Category: LETTERS Page 166 of 274

To Charles Augustus Strong
60 Brattle St
Cambridge, Massachusetts. [Autumn 1899–June 1904]

I have been reading more Fichte and Hegel, but my inner self rebels increasingly against their empty pertinacity and shocking habit of covering a paradox with a truism, and making you believe the absurd under the guise of the self-evident. So I shall be kindly disposed to the things-in- themselves.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Lauinger Library, Georgetown University, Washington DC

To Paul Arthur Schilpp
Hotel Bristol
Rome. January 16, 1939

As to the commentators you suggest for the volume on me (about which I presume there is no hurry, so that we can return to the subject if the plan goes forward) there is only one name that pleases me absolutely, if you can secure it, that is, Russell. Edman and Lamprecht are friendly but not incisive writers: they would repeat things I have said without improving on them, and their appreciations would not be important. Dewey and Lovejoy are in a higher class: but can you secure them? Strong is a personal friend of mine, but he is not interested in anything that does not immediately touch his theory of perception in its technical details, and never criticizes books or systems in general. However, if you can get him, (he too is 76) I am perfectly willing. So with Perry, Sellars, and Prat: they are just professionals, and good fellows. The great success of the book would be the communication from Marcel Proust, if you can find a suitable medium: but alas, the first thing he would say when summoned from the vasty deep to discourse about me would be, “Who is that? I never heard of him!”

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

To Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Cambridge, Massachusetts.  January 15, 1911

It is a great bond to dislike the same things, and dislike is perhaps a deeper indication of our real nature than explicit affections, since the latter may be effects of circumstances, while dislike is a reaction against them.

I had hoped to go to Cambridge in June, but, now it is arranged that I shall go instead to California, where I have never been. I am both glad and sorry for this, but it seemed as well to see the Far West once in one’s life, especially as I hope soon to turn my face resolutely in the opposite direction.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Mills Memorial Library, Bertrand Russell Archives, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

To Otto Kyllmann
Hotel Bristol
Rome. January 14, 1932

Dear Mr. Kyllmann,
You must regard all four of the manuscripts in your possession as yours to keep or dispose of as you choose. If you said that any of them were still mine, I should have to offer them, as a gift, to the person asking for them, or to the club in question. It is for you to consider whether you would like to keep the four manuscripts (there will probably be no more, because now I have them copied by the type-writer); or whether you don’t mind parting with one or more of them, and in that case, what you think it fair to charge for them. Very little, I should say: because the probable motive of my American friends. I know Mr. Edgar Wells and suspect that his client may be Senator Cutting or Mr. J. P. Morgan–is not that they think the manuscripts may one day be of commercial value, but only a sort of collector’s mania and club spirit, as people collect autographs and book-plates and theatre-programmes. I always send my books to the club in question, but I doubt that the present under-graduates read them, or would prize the manuscript of one of them, otherwise than as just one more item in their library catalogue. Don’t hesitate to reply, then, that the manuscripts are not for sale, if you really like to have them: or if you don’t care particularly, you might offer all four in a batch, which I suppose would make them more valuable. I am busy about many things, like Martha, at this moment, and don’t know when anything fresh will be finished: but I hope to send you something before the end of 1932.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

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

To Isabella Stewart Gardner
3 Prescott Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts. January 13, 1909.

Dear Mrs Gardner,
Mrs Berenson tells me that you are thinking of going to my lecture on the 28th. It will be so nice to see you there, and I shall feel less lost before a strange audience, and less foolish for saying things that perhaps no one would understand—at least, as I meant them.
I am having two tickets sent you from New York, in case there is anyone with you who wants to come too.

I caught a sidelong glimpse of you at the tennis court last Saturday. The Coolidges have added a charming feature to Cambridge, I think, by building this court. It is just the sort of thing we need to give us a little more distinction.
Yours sincerely
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA