Category: LETTERS Page 50 of 274

To Susan Sturgis de Sastre
London. August 24, 1914

Dear Susie,

. . .

The Spanish papers, although of course they are belated, contain a more impartial view than the papers I see here, which even when they quote German reports, emphasize only what is obviously exaggerated or false in them, so as to make them seem absurd. The interview with a German officer of the general staff, for instance, in the ABC of the 15^th instant, is very illuminating. It shows how competent the Germans are, even when their vision is dense and their sentiment narrow. He gives out the exact plan which is being carried out, and I almost think he foresees what must be the result, at least of the campaign in Belgium. This sort of thing gives me more perspective, and helps me to prepare for the disappointments which are in store for us here—I say “us”, because it is impossible not to share the sentiment of people about one, when it is strong and steady and one has no contrary passion of one’s own. My natural sympathies are anti-German, but I can’t help admiring the sureness and the immense patient effort which characterizes their action. If they overpower “us”, I am not sure that the world will be ultimately the worse for it. I say this, I confess, partly to console myself for the news of the German victory—I don’t know yet how complete—which has been given out this afternoon. We are told that “Namur has fallen”—but we are not told if that is all, and I fear there is a lot more to tell. Perhaps the Avenue de l’Observatoire may be bombarded, and Strong be relieved of the trouble of deciding what to do with his furniture, and I with my books! It would be rather amusing, and as far as that is concerned, I shouldn’t weep over it. But how much anguish everywhere, and all for what? Yours affly, Jorge

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Alderman Library, University of Virginia at Charlottesville

To Mary Williams Winslow
C/o Brown Shipley & Co
123 Pall Mall, London
Paris. August 23, 1921

What a kind letter this is which I receive from you this morning! I always felt that you and Fred were the best friends I had during these later years in Boston, and there was no house where I was happier and felt more at home, so that all the kind things you say do not surprise me, although they bring a fresh pleasure, and I believe you mean them. It would be a treat to find myself once more in Clarendon Street, and to see the children in the present stage of their existence—because you and Fred, I know, would be just the same; but it is impossible to combine everything as one would wish, and with the years it becomes harder and harder for me to interrupt the routine into which I have fallen.

Robert, like others of the Sturgis tribe, was a very loyal, affectionate, candid soul; he loved whole-heartedly what he felt was good and what appealed to his feelings. Once won over, he spared no pains or trouble, and lived without stint in the life of others. But his misfortune throughout his life was that his perceptions were not equal to his feelings; he irritated people, and that was the reason why he had comparatively few friends, especially among men. I very well remember him as a boy—how pertinacious he was. We had pillow-fights—very unequal contests, as he was twelve and I was three: and as he had been forbidden by our mother—who had a very severe sense of justice—to take away any part of my supper without my consent, he used to put out his tongue and say that, if I liked, I might give him a bite of my omelette; and he did this so persistently, that I sometimes gave him a little—a very little—to get rid of him. He meant this as a lesson in generosity, to teach me to be unselfish; but I am afraid that I was a poor pupil, and that it was only he that learned to distribute his omelette in generous portions to everybody about him. During the last few years he and I have been on better terms than we had ever been on before. He said, after seeing me in 1913 in Paris, that my moral character was much improved; and I too came to appreciate better the value of his strong points, and to rely on his judgement in a way which, I dare say, conciliated him. He was a treasure in the way of taking all earthly cares off my back and that of our sisters, and we have to thank him not only for being relatively well off, but for the sense of being devotedly and untiringly looked after, where we were incompetent. I don’t know what will become of us now; but I rely on the momentum he has given to things, to carry them on more or less smoothly until our own end comes [….]

I have been working very hard all summer on the Soliloquies—which will be my next book—and which are now finished. This leaves the field comparatively clear for the magnum opus; but as I can never reduce myself to one project, I have taken up again an old one, which is to write a novel. It is to be entitled The Last Puritan, and to contain all I know about America, about woman, and about young men. As this last is rather my strong point, I have two heroes, the Puritan and another not too much the other way. To make up, I have no heroine, but a worldly grandmother, a mother—the quintessence of all New England virtues—and various fashionable, High Church, emancipated, European, and sentimental young ladies. I also have a German governess—in love with the hero—of whom I am very proud. I did a good deal on this novel last winter in Toledo, where I was absolutely alone for two months; but I reserve it for slack seasons, and am not at all sure that it will ever be finished, much less published. But if I ever have a respectable fragment in good shape, I will have it type-written and submit it to your private perusal. One of my friends—a widow—tells me she is sure I shall fail in the love scenes. I sha’n’t, because there won’t be any.

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 Charles Augustus Strong
UNIVERSITY CLUB
San Francisco. August 22, 1911

Possibly—would n’t this be amusing?—I might take an apartment of my own in Paris, and it might very well be a large one—a sort of studio in some remote place—where if you liked you might deposit your books, and come and stay when you passed through Paris, if you were living ordinarily somewhere else. But on the whole I think I should rather make Madrid or Avila my head-quarters, which doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t spend most of my time in other places. It is very desirable, I think, to have a fixed centre once for all, on which to fall back when the interest and stimulus of travel begin to fail. It would also be a needed place in which to do steady work, such as one feels like doing, without any interruptions, when the iron is hot. My plan (and habit) is to wander about and gather impressions somewhat idly most of the time, and then to settle down in solitude to intensive labour. As my health is steady, and I am not very much influenced by climates, it would be possible for me to have this “home” almost anywhere, provided I could shut myself up and live, for the time, absolutely regularly, with a daily routine, and no “engagements”.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

To John Galen Howard
Roxbury, Massachusetts. Aug. 21, 1882

My dear Howard,

I address myself to you again, not because there is anything which I can impart in the way of interesting information, but partly in order to thank you for your very kind letter which I received some time ago, and partly to ask you to let me know what are your plans, so that if you return to Boston I may have the pleasure of seeing you. It appears from repeated consultation of the calendar that the summer is coming to an end, to say nothing of the chilly weather which has come to enforce the fact through the evidence of the senses. Hence it occurs to me that you may soon be returning to town.

I suppose you have been the happy recipient of a letter from Mr. Merrill similar to the one I have received from him. I doubt, however, that he has put into yours the amount of gush and eloquence and unction he has lavished on mine. At least I hope he has not had the impudence of addressing all the fellows by their first names, as he has done me. If he supposed I would be flattered by being treated with intimacy by him, he was greatly mistaken. If I did not deem it unwise to forfeit anyone’s good opinion merely for the pleasure of speaking out one’s mind plainly, I should have answered him and addressed him as “my dear Moses.”

I have kept busy this summer principally by reading. I have nearly concluded Dante’s Inferno. I thought to have read the whole Comedia this summer, but I find it takes quite long to read a page with my imperfect knowledge of Italian. First I read four or five lines in the original, then the same in a translation, and then reread the Italian to see that I take in the force of each word. Thus I proceed slowly till I get to the end of the Canto when I once more reread the whole. I find it for more beautiful even than I imagined. I have translated some parts for myself in verse like the original in structure, but like all translations it is very unlike the original in effect.

Hoping to hear from you, and also to see you before long, I remain

Sincerely yours,

George Santayana.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley

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