Category: LETTERS Page 56 of 274

To John W. Yolton
6, Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo
Rome. June 30, 1951

The organising and directive force in living bodies is biological, not mental: I call it the psyche, in the sense given to this word in Aristotle’s De Anima. When such a psyche reaches its full development, it generates a hypostatic light, sensation, emotion, or images, and the whole drift of passions and thoughts. To say that I separate mind from matter is therefore exquisitely contrary to the fact. Nor is it in any definite sense “happiness” that crowns this development: there is a sort of happiness in the fulfilment of any natural function; but usually there is much else at work as well in the psyche, and much sacrifice and renunciation is involved in any real moral peace. It may be society in general that is given up for a particular love, or vice versa; or it may be a general submission of everything definite in the routine of a busy life. I do not deny that for some psyches that last may be the least of evils; but I see no reason for thinking it the compulsory duty of everybody. And the desire to do good and improve the world is the active side of the natural tendency to establish an equilibrium between oneself and the world: it may serve you; you may serve it; perhaps both things can be realised at once, and then tutti contenti.

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

To Mary Potter Bush
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. June 29, 1946

Dear Mrs. Bush,

Another box of yours, despatched on May 4^th, has now arrived, with two tins of tea, two pairs of stockings, very welcome now that summer makes the thick kind uncomfortable, and four cakes of Castile soap. Thanks to you and to a few other friends I am now well provided with everything for a long while; and perhaps before long the market here will be better provided, and our begging season may come to an end. Thank you very much, especially for the feminine tact that makes you choose soap and stockings, besides the tea that I have pleaded for from the beginning. I am now assured of these things, as well as of coffee－which I got on without very easily, yet which when it presents itself certainly makes the morning more cheerful and the brain more active.

Have you heard of an unattached German writer, Rudolf Steiner, who has written a lot of theosophical books? A friend has sent me his Das Christenthum als Mystische Thatsache which I find strangely like my last book. He is almost clear.

Yours sincerely, G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, Cambridge MA.

To Guy Murchie
Chateau Frontenac.
Quebec, Canada. June 27, 1896

I can’t resist the impulse to write you a line from here, because I am thinking of you, wishing you were here, and wondering where in the world you are. If your father sold the mine in Newfoundland and you bought a farm in New Brunswick, why are you in Newfoundland and not chez toi, if, as they tell me now, you are in Newfoundland? I give it up: but of course it doesn’t matter if in some way you are finding what will ultimately satisfy you. Let me know soon what is up, for now when I pass the sad shores of Newfoundland I shall never know whether to gaze upon them with moist eyes and wave a metaphorical handkerchief in that direction, or whether the Mecca lies rather behind my back. You see, in spite of this then pursuit of vain knowledge, even the faithful need a little geography. We sail from here tomorrow, Sunday, morning. I like the place. The people are people. These are the long-sought peasants of America. I think it might be pleasant to live here: it would be like Europe, in the country.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Guy Murchie, Jr.

To Otto Kyllmann
Hotel Savoy
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. June 26, 1935

Dear Mr. Kyllmann,

I am not surprised at all that the people at the Thakeray Hotel might conceivably take umbrage at the passage you refer to: and I am not sure that the two King’s Arms inns, at Oxford and Sandford might not raise some objection—although if anything we are advertising them and rendering them more interesting.

It would be easy to drop the name Thackeray, and say something even more appropriate to Miss Letitia Lamb, such as Ruskin Hotel, or Pickwick Hotel, or (if these are perhaps real places in London) the Hotel Cimabue. But as I say in the Epilogue, I have a weakness for real names of places, and should like to keep the reference to the Thakeray Hotel if possible; but we might turn the passage into a compliment, that couldn’t but be taken in good part, if we said, “that inexpensive hotel for geniuses near Phidias and the British Museum? It might be crowded.”

What do you think?

Yours sincerely, G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia PA.