Category: LETTERS Page 61 of 274

To Ottoline Cavendish–Bentick Morrell
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123 Pall Mall, S.W.1
Rome. March 24, 1928

You mustn’t think that my affection for England has in the least cooled: only it has become retrospective, I like to think of what it used to be, and the present and future seem to offer nothing there that can tempt me.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928–1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin TX.

To Paul Arthur Schilpp
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. March 23, 1950

My impression of Jaspers’ philosophy has been favourable, and I admire his sincerity and thoroughness; but all the present movements—Logical Positivism and Existentialism—and even Jaspers, seem to me rather attempts to seize some floating spar from the wreck than to build a fresh habitable log cabin on terra firma. Am I wrong?

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale IL.

To Charles Augustus Strong
Rome. March 22, 1925

I am at this moment struggling with Dewey’s “Experience and Nature” which I am to review for the Whited Sepulchre—a formidable task; but I don’t regret having undertaken it, because it seems that, after intense application and infinite patience in suspending judgement on opinions evidently absurd in form—according to my understanding of words—a certain order and naturalness begin to appear in his theory, which has many elements in it which I like extremely.

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 Mary Potter Bush
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. March 21, 1945

Memory has always been like the radio, it equalizes all distances.

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 Susan Sturgis de Sastre
Serrano 7
Madrid. March 20, 1912

My impressions of Madrid, so far, are somewhat mixed. The town is smaller and most of it meaner than I expected; on the other hand there are some very pretty vistas, and there will soon be more. Contrary to what usually happens, the newest things here are the best.

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 VA.