Category: LETTERS Page 5 of 274

To Mary Annette Beauchamp Russell
Hotel Bristol
Rome, May 10, 1932

It is very kind of you to encourage me to visit you in your new garden.  This summer, unfortunately, I have been roped in by the professional philosophers, and have promised to read papers at The Hague and in London, at the celebration of the tercentenary of Spinoza and Locke respectively. I tremble—with a pleasing terror, as if I were to begin my first travels—at these last journeys and last, positively last, appearances in public.

The idea of going to live near you is firmly lodged in my sub-consciousness, and it will not take any great revolution in the state of my anchorage here for me to try that new port. But for the moment I am rooted and busy, and can’t pull myself out.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript:  The Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino CA

To [Susan Sturgis de Sastre]
PAU.—VUE SUR LA CHAÎNE DES PYRÉNÉES.
Pau, May 8, 1906

I have found this place just what I wanted—delightfully warm and sunny, not too crowded, the gardens in full flower, snow mountains in sight, and nothing to do but stroll and scribble. These three days I have spent mostly in the parks, sitting on some bench, and either reading the papers or writing in my note-book things suggested by my recent discussions with Strong. It has been very nice and restful. Pau is a much more wonderful place than I remembered it to be—most luxuriant and grand at the same time. This photograph doesn’t do the view justice, as the mountains are much higher & nearer than they look here.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of postcard manuscript: Collection of Paloma Sanchez Sastre, Madrid, Spain

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome, May 7. 1928

The vagueness of the bequest to Harvard was intentional. It may be hard to find just the right man for the Fellowship even in the wide field of poetry, philosophy, theology, and the Harvard Lampoon: and when you remember that I hope to die a novelist, almost anyone not a chimney-sweep can hope for my legacy.

You are right about the reason for a Spanish child not having the same last name, although he has the same surname, as his father: the last is his mother’s family name. As to the middle name, as in the case of Manuela Ruiz de Santayana y Zabalgoitia, it is not necessary. Ruiz was originally our family name, Santayana being a place; but my father and his brothers got into the habit of using Santayana exclusively, for the sake of brevity. But the addition of the mother’s surname, now usually without the “y” prefixed, is legal, and necessary in a document. So you will find that your aunt’s will is signed “Susana Sturgis Borrás”. The Parkman is optional, and the husband’s name is not, in Spain, a wife’s name at all. She may be described as the wife, or politely, the lady, of so-and-so: but her name remains what it was originally. Calling your aunt, as she liked to be called, Susana Sturgis de Sastre, is not strictly correct; she was Doña Susana Sturgis y Borrás, señora de Sastre. The last words are a title or description, not a part of her name, as if you called me G. S, wedded to Metaphysics.

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