Category: LETTERS Page 56 of 274

To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Cristallo
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. July 25, 1926

Dear Strong,

I have just finished “Sous le Soleil de Satan”. Is the author a young man? If so, I think he may do very good things. I like his ideas (when they are ideas) and his prejudices: the portrait of Anatole France at the end is excellent. So the other minor characters: even the Devil is plausible, if you fall back on mediaeval ways of conceiving him. But there is a lot of rant and confusion: I had some difficulty in following the thread of events or emotions in places, and felt like skipping, or dropping the book altogether. Neither the hero nor the heroine is intelligible. It looks as if the author himself didn’t know exactly what was up. That the world is given over to the devil and that there are shady sides and bitter dregs in every life is perfectly true: but we must distinguish the part which is inseparable from existence of any sort—from flux and finitude—in this evil, and the part that is remediable. No doubt a very exacting spirit might rebel against existence itself: but I don’t know what he could find to substitute for it. Certainly this book suggests nothing: it does not represent religion as offering any real refuge: even there all seems to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why so tense, little Sir?

The Drakes are gone after staying five days—I am writing an article about Platonism and “Spiritual religion” apropos of a book of Dean Inge’s on that subject. It is an interruption, but I have definitely dropped the reins on the neck of my weary old Pegasus, and am letting him amble as he will. I shouldn’t accomplish any thing better by applying the bit and spurs.

And you?

Yours ever, G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

To William Archer
5 Grove Street
Oxford, England. July 24, [1901]

Dear Sir,

You will not get my photograph from Pach—I am sorry you have taken the trouble to write to him. The many photographers I find in Oxford do not tempt me much more than he; but although I dislike the idea of having my face associated with my verses, I am writing to a friend in Paris, who has the photograph of a drawing made in ’96 by Andreas Andersen which I am asking him to send you. It is a clever drawing, and as it represents a past and somewhat fantastic aspect of my humble personality, I object to it less than to a glaring photo. Moreover, it corresponds exactly to the date of the later sonnets.

. . .

Thank you very much.

Yours faithfully,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The British Library of the British Museum, London.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. July 23, 1946

Dear Cory: This morning at eight o’clock I have walked to the local postoffice beyond the Lateran Gate, and brought home your blue pyjamas, coloured as if on purpose to match the virginal blue of the Blue Sisters. I have put on a pair, turning up about eight inches at the wrists and ancles. This can be easily corrected. Other wise the suit is delightful, smooth, and light (I have perferred it on this warm day to the white pyjamas that I was wearing and that I think have a stouter texture for winter).

By the way, I discovered that the white pyjama jackets, which I had not worn because they have no collars, do have long sleeves, so that they will do well, for sleeping, in winter under a worsted jacket. All together, I can now manage very well, and am much obliged for your care in looking after the matter under vexatious circumstances.

I suppose you will have sailed for England when this letter reaches New York, but I wished to acknowledge the receipt of the pyjamas in case this reached you before I have news of your arrival and address in England when I will write you a serious letter.

Yours affly, 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, New York NY.

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little
Rome. July 22, 1952.

Dear Rosamond,

Your 4 parcels of rice-cereals arrived today, just when my supply was about to fail. Thank you very much.

You will perceive by this short letter that something else is beginning to fail me, namely my eyes, and reading is even harder than writing, so that it will be hard for me to do anything but compose old-fashioned verses.

It had already been enthusiasm for a poem of Lorenzo de’ Medici that had overtaxed my eyesight in making alternative English version of it. At least I have something to balance my imprudence in 23 stanzas in octava rima, making a complete partly original work: my last! For everyone tells me, that I am almost dead. It is more than tolerable, in spite of the heat.

I must stop scrawling, although I have various other things that I should like to tell you.

Yours affectionately,
G Santayana

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

To Henry Ward Abbot
Hotel Miramonti
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. July 21, 1933

Dear Harry,

Your impatience is most flattering, and I am asking the English publisher of the Locke lecture to send you a copy. Scribner seems not to have brought out the American edition yet, I suppose waiting for good times to return. The English edition appeared in May.

As to the Spinoza paper, I am myself a trifle annoyed. Nijhoff, at The Hague, was to have issued the Septimana Spinozana (in which my paper appears) last November, then in January, then in the spring, and now in the autumn. I have not received any explanation, but probably the multitude of languages and of contributors have made a Babel of the editor’s mind, who was not well to begin with.

All this comes, not of my being mad à enfermer, but only weak enough to have accepted invitations to waste my sweetness in the lectureroom air, and surrender my MS to third parties. It won’t happen again.

It is most entertaining living in these times. This Roosevelt is more Caesarian than the spluttering Theodore; we are having Fascism under another name rising in France, in Germany, and in the U.S.! And the English Church—what a comedy that is too! I enjoy it immensely.

Yours sincerely, G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.