Category: LETTERS Page 52 of 274

To José Sastre González
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. August 13, 1943

Querido Pepe,

Hoy, dia del segundo bombardeo de Roma, recibo tu carta del 25 de Julio. Comprendo que penseis en “los malos ratos” que habré yo pasado aqui, pero no, yo sigo sin novedad y tranquilo, sin cambiar en nada la rutina del dia. Hay que darse cuenta de que vivo en un convento que es a la vez hospital. Todo está en regla, y si ocurriera alguna desgracia en esta casa, no podia el auxilio estar mas a mano. Este barrio no es ni céntrico ni industrial, en gran parte compuesto de jardines, al mediodía del Coliseo y del Laterano. Si cayera alguna bomba por aquí seria por casualidad, y yo confio en que saldremos ilesos de la guerra.

Naturalmente, el ánimo sufre de oir hablar de tantos horrores, pero a mis años, conociendo que soy inútil, yo me consuelo con mis libros y mi filosofía, como si se tratase de la historia antigua. Además, todo lo que ahora ocurre en el mundo es impresionante. Muchas veces recuerdo las ideas de mi padre, y me figuro lo que él hubiera dicho de todo esto.

No hay que pensar en viajes. Eso me agitaría mucho mas que el ruido de las bombas, o de la artillería contra-aerea, que es la que mas hiere los oidos.

De salud, bien, y con esperanzas de llegar a ver como ternina esta tragedia.

A ti y a toda la familia un apretado abrazo de tu tio,

Jorge

Translation:

Dear Pepe,

Today, on the day of the second bombing of Rome, I have received your letter of July 25. I understand why you think about “the difficult moments” that I must have had here, but I have nothing new to report and am calm, without changing in any way my daily routine. You must realize that I live in a convent which is at the same time a hospital. Everything is in order, and if any misfortune should strike this house, help could not be closer. This area of the city is neither downtown nor full of industry; it is made up in large part of gardens to the south of the Colosseum and the Lateran. If a bomb should fall here it would be by chance and I do believe that we will come out of the war unharmed.

Naturally the mind suffers when it hears talk of so many horrors, but at my age, knowing that I am useless, I find solace in my books and my philosophy, as though it were a matter of ancient history. Besides, everything that is happening in the world is out of the ordinary. I often remember my father’s ideas and imagine what he would have said about all of this.

You mustn’t think about trips. That would upset me much more than the noise of the bombs, or of the anti-aircraft artillery, which is the one that hurts the ears most.

As far as health goes, I am well and I have hopes of living long enough to see how this tragedy ends.

For you and the whole family a strong embrace from your uncle,

Jorge

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Sra. Eduardo Sastre Martín, Madrid, Spain.

To George Jean Nathan
Paris. August 12, 1923

The title “The Smart Set” suggests a world where I don’t belong: but if you will send me a number, and if I have any thing on hand that would seem suitable to such a superior environment, I should be glad to let you have it.

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Cornell University Library, Ithaca NY (Postcard).

To Horace Meyer Kallen
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123 Pall Mall
London. August 11. 1915

Dear Kallen,

Your address on Nationality, for which I am much obliged, seems to put its finger on the right spot. Nationality seems to be behind the restlessness, ambition, and obduracy that brought the war about, behind the endurance and zeal of the combatants, and also before their eyes (in every camp) in so far as they see anything at all before them to aim at. But in a popular address you naturally couldn’t broach the questions that arise in the analytic mind on such a subject. If ninetenths of a man’s individuality are his nationality, nationality must cover a good deal that is common to all men, and much that is common to very few. And I hardly see how nationality, in this moral and inward sense, is to find political expression. Such national movements as the Italian, Balkan, or Irish are movements to establish what you call nationhood; so is Zionism, I suppose. Yet you hardly look to seeing the various nationalities in the U.S. establish special governments; I am not sure (I am so ignorant) whether the Pale is a district so preponderantly Jewish that a Jewish local government could be hoped for there. In these cases Nationality would have to be a voluntary and hazy thing: the degree to which anyone possessed it, the intensity and scope of his nationalism would be impossible to fix. And surely there is an American nationality as definite and potent as any other, and on the same plane as the Irish, German, Jewish, etc. Every hyphenated American will therefore have two nationalities: and I don’t understand exactly what you think should be the relation between them. In other words, aren’t you hesitating between the idea of a universal government with all nationalities free under it, and the idea of one nationality one government? It is the difficulty of realizing either of these ideals that seems to me to make nationality a problem rather than a solution.

There is no change in my life since I last described it to you.

Yours sincerely, G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910-1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York NY.

To Matthew Hoehn
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. August 10, 1939

Dear Father Hoehn,

I was christened in the Church and profess no other religion, so that from the point of view of the census-taker I am unmistakably a Catholic. My Protestant and Jewish critics also discover a good deal of Catholicism in my writings; but I have never been a practising Catholic, and my views in philosophy and history are incompatible with belief in any revelation. It would therefore be wholly misleading to classify me among “Catholic Authors”.

This is a sufficient answer to your inquiry, for the purpose of your book of biographies, in which I ought not to be included. Yet I may add, in case you are at all interested in my real relation to the Faith, that a well-grounded Catholic student might find my philosophy useful (like that of some of the ancients) in defending the moral, political and mystical doctrines of the Church. I think that all religious ideas are merely symbolical; but I think the same of the ideas of science and even of the senses: so that the way is cleared for faith, in deciding which set of symbols one will trust.

Sincerely yours,
G Santayana

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