Category: LETTERS Page 13 of 274

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Rome. January 5, 1939

Yesterday evening I had a visit from—Ezra Pound!

He is taller, younger, better-looking than I expected. Reminded me of several old friends (young, when I knew them) who were spasmodic rebels, but decent by tradition, emulators of Thoreau, full of scraps of culture but lost, lost, lost in the intellectual world. He talked rather little (my fault, and that of my deaf ear, that makes me not like listening when I am not sure what has been said), and he made no breaks, such as he indulges in in print. Was he afraid of me? How odd! Such a dare-devil as he poses as! I had just been reading his article, and the one about him, in the Criterion, so that I felt no chasm between us—“us” being my sensation of myself and my idea of him . . .

His beard is like a painter’s and his head of hair (is it a wig?) like a musician’s. On the whole, we got on very well, but nothing was said except commonplaces.

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 Charles Augustus Strong
New York Hotel
Nice, France. January 3, 1923

Dear Strong,

Good weather seems to be returning after the wintry storms of the last fortnight, and I have now entirely recovered from my cough. The attack was not in itself so bad—not involving so much actual catarrh—as on some previous occasions, but it seemed to shake me more and to be so fatiguing that I called the doctor. . . . He said that I had a slight congestion of the lungs—légère pouscée pulmonaire—and that my heart was larger than it ought to be. For the latter he ordered some minute pills of a drug called “strophantus,” which is evidently the sort of “dope” which attracts the opium-eaters. . . . Anyhow, I seem to have completely recovered: but it is a warning that I am not so sound as I had supposed, and that the machine may behave any day, if I am not careful, like Dr Holmes’s one horse shay.

As you may imagine, I haven’t been making progress with the book; but perhaps by virtue of the strophantus my fancy has been working magnificently and I was never more entertained than during this enforced leisure. The result is that—yielding to force majeure—I have written (in pencil) the four last chapters of the novel, solving the problem of the dénoument in a way which I think satisfactory, and incidentally creating two delightful children, a boy of four and a girl of ten. The novel is not complete yet, and many episodes might be worked up to fill the gaps: but the outline is there, and I think it may not prove a bad thing for the Realms to have that more interesting matter practically disposed of. I hope you are progressing favourably; when you come here in February you will find the place very bright and gay.

Yours ever, G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.

To John Francis Stanley Russell
Colonial Club
Cambridge, Massachusetts. January 2, 1912

Dear Russell

Your letter of some months ago has somehow remained unanswered. Although I had several things to say in reply, and have been thinking about you especially, because in looking over my old papers I have come upon a lot of your letters and reread them all, being carried back to 1887 and the following years, when all that happened to you was so much a part of my life. I can see now how great an influence you had on me. It was an influence for good. It seems almost as if I had gathered the fruits of your courage and independance, while you have suffered the punishment which the world imposes always on those who refuse to conform to its ways. You may say you are content, but with your position and character you ought to have had a greater career. Isn’t it, at bottom, because you have tried to combine liberty with democracy, in your personal as well as political alliances, and liberty and democracy are really incompatible? I will explain what I mean by word of mouth (it would take up too much paper) if you are in England. I expect to reach London on February 1st. Send me a line C/o Brown, Shipley & Co. 123, Pall Mall.

Yours ever

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.

To Eugene Rodman Shippen
Rome. January 1, 1945

Dear Shippen:

The first feeling and regret that occurred to me on reading your letter and your poem was. How came it that Shippen and I were not friends in college? Yours is the second poem that has been written about me. The other was Lionel Johnson’s “To A Spanish Friend.” I prefer yours. It is more flattering, and at the same time truer, which makes the flattery more flattering. Thank you for the gift that comes on New Year’s Day, and encourages me to go on with my senile compositions.

Yours sincerely,

G Santayana

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