Category: LETTERS Page 13 of 274

To Charles Augustus Strong
Hôtel de Milan,
Rome. November 11, 1912

I am quite absorbed in the “New Realism”—dreadful as the style of it all is—and as soon as I have finished it, in two or three days, I will send it on to you, as you say you have no copy at hand. I am glad you liked Benda’s book. When I began it, I thought he might be some excentric carping incompetent person; but on reading on, and especially on rereading, I saw how far that was from being the case.—I have changed one or two complimentary epithets, in my article (about Bergson’s style) into epithets of a sour-sweet quality, in deference to Benda’s criticism of the same, which opened my eyes. Russell’s article on Bergson I have not seen. The new realists, by the way, are very hostile to Bergson, too, which surprises me a little. If his theory of perception is like theirs, they detest his metaphysics. And, if it were not for kindly illusions and pious feelings, they would have to attack James as well. They do attack Dewey, for believing too much in the separately psychical. And poor Royce’s lordly sophistry is trailed in the dust. Schiller they ignore, you and me are also covered under a merciful silence, while Münsterberg schwebt over the whole scene like a huge grinning bat—the hideous and bloated Angel of Darkness.

Americans are beginning to turn up in large numbers, and I have come across several friends and acquaintances of late. Yours ever G.S.

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 Charles Augustus Strong
Cambridge, MA. November 10, 1895

Dear Strong,

I am delighted you thought of sending me your article, not only because I shall enjoy reading it very much, but even more because it proves you have not forgotten an old friend in spite of such a long absence of communication between us. Are you again active at Chicago this winter? If so, do you see my Harvard friends there, and does the place continue to please you? I got such a favourable impression of it when I was there two years ago. This summer I have been in Europe again, in Spain for a while, and afterwards with Loeser in Italy and Switzerland, coming back finally by way of England and an economical cattle steamer. It was interesting, but not all I should have wished in the way of a change of life. This may come before long, however as there seems to be a crisis coming on in my relations with Harvard, and I hardly expect to remain here after this year. I shall not unless they make me an assistant professor. My plan is to go to London for a year, and see what will turn up after that. The change of intellectual surroundings would do me a lot of good. Let me hear from you soon.

Yours ever

G Santayana

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.

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. November 9, 1930

I see by the papers that the result of the elections has had a depressing effect on shares, but an exhilarating effect on the hearts of the bibulous. If this is not a false dawn, I may yet return to America. A grandson of Mark Twain set me up the other day to a cocktail: it was excellent, and revived the sensations of my youth.

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 Boylston Adams Beal
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome. November 8, 1941

There has been great irregularity and uncertainty in the receipt of funds from America, and I thought seriously of leaving Italy, first for Switzerland and then for Spain. But the Swiss authorities would not give me a permit for residence; so that possibility was discarded at once. As for the journey to Spain, air being excluded by the doctor as dangerous for my heart, I found the land journey full of difficulties, especially as to money. You may take only 250 lire out of Italy, and you may bring no pesetas into Spain. How then are you to get from one frontier to another or from the Spanish frontier to Madrid? At the Spanish consulate here they gave me an announcement of a conducted trip to Spain from Turin, meant for fugitives from the East, bound to Lisbon and South America. It involved terrible experiences: two nights sitting up in trains, and four long delays at customshouses. I couldn’t face the prospect; became almost ill about it; and after consulting the doctor, decided to remain in Rome, and put up with the consequences. I have a respectable sum in Italian money, and have received some remittances since from George Sturgis; but the possibility of soon being cut off altogether from any means of support had to be faced. I had thought at various times of this Nursing Home of the “Blue Sisters”, or “The Little Company of Mary”, as a possible refuge in time of illness. My doctor happens to be one of their regular physicians, and encouraged me to consider the matter. I walked up to the Celius, and found the place, which I had never seen before, close under the walls of Santo Stefano Rotondo, and a step from the Villa Celimontana or Mattei, which is now open to the public. They agreed to take me in and give me a good room with a bathroom for half what I was paying at the Grand Hotel: but I had an idea in reserve which, after an interview with the Mother General who lives here, this being their first foundation, has proved feasible. The Order has a house in a suburb of Chicago called Evergreen Park; and it occurred to me that George Sturgis might pay by cheque to Chicago the amount of my expenses here in Rome, or a periodical donation that should amply cover those expenses. “I agree to that!” cried the Mother General at once; and seemed not to mind the possibility of not receiving that money for the present. Thus I am living here, in a sort of nunnery, gratis. Even if the United States comes formally into the war, I can continue here, with all necessities covered; and what cash I have or may receive can no doubt be made to suffice for my personal expenses, now almost nil. The food is as in Spain, not always very appetizing; but there are enough good simple things, and the spirit of the place is pleasant and reassuring. I have thus recovered great peace of mind about external matters, and I already had it about things internal.

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 Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. November 7, 1946

I have . . . Bertie Russell’s “Amberley Papers”, the biography letters and journals of his parents, Lord and Lady Amberley. Amberley was a soft sentimental ultra-consciencious youth, but egotistic and even cruel on occasion. The way he carried on and then abandoned a very nice middleclass girl, saying he “trusted that time would make her stronger” and that they “parted with the same trust, clinging to one another, the same pure loyalty to our sacred friendship”—she died a year or two later, while he married another girl–reminded me of my friend his son with his various lady-loves. But of course the book is rich in pungent foot-notes in the Voltarian or Gibbons-like tone that Bertie delights in: yet I feel how inhuman these high-principled self-righteous people are, and how troubled was their life in spite of their advantages—the greatest of which they didn’t appreciate. I have finished—that is, I have got to the end—of Sitwell’s book, after being cloyed with too much landscape and too much absurdity in the way of living described. This aristocracy deserved to disappear more than did the French, which didn’t go in so much for nominal virtue and superior judgement. Sitwell is an extreme example of the rich liberal who despises everything in his world except himself and the scent of flowers. But as you say they often write very well.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY