difficulty.

The fact that you are at work on so vast and important a system of philosophy, even if the outlines of it all are already clear in your mind, makes me wonder all the more that you should be willing to give your precious time to translations, even with such good help as you count upon; and I am all the more grateful that my book on the Idea of Christ is to profit by that willingness. I suppose during the summer holidays you may like to turn to lighter occupation; and I know how fascinating the search often is, in translating, for a word or phrase that will convey the author’s intention. In any case, I have today signed the contract with the Edizioni Comunità for the Italian edition, in which article 8 runs as follows: “The Publishers undertake to use the translation of the said work made by Professor Augusto Guzzo”.

I hardly find words to tell you how much I appreciate this favour, as well as the gift of your new book.

Yours sincerely

G Santayana

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

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol.
Rome. February 14, 1928

Coming now to the disposal of the money at my death, there is the question raised by you, Shall the trust be continued, or dissolved? You evidently prefer to let it continue, and especially, that your sister’s share should be left in trust. Here we are on delicate ground. You have not told me your reasons, at least none that seemed serious: you suggested that some of her property might some day go to children that Raymond Bidwell might some day have by some other wife. I shouldn’t turn in my grave even if that happened. Money is not a pure good, to be reserved only to those we love: and even if it were, why should we reserve it for them? Money is a social commodity, and it has to be distributed conventionally, without asking whether people deserve it or will ultimately profit by having it. With my present lights, therefore, I see no reason for continuing the Trust after my death: but I am open to any suggestions which you may have to make to the contrary. The bequests to Harvard College and to people in Spain would in any case, I suppose, have to be made outright: so that little but Josephine’s share would remain to be in trust, except that yours would apparently be in trust too, under your own trusteeship. How safe, and how trusted, you would feel!

The principal other bequest is to be to Harvard College. I told you I had thought of making it a Spanish Fellowship, but I have repented of this. In the first place, there was a touch of vanity or egotism in it, as if I was coddling my own personality after it had been happily dissolved. Then I am afraid there are likely to be too many Spanish-speaking people flocking to the U.S. to be educated: and the reverse is provided for by the Hispanic Society of America and other foundations. Let my fellowship, then, be without local limitations. And I want it to be generous in amount, because I aspire to be like the magnanimous man of Aristotle, who seldom does anything, but when he does, it is something handsome.

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.

To Charles Augustus Strong
[Before 1889?]. [Roxbury, Massachusetts?]
Thursday

I see Fuller now and then—unsatisfactory mind: always seems to be really thinking of something else, like a woman. Yesterday he had a young French professor in tow who said Einstein was an absolutist, and that his theory should have been called Théorie de l’Invariance!

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript:Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.