Category: LETTERS Page 7 of 274

To John Hall Wheelock
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. September 5, 1948.

The idea of writing imaginary social lectures on “Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie,” which ought to be in French but will at least have the title Of The Faux Pas of Philosophy, came to me long ago. It is not the “Errors” or “mistakes” that I mean, because that includes not only the whole of philosophy but all perception, history, religion, etc. [See Dialogue on Normal Madness] It is a normal illusion that the sky is blue and vaulted. That is not a faux pas, but a first step in science. But when modern philosophers say that astronomy is knowledge, but that there is only an idea that there are stars, I call that a faux pas, because it leads not to science and normal madness, but to being willfully wrong without necessity.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ

To Enrico Castelli
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. September 4, 1948

Dear Professor Castelli,

My best thanks for your “Fenomenologia della nostra Epoca” which I have read with exceptional interest and pleasure. I wish it were longer and, although the theme is evident throughout, more systematic in arrangement. I say this because I am afraid that the succinct and informal way of making your observations may lead some readers to take it more lightly than it deserves. And the public in England if not in the United States is now ready to be convinced that something has gone radically wrong at least since the Reformation or at least since the French Revolution. Toynbee, in his great “Study of History” says since the 13^th century.

Modern “idealism” or “psychologism” which reduces reality to appearance, and, in America, truth to opinion, removes all conception of external control or preformed standards: and the acceleration of actions without a purpose has turned subjective frivolity into a compulsory nightmare. Looking back to the 13^th or even to the 19^th century we feel that mankind has lost its way.

You say that it is impossible to turn back and recover the circumstances and sentiments of the past. Of course it is impossible in the concrete or pictorially: we can’t dress or fight or speak as in the 13^th century. But many of us can retain or recover the faith, supernatural and moral, that animated that age: although even the Church does not hope to convert the whole world: so that the best that can be aimed at in that special form is that a Catholic community should always survive, scattered or concentrated in particular places, until the day of Judgement. As to what may ensue then we may have different expectations. I think that a revelation of supernatural control and destiny is not necessary to secure a valid principle of order in morals and politics. This would be secured if scientifically we made out clearly two things: 1^st The real conditions of life on earth, and 2^nd, The real needs and potentialities of human nature in each man or group of men. The Greeks had a rational view of human existence. We, with more experience and modesty, might frame various social systems, realistic and humane, by which to live according to our variable natures.

The paper I hope to write for the translation of your book will not be on these lines, but expressly written for the American public.

Yours sincerely,
G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948-1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Enrico Castelli Gattinara di Zubiena

To Guy Murchie
NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB
WHITEHALL PLACE. S.W.
London. September 3, 1895

I have only a bad reason for writing tonight, which is the sonnet opposite . . . .

Brévent

O dweller in the valley, lift thine eyes
To where, above the drift of cloud, the stone
Endures in silence, and to God alone
Upturns its furrowed visage, and is wise.
There yet is being, far from all that dies,
And beauty, where no mortal maketh moan,
Where larger spirits swim the liquid zone,
And other spaces stretch to other skies.
Only a little way above the plain
Is snow eternal; round the mountains’ knees
Hovers the fury of the wind and rain.
Look up, and teach thy noble heart to cease
From endless labour. There is perfect peace
Only a little way above thy pain.

 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 Charles G. Spiegler
C/o Brown Shipley & Co 123
Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. September 2, 1939.

Dear Mr. Spiegler 1,

The sonnet about which you say “there has been rather heated discussion” was written fifty-five years ago, and I should hardly trust myself to say now exactly what interpretation, if any, might exactly correspond to what may have been in my mind when I wrote it. I say, if any, because at twenty the mind is susceptible to momentary lights, and my sonnet wasn’t written at one sitting. When I came to “the soul’s invincible surmise” I was probably thinking simply of Columbus; but when I came to “the light of faith,” I was probably thinking of the Catholic Church. And neither of these possible thoughts had much to do with the origin of the sonnet, which I can voutch for distinctly. In the Bacchae, of Euripides I had come upon
. . . words . . . I translated into the line: “It is not wisdom to be only wise”—or too knowing as one might say in prose. Nietzsche had not then been heard of, but the Bacchae is Dionysiac, and I was not blind to that romantic inspiration. The rest of the sonnet was built around that line, which became the second; but I daresay my interest was not exclusively literary; this was, I think, the first of my sonnets (among those published) and, though it seems to be the most popular, it is certainly one of the thinnest in rhythm and diction. But I was certainly in a state of emotional flux in regard to religion, not having yet reached the equilibrium which the twenty sonnets of the first series are meant to lead to. The process, however, took several years.

All this, however, seems to me of little moment. When once anything is given to the public, it belongs to the public, and they are at liberty to find in it what meanings they choose. Whether the author appreciated or not the possible suggestions of his words is a biographical question of no importance in the estimation of the extant work. He may have put into it unawares forgotten or potential perceptions, or even pure collocations of facts or ideas that only a later point of view could disclose to the mind of some other person.

If your interpretation is that my way of seeing and writing is intellectual, I think you are right; but it is intelligence about emotion—intelletto d’amore—so that your critics may be right too.

Yours very truly,
G Santayana

1. Charles G. Spiegler (b. 1911) failed in his initial attempt to obtain his license to teach English because he did not give the “correct” interpretation of Santayana’s Sonnet III, “O world, thou choosest not the better part!” (Complete Poems, 92), on the New York City Board of Examiners Test. Spiegler then asked Santayana for his interpretation. Spiegler became a New York City high school teacher and supervisor.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937-1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Mrs. Charles (Evelyn) Spiegler, Forest Hill NY

To George Sturgis
Glion-sur-Territet, Switzerland. September 1, 1929

You will have seen by my drafts that I have not moved from here all summer. It is not a place I like for itself, and it is not easy to take elderly walks without first making a journey to the water-level; but as you know, at first I came on Strong’s account, and then have stayed on in order to finish my book, and also because Cory, who had come to help me with it, liked the place, danced with the neurotic ladies, played tennis with the consumptive clergymen, and seemed to be enjoying himself. The book is now done, and Cory is leaving tomorrow with the MS. of the last chapters, which he will have type-written in Paris, so that we may make a final revision of the whole before it goes to the press. The book is called “The Realm of Matter”, and was frightfully difficult to write, as I fear it may be to read.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928–1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA