Category: LETTERS Page 50 of 274

To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Grand Hotel,
Rome. May 16, 1941

Dear Clemens:

Your card of April 6, forwarded by Scribner through the ordinary mail, reminds me that I have not thanked you for one or two others previously received, or for the unexpected present of one dollar, which was reduced only to a good intention on your part by the impossibility of cashing it in the present circumstances. So far, save for delay on some occasions, I have been able to get money from my nephew in Boston, who manages my earthly goods; but this may become impossible at any moment, so that I live with one foot in the stirrup, and may have to take refuge in Switzerland. However, if I can obtain a permit of residence there for the rest of the war, the change would have its advantages; but I fear the cold in winter. This last season has not been good for my health; however, it has now become normal; and as my principal work is done, it really matters very little what now becomes of me. I spend the morning writing a voluminous book to be called Persons & Places or Fragments of Autobiography in which I put everything that occurs to me, and which may stretch to any length, according to that of my life. I have written reams, and have not yet got to my birth.

You mustn’t expect me to keep up a correspondence. I write to only one or two relations and very old friends, and that chiefly on business. You are rather a public personage, and writing to you is like writing to the newspapers, with the imminent danger of starting false reports. Not that false reports, or true ones, do me any harm: I feel they are not about me at all but about a fictitious person imagined by the reporter. However, it is pleasant to be remembered and—I hope—prayed for. Yours sincerely

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941–1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC.

To the Class of 1886
[Rome.] [May or June 1936]

As to my inner or moral adventures during this half-century, they are in part recorded in my books, which, I believe, would fill all the spaces left vacant in the questionnaire by my non-existent children and grandchildren. Not living any longer in America or being a professor naturally had some influence on my mental tone; also the war of 1914–1918 when I remained in England, chiefly at Oxford. Nevertheless I think I have changed very little in opinion or temper. I was old when I was young, and I am young now that I am old. I have passed through no serious illnesses, emotions, or changes of heart. On the whole the world has seemed to me to move in the direction of light and reason, not that reason can ever govern human affairs, but that illusions and besetting passions may recede from the minds of men and allow reason to shine there. I think this is actually happening. What is thought and said in America now, for instance, especially since the crisis, seems to me far less benighted than what was thought and said when I lived there. People—especially the younger people—also write far better English. If I had the prophetic courage of a John the Baptist I might cry that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; by which I don’t refer to a possible industrial recovery, or to a land flowing with milk and honey, but to a change of heart about just such matters and the beginning of an epoch in which spiritual things may again seem real and important. The modern world is loudly crying peccavi, but we know that this is not enough. There must be a real conversion or redirection of the affections. I think this may actually ensue, in the measure in which such revolutions are compatible with human nature.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.

To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. May 14, 1925

The Spring here has been unusually cool and rainy. I am still wearing winter clothes, and expect to stay at least until June 1st when I shall go to Paris; but all my plans are unsettled, owing to the instability of the female will, on which for the moment I seem to be dependent. I was going to England to stay with the Chetwynds—but Mrs Chetwynd is going to Dartmoor—no, on the whole, to Ireland. I was going to Switzerland to see Mrs Toy (who has suddenly invaded Europe) but Mrs Toy has grown homesick and doesn’t know what she will do or where she will be. I was going to Spain, but heaven knows what may happen first. In any case, Mercedes, with three lady-friends and the unhappy husband of one of them, announces that she will arrive in Rome on a pilgrimage on May 23rd. I am clay in the potter’s hand; but I daresay in time I shall recover my independence and return to my natural and reposeful level.

Strong is already in Paris, having gone in his motor-car from Florence in 8 1⁄2 days, and says he is expecting me at the apartment, where he is much enjoying the electric heating which his daughter Margaret had installed there against his will: but probably I shall go to a hotel, as Margaret herself may turn up at any moment—another case of La donna è mobile, especially with an auto-mobile, if you will excuse an Italian pun. For Margaret has one of her own much better than her father’s.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To George Sturgis
C/o Brown Shipley & Co. 123 Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Venice. May 13, 1924

Dear George

Thank you for your letter of April 28 with its enclosures. I am answering Scofield Thayer’s inquiries. I hardly think my autobiography would be interesting, as there have been no events in my life and I have known few distinguished people. My novel will contain most of my observations on human nature, freed from personalities; and besides I am writing something which I call “Persons and Places” in which I mean to give some account, historically accurate but selective, of some scenes and characters that have remained in my memory. I tremble to think what nonsense Miss Munsterberg may be writing about me and my father and mother: and Thayer will not be much nearer the mark. Perhaps I will after all follow your suggestion in composing if not an autobiography, at least a chronology of my life, with a few notes about the leading facts, so as to correct the inventions that may see the light in the impertinent press. I foresee that when I die there will be a crop of stories, most of them sentimentally benevolent and reminiscent, and some a little spiteful, about my supposed life and character: and although all this will blow over in a few weeks, it may be as well that there should be an authoritative document to which anyone may appeal who may be really interested in the facts. If I write such a chronology I will send you a copy, because (as this incident shows) you too are not very well informed about this branch of our family history.

I came to Venice from Rome about a week ago, accompanied by two of the Chetwynd children, a boy of eighteen and a girl of sixteen. Their mother, formerly Augusta Robinson of New York, and sister of a great friend of mine, was detained in Rome by the illness of another child, and was glad to have me take charge of the two elder ones, so that they might not miss seeing Venice. It is rather a curious experience to stand in this way in loco parentis to two young persons, and I find it pleasant enough, especially as they look after me much more than I look after them: but I shall not be sorry when, in two or three days, I regain my usual bachelor solitude.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921–1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To David Page
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 12, 1946

I am waiting expectantly to see the first number of The New Satyricon. If my article and letter about Many Nations in One Empire appear in it, they may serve as a second counter surprise to my friends and enemies, who think it so odd—(is it Conversion?) that I should write about Christ in my dotage! They little suspect that I am deep in the works of Stalin, and much impressed. It is a pity they should be cruel. If they were home-staying and peaceful, like Quakers or Boers, they (the Bolsheviks) would be admirable: so clear, so strong, so undazzled by finery!

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.