Category: LETTERS Page 30 of 274

To John W. Yolton
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. August 20, 1951

You prefer my moral apprehensions to my scientific apprehension of morals in general, including my own morals; and so my naturalism seems to you to belittle all morality. It does, inevitably, belittle it in time and space; and in my personal opinion also in dynamic importance, since in my opinion all forces are inherently physical even when they carry ideal or passionate aims. But the prenatal history of morals, or all natural history, does not belittle morally any of its data. If you think so you are applying an economic criterion to vital facts whose value is intrinsic. It is because our modern world is obsessed with matter and trembling at its possible revolutions (attributed to moral magic) that it clings to that other cosmic point of view—proper to Judaism and to Platonism—that it is a moral aspiration or predestination that rules the world and that our efforts can accelerate that consummation.

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

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Savoia
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. August 19, 1940

It was very pleasant and reassuring to know that you had got Scribner’s cheque and also the money from the Bankers’ Trust. This will keep you going, I hope, until the matter of the Fellowship is settled. As the fund is in America I see no reason why the war should prevent it from being arranged, unless the Trustees in England are too preoccupied to attend to matters not of immediate life or death. I am sorry that my bank account is blocked. I knew it before you informed me, because my poor old friend Mercedes, now 83 years old, had a trying experience. I had sent her a cheque to help fill the yawning void caused by a delay of two months in the receipt of her annuity, which we send her from America; and such is my financial standing—or was—that the Spanish bank gave her the cash at once. But alas, a week or two later they wrote to her that my cheque had been refused in London, and please to give them the money back! Of course, she being a lady accustomed in her youth to satisfy her caprices and to help her poor relations, the money no longer existed, and she wrote to me again in tears for explanation and for help. Well, I can’t send you more cheques on B. S. & Co., but I will pass on any American cheques I may receive—they may amount to $1000 in a year—to help you replenish your new bank-account. When the war is over, if I am alive and the pound is still worth something, I shall be able to pay your extra expenses (assuming you have your Fellowship) in coming to Italy, and doing Strong’s commission, and if need be looking after me.

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 Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hôtel des Réservoirs
Versailles, France. August 18, 1932

Dear Cory,

Love is expensive in all its forms. I don’t expect you to get on—yet—entirely without it, and don’t mind an occasional appeal for a little extra cash, especially as it has always been, so far, a mere trifle. But I think you oughtn’t to overdo the part of the spoilt grandson: not that it matters as far as I or Strong are concerned, but that it encourages a sort of weakness in yourself. I told you in a previous sermon that you ought, at your age and with your experience, to consider love a weakness, and not to be proud of it.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928–1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York

To George Sturgis
Hotel Victoria
Montreux, Switzerland. August 17, 1936

I write again to say I have received your letter enclosing one from Rita Ingersoll. She is right in thinking that my Christian name was given me in memory of your grandfather. It was (at least nominally) your Aunt Susie’s doing. You know she was my godmother, and always took that office quite seriously. And she had a great way of encouraging herself in sentiment about old things, working herself up, against the feeling prevalent round her, to enthusiasm for her old impressions. In this way she became intensely Catholic in Puritan Unitarian Boston, and finally married Celedonio, because he had been one of her early beaux. So, remembering her father a little (she must have been hardly seven when he died) she wanted to give me his name. George is not a name familiar in Spain. The national military saint is Santiago (supposed to be St. James, the Apostle) not St. George. But nobody objected, or thought it decent to object, and so George I became, for better or for worse; although they did add Agustín for my father and Nicolás for his brother the Major, who was my godfather.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

To Richard Colton Lyon
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. August 16, 1948

Don’t worry about ignorance of philosophy or anything else. The only thing that is annoying is set opinions when they are not one’s own and are asserted without good arguments.

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