Category: LETTERS Page 169 of 274

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 James Bissett Pratt
22 Beaumont St
Oxford, England. January 2, 1919

I entirely agree with you that mental life, which you call consciousness, exists and that it is a “container” of the various mental activities or moments that make it up, as an inventory is the container of the items enumerated, or as a year is the container of its 365 days. But I should refuse altogether to regard that as an argument for saying that the objects given in dreams or illusions exist: they are the themes of that portion of our mental life, but no part of our mental life itself. The themes of discourse are not contained in discourse, but referred to in it: and the undoubted existence of the discourse does not lend, or tend to lend, existence to what is discoursed about. In my opinion all mental life is of the nature of discourse: so that the data or objects never exist simply because they are given to an existing mind: if they exist, it is because, over and above their presence to attention or intention, they have a place of their own, on their own level, in space and time, or at least in time and in association with an event in space.

As to the description of existence which you report, would it be impossible that, for instance, a spirit not in our temporal series, like God, should exist? Existence seems to carry with it a certain inherent stress which makes it a centre for time, space, change, and external relations. These are certainly marks of existence; but I am not sure that they exhaust its essence.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Williams College Archives and Special Collections, Williamstown MA

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

To Mary Whitall Smith Berenson
Hotel Bristol
Rome. December 31, 1925

Dear Mrs Berenson,
Why didn’t I answer your previous kind letter? Because for a month I have had no note-paper and have forgotten every day to get it. But now a fresh box has been actually acquired in your honour. I well remember the luxury and freedom which I enjoyed at I Tatti when I was last there, and I am particularly sorry not to renew those delights now that your brother is there. Isn’t he coming to Rome later? But as my father, who had some nautical experience, used to say, I am here anchored with four anchors, Sloth, Prudence, Work, and Minor Engagements; and they are impossible anchors to drag at this moment. As to work, about which the whole net is supposed to be woven, it really amounts to very little. I sit down to it every morning, but without tangible results; my brain seems to be drying up. However, this is no reason for travel, at least to Florence, because if I went there, how could I come to stay with you, who besides your domestic society (such society!) have so many friends coming and going, and how could I abandon Strong who I suppose is all alone? I have heard nothing of Margaret’s movements or decisions but I understood that if nothing materialized in Paris she meant to go to America Thank you very much for writing again, it is very kind of you, but inertia is the primary force in nature, at least in mine.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Italy

To Otto Kyllmann
New York Hotel
Nice, France. December 30, 1922

Dear Mr Kyllmann,
It had not occurred to me that you would have any interest in not sending the preface to my “Poems” to Scribner, together with the rest of the sheets; nor do I now understand what that interest is. Messrs Scribner had written asking for a signed photograph to put in the volume; and in giving my reasons for not desiring that, I mentioned that at your request I had written a preface, which I thought might partially satisfy the same curiosity to which a portrait would have appealed; and that this preface would be a godsend to the critics who didn’t wish to read the poems themselves. I took for granted that you would send the preface with the book: so that, having raised that expectation, I should certainly prefer to have you send it, if you have no objection to doing so.

I see that misunderstandings can arise from having two publishers for the same book, and in future, as in respect to “Scepticism and Animal Faith,” I shall remember this fact, and endeavour to have all communications between me and Messrs Scribners pass through your hands, so that complications may be avoided.
Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia PA