The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 1948-1952: The Works of George Santayana, Volume V, Book Eight (George Santayana: Definitive Works) (Bk. 8)

The Works of George Santayana Volume V, Book Eight Marianne S. Wokeck, Editor William G. Holzberger, Textual Editor Kristine W. Frost, Associate Editor Johanna E. Resler, Assistant Editor David E. Spiech, Editorial Assistant Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., Founding and Consulting Editor

To the memory of Daniel and Margot Cory

Santayana, Little Company of Mary, Rome, Fall 1951 Courtesy of Father Richard Butler

The Letters of George Santayana Book Eight, 1948—1952

Edited and with an Introduction by William G. Holzberger

The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

This publication has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency which supports the study of such fields as history, philosophy, literature, and languages. A grant provided in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Kendall Berry of Blytheville, Arkansas, has provided significant support for the publication of the letters; in conjunction, additional funding comes from John and Shirley Lachs. The endpapers are facsimiles of a letter from Santayana to Robert Lowell dated 23 October 1950. Publication is by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

A selected edition of The Letters of George Santayana was published by Scribner’s in 1955. Other letters written by Santayana have been published previously in books and periodicals. All information concerning previous publications is included in the textual notes. © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Introduction,” William G. Holzberger. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopy, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Santayana, George, 1863–1952. [Correspondence] The letters of George Santayana / G. Santayana; edited and with an introduction by William G. Holzberger,—Santayana ed. p. cm.—(The works of George Santayana; v.5) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-262-19571-3 (bk.8:hc:alk.paper) 1. Santayana, George, 1863–1952—Correspondence. 2. Philosophers—United States— Correspondence. I. Holzberger, William G. II. Title. B945.S2 1986 vol. 5 [B945.S24 A4] 191—dc21

00—048978

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48 1984. ∞ ™



The Santayana Edition Marianne S. Wokeck Kristine W. Frost Johanna E. Resler William G. Holzberger Martin A. Coleman Paul J. Nagy David E. Spiech Christine Sego Caldwell Stephen Jones

Director and Editor Assistant Director and Associate Editor Assistant Editor Textual Editor Consulting Editor Consulting Editor Editorial Assistant Graduate Assistant Graduate Assistant Editorial Board

Willard Arnett Hugh J. Dawson Morris Grossman Angus Kerr-Lawson John Lachs Richard C. Lyon

Douglas M. MacDonald John M. Michelsen Andrew J. Reck Beth J. Singer T. L. S. Sprigge Henny Wenkart

Consultants Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. Jo Ann Boydston Irving Singer Robert S. Sturgis

The Works of George Santayana I Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography, 1986 II The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Æsthetic Theory, 1988 III Interpretations of Poetry and Religion, 1990 IV The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel, 1994 V The Letters of George Santayana, Book One, 2001 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Two, 2002 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Three, 2002 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Four, 2003 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Five, 2003 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Six, 2004 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Seven, 2006 The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 2008

Contents Book Eight, 1948–1952 Preface Acknowledgments Introduction by William G. Holzberger List of Letters

xi xxxi xlv lxxi

LETTERS

3

EDITORIAL APPENDIX Textual Commentary Short-Title List Textual Notes Report of Line-End Hyphenation Chronology Addresses Manuscript Locations List of Recipients List of Unlocated Letters

465 481 485 555 557 575 589 593 597

INDEX

603

Preface Book Eight, 1948–1952 The letters of Book Eight are from the final, almost five, years of Santayana’s life, from age eighty-four to his death on 26 September 1952, some three months shy of his eighty-ninth birthday. He is an old man during this final period, but—despite several debilitating infirmities—he continues to be remarkably vigorous and productive, virtually to the very end. He manages to finish the Herculean task of completing the writing, rewriting, and organization of the three principal components of his final new book, Dominations and Powers. Though that work was at last published in 1950, it was composed over more than half a century. He also completes composition of the third and final part of his autobiography, Persons and Places, published posthumously in 1953 as “My Host the World.” Another project, accomplished in the last year of his life, was the revision of his early five-volume masterwork, The Life of Reason (1905–6), to a single volume. He was assisted in this revision by his long-time friend and secretary, Daniel Cory. Toward the end of that labor of revision, Santayana’s eyesight gave out significantly; he could hardly see to read or write, and was obliged to let Cory complete the abridgement project. The condensed and revised one-volume Life of Reason was published in 1954 by Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London. In 1948, life in Rome was still difficult; there continued to be shortages, but it was slowly returning to a more normal pre-war condition. By January of that year, Santayana and the other occupants of the Blue Sisters’ hospital and nursing home, where Santayana had been living since 1941, were once again enjoying central heating and hot baths. They paid an additional three hundred lire a day for these luxuries. Santayana’s accommodation at the nursing home cost him two thousand lire per day, or about three dollars and fifty cents. At this time, Santayana received a handwritten letter (all in roman capitals) from Robert Lowell. The self-descriptive letter was accompanied by two of Lowell’s new and unpublished poems. In Santayana’s response of 28 January, we see that he is much

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impressed by Lowell. He addresses him simply as “Dear Lowell” and says that he can think of him “only as a friend and not merely as a celebrity.” Santayana’s principal literary project of this period was Dominations and Powers. As yet, however, he was not interested in completing work on this big book on politics. There were two reasons for this: first, he counted on this book to provide him with meaningful work for the rest of his life; and, secondly, he believed that it would be easier for Daniel Cory to obtain the copyright for the book—and the royalties on it—if published posthumously. In an interesting letter of this time (February 1948), Santayana writes to Thomas N. Munson, a Roman Catholic priest who was writing a book on him, criticizing Munson’s interpretation and criticism of his views. In his letter to Munson of 12 February 1948, Santayana gives a long and quasichronological account of the origins and development of the fundamental elements of his philosophy. Yet another project of this time consisted of the three new “Dialogues in Limbo” that Santayana completed and which appeared in the March, April, and May issues of the Atlantic Monthly for 1948. Cory placed these additional “Dialogues” in the periodical, and—in accord with Santayana’s continued wish to assist him financially—received payment for them. Meanwhile, Ira D. Cardiff, a long-time admirer of Santayana, continued his selection of excerpts from Santayana’s various writings for publication in a book of short selections to be entitled Atoms of Thought. When Cardiff sends Santayana a sample selection of excerpts, Santayana is essentially pleased by the idea of such a book drawn from his writings, but he is disturbed by observing that many of the excerpts are “anti-traditional and anti-clerical” (letter to Cardiff of 12 April 1948). As Santayana’s friendship with the young Daniel Cory had begun in 1927 with a letter from Cory, and his friendship with Robert Lowell only recently had begun the same way, so too does another pleasant friendship begin in the spring of 1948 when Santayana receives a letter from a young Texan. Richard Colton Lyon was then twenty-one years old and living and working in England (as Cory had been living in England when he first wrote to Santayana). Santayana replies, inviting Lyon to visit him in Rome. But fearing that the young man might be disappointed with him because of his great age and infirmities, he stipulates that Lyon should come to Rome only if he wishes primarily to visit the ancient city and only incidentally to visit himself. One result of this initial communication was the friendship and continuing correspondence that ensued between the very young man and the very old one. Another result was the continued inter-

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est that Lyon found in Santayana’s work that years later eventuated in his collection of Santayana’s writings about America—Santayana on America: Essays, Notes, and Letters on American Life, Literature, and Philosophy (1968). Other significant events of the spring of 1948 include the publication in May of what Santayana regarded as a good French translation of his novel, The Last Puritan, and also a translation into Italian of his The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, by Professor Augusto Guzzo. The Italian translation so delighted Santayana that he pronounced it an improvement on the original (letter to Guzzo of 26 May 1948). The previous autumn, after a six-week visit to Santayana in Rome, Cory had returned to England at the end of October 1947. It is interesting that the next exchange of letters between them apparently does not occur until toward the end of July 1948, some nine months later. Upon resuming their correspondence, Santayana reports that he is somewhat “distracted” by his persistent cough and by the constant threat of a communist revolution in Italy and Europe generally. He warns Cory against planning another autumn visit to Rome in the present year, believing the current political climate to be too unstable. He believed that the Russians did not want war, but rather to “absorb the rest of continental Europe by underhand saturation and opportune advances” (letter to Cory of 31 July 1948). In another letter to Cory of 13 August, he says that he continues to work on Dominations and Powers, but that he is sometimes deflected from that work to write something on the subject of “Les Faux Pas de la Philosophic,” a work that he evidently wished to write in French. In September 1948, Scribner’s brought out a new edition of Santayana’s favorite among his works, Dialogues in Limbo, with the addition of the three new dialogues. During this period, Santayana continued to try to help Daniel Cory financially by sending him chapters from Dominations and Powers for publication in periodicals. Cory also arranged for the first chapter and the Epilogue of My Host the World to be published in December 1948 and January 1949 respectively in the Atlantic Monthly. Santayana also makes a point of showing his appreciation for the solicitous attentions of his niece, Rosamond Thomas Sturgis, who continued to send him boxes of necessaries, including articles of clothing and foodstuffs. He arranged for John Hall Wheelock, his editor at Scribner’s, to send Rosamond five hundred dollars at Christmas for several years and also a cash gift upon the occasion of her marriage to David M. Little in May 1949. The cash Christmas gifts were drawn against Santayana’s Scribner’s royalties, but the wedding

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present came from his Boston trust fund. He refers to Rosamond as his “best friend in the family” (letter to Rosamond of 13 November 1949). Feeling badly that Rosamond did not specifically figure in his will (which divided his fortune between his niece Josephine Bidwell and Rosamond’s three sons by her first husband, Santayana’s nephew, George Sturgis), he attempts by means of these cash gifts to express both his affection for her and appreciation of her thoughtfulness. In November 1948, almost two years before Santayana actually met Robert Lowell, he was visited in Rome by close friends of Lowell’s, Robert S. Fitzgerald and his wife. Fitzgerald, a Harvard graduate, was a poet and translator. In later years, beginning in 1964, he taught English at Harvard and later still was recognized for his poetic translations into English of both the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and the Aeneid of Virgil. In Santayana’s letter to Lowell of 14 January 1949, he expresses his appreciation for the confidence and affection that Lowell has expressed in his letters to him and his admiration for Lowell’s gifts as a poet. He invites Lowell to spend a month with him in Rome, offering to pay his round-trip travel expense from America, as well as for his hotel accommodations. He explains that he had mistakenly imagined that Lowell was at the American embassy in Istanbul. Some months later, however, Santayana learns through Robert Fitzgerald that Lowell, involved in a bitter controversy at Yaddo, the creative artists’ sanctuary in Saratoga Springs, New York, had suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized in Massachusetts. In his letter to Lowell of 5 June 1949, Santayana commiserates with him and assures him of his support. Among the letters that Santayana writes during this period to the other young man that he also invites to visit him in Rome, Richard Lyon, are several that are particularly interesting in terms of the way they embody Santayana’s analysis of certain significant philosophical concepts. At this time, Lyon was a keen student of philosophy. This doubtless was a basis for his interest in Santayana, and technical philosophy figures prominently in some of their correspondence. For instance, in the letter to Lyon of 7 November 1948, we find an elaborate discussion of solipsism and the difference between the transcendent and the transcendental (or what Santayana calls the “ciscendental”). The letter of 1 March 1949 contains an intensive discussion of Plato, Descartes, and Berkeley on the subject of consciousness and perception. It also includes an incisive statement of Santayana’s own theory of perception and discussion of his conception of the terms spirit, essence, and existence. In the letter to Lyon of 11 July

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1949, Santayana criticizes the preoccupation of the French Existentialists with the notion of “Angst,” stating (perhaps somewhat simplistically) that there is nothing unnatural about existence and nothing to be anxious about. But he advises Lyon to read the great French philosophers, like Descartes, not so much for their philosophical penetration, but because “they know how to see and judge the world.” A less technically philosophical letter (except for the discussion of essence that it contains), but a remarkably interesting one, is that to Lyon of 8 November 1949. There Santayana discusses love, marriage, and friendship. In contrast to Plato’s concept of love as “divine madness,” Santayana poses marriage as an embodiment of the “sane affections of one human being to another.” He says that the only advantage of friendship over marriage is the greater freedom that friendship affords. Friendship, he writes, is therefore more ideal and less subject to trouble. Despite his fears that the task of completing work on Dominations and Powers would be too much for him at his advanced age—eighty-five in 1949—he nevertheless hoped to finish the book during the summer of that year. By early August, he was working hard at this task and, as he declares in his letters, was generally enjoying life. Though both his hearing and eyesight were diminishing, he nevertheless read the morning and evening editions of the Italian newspapers, following the political events of the world. He continued to have numerous visitors, and he enjoyed the five small meals each day that the Sisters served him in his room. He received complimentary copies of Der Monat, a German-language review published by the United States Army. He enjoyed the articles by German and Swiss writers, and also those translated into German from French or English. Engaged in all these activities, his days, he says, were not in the least dull (letter to Raymond B. Bidwell of 8 August 1949). Cory had been in Rome during the previous spring, and Santayana wished that he would return again to help him with his final revision of Dominations and Powers, for he was having increasing difficulty working on the book alone. His chief problem was in trying to remember what he had written in the previous chapters. In revising his writing, he found that he had to reread each entire chapter in order to decide what should be retained, moved to another chapter, or deleted. But Cory, now back in England, had developed a duodenal ulcer and had for two weeks been confined to his bed. Neither he nor Cory, Santayana thought, working alone, could manage the task of revision successfully; but working together, he believed that it could be accomplished. About this time,

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Santayana gave up trying to use the fountain pen that the Sisters had purchased for him. He had difficulty filling it without spilling a good deal of ink; the ink would not flow properly; and the too-fine point made it difficult for him to read what he had written. He reverted to his habitual wooden holder and steel nib method of writing. In mid-August of 1949, he completed his translation into English of a longish fragment from the Roman poet Tibullus, which was subsequently published in a new periodical entitled Nine. In a letter to the literary critic William Bysshe Stein, of 1 September 1949, Santayana attempts to explain his point of view regarding the controversial topic of moral relativism vs. moral absolutism. The individual psyche, he says, must dictate what for it is good or bad. No single moral prescription fits everyone. However, the individual must know himself well enough to know what for him is truly good or bad, and this knowledge is not easily attained. Here Santayana is reflecting the emphasis on self-knowledge that Socrates regarded as essential to wise living. The Socratic imperative gnothi saunton (know thyself!) is also for Santayana the foundation of wisdom and the guide to right behavior. In this letter to Stein, he also tries to reconcile moral relativity with the necessity of order in society. Reflecting his concern regarding the imposition of a democratic political ideology upon the rest of the world by the United States emerging victorious and powerful from the war, he says that he assigns no “absolute authority to any particular form of morals or government.” In a letter to humanist Corliss Lamont of 6 January 1950, Santayana writes: “Democracy is very well when it is natural, not forced. But the natural virtue of each age, place, and person is what a good democrary [sic] would secure—not uniformity.” By mid-September 1949, Santayana was disappointed not to have heard from Robert Lowell for some time. He was also irritated by Ira D. Cardiff’s introduction to Atoms of Thought, the volume of excerpts from Santayana’s writings that Cardiff edited. In a letter to Cardiff of 16 October, Santayana criticizes the introduction as too fulsome in its praise of him. He objects to being called a “benefactor” of the world. He also makes an important statement in this letter regarding his “American-ness”: although he has always traveled with a Spanish passport and was never legally an American, he says that “socially and as a writer, I am an American in practice, and almost all my friends have been Americans.” A positive thing that happens at this time, lifting Santayana’s spirits, is the freeing up of his London bank account. After ten years of inaccessibility, he is delighted to be able, once

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again, to write checks on the account, enabling him to aid Cory directly and to order books from Blackwell’s in Oxford. By the end of October 1949, Santayana had almost finished his review and revision of the entire manuscript of Dominations and Powers. By November, Cory was in Rome and working with him on the final rereading and polishing of the text. In a letter to Rosamond of 13 November 1949, Santayana writes that Cory “for the first time in his life is proving really useful, as well as stimulating.” He says that because of his duodenal ulcer, Cory is off both nicotine and alcohol and is now “clearheaded and ready to work.” Staying at a hotel at the other end of town, Cory came three afternoons each week to have tea with Santayana. Separately, they each read through a typewritten copy of the book, and afterward compared notes on passages that each had marked as possible candidates for revision. Later, Miss Tindall would make typewritten copies of the revised pages of the manuscript. Santayana would keep the revised typescript from which Miss Tindall did the retyping. One copy of the newly revised typescript would be kept by Cory and the other by Scribner’s editor John Hall Wheelock in New York. Late in December 1949, Santayana was delighted once again to hear from Robert Lowell: “No Xmas present could have been more welcome or New Year’s wishes more inspiriting than your letter” (letter to Lowell of 29 December 1949). He tells Lowell that because of trouble with his eyes (cataract formation in one and astigmatism in the other) he never goes out any longer unless really necessary. His poor vision, he says, is not sufficient to trust himself in the crowded streets or the dark shops of Rome. However, in a strong light, he observes, he can still read (but with a magnifying glass) and write with pleasure. He reports receiving some unintelligible letters from Ezra Pound that he has not answered. Lowell has recently been married to the novelist Elizabeth Hardwick, and Santayana asks him to recommend for his reading a novel by his bride. He then writes to John Hall Wheelock asking that a cash wedding gift of five hundred dollars be sent in his name to Lowell. During 1950 a number of significant events occurred to Santayana. Two artists did portraits of him. In February, an American, Harry Wood, painted an oil portrait of Santayana dressed in pajamas and dressing gown and seated in a lounge chair in his room at the Blue Sisters’ nursing home. That painting hangs today in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. At the very end of the year, Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov did a remarkable series of pencil drawings of

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Santayana in the same setting. Santayana was better pleased with the Lipinsky drawings than by the Wood oil, but his favorite likeness of himself always remained the charcoal sketch done by firelight in his room in the Harvard Yard in 1896 by his friend Andreas Andersen. Another significant event of 1950 was the publication of La Pensée de George Santayana: Santayana en Amérique, a study of Santayana and his writings by a young French scholar named Jacques Duron. The author had consulted with Santayana during the composition of the book and Santayana was pleased that Duron, for years a teacher in a Lycée in Metz, had persevered with the writing and found a publisher for his work. Ira E. Cardiff’s book of excerpts from Santayana, Atoms of Thought, also appeared in 1950. Santayana was less pleased with the Cardiff volume, feeling that the editor had rather willfully chosen from the “left” of his oeuvre, emphasizing his anticlericalism and agnosticism. He accused Cardiff of identifying him with Tom Paine rather than Thomas Aquinas. He resented being represented as opposed to religion when he was really “politically on its side” (letter to Cardiff of 1 September 1950). The outbreak of the Korean War, on 25 June 1950, with the invasion of South Korea by troops of the communist regime in North Korea, was an alarming event. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, fell to the invaders on 26 June. On 30 June, President Harry S. Truman ordered American troops into Korea to defend the South. Santayana, continually worried about a communist uprising in Europe, was concerned that the same thing could happen in Germany where the East German communists, armed and trained by the Russians, might invade West Germany. Of course, Italy, too, remained a candidate for a communist revolution. The summer of 1950 in Rome was oppressively hot, and there was no air conditioning in the nursing home of the Blue Sisters. During this hot summer, Santayana was visited twice by Corliss Lamont, the humanist philosopher from New York City. Santayana, always critical of the egotism of any doctrine that gave man too central or privileged a place in the universe, that claimed that the world was governed by human interests, could not subscribe to Lamont’s humanist doctrine. But he found that Lamont shared his own fundamental philosophical naturalism, and that was a bond between them. Some months later, he wrote Lamont a very interesting letter defending his own sympathy for fascist governments and for Mussolini’s Italian fascism in particular. He recognized, however, that Mussolini was “a bad man” and that his militant foreign policy was

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“ruinous in its artificiality and folly” (letter to Lamont of 8 December 1950). By the end of July 1950, Santayana finished his review and revision of the third and final section of Dominations and Powers, thus completing his review of the entire work. It only remained for Cory to complete his separate review of Book Three, and Cory was planning to come to Rome in the autumn. Santayana was enormously relieved to have finished this huge task which he feared he might not live to complete. The task of finishing Dominations and Powers, he says, “was really more than I was fit to undertake at my age” (letter to Rosamond of 16 October 1950). Though he was now free to relax and spend his time reading his Italian newspapers and other periodicals, he nevertheless began contemplating composing four articles on the historic attempts to fuse the civilizations of East and West. These attempts at racial and cultural fusion included the efforts of Alexander the Great, the Christian Church, the Byzantine Empire, and the Moors in Spain. Evidently, these four articles were never completed or published. He did, however, at this time write an article entitled “The Wind and the Spirit” for inclusion in a book edited by Sir James Marchant entitled What I Believe, published in London in 1953, and a literary-critical essay on “Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote,” which appeared posthumously in the winter 1952 issue of the Mark Twain Quarterly. Early in October 1950, Santayana was expecting both Cory and Lowell to arrive in Rome about the middle of the month. While awaiting the arrival of these two men, he heard by mail from a third. “Bruno Lind” was the pseudonym of Robert C. Hahnel, a Harvard-educated Texas writer who was planning a biographical-critical study of Santayana to be called “Bohemian of the Infinite.” By way of preparation for writing this book, Lind planned to visit and interview Santayana in Rome, and, as a way of introducing himself, sent a verbal sketch of Santayana and his philosophy that Santayana found “astonishingly penetrating.” In their exchange of letters at this time, Santayana tells Lind that he will not provide information on the “crises or conflicts in my inner life,” but he refers Lind to the first two volumes of his autobiography, Persons and Places, and says that when Lind comes to Rome he will let him read the typescript of the third volume that must await posthumous publication. As to Lind’s request that Santayana read from his sonnets into Lind’s wire recorder, Santayana writes that he will never lend himself to “manufacturing mementoes” (letter to Lind of 25 November 1950). Though Lind’s ambitious study of Santayana as “Bohemian” was apparently never completed or published,

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he did produce a valuable book in 1962 called Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana, in which he records his conversations with Santayana in Rome. By mid-November 1950, Cory, who had been in Rome since midOctober, had finished his review of the third and final Book of Dominations and Powers, and he and Santayana were both reading through Scribner’s first galley proofs of the work. In December, Santayana finally received his long-wished-for visit from Robert Lowell, who brought with him his current wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. He had prepared for this meeting with Lowell by reading the new edition of Lowell’s poems of 1938–49. Now, he read in manuscript Lowell’s new long poem, “The Mills of the Kavanaughs,” which was published the following year (1951). Santayana had difficulty understanding this work. He missed “the clear plot and distinct characters” of a Racine play (letter to Lowell of 25 December 1950). But he appreciated Lowell’s distinct gifts, comparing him to one of his favorites, Arthur Rimbaud, and saying that there are “dark and troubled depths in them both, with the same gift for lurid and mysterious images” (letter to Wheelock of 30 January 1951). As the summer of 1950 in Rome had been oppressively hot, the following winter was cold, dark, and rainy. Santayana found this winter weather depressing and bad for his chronic cough. Now eighty-seven, his physical condition and general health were deteriorating. On the final day of 1950, he wrote to his old friend in Spain, Mercedes Escalera, that his eyesight and hearing were poor, that he was losing his teeth, and that he was periodically shaken by a persistent cough. “All this,” he says, “has little importance for me in view of the spectacle which the intellectual and political world is now offering. It looks like a madhouse.” A few months later, Dr. Luigi Sabbatucci, Santayana’s physician at the Blue Sisters’ nursing home, counseled him not to receive further visitors, at least not if they were strangers, as it took too much out of him. Scribner’s published Dominations and Powers in the spring of 1951. Santayana was rather disappointed in the reviews, including ones by Sidney Hook and Joseph Wood Krutch, finding them inadequate treatments of the book. What appear to be the first indications of the stomach cancer that would kill him some sixteen months later are described by Santayana in his letter to Daniel Cory of 29 May 1951: “I am not well. At night I sleep little, and consequently doze a good deal during the day. Food is unpalatable, and I grow flabby on milk and biscuits.” By July, Santayana felt somewhat better, writing Cory on 5 July that he was “well and happy in the warm

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weather.” But during the second week of August, Santayana suffered a “positive seizure” (letter to Cory of 21 August 1951) in regard to his digestion. Dr. Sabbatucci diagnosed the condition as “catarro gastrico.” Santayana could now eat only very little food of any kind and was too ill to receive any but a few select visitors. He had to excuse himself for not being able to see again the artist, Lino Lipinsky, who, together with his wife, wished to pay him another visit. It is quite likely that at this point, about a year before Santayana’s death, Dr. Sabbatucci knew that his old patient had stomach cancer. Daniel Cory says (in Santayana: The Later Years: A Portrait with Letters, p. 322) that the doctor told him, shortly before Santayana’s death, that he did not want to tell Santayana that he was fatally ill and instead described his condition as “gastric catarrh.” Thus, throughout his final year of life, Santayana’s diet evidently consisted of milk, tea, the occasional raw egg, biscuits and dry breakfast cereals. The biscuits (i.e., cookies) included shortbread sent him by Mother Ambrose (formerly head of the Blue Sisters’ hospital in Rome) from Limerick, Ireland, where she was now stationed. The dry cereals were sent to him from America by his niece, Rosamond Little. This sickness and bodily weakness, together with the weakening of his memory and the general deterioration of his intellectual powers due to old age, forced Santayana to give up the project to compose the work that he had been contemplating writing in French, “Les Faux pas de la philosophic.” His plan for this perhaps book-length treatise on the “false steps” of philosophy was to trace what he considered crucially wrongheaded philosophical developments back to their origins in Socrates, Plato, and even in Aristotle. All three, he believed, deviated from the naturalistic course of ancient Greek philosophy by developing an idealistic metaphysics. Two thousand years later, the Renaissance attempted to correct the error by a reversion to naturalism and the development of science. Then, however, along came the Reformation, which was even more moralistic, subjective, and “egotistical” (i.e., anthropocentric) than the ancient Greeks had been. Santayana believed that he knew what a sound cosmology should be: “the continuation of early Greek naturalism with the advantage of modern knowledge of nature and history.” The trouble was that he was no longer competent to write such a work (letter to William H. Boyer of 14 June 1951). A few months later, however, a project for another substantial publication came along that Santayana, if unable to tackle the task alone, was indeed able to collaborate on quite effectively.

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First mention in the letters of the idea of producing a condensed, onevolume edition of the work that originally established Santayana’s reputation, the five-volume Life of Reason, first published in 1905–6, occurs in the letter to Scribner’s editor, John Hall Wheelock, of 24 August 1951. Santayana thought the task of compressing five volumes into one could be done principally either by Irwin Edman, a Santayana scholar and professor of philosophy at Columbia University, or by Daniel Cory. Santayana’s preference was for Cory, because he feared that Edman would wish to preserve parts of the text that Santayana himself would prefer expunged. Then, too, if Cory were selected for the job, Santayana would be able to help him with the task, and the result would assuredly be more in keeping with what Santayana himself would wish the revised work to be like when finished. Also, Edman would have the responsibility for completing work on the revised and enlarged version of his The Philosophy of Santayana, a selection of poems and prose excerpts from Santayana’s writings, for publication in 1953. The original edition of this work had been published by Scribner’s in 1936. Sometime in the late autumn of 1951, Santayana received a visit from the Spanish poet, Jorge Guillén. Earlier, Santayana and Guillén had translated one another’s poetry. In a letter to Guillén of 3 November 1951, Santayana describes himself as full of “achaques de la vejez” (infirmities of old age), but says that he and Cory were trying to prepare an abridged version of the Life of Reason. By the third week of November 1951, Cory had settled in Rome for the winter and he and Santayana had gone over the first two volumes of the Life of Reason, with Santayana marking passages that he recommended for deletion. On 29 November 1951, Santayana wrote Richard Lyon that he found Cory more interested than formerly in good subjects, such as “the origin of Christianity and history in general,” so that now their conversations need not always revert to the difficult personality of their late friend and colleague, Charles Augustus Strong. In another letter of the same date, this one to Bruno Lind, Santayana describes the similarities and differences between the situation of himself and his parents and that of Oliver Alden, the protagonist of his novel, The Last Puritan, and Oliver’s mother and father. Santayana says “the absence of affection all round was the same in both mothers and in both husbands and both sons.” The “shadow of myself and my family” may be found in the book, he writes, but the “circumstances” (presumably meaning the cultural and socioeconomic characteristics) of his family and those of the fictional Aldens were entirely different.

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As his eighty-eighth birthday approached, Santayana wrote, on 6 December 1951, to his old friend in Spain, Mercedes Escalera, congratulating her on reaching the age of ninety-six. He thanks her for the gift of nougat that she sent him, but which he doubts will combine successfully with his current diet of milk and crackers. In this letter, he also regrets the decline, since the Victorian period, in the cultivation of good society. But he believes that “in spite of the democracy that now exists one can enjoy many things in this world.” He himself now enjoys especially reading history, believing that the current generation of historians is excellent: scholarly and exact. On 16 December 1951, his birthday, he writes Ira D. Cardiff that though his general mood is cheerful and that physically he is only occasionally uncomfortable, and that he is enjoying interesting public and literary events, he is ready and “entirely willing to part company with the world.” On that final birthday, Santayana also received congratulations from Corliss Lamont and his philosophical circle. Three days later, he wrote Lamont that the “world has grown steadily kindlier and more interesting” to him and that his mind has grown less depaysé (alienated) than it was early on. Here again, he points out that his favorite reading now is history rather than philosophy. History, he says, is often if not always tragic, “but it is a rich and varied dramatic spectacle; and how should natural existence be anything else?” On 18 December 1951, two days after his eighty-eighth birthday, Santayana responded to a letter from Richard Lyon, whom he had not heard from for some time. He wrote that he had feared that the young man might have fallen ill and then gave him advice on his philosophical studies at Cambridge University and on the travels in France that Lyon was about to embark upon. He promised to send him another cash present to help defray these travel expenses. Christmas 1951 was for Santayana, “in spite of everything” (letter to Butler of 8 January 1952)—including the anxious and uncertain condition of the world as well as his own failing health—a pleasant occasion. Early in the new year, he realized that, given his age, his illness was very likely “an incurable trouble, though not immediately fatal” (letter to Rosamond of 29 January 1952). He described his diet of milk and crackers as including mashed potatoes, with one raw egg at midday. He was grateful that this indisposition had not come a year earlier, for then it would not have been possible for him to complete Dominations and Powers. He had managed to work through half of the text of the five volumes of the Life of Reason, mark-

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ing in red what he thought should be deleted or changed, when his illness prevented him, for a time, from continuing the work. Now, Cory was completing his own revision and was confident that the original multi-volume edition could be successfully reduced to a single volume. Santayana had, for a long time, been very critical of what he regarded as the arrogant tone and academic style of the Life of Reason. He was, therefore, relieved and gratified when he and Cory discovered that the original work, both in content and form, was in fact better than they had thought, and that the views expressed in it were so much like his latest views. This discovery, however, made it more difficult to condemn material in order to achieve the necessary compression into a single volume. At this time, despite his illness and his realization that he might not live to see publication of the new one-volume edition of the Life of Reason, Santayana took exception to the report of some writers that he was now a “recluse.” If he were a recluse, he protested (in the letter to Mrs. Richards of 7 February 1952), it was only because his deafness and poor eyesight made it too dangerous for him to go about in city traffic. Not only had he, of late, too many visitors to be a recluse, but he was also never more consciously aware of what was going on in the world. In spite of living in a nursing home operated by nuns, there was, he insisted, nothing monastic about his daily life. By the end of February, the weather in Rome, which had all winter continued cold and dark, had become spring-like, and this gave a boost to Santayana’s spirits. About this time, he became interested in a longish poem by Lorenzo de’ Medici, the sixteenth-century ruler of Florence. The poem describes the passion of the river god, Ombron, for Ambra, a beautiful nymph, and the god’s pursuit of her. Santayana thought that the final lines of Robert Lowell’s “The Mills of the Kavanaughs” (which, in his letter to Lowell of 13 March 1952, he misspells “Ravenaughs”) echoed the tragic tone of Lorenzo’s poem. Santayana began working on an English translation of Lorenzo’s poem, and that translation constitutes his final literary work. Early in March 1952, several persons in the Blue Sisters’ establishment contracted the then prevailing influenza, including two nuns who regularly looked after Santayana, as well as Santayana’s physician himself, Dr. Luigi Sabbatucci. After finishing his review of the fourth volume of the Life of Reason, Santayana too came down with the “flu,” contracted, he believed, from one of these persons. The long spell of fever, together with his sick stomach, was very debilitating. By this time, Cory had completed his

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review of the fourth volume and was continuing on with the fifth and final volume of the work. In addition to his work on the translation of Lorenzo’s poem, Santayana continued to read and write letters and to see visitors. The rest of his time he spent reading his Italian newspapers and rereading “old familiar authors.” He was still concerned about the possibility of a communist revolution in Rome and perhaps throughout the world, but he did not believe that this would herald the end of civilization: “there would be at most a carnival of rowdyism, a counter revolution, and modern routine once again” (letter to Rosamond of 17 April 1952). In April 1952, Scribner’s editor, John Hall Wheelock, received the typescript of the third and final part of Persons and Places and asked permission to read it, which Santayana immediately granted. Santayana was concerned about the effect that the personal opinions of individuals that he expressed in this third section of his autobiography would have on the individuals themselves or upon members of their families. He wrote Wheelock that he wished to “be out of earshot before these private sentiments of mine are discussed” (letter to Wheelock of 17 April 1952). He therefore insisted that this third part be published posthumously. He was concerned, for instance, about how Bertrand Russell would feel regarding the things he says in the autobiography about him and his philosophy and about his elder brother, John Francis. He says that he would “regret to seem ungrateful to two brothers to whom I owe so much.” In the autobiography, however, he does in fact describe his friend “Bertie” in pretty unflattering terms, saying that he had a “hyena laugh” and that some persons regarded him as the ugliest man they had ever seen. He says that he did not find Bertie ugly “because his mask, though grotesque, was expressive and engaging. You saw that he was a kind monster …” (Persons and Places, pp. 440–42). On the other hand, he also describes Bertrand Russell as a genius, one of the three best-educated persons he had ever known, and the most distinguished individual among his friends and, indeed, among all the persons belonging at all to his world. Yet he insists that the “passionate prejudice” that inspired all of Bertrand Russell’s views made his judgments “always unfair and sometimes mad.” In view of his great capacities, he was, Santayana concludes, ultimately a failure. It appears that Bertrand Russell was indeed annoyed at this description that Santayana gives of him in his memoirs. In Russell’s own book, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, published in 1956, he avenges himself by painting an essentially negative picture of Santayana. He describes

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him as being rather prim, the sort of person whose clothes were always neat and who wore patent leather button boots even when walking in country lanes. These characteristics, says Russell, could be readily inferred from Santayana’s literary style by an intelligent reader. “Aloofness and facile contempt were his defects, and because of them, although he could be admired, he was a person whom it was difficult to love” (Portraits from Memory, pp. 88 and 91). In April, Santayana also learned that his young Texan friend, Richard Lyon, currently a Rhodes scholar at Cambridge, was about to be married. He sent him a letter of congratulations and a cash present. The previous month, he had also sent, as an Easter present, the check that he had earlier promised to help defray Lyon’s expenses. In a letter to John W. Yolton of 27 April 1952, Santayana expatiates once again on the fundamental theme of Dominations and Powers that expresses his fears of the imposition of a political ideology by a United Nations organization dominated by the United States: “My view is that civilisations should be allowed to be different in different places, and the degree of uniformity or variety allowed in each would be part, in each, of its constitutional character …. What I wish to prevent is the choking of human genius by social pressure.” Though a life of reason remained his ideal, Santayana did not expect the world to live in conformity with a “rational order of society.” The world, he said, “is irrational, and its great achievements can be only partial, heterogeneous, and unforseen” (letter to Rosamond of 4 May 1952). During the month of May 1952, Santayana was visited again by Iris Origo, who, with her husband and two daughters, had temporarily left their estate near Siena and were currently living in an apartment in Rome. At this time, he was also visited by Father Richard Butler, an American Catholic priest who was writing a doctoral thesis on Santayana’s philosophy. After reading sixty pages of the thesis, Santayana concluded that Butler had failed completely to understand his views. Despite discouragement from Santayana (letter to Butler of 20 July 1952), Butler completed the dissertation and afterward, in 1955, published it as a book entitled The Mind of Santayana. On the fourth of June, Santayana suffered an accident that might well have killed him. If it had done so, he would have been deprived of four more months of life, but he would also have been spared the last few agonizing weeks of dying from stomach cancer. He took a taxi from the nursing home to the Spanish consulate in Rome to renew his passport. There he was treated deferentially and his request fulfilled expeditiously. Leaving

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the consulate, he lost his balance and fell backward, striking his left side and the back of his head on the false-marble steps. Several officials from the consulate carried him into a taxicab and took him home to the Blue Sisters’ establishment. Back in his room, lying on his chaise-longue, he was attended to by Dr. Sabbatucci. In the several letters in which he relates this accident (e.g., to Lind of 14 June, to Denson of 18 June, and to Rosamond of 21 June 1952), Santayana describes his bleeding head wound and several abrasions, but claims that no bones were broken. Fearing that he might die from his injuries, the nuns telephoned Daniel Cory, at his hotel in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex, who immediately flew to Rome. Cory’s description (in Years, p. 318) of the effects of this accident differs from Santayana’s. According to Cory, X-rays revealed that Santayana had in fact suffered three broken ribs on the left side and that there were two pneumonia patches on the lungs. The doctor, Cory says, was amazed that he recovered. Cory, who had taken a round-trip airplane ticket, remained with Santayana in Rome until the end of June. He then flew back to his wife in England, but not before saying that he intended to come to Rome again early in September. While convalescing from this accident, Santayana continued work on his translation of Lorenzo’s poem about Ombron and Ambra. Despite the effects of the accident, Santayana continued during June to receive certain visitors. Dick Lyon and his bride visited him three times during the month. In a letter to Cory of 1 July 1952, Santayana complains that after a year at Clare College, Dick’s Texas accent had not been influenced by the King’s English echoing around him and that, in consequence, Santayana found his speech “utterly unintelligible.” The result, he said, was that they had no real conversation and that he learned nothing of the couple or their plans. Of course, it must be remembered that at this time Santayana was quite deaf, and that factor was very significant in determining how much he understood of what people said. At the beginning of July, Santayana claimed to be feeling much better. He reported that his cough was almost cured and that he was sleeping better than he had in years. But this temporary respite could not last. By the middle of the month, he found that his eyes were “getting weak and uncertain, so that both reading and writing are difficult” (letter to Lind of 18 July 1952). In his letter to Cory of 24 July, he writes that the sight of his handwriting will tell Cory that he has “taken another step toward the grave: I can hardly see to read or write. For other things there is no perceptible change.” Ashamed of the deterioration of his handwriting—which had

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always been beautifully regular and clear—he asked Cory to answer all of his official letters, especially those to Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s. What is presumably Santayana’s final letter is the one to Cory of 3 August 1952. In it, he reports having suffered another attack of “gastric catarrh,” with vomiting and sleeplessness. Afterward, however, he says that he has been able to doze at all hours. He was expecting Cory to arrive in Rome on September first, though he actually arrived on September eighth. Though Dr. Sabbatucci never told his patient that he had stomach cancer, Santayana was aware that his condition was fatal and that he could not live much longer. He writes of giving Cory one hundred British pounds a month for acting as his secretary. He also speculates on the possibility of at once transferring the balance of his London bank account to Cory, but he supposes that there would be “difficulty or tax on a deathbed present.” When Cory arrived in Rome on 8 September, he found Santayana in bed and very ill. The past two weeks had been extremely difficult for him. He could retain no solid food and could read nothing smaller than the headlines of the newspapers. Now he suffered considerable pain, nausea, and—whenever able to drop off to sleep—terrible nightmares. Unable to eat, he became weaker and weaker. Cory remained with him, faithfully keeping vigil at his bedside. There were a few times when Santayana was sufficiently conscious and free of pain that he and Cory could actually talk about some of the key concepts of Santayana’s naturalistic and materialistic philosophy. He told Cory that what he had always yearned for was completion—that if he saw a circle half drawn, he longed to complete it. He regretted that he was not able to complete his translation of the Lorenzo poem, and Santayana’s Ombron and Ambra, which he described as a “partly original work” (letter to Rosamond of 22 July 1952), was left not quite finished. According to Cory, the last days of Santayana’s life defied medical explanation. He had nothing whatever to eat or drink. Cory last spoke to him very briefly two days before his death on 26 September 1952. Cory experienced considerable difficulty regarding the burial. Santayana had expressed a desire to be buried in a “neutral” section of a Catholic cemetery. However, upon inquiry at Rome’s Campo Verano, Cory was told that there was no longer any unconsecrated or neutral section. Finally, the Spanish Consulate stepped in and solved what was becoming a very awkward situation by offering to have Santayana’s body interred in the Tomb of the Spaniards in the Campo Verano cemetery. Only a small group was

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present at the burial on 30 September including Daniel and Margot Cory, three of their friends, and two consular officials. In keeping with Santayana’s wishes, there was no religious ceremony, but Cory read aloud Santayana’s poem “The Poet’s Testament” which contains the lines: “I give back to the earth what the earth gave, / All to the furrow, nothing to the grave.” William G. Holzberger

Acknowledgments This comprehensive edition of Santayana’s personal and professional correspondence has been over thirty years in the making, and a great number of persons in many different walks of life have contributed to it. It was begun by Daniel Cory in the late 1960s as a two-volume sequel to his 1955 Scribner’s edition of two hundred ninety-six letters by Santayana. I began collaborating with Cory on the project in 1971. After his sudden death by heart attack on 16 June 1972, I worked on the letters with the assistance of his widow, Mrs. Margot Cory, who was his successor as the Santayana literary executor. I continued to work on the preparation of a comprehensive edition of Santayana’s letters until I joined the project to produce a multi-volume critical edition of Santayana’s works headed by Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., General Editor. As textual editor of The Works of George Santayana it was necessary to deflect my attention substantially from the letters in order to help prepare the first four volumes of the edition for publication.1 In 1988 Professor Saatkamp and I decided to incorporate the letters into the comprehensive edition of Santayana’s writings as the fifth volume, and work on the letters resumed. At that time, however, the staff of the Santayana Edition was concentrating on preparation of the text of Volume IV, Santayana’s novel, The Last Puritan, and the focus of attention and principal resources had to be directed toward completion of work on that volume, which was published in 1994. Since publication of the novel, however, the focus of the editorial staff has been on completion of the letters volume. Included in the host of persons who have, over an exceptionally long period of time, contributed in many different ways to this large and complicated project are both private individuals as well as representatives of libraries and other institutions. Many of these persons no longer occupy the positions they did when they contributed to this project, and others are no longer alive. While it is impossible to acknowledge here everyone who helped make this edition of Santayana’s letters a reality, we wish at least to mention those persons and institutions whose contributions were absolutely vital to the successful completion of the project.

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Foremost, perhaps, among these individuals is the late Margot Cory. Margaret Degen Batten Cory was born in England on 27 November 1900 and, after many years’ residence in Italy, died in England on 30 March 1995. As the Santayana literary executrix and heir to her late husband’s ownership of Santayana’s literary properties, Margot Cory owned the copyright in Santayana’s letters. Not only did Mrs. Cory agree to the continuation of work on this edition after her husband’s death, but she aided and encouraged its realization in many significant ways. In the early stages she made typewritten transcriptions of hundreds of letters, both to her husband and to others. Indeed, many letters to various individuals could not have been included had not Mrs. Cory, in an age before photocopying machines, first made handwritten copies of letters lent to her husband which she later recopied on the typewriter. Mrs. Cory’s interest in this project was extremely keen, and it is our deep regret that she did not have the satisfaction of seeing the letters volume published during her lifetime. The names of private persons who possess letters by George Santayana are given in the list of Manuscript Locations, and we are very grateful to these individuals for providing, often as gifts, photocopies of their letters. I wish to thank especially those who also contributed valuable information and who aided this project in other ways as well. Foremost is Richard Colton Lyon. Not only has Professor Lyon supplied copies of his own substantial and valuable correspondence, but he has been of great assistance in locating other letters. It was through the kind cooperation of Professor Lyon that I learned the whereabouts of the late Mrs. David M. Little, formerly Mrs. George Sturgis, the wife of Santayana’s nephew. With help from Professor Lyon, Mrs. Little provided copies of letters that Santayana had written to her former husband, who had for many years served as Santayana’s financial manager. Mrs. Little, before her death on 17 February 1976, was of unique service to this project by supplying information about the Sturgis family, and a great many footnotes to the letters are the result of information that she provided. Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Little was devoted to “Uncle George” both during and after his lifetime in a way that might be expected of few nieces by marriage. Mrs. Little’s son, Robert Sturgis, a Boston architect, is also warmly thanked for permitting inclusion of his letters from his granduncle, for arranging for the deposit of Santayana’s letters in the Sturgis Family Papers in Harvard’s Houghton Library, and for his interest in the comprehensive edition of Santayana’s writings and his continued helpfulness to the editors.

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The late Dr. Corliss Lamont, a distinguished humanist and author and a life-long admirer of Santayana, was, over the years, a constant friend to this project. His direct financial aid to the Santayana Edition, together with his concern and assistance with various problems, were always much appreciated. The extensive collection of Santayana manuscripts and other materials in Columbia University’s Butler Library constitute Dr. Lamont’s gift to Santayana scholarship. Other private owners who have been particularly helpful include Mr. Guy Murchie Jr., whose glosses on the letters to his father have provided information for footnotes to those letters. Professors Justus Buchler and Peter Viereck also supplied helpful information about their letters from Santayana. Several individuals have personally supported this project with generous financial gifts, professional advice, and scholarly research. These include Morris Grossman, Professor Emeritus, Fairfield University; John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University; Emil Ogden, Ogden Resources Corporation, College Station, Texas; John McCormick, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University; Henny Wenkart, Professor and Editor, New York City; and Excmo. Sr. D. Francisco Javier Jiménez-Ugarte Hernandez, Spanish Ambassador to Greece, who helped arrange the grant from the Comité Conjunto Hispano-Norteamericana. Most recently, the Edition has received a challenge grant in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Kendall Berry of Blytheville, Arkansas, which helps insure continued publication. Santayana Edition Board members who have continuously assisted the project in many and various ways are Willard Arnett, Hugh Dawson, Morris Grossman, Angus Kerr-Lawson, John Lachs, Richard C. Lyon, Douglas MacDonald, John Michelsen, Andrew Reck, Beth J. Singer, Timothy Sprigge, and Henny Wenkart. Many learned and distinguished scholars have contributed directly to the making of this edition. Among my Bucknell colleagues are several who have provided help with editorial tasks. Perhaps our greatest debt is due Professor Mills Fox Edgerton Jr., who has given most generously of his time, energy, and thoroughgoing knowledge of Romance languages. Not only has he translated the Spanish letters to José and Isabel Sastre, and provided numerous translations of words and phrases, but he has searched for Santayana letters during his travels through Spain. On one occasion he acted as my emissary to Santayana’s grandnephew, the late Don Eduardo Sastre Martín, of Madrid and Ávila, in an effort to learn the whereabouts of any Santayana manuscripts or other materials extant in

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Spain. We are grateful to Professor James M. Heath of the Bucknell Classics Department, who has continually and unstintingly given of his time and specialized knowledge in assisting the editors with the transcribing and translating of Greek and Latin words and phrases and the tracing to their origins of quotations in these ancient languages. Mark W. Padilla, Associate Professor of Classics and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, has also helped with translations of Latin words and phrases. Professor John Gale of the Modern Languages and Linguistics Department has rendered much the same sort of assistance with French words and phrases, and Professor Marianna M. Archambault and her husband, Professor Paul Archambault of Syracuse University, have also been helpful with questions relating to the French and Italian languages. A friend and colleague in the Bucknell English Department, Professor James F. Carens, member of the Harvard class of 1949, has helped in a variety of ways: by discussing the edition with me, making valuable suggestions based upon his own experience as an editor of letters, by serving as a guide to and about Harvard University, and by reading drafts of the Introduction to this volume and making suggestions for revision that I not only adopted but believe have significantly improved the quality of the Introduction. Peter Hinks, Associate Editor with the Frederick Douglass Papers, Yale University, collated letters at the Beinecke Library. English Department chairmen who have aided in important ways are Harry R. Garvin, the late John W. Tilton, Michael D. Payne, Dennis Baumwoll, and John Rickard. Bucknell University officers who have supported this project by supplying funds for materials and travel, allowing me released time from teaching duties, and providing office space, equipment, and supplies specifically for work on the letters are Wendell I. Smith, former Provost; Larry Shinn and Daniel Little, former Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs; Eugenia P. Gerdes, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; and former Associate Deans Barbara A. Shailor and S. Jackson Hill. To all of these colleagues I extend deep and sincere gratitude. Texas A&M University officers and faculty who supported our work over many years include John J. McDermott, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, who directed the project during the transition from Texas to Indiana; Woodrow Jones, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; Ben M. Crouch, Executive Associate Dean; Charles Stoup, Senior Academic Business Administrator; Robin Smith, Professor and Head, Department of Philosophy and Humanities; Kenneth M. Price, Professor of English; Robert A. Calvert, Professor of History; and Scott

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Austin, Professor of Philosophy. Special thanks to Sherman D. Frost for his ongoing support of the work of the Edition. His help with computerrelated questions, and maintenance of the Santayana Edition web page is a significant contribution to our progress toward publication of the letters. Since its move to Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), the Edition has had the unconditional support of the University and the School of Liberal Arts. In particular, we must acknowledge the diligent work of Marianne S. Wokeck, Editor; Johanna E. Resler, Assistant Editor; David E. Spiech, Editorial Assistant; Joshua B. Garrison; Jessica F. Kohl; Kimberly A. O’Brien; Anita C. Snyder; Joseph Marciniak; Nancee Reeves, Stephen Jones, and Christine Sego Caldwell, who have become completely involved with the final preparation of the letters for publication. Special thanks to the entire staff of the Dean’s office, who have assisted with our day-to-day work since the decision to relocate. Noteworthy support has come from Gerald L. Bepko, Vice President for Long-Range Planning and Chancellor of IUPUI; William M. Plater, Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties; Mark Brenner, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education; Curtis R. Simic, President, Indiana University Foundation; Nathan Houser, Director and General Editor, Peirce Edition Project; Paul R. Bippen, Dean, Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus; Janet Feldmann, Director, Library and Media Services, IUPU Columbus; and Steven J. Schmidt, University Library, IUPUI. We are grateful to Nadine C. Martin and Martin Coleman for their assistance with translations and annotations. An eminent textual scholar who has contributed to this edition in significant ways is G. Thomas Tanselle, Textual Editor of The Writings of Herman Melville (a critical edition in fifteen volumes) and a foremost authority on editorial scholarship. Professor Tanselle has been very helpful in responding to queries about editorial matters, and his writings on textual scholarship have served as a fundamental guide to the editors of the Santayana Edition. Thanks to Robert H. Hirst for conducting the inspection of Book Eight of the letters for the Committee on Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association of America, and to Margaret Ezell, co-chair of this committee, for her guidance and support. Mr. Harold Kulungian has given me several useful hints and suggestions. He ascertained the correct date of Santayana’s letter to B. A. G. Fuller of 11 January 1905 (misdated in Cory’s 1955 edition as 1904). Hugh J. Dawson of the English Department of the University of San Francisco and a member of the Editorial Board of the Santayana Edition has been

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a valuable source of information on the location of letters and has made many other notable contributions to this project. His frequent travels and researches in Europe have resulted in the acquisition of copies of three letters to the late Professor Enrico Castelli, whom Professor Dawson interviewed at his home in Rome in 1976. Our thanks also to Professor R. W. B. Lewis, the distinguished biographer of Edith Wharton, and to Dr. Marion Mainwaring, a professional researcher who attempted to locate additional letters to Santayana’s Harvard classmate William Morton Fullerton that—in addition to the four letters to Fullerton included in this edition—were believed to exist. I am very grateful to the late Richard Ellmann, the noted biographer and editor, Fellow of New College and Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature in Oxford University. During the sabbatical year I spent at Oxford working on the letters edition (1975–76), Professor Ellmann was particularly helpful in discussing the plan for the edition and making suggestions regarding every aspect of the project. Indeed, his edition of the letters of James Joyce, together with the edition of Oscar Wilde’s letters by Rupert Hart-Davis, were the earliest models for this edition of Santayana’s letters. A special note of thanks is due to Professor J. Albert Robbins of Indiana University, who served as Chairman of the Committee on Manuscript Holdings of the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association of America, in charge of gathering information for the updated edition of American Literary Manuscripts, an invaluable source of information regarding library manuscript holdings. Professor Robbins and his staff responded to my request, early in 1976, for additional information regarding the location of Santayana holograph letters in library collections, by undertaking a “hand search” of file data before their material was computerized sufficiently to make such a search less laborious. The result of their efforts was the locating and acquiring of a substantial number of letters, the existence of which had not previously been suspected. Yet another friend from the beginning is James Ballowe of Bradley University. An accomplished poet, critic, author, and a distinguished Santayana scholar and editor, Professor Ballowe is warmly acknowledged here for his continual interest in and encouragement of this project and for his willingness to be helpful in every way. We are grateful to the late Paul G. Kuntz, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Emory University, for the work he did in collating our transcriptions of Santayana’s letters to Mrs. Bernard Berenson against the originals in the

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Berensons’ Villa I Tatti (now owned by Harvard University) in Settignano, Italy. Special thanks are due individuals who sent copies or gave permission for their Santayana letters to be photocopied by the libraries in which they are held. These include Robert Lowell (Houghton Library, Harvard University); Robert Fitzgerald; Mrs. Ann P. Howgate (letters to her late husband, George Washburn Howgate, who, in 1938, became Santayana’s first biographer); Mrs. Christina M. Welch, daughter of John P. Marquand, and Mr. Carl D. Brandt (Houghton Library, Harvard University); Mrs. Arthur Davison Ficke (Beinecke Library, Yale University); Dr. Cecil Anrep, of Villa I Tatti, at Settignano, Italy, letters to Bernard and Mary Berenson; and Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov. Max Schwartz, brother of the late Benjamin Schwartz, who, in 1936, with Justus Buchler, edited Obiter Scripta: Lectures, Essays and Reviews, searched through his brother’s papers in an effort to discover additional Santayana correspondence. Mrs. Max Eastman (Lilly Library, Indiana University); Horace M. Kallen (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City and the American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio); Lewis Mumford; Milton K. Munitz; and Paul Arthur Schilpp (founder and editor of The Library of Living Philosophers, the second volume of which was devoted to the philosophy of Santayana). Sidney Hook gave permission for the inclusion here of his Santayana letters published in The American Scholar (Winter 1976–77). George Knox helped locate the letters to Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (University of California, Riverside). Father Ceferino Santos Escudero, of the University of Madrid, who compiled a bibliography of Santayana’s writings, supplied copies of the two letters in Spanish to Miguel de Unamuno and J. L. Ochoa; the English translations of these letters were done for this edition by Mr. Henry C. Reed. I am particularly grateful to the late Spanish poet, Jorge Guillén, for permission to receive a copy of his letter from Santayana in the Houghton Library, and to Mary de Rachewilz, curator of the Ezra Pound Archive in Yale’s Beinecke Library, who allowed librarians to check our transcriptions of letters to her father against the original holograph letters before the Archive was officially opened. I wish also to thank Mme. de Rachewilz for her kindness and hospitality to my family and me during visits to Brunnenburg, at Tirolo di Merano, where, in the early stages of the letters edition, I conferred with Mrs. Cory on the project. I am grateful to the late Don Eduardo Sastre Martín, Santayana’s grandnephew, for the interviews in his home in Madrid that he gave to my colleague

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Professor Mills F. Edgerton Jr. and for his help in obtaining copies of letters in Spanish to his parents, José and Isabel Sastre. Thanks also to Pedro García Martín, Emilio Santos Sastre, and Ana Sastre Moyano, who provided copies of letters and postcards written to Santayana’s sister and brother-in-law and other members of the Sastre family. The late Mr. Hy Oppenheim, a retired lawyer and an avid student of Santayana’s writings, is remembered with thanks for his frequent informative communications and for his gifts of copies of Santayana’s works. Thanks, too, to Mr. David Wapinsky, a devoted student of Santayana’s writings, for sharing with us the fruits of his researches into the existence of undiscovered Santayana manuscript materials. Realization of a project of this magnitude would be impossible without the cooperation of a host of librarians, archivists, and technical members of the staffs of a great number of libraries. Many of the personnel who contributed remain anonymous to us. Still others were persons whose names we learned through our correspondence with them and their institutions twenty or thirty years ago. Doubtless many of these persons are no longer associated with the libraries with which they were once connected. For this reason, and because space is necessarily limited in an edition of this size, we are prevented from listing here the names of the scores of dedicated staff on whose conscientious and generous assistance this edition has been so utterly dependent. But I wish to express the profound thanks of the editors to each and every one of these colleagues. We must, however, acknowledge here individually a few persons upon whose cooperation and assistance this project has fundamentally depended. These are the principal librarians at libraries containing major collections of Santayana manuscript materials. Mr. Kenneth A. Lohf, Librarian for Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Butler Library at Columbia University, has had responsibility for the largest and most important collection of Santayana materials. Mr. Lohf and staff, including Bernard Crystal, Rudolph Ellenbogen, and Jean Ashton, have been a never-failing source of cooperation and assistance to the editors, for which we are very grateful. Harvard’s Houghton Library, as would be expected, is another treasure trove for Santayana scholars. I know that Daniel Cory counted the Librarian of the Houghton, Mr. William H. Bond, as a valued personal friend, and we deeply appreciate his kind assistance. Other persons at the Houghton who have been particularly helpful to us are Leslie A. Morris, Elizabeth A. Falsey, Rodney Dennis, Jennie Rathbun, Mrs. Richard B. Currier, and Ms. Deborah B. Kelley. The Charles

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Scribner’s Sons Archive, in the Princeton University Library, is a huge and invaluable collection of the correspondence of many prominent authors whose works have been published by the house of Scribner. The late Charles Scribner IV has the gratitude of scholars generally for continuing the policy of his company of preserving all correspondence with authors. I am personally in Mr. Scribner’s debt for his unfailingly kind attention to my questions and requests pertaining to publication by his company of Santayana’s writings, for permission to receive photocopies of letters from the Scribner Archive and to reproduce and publish them in this edition. Librarians at Princeton who so effectively assisted us in the acquisition of photocopies are Alexander P. Clark, Jean F. Preston, and Don C. Skemer, Curators of Manuscripts; Margaret M. Sherry, Archivist; and Mrs. Mardel Pacheco and Mrs. Michael Sherman of the Manuscripts Division. At the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia we wish to thank Michael Plunkett and Anne Freudenberg, Curators of Manuscripts; Adrienne Cannon, Special Collections; and assistants Elizabeth Ryall and Gregory A. Johnson. At the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin, Cathy Henderson, Barbara Smith-LaBorde, Mary M. Hirth, and June Moll, Librarians, have been particularly cooperative in aiding our work; as have Thomas F. Staley and Mr. F. W. Roberts, Directors of the Center; and staff including Sally Leach, David Farmer, and John R. Payne. Mr. Thomas M. Whitehead, Head of the Special Collections Department of the Samuel Paley Library at Temple University, was most cooperative in enabling us to acquire copies of the large collection of Santayana letters in the archive of the London publishing firm of Constable and Company, Ltd. Special thanks are also due to several librarians at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for their continuous cooperation and valuable services over many years including Ms. Dorothy Bridgewater, formerly Acting Head of the Reference Department; Ms. Carol Park of the Reference Department; Mr. Kenneth Nesheim, formerly Acting Curator, Collection of American Literature; Mr. Donald Gallup, Curator of American Literature; Mr. Peter Dzwonkowski, Assistant to the Curator, who very helpfully collated our transcriptions of Santayana’s letters to Ezra Pound against the originals in the thenunopened Pound Archive; and Mr. Robert O. Anthony, adviser to the Walter Lippmann Papers Collection. The Rockefeller Archive Center houses the majority of Santayana’s letters to Charles Augustus Strong (368). David Rockefeller, Alice Victor,

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Darwin Stapleton, and Thomas Rosenbaum were extremely generous in providing copies of these letters to the Edition on very short notice. Librarians of specialized collections who have been particularly helpful to us are Ms. Fanny Zelcer of the American Jewish Archives; Mr. James Lawton of the Boston Public Library; Mr. Monte Olenick of the Brooklyn Public Library; Mr. John C. Broderick, Chief, The Library of Congress; Mr. Andrew Berner and Ms. Susan Grant, the University Club Library, New York City; Doña Dolores Gomez Molleda, Director, CasaMuseo Unamuno, University of Salamanca, Spain; Mr. Ezekiel Lifschutz, Archivist, and Mr. Marek Web, Archives Department, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York City. Librarians of the Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library at Bucknell University have provided aid in several important ways, and I wish to thank especially Mr. George Jenks and Mrs. Ann de Klerk, former Directors of the Library who provided a room in the Library specifically for work on the letters edition. Other librarians of the Bertrand Library that must be acknowledged here for their special assistance are Mrs. Helena Rivoire, Head of Technical Services; Ms. Patricia J. Rom, Head of the Reference Department; and Mr. Ronald B. Daniels, Head of Public Services. I am also much obliged to the librarians and staff of the Bodleian Library and the English Faculty Library of Oxford University for allowing me the continued use of the resources of those fine institutions while working on the edition during my residence at Oxford from September 1975 to July 1976. We are very grateful to the institutions that have provided the financial support on which the completion of this project depended. First and foremost is the National Endowment for the Humanities. The award of a Research Fellowship for 1975–76 enabled me to devote a full year to getting the project underway. Since 1976 the Endowment has underwritten the comprehensive edition of Santayana’s Works, in which the letters edition is included. Officers and staff members to whom we are especially indebted for their indispensable support are Bruce, Cole, Chairman, James Herbert, Margot Backas, Michael Hall, George Lucas, Douglas Arnold, Stephen Veneziani, and Alice Hudgins. Other organizations that have contributed importantly to the completion of the letters edition are The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for granting a Fellowship for work on the letters edition to Daniel Cory in 1972; the American Council of Learned Societies for awarding me two separate grants for work on the project; and to the Committee on Scholarly

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Development of Bucknell University for the award of grants that allowed me to devote several summers to work on the letters edition. We wish also to acknowledge the student assistants who, over the many years of work on this collection of Santayana’s letters, have labored alongside the editors with much-appreciated dedication, performing tasks essential to the completion of this project. The first student editorial assistant to work on the letters project was Keith Washburn, a graduate student in English at Bucknell who helped during the initial stages in 1972. Mrs. Robin Hummel Kenner worked on the project from September 1972 until January 1978, beginning during her undergraduate years and continuing on after graduation. Mrs. Kenner, in a pre-computer era, made most of the original typewriter transcriptions of the letters. Kristine Dane worked on the project from July1991 through May 1997, beginning as an undergraduate and continuing to work on the project while pursuing graduate studies. Her contributions to the letters edition were many and various. The other Bucknell students who worked on this edition of Santayana’s letters are listed here in chronological order of their connection with the project, from earliest to latest: Laurie Russell, Karen Hoffnagle, Elizabeth Smith, Kathy Bittner, Afsaneh Bahar, Hugh Bailey, Roberta Visaggio, Jeanne Wiggers, Caroline Keller, Cherri Lee Smith, Beth Lynn Davis, Lori Fraind, Wendy Van Wyck, Michael Wardell, and Jennifer Beck. Let us thank here also Mrs. Ruth Snyder, formerly secretary to the Classics and History departments at Bucknell, who, in the mid-1980s, made our original typewritten transcriptions of the letters from Santayana to Scribner’s editor John Hall Wheelock of the period 1946–52 which had just then been made available. At Texas A&M University graduate assistants involved with the project include Karen Antell, Ann T. Butler, John Cavin, Matthew Caleb Flamm, Luis Guadaño, Kara Kellogg, Nakia S. Pope, Robert Renzetti, Wayne Riggs, Clay Davis Splawn, and James Dan Unger. Special thanks to Denise Johnston, Jodine Thomas, Lori Moore, Margaret B. Yergler, Anne Divita, and Connie Chavez, students and staff who worked with the Edition for extended periods of time. At the University of Tampa, special thanks are given to editorial assistants Shirley Cueto and John W. Jones, and to research assistants Austria M. Lavigne, Jodi Lerner, and Nina Mollica. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the persons with whom I have worked very closely for a long time on this edition of Santayana’s letters and whose collaboration has made possible its completion. First, I want to

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thank especially my friend and colleague of many years, the General Editor of The Works of George Santayana and Associate Editor of this edition of the letters, Herman J. Saatkamp Jr., with whom I have had the pleasure of coediting the four earlier volumes of the Critical Edition. Not only has Professor Saatkamp been responsible for overseeing and directing all phases of the Works edition, including this volume of letters, but in his frequent travels through this country and indeed all over the world he has sought everywhere and frequently found previously unknown or unlocated Santayana correspondence. During those travels he has also spent countless hours in numerous libraries making sight collations of our transcriptions (taken from Xerox copies of Santayana’s handwritten letters) against the original holograph letters. This edition of Santayana’s correspondence owes a very great deal to the boundless energy and enthusiasm for Santayana’s writings that Professor Saatkamp has brought to it, and I am sure that, like me, Santayanans everywhere are very grateful to him. Another person who made a very significant contribution to this letters edition is Donna Hanna-Calvert, who was for several years the Associate Editor of The Works of George Santayana at the Texas A&M University headquarters of the project. Ms. Hanna-Calvert was always a most astute, congenial, and helpful colleague, and I am indebted to her both for her assistance with the letters project as well as for her collaboration on earlier volumes of the edition. I owe her much for making my working visits to the editorial offices at Texas A&M very pleasant, comfortable, efficient, and productive. To the current Associate Editor of The Works of George Santayana (and also of this edition of the letters specifically), Kristine W. Frost, this letters volume and I are very heavily indebted. Ms. Frost has had the responsibility of coordinating and executing the multiple tasks of preparing the text of the letters edition for publication. She has assisted the General Editor and me in every conceivable aspect of the preparation of this letters edition while simultaneously organizing and carrying out collation schedules for future volumes of the Works edition that are currently in preparation, and directly supervising the activities of our student helpers and other editorial assistants. I wish also to express here to Kristine Frost what I know all of us on the edition especially appreciate in working with her: I mean her invariably equable temperament, her unshakable good nature. Working with her is always a pleasure.

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I want to thank especially my wife, Annegret, for her many years of service to this letters edition (as well as to earlier volumes of The Works of George Santayana) as editorial assistant. She has supported my work on this project in every conceivable way. The help and companionship she provided on the numerous and extensive travels that this work has entailed often transformed difficulty, inconvenience, and hard labor into achievement and adventure. I am grateful to her for all the effort, encouragement, and patience that she has contributed to the completion of this enterprise. Our other editorial assistant on the letters edition, Brenda Bridges, at Texas A&M, also richly deserves recognition here and the gratitude of the editors for effectively carrying out many important and demanding tasks, including researching the information for much of the footnote annotation to the letters. Thanks to Ms. Bridges’s astuteness and unflagging perseverance, the extensive and exceptionally valuable collection of letters by Santayana to Charles Augustus Strong—long believed lost or destroyed—were located and copies acquired for this edition. Therefore, to all these kind, cooperative, expert, and industrious persons and magnanimous institutions that have contributed so materially and indispensably to the production of this edition of Santayana’s letters, I extend my deep gratitude. William G. Holzberger Professor of English Emeritus Bucknell University 1 Volumes published to date: I Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography (1986); II The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory (1988); III Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1989); IV The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel (1994).

Introduction William G. Holzberger George Santayana (1863–1952) was one of the most learned and cultivated men of his time. Born in Spain and educated in America, he taught philosophy at Harvard University for twenty-two years before returning permanently to Europe at age forty-eight to devote himself exclusively to writing. He knew several languages, including Latin and Greek. Besides his mastery of English, he was at home in Spanish and French (though he modestly down-played his knowledge of those languages). As a young man, Santayana studied Italian in order to read Dante, Cavalcanti, Michelangelo, and other Italian Platonizing poets in their own language; and, in later life, as a result of his long residence in Rome, he acquired facility in speaking Italian.1 While a graduate student in Germany during 1886–88, Santayana lived with Harvard friends in an English-speaking boardinghouse in Berlin, thereby missing an opportunity to learn to speak German properly. However, he could read the original versions of German literary and philosophical works. He also knew the world, having lived for protracted periods in Spain, America, Germany, England, France, and Italy. A true cosmopolitan, Santayana nevertheless always regarded himself as a Spaniard and kept his Spanish passport current. He possessed many talents and had a multifaceted personality, and each of those facets is reflected vividly in his letters. World famous as a philosopher, he was also a poet, essayist, dramatist, literary critic, autobiographer, and author of a best-selling novel. The numerous letters referring to The Last Puritan, his novel begun in 1889 and completed over a period of forty-five years on 31 August 1934,2 describe the way in which a modest story of college life evolved into a major study of American culture and modern civilization. The letters incorporate a thoroughgoing statement of Santayana’s own critical interpretation of The Last Puritan. Santayana’s letters represent the full range of his interests, knowledge, and achievements, and students of English prose style will encounter in them superb examples of epistolary writing. They are of supreme value to the biographer. Some letters are important for establishing dates of significant events in Santayana’s life and career. For instance, the 13 October

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1933 letter to Daniel Cory describes Santayana’s discovery of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the similarity of his own theory of essences to Heidegger’s ontology. Other letters illuminate Santayana’s philosophical system. The 1 March 1949 letter to Richard C. Lyon is an excellent example of the “philosophical” letters. In it Santayana states his views on matter, idea, the self, intuition, and other perennial philosophical issues, relative to the views of philosophers such as Plato, Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, Fichte, Kierkegaard, Bergson, and Russell. The second paragraph of the 21 September 1917 letter to Charles Augustus Strong constitutes a succinct and very clear expression of Santayana’s controversial theory of essences; and the huge collection of Santayana’s letters to Strong is in itself a treasure-trove of revelations of the development of Santayana’s philosophical system.3 In fact, we find in Santayana’s letters not only a distillation of his philosophy but also a multitude of new perspectives on the published work. The responses to his correspondents are filled with spontaneous comments on and restatements of his fundamental philosophical ideas and principles. Because Santayana’s philosophy was not for him a thing apart, but rather the foundation of his existence, the letters indicate the ways in which his entire life was permeated and directed by that philosophy. Essential to Santayana’s position is the Greek ideal of the “life of reason,” a conception of the good life as requiring a continual commitment to the pursuit of self-knowledge, discipline, and an unromantic determination to harmonize rather than indulge the passions. It is the ideal of sophrosune or moderation venerated by classical philosophers like Aristotle and despised by modern ones like Bertrand Russell. The fullest expression of Santayana’s philosophical system, which we may observe developing in his letters, is in the four volumes of Realms of Being, published over a period of fourteen years (1927 to 1940). Santayana devotes a volume to each of the four realms: essence, matter, truth, and spirit. These realms are not so much regions or elements of being as they are kinds or representations thereof. Santayana’s formulation of the realm of essence caused him, in the view of several of his critics, to be allied with Platonic idealism; however, Santayana’s essences, unlike those of Plato, are not the ultimate reality. For Santayana essences are merely an infinite number of real though non-existent passive forms. The unconscious and unformed realm of matter is the sole source of power and existence. In Santayana’s view, the embodiment of essences by matter results in the substantial physical world. Unlike Plato, for whom spirit or consciousness exists eternally and independently of matter, Santayana conceived of

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spirit as conscious self-awareness generated by matter when the vital physical organism (or psyche, in Santayana’s terms) achieves a certain level of organization, as in a human being. Spirit, for Santayana, reluctantly shares the career of the body that has generated it. If it were free to do so, spirit would range impartially over the spectacle of existence. But, because of its ineluctable identification with the career of a specific individual organism, spirit is pulled away from its natural tendency to disinterested observation by the necessity of attending to the requirements of the organism to which it is bound. In Santayana’s letters we see dramatic representations of the predicament of the philosopher whose spirit, in its effort to seek and comprehend the truth of things, necessarily strives to transcend the confinements and limitations of particular perspectives, personal or national allegiances, or historical contexts and observe things impartially under the aspect of eternity. But, because the philosopher is nevertheless an individual and mortal person, subject to the conditions of his environment and physical organism, he must, however reluctantly, be called back to the never permanently escapable present personal, social, political, material reality. That Santayana was keenly aware of this dichotomy is made perfectly clear in his published writings, in his personal life, and in his letters. His striving for a transcendental perspective devoid of personal, national, or ideological bias is seen in his perennial effort to stand aloof from social, political, or professional organizations that would demand of him an allegiance to their particular agendas and make impossible, even intermittently, the perspective of eternity. At the same time, we can see his recognition of the limitations and obligations placed upon every human individual by one’s nationality, genetic inheritance, and psychological conditioning. This recognition is reflected in the fact that Santayana always identified himself as a Spanish citizen, and (despite the ultimately atheistic character of his philosophical principles) a Roman Catholic. It is reflected also in the record of loyalty and devotion to family and friends that we observe in the letters. Perhaps the greatest problem for Santayana, as manifested in the letters, was the life-long effort of the philosopher to reconcile his inclination to live in the eternal with the necessity of the individual human being to live in the here and now. A succinct statement of his positions on religion, science, and poetry is found in the 31 August 1951 letter to Ira D. Cardiff. In that letter Santayana attempts to explain his unbifurcated view of religion and naturalism, and he indicts positivism for unimaginativeness. Because

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Santayana’s philosophy is one of materialism and naturalism, wherein everything—including spirit or consciousness—has a material basis, there can be no personal immortality of the kind traditionally conceived of by religion. The individual spirit is contingent upon the continued existence of the physical organism or psyche that generated it. At the dissolution of that organism in death, the spirit, as a consequence of that disorganization of matter, is annihilated. Except, therefore, where consciousness is temporarily allied to some physical organism, nature is unconscious and indifferent to human interests. There are, therefore, no supernatural beings, no disembodied spirits, no gods. Thus religion does not describe an actual otherworldly realm but rather only this world idealized and represented mythopoetically. For Santayana religion—and even science—is a kind of poetry. Other letters tell us much about Santayana’s literary method and the achievement of his apparently effortless style. We learn from many letters that the effect of spontaneous flow in his published writing is actually the result of a method involving several drafts and much revision leading to the finished work. In the letter of 13 December 1949 to Rosamond Thomas (Sturgis) Little, he quotes the compositional principle of Boileau as representing his own method: “Polish it continually, and repolish it; add occasionally, and delete often.”4 He frequently had two or three compositions going forward simultaneously, moving from one to another as inspiration and interest guided him. Sometimes he used material pruned from one project for the substance of another (for example, the incorporation of the surplus of his Spinoza lecture, “Ultimate Religion,” in his book, The Realm of Spirit, as described in the 14 May 1932 letter to Cory). And, apropos of Cory, the detailed criticisms that Santayana makes of the drafts of essays that Cory sent to him for comment constitute a sort of concise manual for writers, and they reveal Santayana’s unremitting quest, through continuous review and revision, for perfection of diction and form in his own writing. Some letters (for instance, that to the literary scholar and critic William Bysshe Stein of 1 September 1949) reveal that Santayana conceived of the practice of literary criticism as stating the critic’s personal taste rather than making objective evaluations. The letters also document Santayana’s subordination of aesthetics to ethics and his view of the relativism of the latter. Still other letters, like the 15 March 1946 one to Rosamond Sturgis (later Mrs. Little), express Santayana’s traditionalist views on education and American education in particular. In addition to illuminating his

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ideas, views, and accomplishments as thinker and writer, Santayana’s letters are especially important in revealing the personal side of the famous author. Nowhere else—not even in his autobiography, Persons and Places— does he express so directly and succinctly his fundamental attitudes and convictions or reveal more intimately the characteristics of his complex personality. Each reader of the letters doubtless will relish in them what he or she is most interested in knowing about Santayana’s life and thought; and many persons will use this edition to consult specific letters as these pertain to certain ideas, persons, or historical events. But anyone who reads extensively in this collection will see emerge the distinctive personality of the writer, in a kind of verbal self-portrait. There are, to be sure, other documents available in which a portrait of Santayana may appear, including the many fine articles and books about him, especially John McCormick’s critical biography and Santayana’s inimitable autobiography.5 These descriptions of Santayana’s personality and experience are extremely valuable in fleshing out our image of him as a person and writer. Private letters usually represent the most spontaneous and unguarded form of written expression,6 and, by focussing on Santayana’s letters as illustrative of their author’s personality and character, we discover in them a concentrated and revealing self-portrait. This verbal selfportrait, produced partly by unconscious revelations, contributes significantly to our conception of the sort of individual that Santayana was and, therefore, to our understanding of his writings. That Santayana was a precocious genius is evident from even a cursory reading of his early letters. Among the most interesting are those written in 1886 to his Harvard classmate, Henry Ward Abbot, while Santayana was pursuing graduate studies in philosophy in Germany. The maturity of view, intellectual acuteness, and power of expression in these letters are remarkable. Santayana’s perennial emphasis on the crucial importance of the Socratic principle of self-knowledge and the ethical doctrine of moral relativism7 characteristic of his most mature writings are nowhere more perfectly expressed than in the 6 October 1886 letter to Abbot written from Berlin when Santayana was not quite twenty-three years old. In response to Abbot’s indecision about going into business—as his family evidently wanted—or pursuing instead some other career, Santayana wrote: To do right is to know what you want. Now when you are dissatisfied with yourself, it’s because you are after some-

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thing you don’t want. What objects are you proposing to yourself? are they the objects you really value? If they are not, you are cheating yourself. I don’t mean that if you chose to pursue the objects you most value, you would attain them; of course not. Your experience will tell you that. … but success in getting after much labour what you really don’t care for is the bitterest and most ridiculous failure. Santayana had several other close friends among his Harvard classmates, and the fact that he was socially active during his undergraduate years (or at least as active as his very modest means would permit) is now well known. He had drawn cartoons for and served on the editorial board of the Harvard Lampoon; he was president of the Philosophical Club and took part in Hasty Pudding Club theatricals. But Santayana seems always to have been a rather formal person who resented what he considered undue familiarity. In the 21 August 1882 letter to John Galen Howard, written following their graduation from the Boston Public Latin School, Santayana expressed his unwillingness to be patronized even by the venerable headmaster, Dr. Moses Merrill: … I hope he has not had the impudence of addressing all the fellows by their first names, as he has done me. If he supposed I would be flattered by being treated with intimacy by him, he was greatly mistaken. If I did not deem it unwise to forfeit anyone’s good opinion merely for the pleasure of speaking out one’s mind plainly, I should have answered him and addressed him as “my dear Moses.” Forty-six years later, on 4 May 1928, Santayana wrote to his nephew and business manager, George Sturgis, that he had received a letter from a William C. Sturgis (a member of the prominent Boston family to which Santayana’s mother’s first husband had belonged) of whom Santayana had never heard: He calls me “George”, but I don’t know who he can be. Will you enlighten me? … When you reply please tell me whether he is habitually called William, Will, Willy, Billy, or Bill, so that I may live up to our relationship. Santayana was, of course, on a first-name basis with members of his immediate family, addressing his sister Susan as “Dear Susie,” and he was not so stiff as not to be on a first-name basis with other persons as well. In

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letters to the intimate friends of his youth—for instance, his Harvard classmates—he addressed Henry Ward Abbot, Boylston Adams Beal, and Robert Burnside Potter as “Harry,” “Boylston,” or “Bob.” In later letters written to close male friends usually the person is addressed by the last name only, in the manner more common among men in an earlier time than it is today. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, Horace Meyer Kallen, and Logan Pearsall Smith are addressed as “Dickinson,” “Kallen,” or “Smith.” The Russell brothers (John Francis Stanley, the second Earl Russell, and his younger brother, Bertrand) are each addressed simply as “Dear Russell.” Daniel Cory was undoubtedly Santayana’s closest friend during the last twenty-five years of his life, yet he is never addressed in any of the hundreds of pieces of correspondence that Santayana wrote to him in any way but as “Dear Cory.”8 In writing or speaking about Santayana, Cory referred to him simply as “Santayana” (though in conversation he sometimes referred to him as “the Master,” in the manner of Henry James’s disciples and scholars). In Santayana: The Later Years, Cory describes his arrival at Santayana’s bedside in Rome, shortly before the latter’s death, saying, “I’m here, Santayana,” so we may assume that once their friendship had been established Cory addressed his elderly friend simply as “Santayana.”9 (We do know that in Santayana’s last years his relationship with the young poet, Robert Lowell, became so friendly that Lowell, thanking Santayana for helping him financially, humorously addressed him in one letter as “My dear Uncle.”)10 Santayana’s editors at Constable and Scribner’s—Otto Kyllmann and John Hall Wheelock, respectively—are always addressed as Mr. Kyllmann and Mr. Wheelock, as is Mr. Scribner when Santayana writes directly to the head of the New York publishing house. Even close women friends of many years—like Nancy Saunders Toy, Elizabeth Stephens Fish Potter, and Mary Williams Winslow—are addressed in the letters as “Mrs. Toy,” “Mrs. Potter,” or “Mrs. Winslow.” The impression of Santayana as an essentially formal man is reinforced by the language of his letters, in which there is a notable absence of slang or obscenity. This is so much the case that one is a little startled to encounter in a few letters even such mild imprecations as “damn” or “damned.” As in his published writings, Santayana’s diction in the letters might be described the way critics have characterized that of Hawthorne and Henry James: “formal but alive.” Santayana’s formal style, however, in no way inhibited the expression of his formidable wit. There is little or no broad humor in Santayana’s let-

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ters, not much in the way of comedy or fun (except perhaps for the 31 August 1887 “Rabelaisian” letter to William Morton Fullerton and the 25 November and 10 December 1904 “Arabian Nights” letters to Mary Whitall Smith Berenson), but there is plenty of wit: dry, ironical commentary that is often paradoxical and ingenious and invariably in the service of some point that he is making. A typical example of Santayana’s irony and wit is found in the letter of 2 April 1923 to George Sturgis, in which Santayana comments on the recent appearance of the Scribner’s edition of his Poems: … a copy Scribner has sent me looks so mean and poverty-stricken that I am afraid they are doing it on the cheap, in order to make money. Money out of poems! I received $1.87 for the first two editions, and was thankful, the publisher having failed in the interval, as was to be expected.11 In another letter to George Sturgis two years later, Santayana comments on “the instability of the female will,” describing his own present dependence upon the decisions of several women friends and relatives as to where and when he may be traveling. He mentions that his friend Charles Augustus Strong is enjoying the electric heating that Strong’s daughter, Margaret, had installed in her father’s Paris apartment against his will, and writes: … probably I shall go to a hotel [instead of joining Strong in the Avenue de l’Observatoire apartment], as Margaret herself may turn up at any moment—another case of La donna è mobile, especially with an auto-mobile, if you will excuse an Italian pun. For Margaret has one of her own much better than her father’s.12 In the summer of 1928 Santayana’s friend, the Yale English professor and popular literary critic William Lyon Phelps, and his wife were planning a trip to Spain, about which Santayana wrote: I admire your courage and that of Mrs. Phelps in going to Madrid in August. We might apply to it a story Strong likes to tell about a delegate’s description of the summer breezes of Chicago: that not content with coming out of the very mouth of hell, they had first blown over the State of Texas. For Texas read the plains of La Mancha, and you will know what awaits you.13

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A final example of the mordant irony of which Santayana was capable is in the 27 March 1939 letter to George Sturgis regarding Bertrand Russell, who, Santayana believed, like Russell’s elder brother, had wasted his genius through personal and political folly: Not that his philosophy would have been sound: he is a born heretic or genial madman, like John Knox or Giordano Bruno: yet he is preternaturally intelligent, penetrating, and radical; so that the more wrong he is the clearer he makes the wrongness of his position; and what more can you expect a philosopher to prove except that the views he has adopted are radically and eternally impossible? If every philosopher had done that in the past, we should now be almost out of the wood. As we encounter Santayana’s wit in the letters, we may occasionally find ourselves laughing out loud, but more often our amused response is of a quieter kind. Santayana’s sense of humor—or, more precisely, his witty and ironic cast of mind—is much akin to that of Henry James (with whom he shares not only a formal style but also other qualities and characteristics)14 and not at all like that of Mark Twain. Concomitant with Santayana’s ironical view of the world was his own capacity for laughter. He likened himself to Democritus, “the laughing philosopher,” and said that his friends told him that he laughed too much. Yet most of the photographs of Santayana depict him as very grim. He did not like being photographed and thought the typical grinning snapshot a very inaccurate representation of someone. Thus, almost all of the extant photos of Santayana—with the exception of a group taken in the Blue Sisters’ nursing-home in Rome toward the end of his life—portray him as an unsmiling and somber man. The same is true of the drawings made from photographs to illustrate the dust jackets of several of his books, one of which, he complained to Scribner’s, made him look “crosseyed and ferocious.”15 These somber or hostile-looking pictures, combined with his political conservatism and reputation for avoiding society, have contributed to a widespread notion that Santayana was remote and forbidding; “cold-blooded” is a term sometimes applied to him. It is true that the Santayana represented in the letters is unsentimental and toughminded, and his love of solitude and his philosophic resignation give the impression that he was more indifferent and detached from human life and feeling than are most people. But the letters provide considerable evidence that Santayana was capable of profound emotional attachments.

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So far as we know, Santayana never had a romantic relationship with a woman, though there were several women with whom he enjoyed close friendship and lifelong correspondence. Mrs. Toy, Mrs. Potter, and Mrs. Winslow fit this description. And, until her death in 1928, Santayana’s elder half sister Susan was, in complex ways, the beloved woman in his life. However, Santayana—like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche—saw women as fundamentally different from men, as is illustrated by a 17 February 1887 letter to Henry Ward Abbot: A woman, for example, is despised in so far as she is a human individual competing with others for life, especially because her methods of competing are small and mean; but she is loved and even worshiped as the complement of man, as something filling out his life without sharing his qualities. Feminists, with some justification, condemn Santayana as a sexist who characterized women as inferior. Santayana believed that, compared to men, women are generally not as intelligent, interesting, or physically fine; men are the superior gender. This exaltation of the masculine may be derived from Santayana’s own sexual nature. From his letters, from the events of The Last Puritan and his remarks about the novel in the letters, and from the conversation about A. E. Housman reported by Cory,16 it seems clear that Santayana’s sexual orientation was not conventional. The early letters to his Harvard classmate, Henry Ward Abbot, are particularly significant in this regard. On 23 April 1887 Santayana wrote: … I hate my own arrogance and would worship the man who should knock it out of me. Says a Spanish song: I am searching land & ocean For the man that I might love, And whenever my heart finds him Then he will have found his slave. Man or thing—it makes no difference—but heaven grant it be no woman. … Of course all girls aren’t foolish—some are charming and I am tender on two or three myself; but if I ever humbug a woman into marrying me, it will be a piece of selfishness on my part, depend upon it, and not a conquest on hers. The comments of the young Santayana in this letter about women and marriage are common in the banter of young men, but the general tone

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here is not heterosexual, and, for this reason and in light of Santayana’s other writings, we are disinclined to take seriously the statement about his being “tender” on two or three girls. A year earlier, in the spring of 1886 (his senior year at Harvard), Santayana had met the tall, athletic, good-looking, cultivated, and supremely self-confident Earl Russell, and he evidently fell in love with the young aristocrat. His letters to Abbot of 1887 reveal his complete infatuation: … Russell is the ablest man, all round, that I have ever met. You have no idea what a splendid creature he is, no more had I till I had seen a great deal of him. He isn’t good, that is he is completely selfish and rather cruel, although I fancy I made too much of his heartlessness at first. But then both practically and intellectually he is really brilliant. … I know I am making a fool of myself in writing about him. … but I send a note of his so that you may judge for yourself and also have some idea of the men I am seeing here. Pass the note on to Herbert Lyman and let him keep it or send it back to me. I am going tomorrow to stay with Russell again, for he is laid up and wants company. … Don’t tell this round, I beg of you, but I tell you because I am telling you everything to-day. I make an exception of Herbert, because I should have to tell him sooner or later, and he won’t chuckle over it as if it were a joke merely, which it isn’t.17 In a letter to Abbot written a week later, Santayana reveals the abject character of his relationship with Russell: … what I call my “fall from grace and self-control” … is simply this. Russell has a way of treating people which is insufferably insolent and insulting. Never for a moment did I imagine I could allow anyone to treat me in such a way. But I find that instead of caring for my own dignity and independence … I find that I don’t care a rap for my interest in myself or my ways of doing things, but that I am quite willing to stand anything, however outrageous, that comes from a certain quarter. This is what has happened to me. I am a fool to say a word about it—especially when people think that I am talking about trifles. … don’t imagine I am referring to “country matters”.18

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The revelations of these letters to Abbot are franker expressions of Santayana’s willingness to abase himself and accept abuse from Russell than are found in Persons and Places, including the episode he relates there about accidentally pulling the young earl into the Thames and being violently abused verbally by him for clumsiness.19 And Santayana’s willingness to swallow his pride and suffer indignities from Russell seems to have been unending. In the autumn of 1923, when he was almost sixty and planning a trip to England to deliver the Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford, he wrote to Russell saying that he hoped there would be a chance to see him. Russell’s reply was: “Do as you like,” and Santayana responded as follows: If you leave it to me, I will certainly come [to Russell’s house in Hampshire]. I don’t believe that anything has really happened to alter our relations to one another which were always tacit and expressed in conduct rather than words. You now say more than you ever said to me, even in our young days, about being “attached to me”; you must have been, in some way which in spite of my cold-blooded psychology I don’t pretend to understand. In that case, why drop me now, when certainly there has been no change on my side except that involved in passing from twenty to sixty? Let me come, anyhow once, and we can judge better whether everything is as usual or whether the barrier you speak of—which certainly is not “Elizabeth” or her affairs—really exists. Shall it be next Tuesday, and if so, what train shall I take? Yours ever20 Santayana did visit Russell, who was indifferent, even frequently mistaking his name and calling him “Sargeaunt,” the name of another of Russell’s friends, a Latin master at Westminster.21 As in the cases of Henry James and A. E. Housman there is no evidence that Santayana was an active or practicing homosexual or that his youthful relationship with Russell (or anyone else, for that matter) was homosexual in a physical sense. Indeed, the Hamlet echo of his warning to Abbot not to construe his attachment to Russell as involving “country matters” might indicate that Santayana regarded his devotion as transcending the merely physical.22

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Only a deep emotional attachment could have enabled Santayana to continue for so many years to tolerate Russell’s unpleasantness and indifference; yet Santayana appears always to have been aware of Russell’s faults. This insuperable critical faculty doubtless sobered Santayana’s affections for other persons about whom he felt less strongly: he had no illusions about people. For instance, he appreciated his nephew, George Sturgis, for his able stewardship of his financial properties, as he had George’s father—Santayana’s half brother Robert—for performing the same service. He frequently closed letters to George Sturgis with “Yours affectionately,” and even signed one to him of 1927: “With much love.” But other letters reveal that he did not care for his nephew any more than he had for George’s father; he found both men lacking in sensitivity and sympathetic imagination.23 But the letters show that Santayana was genuinely affectionate toward several persons. He was very well disposed toward George Sturgis’s first wife, Rosamond, with whom he carried on a long correspondence. Santayana appreciated Rosamond’s thoughtfulness and kindness in sending him packages of food and clothing, after the war in Italy had ended and supplies in Rome remained short. He regularly signed his letters to her “Your affectionate Uncle George.” He was also very fond of George’s and Rosamond’s eldest son, Robert (“Bob”) Shaw Sturgis, who had visited him several times in Rome in 1944 when Bob was there in the U.S. Air Force. His letters to Bob after the war, when the latter was a Harvard undergraduate studying architecture (the field that Santayana had once thought seriously of making his profession), are full of unfeigned interest in the young man’s activities and plans. The grandfatherly affection that the octogenarian felt for his good-looking, intelligent, and artistic young grandnephew is unmistakable in both the letters Santayana wrote to Rosamond and those to Bob himself. If Santayana’s affection for young Bob Sturgis was grandfatherly, his feeling for the young Daniel Cory was fatherly. Santayana first met Cory in April 1927, when Cory was twenty-two and Santayana sixty-three, and a long, intimate friendship began. Cory, who first encountered Santayana’s writings at Columbia University, had left college before completing a degree and had gone to live and work in London. Impressed with an essay that the young man had written on his philosophy and sent to him, Santayana offered to pay Cory’s expenses for a visit to Rome. He was pleased by Cory’s critical acumen, his interest in and grasp of Santayana’s philosophy, and engaged the young man to assist him in

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arranging the manuscript of The Realm of Matter for publication. This was the beginning of a friendship and professional association that lasted for twenty-five years, until Santayana’s death in 1952. Initially, Santayana did not think of Cory’s position of literary assistant or secretary as becoming permanent.24 But Cory, while working for Santayana, made the acquaintance of Santayana’s friend, the American epistemologist Charles Augustus Strong, who also wanted someone to help him prepare his writings for publication, and Cory became Strong’s assistant or secretary as well. Both Strong and Santayana paid Cory a modest monthly allowance. This combined income enabled Cory to live separately, usually in England; but he spent protracted periods living near Strong, either in Paris or at Le Balze (“The Cliffs”), Strong’s villa at Fiesole, near Florence. Cory also made infrequent visits to Santayana in Rome, helping him with his writing projects. For the most part, during their long association, Cory lived far from Santayana, usually in another country, and sometimes several years passed without the two men seeing one another. Despite the separation, however, Santayana continued to send Cory his monthly allowance, with special supplements for medical bills, clothing, and travel. Though he never expected Cory’s dependency upon him to become permanent, Santayana eventually realized that it had and accepted responsibility for supporting Cory as long as he could do so. Before the mail between Italy and the United States was cut off by World War II, he arranged with Scribner’s for Cory to receive the royalties on his books, so that the latter might not be left without resources. In the beginning, Santayana’s appreciation of Daniel Cory was based largely upon Cory’s solid understanding and sincere advocacy of Santayana’s philosophy, as shown in the 21 May 1928 letter to Cory: … you understand the true inwardness of it, and your ways of expressing it are enough your own for me to feel sure that it is not a casual adoption of a technical theory, but a true participation in the Idea. Later, Santayana’s admiration and affection for Cory was increased by Cory’s considerable charm, his talent for reading aloud (a valuable skill in the revision of manuscripts and something that Santayana felt he himself could not do well), his enterprise in addressing himself to the task of propagating Santayana’s views by writing articles on his philosophy for publication in professional journals, and his representation of Santayana in communication with the editors of leading periodicals—such as T. S. Eliot

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of The Criterion and Henry Seidel Canby of The Saturday Review of Literature—about publication of Santayana’s writings in their magazines. He also believed that Cory was someone he could depend on in a personal emergency, someone who would assist him if he became seriously ill. And it was, indeed, Cory who traveled from England to Rome to be with Santayana during the final weeks of his life and who made the difficult arrangements for Santayana’s funeral and burial in the Campo Verano Cemetery in Rome.25 Despite his affection for Cory and his appreciation of Cory’s personal loyalty and devotion to his philosophy, Santayana did not hesitate to criticize him—both in letters to Cory and to others—on several counts: for being a spendthrift; lacking initiative; failing to complete independent literary projects that he had begun (such as Cory’s unfinished autobiographical novel, “Michael”); repeating to him unpleasant things that C. A. Strong had said about him (Santayana), thereby exacerbating his always difficult relations with Strong;26 and for wasting “the best years of his life playing golf.”27 The affectionate side of Santayana revealed in the letters contrasts with the cold-bloodedness of which he has been accused (and of which he even accuses himself). This conception of Santayana—as lacking in human warmth and sympathy—may well derive, in part, from his political views and his tendency to perceive things sub specie aeternitatis. He was a true modern in terms of the bleakness of his outlook and in his chronic detachment. There is also something very Spanish in the essential starkness of his view of life. In 1917, during World War I, Santayana wrote a letter to Bertrand Russell that Russell quoted from in his autobiography to demonstrate Santayana’s lack of feeling: As for deaths and loss of capital, I don’t much care. The young men killed would grow older if they lived, and then they would be good for nothing; and after being good for nothing for a number of years they would die of catarrh or a bad kidney or the halter or old age—and would that be less horrible?28 This letter suggests that Santayana did not consider the anguish suffered by the families, sweethearts, and comrades of the soldiers killed in the war, or indeed the loss of life to the soldiers themselves. However it is evident from numerous other letters that Santayana wrote during the period 1914–18 that he was profoundly distressed by the terrible events of this war and especially by the appalling loss of life on all sides. The letters

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show, in fact, that he was so depressed by these events that he found it difficult to think or write. Twenty-seven years later, writing to Andrew J. Onderdonk on 20 January 1945, he was less discomfited by the horrific events of World War II: Perhaps the years since we last saw each other, and the many since we saw each other often—34!—have made me more inhuman than ever; but public and private tragedies move me now much less than they did. I think of all the empires reduced to filthy little heaps of ruins; of all the battles and sieges in the histories, and all the horrible fates of potentates, tyrants, patriots, and saints; and what now happens to us seems almost a matter of course. Santayana believed that, in order to understand the world, the observer must not be too closely attached to it or too actively engaged in it. The social activism of a Bertrand Russell or a Jean-Paul Sartre was anathema to him. His detachment could, on occasion—as in his comments on the two world wars—appear as sheer lack of interest in human wellbeing. In October 1928 Horace M. Kallen wrote asking Santayana to “sponsor” Kallen’s new book on “the Sacco and Vanzetti letters” or to join a committee that Kallen was forming to protest the way in which the case of the two Italian anarchists had been handled. In a 22 October 1928 letter Santayana refused Kallen’s request, making the following comment: I don’t know whether those men were condemned for what, morally, wasn’t a crime, or whether they were innocent altogether: in any case, it was a scandal to put off their execution so long, and then to execute them. It shows the weakness, confusion, and occasional cruelty of a democratic government: it is more merciful to the condemned, and more deterrent to others, to execute them at once, as do my friends the Bolsheviks and the Fascists. But that, I imagine, is not what your book is intended to prove. Santayana, somewhat chillingly, places the emphasis not upon the possibility that two innocent men were condemned and executed, but rather that they were not executed more quickly once the American court had pronounced them guilty. In several other letters he uniformly refuses requests to participate in public demonstrations to endorse or denounce either side of a particular moral or political issue.

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Santayana’s conservative politics—he described himself as a Tory29— sometimes caused him to take positions that seem mean-spirited. In 1940 Rosamond Sturgis was assisting a young working-class college student with his expenses. In a 10 October 1940 letter to her Santayana authorized Rosamond to have George Sturgis withdraw a hundred dollars from his account to be added to the fund for the student, but he included this comment: … to tell you the whole truth, I don’t like to give in charity to the deserving; it only encourages them to make greater demands on life, to strain, and to increase the half-educated proletariat; whereas the undeserving merely get a drink, are happy for half an hour, and no worse afterwards than they were before. However, it may be the American ideal to increase the half-educated proletariate [sic] until it includes everybody; but would that be a happy result? Again, the apparent callousness and cynicism of Santayana’s remarks in this letter are disconcerting: we wonder at the smug injustice of a social philosophy that accepts the accident of birth as the sole determinant of opportunity and privilege for some and denial and deprivation for others. Santayana frequently has been accused of anti-Semitism, and in several letters we do find unpalatable statements about Jews and Jewishness. On 12 August 1936 he wrote to George Sturgis that he was reconciled to the necessary transitoriness of things, that all conservatisms were doomed because nothing could be kept up permanently, and for example added: The Jews, for instance, aren’t in the least like Abraham or King Solomon: they are just sheenies. And in a 1 May 1938 letter to Mrs. Toy about Walter Lippmann, Sidney Hook, and Irwin Edman, he wrote: Are the Jews going to repent of being anti’s, for fear that soon there should be nothing left to be anti against? After all they have made themselves very comfortable in Christendom, and if nothing but an international proletariat remained, it would not offer them such brilliant careers as professors and prime minister and newspaper proprietors. Mrs. Toy’s response to this letter evidently recommended that Santayana avoid anti-Semitism, for in his 12 August 1938 letter to her he observed:

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I ought to love the Jews, as they seem to be my only friends intellectually, beginning with Edman—not to go back to Spinoza. These remarks of Santayana’s, though critical and contemptuous of what he perceived to be ancient and modern Jewish attitudes, did not prevent his appreciation of virtuous individual Jews. Ironically, Baruch Spinoza was Santayana’s acknowledged master, and there was no philosopher for whom he had greater respect. He appreciated the keen interest in his own philosophy taken by Morris Cohen and Irwin Edman, and he appears to have been fond of his former graduate assistant at Harvard, Horace M. Kallen, to whom, after his retirement from Harvard, he had given his doctoral cap and gown and to whom he wrote numerous warm, friendly letters,30 frequently complimenting Kallen on his publications. To George Sturgis on 31 January 1941 Santayana wrote that his doctor in Rome (Luigi Sabbatucci, who served as his physician from 1935 until Santayana’s death in 1952) had, like himself, never heard of lire miste (evidently a form of Italian wartime currency) “although he is a Jew, and a very nice person.” But Santayana’s most redeeming statement on the matter of racial prejudice is probably that found in his 23 September 1926 letter to John Jay Chapman, an American bigot who had offered Santayana the presidency of “The Aryan Society”: Against whom is the Aryan Society directed? Against the Arabians, the Jews, the Chinese, and the blameless Ethiopians? I confess that I don’t like the Jewish spirit, because it is worldly, seeing God in thrift and success, and I know nothing of the blacks; but the Arabs and the Chinese seem to me in some ways, apart from the costume, nearer to the Greeks than we are in Europe and America: they have taken the measure of life more sanely. Might it not turn out, then, that the Aryan Society, if it stood for the life of reason, was especially directed against the Aryans? Races, like nations, seem an unfortunate class of units to identify with moral ideas. If, therefore, Santayana’s comments in his letters and other writings are perceived by some readers as repugnantly anti-Semitic, others today— including a number of Jewish scholars—argue that such a view is an exaggeration and reject the charge that Santayana was truly anti-Semitic. At the very least, the quotation from the letter to Chapman indicates that he was not a racist.

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Charles Loeser, Santayana’s classmate at Harvard, was from a prosperous Jewish family. Santayana enjoyed Loeser’s company and admired his mastery of foreign languages and expert knowledge of art, which Santayana thought even greater than Bernard Berenson’s. The two young men traveled together and afterward remained friends for many years. The young Santayana also enjoyed the forays he made into Boston society, but most especially he relished the company of other sophisticated or cultivated young men. In some letters we find the elderly philosopher reminiscing about the bachelor dinner parties of the 1890s in Cambridge that had given him some of the most pleasant moments of his life. As he got older, however, Santayana more and more preferred to be alone, and a correlate of this love of solitude was his dislike of controversy, a rather surprising characteristic in a philosopher. On 6 June 1939 he wrote to Mrs. Toy: “I don’t like mental fierceness, even on my own side in philosophy”. Many years earlier, during the summer following his retirement from Harvard, Santayana had written (on 2 August 1912) to his former colleague and department chairman, George Herbert Palmer, that he expected to benefit from conversations in Cambridge, England, with his friends Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore: … whose views are near enough to mine to be stimulating to me, while the fact that they live in an atmosphere of controversy (which for myself I hate) renders them keenly alive to all sorts of objections and pitfalls which I need to be warned of, in my rather solitary and unchecked reasonings. If Santayana enjoyed occasionally discussing philosophical issues with friends (and, in the last part of his life, with many of the persons who visited him at the nursing home in Rome), he decidedly did not enjoy professional conferences. In the 23 September 1932 letter to Mrs. Toy in which he reported on his recent participation in the Domus Spinozana conference at The Hague (6–10 September 1932), Santayana described the meetings as being “like all meetings and international conferences, rather tiresome and futile”; “in the end”, he had written to his sister Susan on 1 October 1913, “every philosopher has to walk alone.” And in the 18 July 1913 letter to the poet Arthur Davison Ficke, Santayana echoed Socrates’ remark to Crito in Plato’s dialogue of the same name: … what does it matter what other people think? If we care too much about persuading them we may disturb

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their peaceful conventions to no good purpose, since they will never get anything straight, while we blunt the edge of truth in our own words. Santayana believed that if his auditors or readers could comprehend intuitively the truth of his views, they would accept them; but if they could not do so, there was no point in attempting to badger people into agreement. One must catch the spark if concurrence is to be genuine and meaningful. Agreement in intellectual matters, he felt, came about more through sympathetic understanding than through debate. Just as he did not like the gatherings of professors at professional meetings, neither did Santayana—with few exceptions—like individual professors; and he didn’t like being one himself. On 6 June 1912, at the time of his retirement from Harvard, he wrote to President Abbott Lawrence Lowell that “although fond of books and of young men, I was never altogether fit to be a professor”. Three years later, on 4 August 1915, he wrote to his former graduate student, B. A. G. Fuller, who was then on the Harvard philosophy faculty, about his disillusionment with teaching philosophy: … I can’t take the teaching of philosophy seriously in itself, either as a means of being a philosopher or of teaching the young anything solid: they merely flirt with that for a year or two instead of flirting with something else. Philosophy is not a science; it might be a life or a means of artistic expression, but it is not likely to be either at an American college. Contrary to the present-day practice of calling every college or university teacher of philosophy—from the greenest assistant professor to the hoariest veteran—a “philosopher,” Santayana made a significant distinction between a “philosopher” and what he referred to as a “mere professor” of philosophy.31 For Santayana the teaching of philosophy was a profession like any other; but, for the true philosopher, philosophy was not only a profession but also a vocation or way of life. In a humorous vein, he wrote to George Sturgis, his nephew and new financial manager, on 14 August 1921: In respect to money-matters, I am a true philosopher (not a mere professor of Phil. 10, 12, etc) and my one wish is not to hear about them, but to cash cheques and be happy.

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More seriously, he says in a 1926 letter to Lewis Mumford regarding Mumford’s discussion of him in The Golden Day: … I feel that you are thinking of me—quite naturally—as just a Harvard professor, author of a book called “The Life of Reason”. Your appreciation seems absolutely just, as directed upon that semi-public personage: but I never felt myself to be identical with that being, and now much less than ever.32 In a 16 June 1934 letter to Harry Austryn Wolfson, Santayana uses his favorite, Spinoza, to make clear his distinction between the philosopher and the “mere professor” of philosophy: I believe there is another reason also why Spinoza seems to me so pre-eminent: that in spite of being traditional, or because he was not distracted by side issues, he was an entire and majestic mind, a singularly consecrated soul. All these trite dogmas and problems lived in him and were the natural channels for his intuitions and emotions. That is what I feel to make a real philosopher and not, what we are condemned to be, professors of the philosophy of other people, or of our own opinions. Spinoza had been excommunicated by the rabbis in 1656 and banished from Amsterdam for his heretical ideas; living on the outskirts of the city, he earned a meager subsistence as a lens-grinder. Several years later, in order to maintain his intellectual independence, Spinoza turned down the offer of a chair of philosophy at Heidelberg. Santayana believed that, by retiring as soon as he could from Harvard, he had achieved a comparable independence. He expressed this idea of the necessary freedom of the philosopher in the 9 June 1937 letter to Cory saying: “you are now a recognised free lance in philosophy, as all philosophers ought to be.” While avowedly not fond of professors, Santayana nevertheless moved among them all his life, as many of his correspondents and many of his visitors during the years that he lived in hotels in Rome were professors. In fact, almost all of Santayana’s friends and associates were individuals of either social or intellectual stature, or both. In some of his letters he distinguishes between what he calls “nice” people (the well-bred, well-educated, and well-to-do) and common or ordinary people. His habit of choosing his friends from among socially prominent Americans and aristocratic Europeans led to accusations of sponging, social climbing, and

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snobbery. Santayana responds to the latter charge in the 8 September 1920 letter to William Lyon Phelps: I protest against being called a snob; what I love is what is simple, humble, easy, what ought to be common, and it is only the bombast of false ambitions and false superiority, that I abhor. There is no indication that Santayana, whatever his preferences for the well-born and well-bred, was ever anything but courteous to and considerate of persons in humble positions. In his letters, Santayana refers to the waiters in the restaurants he frequented as being his friends, and there are references to the servants in the hotels or private houses that he stayed in that express Santayana’s consideration of them and his desire to do the right thing and be thought well of by them. Perhaps Santayana received a certain satisfaction from the names distinguished by European aristocratic titles in some of the lists of persons he sent to his publishers to receive complimentary copies of his books, but there is no evidence of Santayana ever fawning on any Boston Brahmin or European aristocrat— not even Bertrand Russell’s elder brother, where the matter was complicated far beyond mere snobbery. One purpose of this introduction is to suggest the ways in which Santayana’s letters reveal various characteristics of his personality, how a self-portrait emerges from the letters. That portrait is both fascinating and invaluable in giving us a better understanding of the complex personality of someone who was a profound thinker, gifted artist, and sophisticated man of the world. By thus illuminating more subtly and fully Santayana’s personality and character, the letters can deepen our insight into his philosophical and literary works. (And many of the letters address directly the principal ideas and themes of those works.) But though remarkably interesting and informative, the letters make no sensational revelations about Santayana’s personal life. It is not at all the case with him—as it often is with celebrities—that the private individual differs dramatically from the public persona. On the contrary, the evidence of the letters is that Santayana was a person of exceptional integrity, a man with a clear conception of who and what he was and what he ought to be, and one who tried to live a life of reason in accord with this conception of himself. Nevertheless, the personality reflected in the letters is complicated and paradoxical. Some letters reveal Santayana as a political reactionary,

Introduction

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complacent about arbitrary inequalities of opportunity in society, approving of ruthlessly repressive forces like Mussolini and the Italian and Spanish fascists, and—in terms of his remarks about the Jews—insensitive about racial slurs. Yet the letters also show him as someone who rejected totalitarianism on principle, disapproved of capitalism on moral grounds, advocated a kind of state socialism, and was sympathetic to Bolshevism.33 They depict a thinker who aided and abetted creative expression in others even when that expression clashed with his own opinions. They show a man tolerant of irritating traits in family and friends, who frequently suffered annoyance and inconvenience in order to accommodate persons to whom he felt a debt of loyalty. They show us an honest man, generous with his money and time, often contributing to the financial support of relatives, friends, and needy strangers, and taking the time and trouble to write conscientious appraisals of works sent to him by other writers. All in all, the portrait of Santayana that emerges from the letters is that of a man devoted to his work, one who valued friendship and loyalty highly, was considerate and polite, but who quickly comprehended a situation and was never reluctant to speak his mind. We invariably find him giving his correspondents his frank opinions, irrespective of their own views. There is nothing of the boor or bully in this candor, but rather only a desire to be truthful. Santayana’s letters depict a person of rare gifts and remarkable accomplishments, a very private individual, neither curmudgeonly nor arrogant. They reveal a man endowed with great intellectual powers, living detached from and “above” the world, who was nonetheless thoroughly human.

Endnotes 1

Most of Santayana’s correspondence is in English. However, he wrote in Spanish to relatives and friends in Spain, and the 29 April 1945 letter (to Dino Rigacci) is in Italian. 2 Per 6 September 1934 to Cory. 3 The collection of 373 pieces of correspondence from Santayana to his Harvard classmate, life-long friend, and fellow professional philosopher C. A. Strong (1862–1940), over the half-century from 1889 to 1939, is second only in size to the collection of correspondence from Santayana to Daniel Cory (over the quarter-century from 1927 to 1952) totaling 400 items. Until recently, only a few items of Santayana’s correspondence to Strong had been located, and it was feared that the rest had been destroyed when German soldiers occupied the latter’s Villa le Balze, at Fiesole, Italy, during the Second World War. Fortunately, however, the rest was discovered early in 1999, housed in the Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York. Strong’s wife,

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Elizabeth, was the daughter of John D. Rockefeller, and the letters were deposited in the Archive by Elizabeth Cuevas, Strong’s granddaughter, in 1994. 4 The letter reads: “Polissez-le toujours, et le repolissez, / Ajoutez quelquefois et souvent effacez.” 5 See especially Margaret Münsterberg, “Santayana at Cambridge,” American Mercury 1 (1924): 69–74; George W. Howgate, George Santayana (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1938); Dialogue on George Santayana, ed. Corliss Lamont (New York: Horizon Press, 1959); Bruno Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962); John McCormick, George Santayana: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987); and George Santayana, Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography, Critical Edition, ed. William G. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1986). (Further references to the autobiography are to the Critical Edition.) For a concise biography of Santayana as poet see Holzberger, “Introduction” to The Complete Poems of George Santayana (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1979), 23–82. Daniel Cory, in Santayana: The Later Years, A Portrait with Letters (New York: George Braziller, 1963), makes specific use of his letters from Santayana to illustrate aspects of Santayana’s character and personality. 6 Even in his personal correspondence, so careful and deliberate a writer as Santayana was never wholly spontaneous and unguarded. 7 “Moral relativism,” as Santayana uses the term, must be understood to include more than mere arbitrary choice of behavior. For Santayana, morals are relative to the individual and the specific situation, and the natural sanctions which determine acceptable behavior are immediate and absolute. 8 The letter of 18 December 1928 begins, without salutation: “Of course, dear Cory”; and within the letters to Cory of 21 May 1928, 1 July 1937, and 23 January 1940 we find the phrases “My dear Cory”, “For heaven’s sake, dear Cory”, and “Now, dear Cory”, respectively. But in the 352 letters to Cory that begin with a salutation it is uniformly “Dear Cory.” 9 The Later Years, 321. Cory’s part of the correspondence is unlocated; Santayana usually discarded letters after reading them. 10 Letter from Lowell to Santayana of 8 January [1950]. Santayana kept Lowell’s letters, which are in the Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. 11 The first book of Santayana’s poems was Sonnets and Other Verses (Cambridge: Stone and Kimball, 1894). A revised, expanded edition was published in 1896. 12 14 May 1925. 13 15 July 1928. 14 Grattan Freyer, the late Irish literary critic, said to me that The Last Puritan was “like the best of Henry James.” 15 “And why has my photo been redrawn so as to make me cross-eyed and ferocious? I know that self-knowledge is often self-deception, but I feel not at all as this personage looks.” (1 February 1936 to Wheelock) 16 “I suppose Housman was really what people nowadays call ‘homosexual,’ [said Santayana].” “Why do you say that?” I [Cory] protested at once. “Oh, the sentiment of his poems is unmistakable, [Santayana replied].” There was a pause, and then he added, as if he were primarily speaking to himself, “I think I must have been that way in my Harvard days—although I was unconscious of it at the time.” (The Later Years, 40) 17 20 May 1887. 18 27 May 1887.

Introduction 19

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Persons, 297–98. 5 September 1923 and undated letter written between 20 September and 24 October 1923. “Elizabeth” refers to the Countess Russell, the earl’s third wife, who had left him in 1918. 21 Persons, 517. 22 There is no evidence that Santayana ever had a physical sexual relationship with either a man or a woman. This suggests perhaps that whatever sexual promptings he may have experienced were sublimated to his thought and art and found expression in his writings. It is also possible that Santayana deliberately embraced the tradition of celibacy advocated by the Roman Catholic Church for members of the clergy (and by the religions of India and China for holy-men and wisemen). He had a great respect for the traditions of the Church and frequently refers to himself in the letters as monklike, saying that he could live happily in a monastery. 23 In a 30 September 1938 letter to Cory, Santayana described George Sturgis as “a nice person, but not very perceptive”; and in a 31 December 1944 letter to Rosamond Sturgis, from whom George recently had been divorced before his sudden death on 20 December 1944, Santayana wrote: “George never gave me any explanation of the estrangement that had arisen between you, and of course I respected his discretion and asked no questions. But I could well imagine that, like his father, he might prove hard to live with in the long run. In fact, when you came to Rome, I couldn’t help wondering how you ever decided to marry him. He was very good, very useful, and very able in many ways, and for me he proved a treasure (literally) in the management of my affairs, as his father had been too. But there was never a resposive [sic ] chord.” 24 For example, in the 2 August 1944 letter to George Sturgis, Santayana wrote: “Cory has been a problem for Strong and me for many years. He too is not a business man, and between us three we managed to land him, at the age of nearly forty, in no man’s land. I feel a certain responsibility for him, as it was as my disciple and secretary that he first turned to philosophy: but I never meant to make our connection permanent.” 25 The Later Years, 325–27. 26 “… perhaps you would do better not to report to either of us any nasty thing that the other may say, or do, in regard to his good old friend. It makes it harder to keep up the amicable tone of our relations. … Do help us to remain friends.” (11 November 1931 to Cory) 27 5 February 1936 to Rosamond Sturgis. 28 [December 1917]. 29 In the 12 May 1946 letter to David Page, Santayana says, while he is well aware that others regard his political views as “Fascism and Phalangism,” that he regards them as “Toryism.” 30 See, for instance, 15 and 25 September 1926 to Kallen. 31 This attitude of Santayana’s was more common in an earlier time. I recall Paul Arthur Schilpp espousing this view in class at Northwestern University during the 1950s. Schilpp made a point of reserving the term “philosopher” for the great figures of the history of philosophy and for contemporary theorists of international reputation. 32 16 December 1926, Lewis Mumford, The Golden Day (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926). 33 “Something in me tells me that the Russian Bolsheviks are right—not in their conduct, which has been scandalous and silly—but in their sense for values, in their equal hostility to every government founded on property and privilege.” (6 April 1918 to Mrs. Winslow); “I think [Soviet Russian communism] is a splendid experiment. Lenin is as good as Lycurgus or Pythagoras. Let him have his way!” (6 April 1930 to Kallen); 20

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“I am not a modern or liberal socialist: but I feel in my bones that our form of industrial society is very precarious, and that it will disappear, perhaps rather soon, as completely as the mediaeval or the Graeco-Roman civilizations have disappeared.” (4 October 1931 to George Sturgis); “I … agree with … [Karl Marx’s] low opinion of capitalism. … To my own mind, absurd as capitalism is—I live on invisible and unearned money myself, I don’t know why or how—it seems to be only a technical device accompanying industrialism: and the latter is the radical evil.” (15 April 1933 to Hook); “I prefer the Bolschies [to the current British government]; and perhaps everywhere, through one approach or another, it is to State socialism that we are bound” (19 October 1935 to R. S. Barlow); “But my ideal would be a communistic public life, as in the Spartan upper class or as in a monastery, if it went with perfect liberty in thought and in the arts, like painting or writing. And I should limit all the luxuries to public gardens, libraries, churches, theatres and clubs, where each member might satisfy his own taste and develop his own vocation. I have lived myself as far as possible on that plan, and found it satisfactory. But I dread uniformity imposed upon mankind; that is a waste of opportunities and a dull slavery. That is what I dislike in democracy and social pressure.” (9 May 1945 to Rosamond Sturgis)

List of Letters Book Eight, 1948–1952 7 January 1948 13 January 1948 16 January 1948 17 January 1948 23 January 1948 27 January 1948 28 January 1948 31 January 1948 31 January 1948 5 February 1948 8 February 1948 8 February 1948 9 February 1948 10 February 1948 10 February 1948 15 February 1948 17 February 1948 17 February 1948 17 February 1948 1 March 1948 7 March 1948 12 March 1948 12 March 1948 13 March 1948 14 March 1948 20 March 1948 26 March 1948 10 April 1948 10 April 1948 10 April 1948 12 April 1948

Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Josephine Sturgis and Raymond Brewer Bidwell Daniel MacGhie Cory John McKinstry Merriam Francis Henry Appleton Jr. Raymond Brewer Bidwell Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. William Gerber Augusto Guzzo Otto Kyllmann Augusto Guzzo Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Arthur Allen Cohen Ginn and Company John Hall Wheelock Augusto Guzzo Daniel MacGhie Cory Augusto Guzzo John Hall Wheelock Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. John Hall Wheelock Thomas Nolan Munson Frank O’Brien Daniel MacGhie Cory Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Winifred M. Bronson Daniel MacGhie Cory Evelyn Tindall John Hall Wheelock Ira Detrich Cardiff

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16 April 1948 16 April 1948 29 April 1948 [May 1948] 5 May 1948 6 May 1948 8 May 1948 11 May 1948 14 May 1948 21 May 1948 21 May 1948 23 May 1948 26 May 1948 29 May 1948 4 June 1948 8 June 1948 9 June 1948 12 June 1948 19 June 1948 24 June 1948 9 July 1948 17 July 1948 21 July 1948 25 July 1948 25 July 1948 27 July 1948 28 July 1948 31 July 1948 6 August 1948 13 August 1948 16 August [1948] 24 August 1948 27 August 1948 27 August 1948 31 August 1948 4 September 1948 5 September 1948 10 September 1948 20 September 1948

Francis Henry Appleton Jr. Augusto Guzzo Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Arthur Tisch Augusto Guzzo Richard Colton Lyon Ira Detrich Cardiff Daniel MacGhie Cory Augusto Guzzo Daniel MacGhie Cory Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Richard Colton Lyon Augusto Guzzo Raymond Brewer Bidwell Daniel MacGhie Cory Page Smith Cyril Coniston Clemens Melvin L. Sommer Ira Detrich Cardiff Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Richard Colton Lyon Cyril Coniston Clemens Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Francis Henry Appleton Jr. Whit[ney] [Ewing] Burnett Peter Robert Edwin Viereck Eric C. Parsons Daniel MacGhie Cory Paul Arthur Schilpp Daniel MacGhie Cory Richard Colton Lyon John Hall Wheelock Enrico Castelli Daniel MacGhie Cory Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Enrico Castelli John Hall Wheelock Augusto Guzzo John Hall Wheelock

List of Letters 21 September 1948 22 September 1948 23 September 1948 29 September 1948 29 September 1948 [c. October 1948] 4 October 1948 6 October 1948 8 October 1948 12 October 1948 17 October 1948 29 October 1948 30 October 1948 30 October 1948 5 November 1948 7 November 1948 12 November 1948 15 November 1948 [16] November 1948 27 November 1948 12 December 1948 20 December 1948 24 December 1948 14 January 1949 14 January 1949 17 January 1949 21 January 1949 26 January 1949 27 January 1949 28 January 1949 10 February 1949 11 February 1949 17 February 1949 21 February 1949 23 February 1949 27 February 1949 28 February 1949 28 February 1949 1 March 1949

Ira Detrich Cardiff Daniel MacGhie Cory Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Richard Colton Lyon John Hall Wheelock Evelyn Tindall Ira Detrich Cardiff Paul Arthur Schilpp Melvin L. Sommer Daniel MacGhie Cory Daniel MacGhie Cory Lawrence Smith Butler Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Peter Robert Edwin Viereck John Hall Wheelock Richard Colton Lyon Cyril Coniston Clemens John Hall Wheelock John Hall Wheelock Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. John Hall Wheelock Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Daniel MacGhie Cory Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Ira Detrich Cardiff Cyril Coniston Clemens Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Lawrence Smith Butler Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Richard Colton Lyon Francis Gardner Clough Raymond Brewer Bidwell Cyril Coniston Clemens Evelyn Tindall Daniel MacGhie Cory Ervin Paul Hexner Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Richard Colton Lyon

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List of Letters

[1 March] 1949 15 March 1949 30 March 1949 9 April 1949 18 April 1949 20 April 1949 27 April 1949 8 May 1949 13 May 1949 13 May 1949 17 May 1949 24 May 1949 26 May 1949 29 May 1949 4 June 1949 5 June 1949 5 June 1949 6 June 1949 6 June 1949 9 June 1949 11 June 1949 21 June 1949 26 June 1949 29 June 1949 10 July 1949 11 July 1949 25 July 1949 28 July 1949 30 July 1949 1 August 1949 5 August 1949 8 August 1949 14 August 1949 14 August 1949 15 August 1949 21 August 1949 31 August 1949 1 September 1949 2 September 1949

John McKinstry Merriam Daniel MacGhie Cory Raymond Brewer Bidwell Cyril Coniston Clemens John Hall Wheelock Wincenty Lutoslawski John Hall Wheelock Richard Colton Lyon Ira Detrich Cardiff Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis Allison Delarue John Hall Wheelock Lawrence Smith Butler Andrew Joseph Onderdonk Robert Stuart Fitzgerald Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Brooks Otis Peter Russell Cyril Coniston Clemens Daniel MacGhie Cory John Hall Wheelock Daniel MacGhie Cory Augusto Guzzo Lawrence Smith Butler Richard Colton Lyon George Grady Lawrence Smith Butler Ira Detrich Cardiff Richard Colton Lyon Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Raymond Brewer Bidwell John Hall Wheelock Daniel MacGhie Cory Peter Russell Ira Detrich Cardiff Evelyn Tindall William Bysshe Stein Ira Detrich Cardiff

List of Letters 8 September 1949 15 September 1949 22 September 1949 22 September 1949 23 September 1949 16 October 1949 18 October 1949 25 October 1949 4 November 1949 8 November 1949 22 November 1949 22 November 1949 [Late] November 1949 8 December 1949 8 December 1949 9 December 1949 13 December 1949 22 December 1949 29-30 December 1949 30 December 1949 31 December 1949 [Late 1949 or early 1950] [1950-1951?] 3 January 1950 6 January 1950 10 January 1950 22 January 1950 31 January 1950 7 February 1950 11 February 1950 11 February 1950 20 February 1950 26 February 1950 10 March 1950 12 March 1950 23 March 1950 23 March 1950 26 March 1950 26 March 1950

Peter Robert Edwin Viereck Daniel MacGhie Cory Ira Detrich Cardiff Rimsa Michel Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Ira Detrich Cardiff Bryn[jolf] J[akob] Hovde Daniel MacGhie Cory Mrs. Walter F. Fauerbach Richard Colton Lyon Cyril Coniston Clemens Andrew Joseph Onderdonk Peter Robert Edwin Viereck Cornel Adam Lengyel Stefan Schimanski John Hall Wheelock Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little John P. McKnight Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. John Hall Wheelock Harold Witter Bynner Peter Robert Edwin Viereck George Perrigo Conger John Hall Wheelock Corliss Lamont Cyril Coniston Clemens Corliss Lamont George Rauh Ezra Loomis Pound Raymond Brewer Bidwell John McKinstry Merriam Hamilton Vaughan Bail Daniel MacGhie Cory Andrew Joseph Onderdonk Evelyn Tindall Alan Denson Paul Arthur Schilpp Ira Detrich Cardiff Victor Wolfgang von Hagen

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List of Letters

17 April 1950 17 April 1950 29 April 1950 29 April 1950 7 May 1950 10 May 1950 10 May 1950 12 May 1950 12 May 1950 20 May 1950 22 May 1950 26 May 1950 26 May 1950 27 May 1950 27 May 1950 28 May 1950 3 June 1950 8 June 1950 10 June 1950 17 June 1950 18 June 1950 27 June 1950 29 June 1950 4 July 1950 8 July 1950 13 July 1950 13 July 1950 18 July 1950 21 July 1950 28 July 1950 28 July 1950 28 July 1950 31 July 1950 4 August 1950 11 August 1950 13 August 1950 17 August 1950 18 August 1950 22 August 1950

Frances I. Brickman Ira Detrich Cardiff Daniel MacGhie Cory Richard Colton Lyon Evelyn Tindall Daniel MacGhie Cory Evelyn Tindall John Hall Wheelock Harry Emsley Wood Jr. Cyril Coniston Clemens Daniel MacGhie Cory Dagobert D. Runes Evelyn Tindall Daniel MacGhie Cory Mary Ambrose O’Donnell Ira Detrich Cardiff Daniel MacGhie Cory Corliss Lamont Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Ira Detrich Cardiff Richard Colton Lyon Ira Detrich Cardiff Daniel MacGhie Cory Corliss Lamont Rimsa Michel Daniel MacGhie Cory Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Evelyn Tindall Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov Daniel MacGhie Cory Fraser Bragg Drew Richard Colton Lyon Andrew Joseph Onderdonk John Hall Wheelock Alan Denson Daniel MacGhie Cory Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Richard Colton Lyon John Hall Wheelock

List of Letters 30 August 1950 1 September 1950 4 September 1950 5 September 1950 [13 September 1950] 14 September 1950 21 September 1950 27 September 1950 30 September 1950 2 October 1950 6 October 1950 12 October 1950 16 October 1950 22 October 1950 23 October 1950 28 October 1950 4 November 1950 5 November 1950 9 November 1950 16 November 1950 25 November 1950 1 December 1950 1 December 1950 8 December 1950 8 December 1950 24 December 1950 25 December 1950 26 December 1950 30 December 1950 31 December 1950 31 December 1950 10 January 1951 12 January 1951 18 January 1951 19 January 1951 19 January 1951 21 January 1951 23 January 1951 30 January 1951

John Hall Wheelock Ira Detrich Cardiff Paul Arthur Schilpp Richard Colton Lyon Daniel MacGhie Cory Daniel MacGhie Cory Paul Arthur Schilpp Evelyn Tindall Paul Arthur Schilpp Anne Ford Daniel MacGhie Cory George Rauh Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Henrietta Cholmeley-Jones Luciano Sibelle Ira Detrich Cardiff Evelyn Tindall John Hall Wheelock Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little John Hall Wheelock Cyril Coniston Clemens Corliss Lamont John Hall Wheelock Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Ira Detrich Cardiff Cyril Coniston Clemens Mercedes de la Escalera Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov Max Harold Fisch John Berryman George Rauh Lawrence Smith Butler Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. John Hall Wheelock John Hall Wheelock

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List of Letters

9 February 1951 15 February 1951 17 February 1951 20 February 1951 23 February 1951 27 February 1951 1 March 1951 12 March 1951 14 March 1951 15 March 1951 25 March 1951 28 March 1951 [Spring 1951] 21 April 1951 28 April 1951 4 May 1951 10 May 1951 11 May 1951 11 May 1951 17 May 1951 17 May 1951 29 May 1951 2 June 1951 4 June 1951 6 June 1951 13 June 1951 14 June 1951 15 June 1951 17 June 1951 20 June 1951 24 June 1951 30 June 1951 2 July 1951 4 July 1951 5 July 1951 5 July 1951 5 July 1951 12 July 1951 12 July 1951

Warren Allen Smith Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Cyril Coniston Clemens Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. John Hall Wheelock Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Evelyn Tindall Evelyn Tindall John Hall Wheelock John Hall Wheelock Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Anne Ford Upton Beall Sinclair Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Max Harold Fisch Daniel MacGhie Cory Cyril Coniston Clemens John Hall Wheelock C. L. Shelby John Hall Wheelock Daniel MacGhie Cory Stuart Johnston Northrop Cyril Coniston Clemens John Hall Wheelock John Brett Langstaff William H. Boyer Cyril Coniston Clemens Thomas H. B. Robertson John Hall Wheelock [John Hall Wheelock] John W. Yolton Hirsch Loeb Gordon Ira Detrich Cardiff Daniel MacGhie Cory Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) John Hall Wheelock John W. Yolton Morton Dauwen Zabel

List of Letters 18 July 1951 22 July 1951 4 August 1951 10 August 1951 15 August 1951 16 August 1951 18 August 1951 20 August 1951 21 August 1951 21 August 1951 24 August 1951 29 August 1951 31 August 1951 21 September 1951 28 September 1951 3 October 1951 21 October 1951 3 November 1951 3 November 1951 3 November 1951 11 November 1951 23 November 1951 25 November 1951 28 November 1951 29 November 1951 29 November 1951 6 December 1951 15 December 1951 16 December 1951 18 December 1951 18 December 1951 19 December 1951 22 December 1951 24 December 1951 8 January 1952 10 January 1952 18 January 1952 24 January 1952 29 January 1952

Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Cyril Coniston Clemens Cyril Coniston Clemens Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop Cyril Coniston Clemens John Hall Wheelock Robert Shaw Sturgis John W. Yolton Daniel MacGhie Cory Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov John Hall Wheelock John W. Yolton Ira Detrich Cardiff Robert Shaw Sturgis Lawrence Smith Butler Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) George Rauh Cyril Coniston Clemens Jorge Guillén Vincent Holme (Scharmel Iris) Richard Colton Lyon John Hall Wheelock Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Corliss Lamont Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Richard Colton Lyon Mercedes de la Escalera Conde de Marsal Ira Detrich Cardiff Justus Buchler Richard Colton Lyon Corliss Lamont John Hall Wheelock Raymond Brewer Bidwell Lawrence Smith Butler Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Max Forrester Eastman Evelyn Tindall Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little

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List of Letters

7 February 1952 12 February 1952 18 February 1952 23 February 1952 23 February 1952 24 February 1952 28 February 1952 8 March 1952 9 March 1952 13 March 1952 16 March 1952 16 March 1952 26 March 1952 27 March 1952 17 April 1952 17 April 1952 20 April 1952 20 April 1952 20 April 1952 22 April 1952 27 April 1952 2 May 1952 4 May 1952 10 May 1952 27 May 1952 30 May 1952 2 June 1952 2 June 1952 14 June 1952 18 June 1952 20 June 1952 [21] June 1952 23 June 1952 26 June 1952 26 June 1952 28 June 1952 1 July 1952 18 July 1952 20 July 1952

Miriam Thayer Richards Richard Colton Lyon Evelyn Tindall Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) John Hall Wheelock Cyril Coniston Clemens Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Horace Meyer Kallen Richard Colton Lyon Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Richard Colton Lyon Chauncey Devereux Stillman Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little John Hall Wheelock Alan Denson Winfred Overholser John Hall Wheelock Richard Colton Lyon John W. Yolton John W. Yolton Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Cyril Coniston Clemens William A. Kirkwood Daniel MacGhie Cory Cyril Coniston Clemens Alan Denson Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Alan Denson José Luis Ochoa Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Richard Colton Lyon Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Richard Colton Lyon John Hall Wheelock Daniel MacGhie Cory Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) Richard Edmund Butler

List of Letters 22 July 1952 24 July 1952 3 August 1952

Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little Daniel MacGhie Cory Daniel MacGhie Cory

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Letters: 1948—1952

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 7 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 7, 1948 Dear Rosamond1 Your astonishing flowers came on Christmas eve, and for a moment seeing such profusion of roses and double carnations, I thought of sending them to the Chapel, where they would have on their five altars that night and the next morning a long series of Masses; for each priest on that occasion says three. But on second thoughts I selfishly kept them for my own decoration, because if I had sent them to the Chapel the whole Community would have begun to whisper that I was converted at last and they would have spread all sorts of rumours, which might even have got into The Rome Daily American, where one of the editors is a friend of mine,2 and thence would have flooded America with proofs that my wits were turned, and my whole philosophy invalidated as being that of a Jesuit in Disguise. Whether these fears were grounded or not, I can’t say; but the flowers meantime made a great show in my small room, and some of them lasted in good condition until New Year’s. The box with mayonnaise, marmalade coffee, raisin buiscuits, glycerine soap, etc., has arrived also, and will be duly appreciated as the contents reappear gradually from Sister Angela’s pantry.3 But as I think I have written before, you mustn’t feel obliged to keep me in stock of all these things, because if I am really short of anything I can now order it, through an arrangement with Mr Wheelock of Scribner’s,4 from the “Vendome” grocery in New York,5 who send me as it is a regular monthly parcel with tea, coffee, cocoa and buiscuits, and I see by a list of delicacies they have sent me that they can also provide “bitter-sweet orange marmelade”, which is precisely the sort of “jam” that I prefer. However, I don’t mean to discourage your good habits; and if at any time you feel like sending me something there is a small but precious thing that I cant yet get here again namely “Vapex”,6 which gives me pleasure and apparent relief whenever my catarrh threatens to become a cold in the head. Ordinarily my nose and E / eyes are quite dry, and it is only from the throat that I have to clear away the nasty sticky stuff. My doctor gives me preventive injections and a syrup called Bronchiolina which brings relief,

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although not immediately. But innocent girlish Vapex is an immediate help, and pleasanter than any scent I know of. The central heating is in full blast, and hot baths in order, two important additions to our comfort in this house. Winter as yet has been mild here, with soft rain. Yours affectionately G. Santayana 1

Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis (d. 1976) was the ex-wife of the late George Sturgis (1891–1944), who was the son of Santayana’s half brother Robert Shaw Sturgis (1854–1921). 2 The Rome Daily American was the first English-language privately owned newspaper in Italy. It was founded in 1946 by former staff members of Stars and Stripes, the United States Army newspaper in Europe, when the Mediterranean edition was discontinued. Santayana’s friend is unidentified. 3 Sister Angela was an Irish housekeeper at the Little Company of Mary in Rome. 4 Charles Scribner’s Sons published the majority of Santayana’s works in America. John Hall Wheelock (1886–1978), a member of the Harvard class of 1908 and a wellknown poet, was an editor at Scribner’s until 1957. 5 Vendôme Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue, was started in 1912 by Italian immigrant Antoine Dadone (1880–1969). It was well known in New York for gourmet imported specialty foods and gift baskets. 6 Vapex is a “handkerchief inhalant” marketed by E. Fougera & Co. in the United States since the 1920s, although originally created in Great Britain during World War I. A drop of the liquid is placed in a handkerchief to help relieve congestion.

To Josephine Sturgis and Raymond Brewer Bidwell 13 January 1948 • Rome, Italy (MS: Bidwell) Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan. 13, 1948. Dear Josephine and Raymond1 Your joint letter of weeks ago ought to have been answered at once, as you reproached me a little for silence: but I don’t carry on any regular correspondance, my life and my ideas being all hopelessly settled and monotonous and my old friends all dead; and besides strangers or occasional acquaintances claim a good deal of time with letters that need answers; and I answer them with pleasure when they raise some interesting question. Besides, writing being my work I am often materially tired of pen and paper, and must ventilate my fancy a little by reading some book on a wholly impersonal subject. I k/now get plenty of books, both as gifts from the authors and from Blackwell, the Oxford bookseller, with whom my old relations have been renewed, by sending money to him

1948–1952

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from America to keep my account always showing a credit and not a debit. Otherwise there are still impediments to getting things or money from England. Moreover, I had an excuse for putting off answering your letter, because you announced a new book — x of good things coming and I wished to report its safe arrival, which has been delayed until today. I was having my midday dinner when it was brought by Maria the housemaid, and dropped with a heavy thud on the floor at my side—for I eat in my own room, not in the dining-room, where there is a table-d’hôtes2 of aged, decrepit, and pietistic invalids. On opening it I found a great variety of things, all in good order, especially two large boxes of Krax and a jar of marmalade (two things I particularly like) and other welcome food-stuffs, as well as a lot of soap which will be useful in the house, and for me eventually, although I happen to have a great supply at this moment. Trade is becoming slowly more normal again, and if we don’t have a revolution we shall be soon able to get every thing necessary in the shops. I have even discovered my old English tailor, as a servant or clerk at the British Consulate, and he has made me two new magnificent dressing-gowns. I need no other clothes, as I dress up only when I am going out, which is not often. And unless it be only to get something at the local post-office, I now always drive, taxis being again procurable. From what I gather from responsible Italians, I judge that there is little danger of political trouble. People are warned and sick of agitators.—Tell me something about Arthur and David when you write. I am interested in their choice of careers. [across ] I won’t say to send me no more parcels; because I love to get them, but don’t feel obliged to do so, because we are no longer in any real need—except the eternal poor Yours affectionately GSantayana 1

Josephine Sturgis [Eldredge] Bidwell (1896–1958), the daughter of Santayana’s half brother Robert Sturgis and sister of George Sturgis, married Raymond Brewer Bidwell in 1925. Josephine’s children were Arthur Eldredge Jr. (1923–95), David Dudley Bidwell (b. 1926), and Jane Sturgis Bidwell (b. 1928). 2 A table where guests eat a common meal together (French).

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To Daniel MacGhie Cory 16 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 16, 1948 Dear Cory1 I have looked-up the passage on p. 7 of my Some Developments of Materialism2 and I agree that it is very badly put together. I mix an illustration with an opinion, and both are confused. Make the change in syntax that you have in mind, if that solves the difficulty, or substitute the half-paragraph which I enclose,3 which at least is clear. It is two or three lines longer than the present page but if you type-write the passage carefully I think you could paste it to the upper half of p. 7 without making too long a sheet. A quarter of an inch could be cut off the top if necessary. You may imagine that I am pleased with your approval of Alcibiades,4 partly for myself, a sop to vanity, but also on your account, because it shows that you are sensitive to remote sentiments and beauties. But of course, you always have been subtly sensitive where you were touched; but many things did not appeal to you. What is the matter with Wheelock? He writes: “Cory seems to think you might be finished with it by August 1st=.” I will explain to him that Dom. & P’rs5 (which are the “it”) must supply me with work for the rest of my days, and that I feel like living for years. Yours ever GSantayana 1

Daniel MacGhie Cory (1904–72) was Santayana’s closest friend in his later years and his literary executor. Cory had become interested in Santayana’s philosophy while attending Columbia University; after the two met in 1927, Cory served as an occasional secretary to Santayana and Charles Augustus Strong. 2 “Some Developments of Materialism,” American Scholar 18 (1949): 271–81. Reprinted in Animal Faith and Spiritual Life, edited by John Lachs (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1967), 114–24. See also the letter to Cory of 16 January 1947 about the previous version of this essay. 3 Unlocated. 4 The shade of Alcibiades is a principal character of three new dialogues that were published consecutively in the Atlantic Monthly from March to May 1948; the new edition of Dialogues was published later in 1948. Alcibiades (c. 450–404 B.C.), an Athenian statesman and general, was a leader in the struggle against Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, but he was known for changing sides opportunistically. He had a reputation for intellect and beauty as well as treachery. He appeared in dialogues written by Plato.

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5 This is Santayana’s abbreviation for Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1951).

To John McKinstry Merriam 17 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan. 17, 1948 Dear Merriam1 You ask me to write you, for your Class Luncheon, something about the political state of things in the world, and you tell me what the Marshall plan is.2 I know all about that and the views current here (I mean in Europe, not Rome or Italy) about it, whether it is prudent charity, to prevent Western Europe from being Russianised, or sheer enterprise, to secure larger markets and military outpost for American expansion abroad, now that the home lands have filled up. I don’t know whether this second motive exists, consciously or unconsciously in any American circle, but if it does, my philosophy would at once dismiss it as a mere makeshift. For in a century or two (nothing for a philosopher) when Asia and Africa were filled up with men and industries up to the brim, the question would recur as pressingly as at present, and the real problem, not one of how to enlarge business but how to lead a rational life, would impose itself on the cosmopolitan government that we may suppose would then exist. Why should not this real question be put and answered now in each country and community, without looking for outlets or resources beyond its accidental borders? As to what is likely to happen, I have no inside knowledge or divine revelation. I think the communist area, under Russian control, may be extended over continental Europe, perhaps without a great war, by the aggressiveness of the communist party everywhere and the apathy and disunion of conservative forces. If this process is resisted by force of arms, supported by America and England, there will be a great war; the character of it would be very like the Napoleonic wars,3 one side with its home strength beyond the risk of invasion and with undisputed command of the sea, and the other with determined unified leadership but an insecure possession of its conquests. The ultimate result, I think, would be the emancipation of the conquered countries, as it was after Napoleon;4 but

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passage under a far more destructive social revolution would leave the European (and Asiatic) countries in a condition radically different from what it was in the Golden Age of Queen Victoria.5 The great change, however, might be in the other camp, where a willing union of the Americans and the British Commonwealth of Nations,6 with perhaps some clients beyond, would form what Toynbee, in his “Study of History”,7 calls a “Universal State”, not all-comprehensive but supervening over a crowd of small nations. I don’t think there is any cause for alarm about the future of mankind: but Europe may be knocked to pieces by the way. Best wishes for the remaining fragments of ’86 from GSantayana 1

John McKinstry Merriam was a member of Santayana’s Harvard class of 1886 and received his A.M. in 1888. 2 The European Recovery Program (called the Marshall Plan, after United States Secretary of State George C. Marshall) was instituted at the July 1947 Paris Economic Conference to foster post-war economic recovery in western Europe. Nearly $13 billion was sent to seventeen countries from 1948 through 1951. 3 The Napoleonic Wars (1804–15) involved nearly all the countries of Europe, but Santayana is referring here to the conflicts between England and France. 4 Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a French general and emperor (1804–14). Through a series of great victories, he became ruler of almost the whole continent of Europe by 1807. After the defeat of his armies by the British and a disastrous campaign against Russia, the French were decisively beaten by the European allies by 1814. Napoleon abdicated and was exiled; at the Congress of Vienna, the monarchs and princes of Europe redrew their boundaries. Napoleon returned to power briefly, lost against the British and Prussians at Waterloo, and was exiled again in 1815. 5 Alexandrina Victoria (1819–1901) was queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 to 1901 and empress of India from 1876 to 1901. She presided over Britain’s rise to world economic and imperial domination, saw the gradual democratization of its political institutions, and gave her name to a historical era. 6 The statute of Westminster (1931) created the British Commonwealth of Nations, an association of Great Britain and over 40 former colonies, which are now independent but recognize the British sovereign as symbolic head of the Commonwealth. 7 Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889–1975) was an English economic historian and reformer, best known for A Study of History, which was published in twelve volumes (London: Oxford University Press, 1934–61). Santayana received the first six volumes (published 1934–45) in 1946 and 1947. The prediction that either the United States or the Soviet Union would eventually preside over a “universal empire” was also presented in conservative critic James Burnham’s The Struggle for the World (New York: John Day, 1947).

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To Francis Henry Appleton Jr. 23 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 23, 1948 Dear Mr. Appleton1 It was very friendly of you to send me these photographs of matters connected with the Hasty Pudding Show on its hundredth anniversary.2 Mine goes back more than half that distance, and certainly seemed to us then a quieter affair than this seems to us now, but I daresay the performance was more creditable from a technical point of view than anything we were up to. This year, too, many of the young men are older and more travel-worn than we were in our provincial innocence; and this sort of fooling must be less spontaneous for them than it was for us. I see that I am reproduced among the relics, and don’t know whether I am flattered or ashamed at being unearthed in that guise. The imbroglio about my ’45 royalties or gift-taxes seems to take long to unravel. It is too bad that you and Mr. Salmon3 should be so much pestered with it. When I die you may be plunged into the same kind of troubles, but I have done all I could to make my will unambiguous. All my manuscripts and literary assets are to go to Cory, both past and future. The Three Dialogues on Alcibiades that are to appear in the Spring in the Atlantic Monthly,4 for instance, are his property and have been given to him here, so that the proceeds will not be any part of my income Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Francis Henry Appleton Jr. (Harvard class of 1903), of Old Colony Trust Company, was appointed as Santayana’s trustee after the death of his nephew George Sturgis. Old Colony Trust Company was founded in 1784 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by prominent businessmen including James Bowdoin, William Phillips, and John Hancock. It was originally named Massachusetts Bank, then in 1864 it became the Massachusetts National Bank. In 1903 it merged with the First National Bank of Boston, which in turn merged with the Old Colony Trust Company in 1929. The bank underwent several other mergers and is known today as Fleet National Bank. 2 A photo in Life magazine (29 December 1947) showed Santayana as the leading lady in the 1886 Hasty Pudding play at Harvard entitled Lady Papillonetta (Bruno Lind, Vagabond Scholar [New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962], 87). See illustration 15 in Persons. 3 T. P. Salmon was the trust officer in charge of Santayana’s account at Old Colony Trust Company.

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4 “The Libertine,” March 1948, 28–31; “The Hidden Soul,” April 1948, 54–57; and “The Vortex of Dialectic,” May 1948, 51–58. Atlantic Monthly, founded in Boston in 1857, is a magazine of literature, art, and politics.

To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 27 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bidwell)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, Jan. 27, 1948 Dear Raymond Your letter of Jan. 8 answers some of the family questions which I asked the other day in thanking you and Josephine for the large box of eatables and soap that had then arrived. It was all useful and welcome, for the house even when, as in the case of soap, I already had a good provision. Even shaving cream can now be had here again, of which I remember three very big tubes came from Weston1 long ago sent by Arthur. You tell me that he is thinking of studying architecture, which was what most attracted me at his age; and I should have gone to the Institute of Technology2 to prepare for that semi-scientific profession if I hadn’t been given a softer job at Harvard. You also tell me that David is engaged3 (which I didn’t know) although he seems to be still at Harvard. Wasn’t his occupation during the war of some special technical kind? I had formed a picture of him as a government expert in some important branch of the service, not necessarily the atomic bomb. As to the danger or need of bombs here in the near future, I know nothing. The politicians are restive, and get up strikes, but I think the people are tired of nonsense and that nothing serious will happen. Yours sincerely GSantayana [across ] P.S. I forgot to thank you for the pictures of the Pudding Show. They are gross, as all newspaper illustrations are now. People aim at the violent. We were more simple in my day and seemed younger. 1

Massachusetts. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 3 To Carol Jones. 2

1948–1952

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 28 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan. 28, 1948 Dear Lowell1 After your letter, your two new poems, your reasons for refusing to join the army, and for joining and leaving the Church, and your choice among my writings, I can think of you only as a friend and not merely as a celebrity. In spite of the great difference in our ages—I could be your grandfather—in our background and also, no doubt in our characters, there is a notable parallelism in our minds. For instance in being attracted to the Church, feeling its historic and moral authority, and yet seeing that its doctrine is not true you have placed yourself in exactly my position, though reaching it by a different path. And so too about this late war. The bombing for the sake of “frightfulness” (an imitation of the Germans) and the insolent demand for unconditional surrender, and the blind policy with Russia were all blunders as well as wrongs, and have produced a stale-mate where materially there was a clear victory. If you had been a Catholic at that time your confesser would nevertheless have advised you to submit to the regulations of the established government of your country; but your refusal to do so marked the idealistic absolutism of the Protestant conscience which does not respect matter as much as the Church does, as I think, wisely. I had made inquiries about you in various quarters, and had heard that you had been in a “working camp” for “conscientious objectors”, but not that you had been in prison or scrubbing floors; also that you had been to College at Kenyon,2 but not that you had been first for a year and a half at Harvard. Both these points are important in explaining what has puzzled me a little in your poems, a certain animosity (against King’s Chapel,3 for instance). You have not merely found these things irrational (as I did) but you have been made to suffer by them, as I never did, because they didn’t belong to me nor I really to them. You r position, if not your independence, was not like mine. You ^^ were more deeply involved, and more rebellious by nature; for few things seem to me worth rebelling against. I say, “Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa” 4 The meanness of that additional day in your sentence shows how prepotent authorities have become even in America, and public opinion how intolerant. In my youth New England was horrified at

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anything “emancipated” in fact, but everybody was “liberal” in theory. But in general I feel that America has grown up and improved immensely in these last fifty years and deserves the leadership it has acquired in material things (which require human virtue to manage them): insight will come later. In view of the dreams you can have when you go to sleep over Virgil, I don’t think you ought to regret the time you have spent over Latin. The Aeneas of the later books of the Aeneid,5 not as a theme in himself but as a witness and observer, has evidently left you full of strong images and tragic perceptions. Virgil is no doubt too mild for your taste and you transmute his Trojans and Italian barbarians into something more like Red Indians. The pious and correct Virgil had to regard them as sacred ancestors, and he would never have called Venus a whore. She had lovers, no end of lovers, including the young Anchises,6 because she was the goddess of fecundity and beauty. Perhaps you don’t feel the sacredness of nature in paganism. Yet you do feel it in Catholocism, which in its fundamental perceptions, Jewish as well as Greek, is I think a form of paganism (fear, respect, and love of the fruits that mankind can gather from nature) on which an ascetic discipline of the will has been superposed philosophically. The Latin prayer which you quote at the beginning of Lord Weary’s Castle expresses this very well, and shows that your time, in this direction also, was not wasted over your Latin.7 You mention my old counterblast to Browning,8 and you may not like what I am going to say, but I think you might do for New England (at least) what Browning meant but failed to do for the Italian Renaissance. Your Mother Marie Thérèse9 is conceived like one of Browning’s dramatic monologues; and elsewhere you show the same power of revealing all sorts of incidental secret relations that cross a troubled mind. You have the same penetration into unguided wanderings in a moral laberynth. But you have pity (which Schopenhauer10 thought the essence of virtue, and I should say was evidence of understanding the truth). The versification of these two new poems seems to me a real triumph. You have dared to return to the “heroic couplet” but manage it so naturally that there remains no trace of “monotony in wire” or of rhetorical epigrams, and the rhymes seem to come sponte sua, et quod temptabas dicere, versus erat.11 Three new Dialogues in Limbo of mine, on Alcibiades are to appear in the Atlantic Monthly, beginning in the March number. I will not attempt to send them to you, as no doubt you can easily look into them

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if you are interested. They ought to be read consecutively, because they form a respectful criticism of Socrates’ philosophy.12 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Robert “Cal” Traill Spence Lowell Jr. (1917–77) was a distinguished American poet, teacher, and member of the prominent Boston Lowell family. As an undergraduate, Lowell attended Harvard, then transferred to Kenyon College, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1940. That same year he married Jean Stafford (b. 1915) and briefly converted to Roman Catholicism. Lowell originally volunteered for service in 1941 for World War II but was rejected due to his poor eyesight. In 1943 he was drafted into service but was disturbed by how the war was going in Germany and became a conscientious objector. However, he was refused that status and was sent to prison. His book of poems, Lord Weary’s Castle (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1946), won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1949 Lowell married novelist Elizabeth Hardwick; they were later divorced. 2 Kenyon College was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase in Gambier, Ohio. 3 King’s Chapel appears several times in Lowell’s poem “At the Indian Killer’s Grave” in Lord Weary’s Castle. 4 Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto 3, line 51: “Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass on” (Italian). 5 Vergil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70—19 B.C.), the son of a farmer, was the dominant figure in Latin literature of this period, which idealized rural life in its poetry. His major work is the Aeneid. This epic poem, in twelve books, traces the history of the Roman people from the time of Aeneas, a Trojan hero. Santayana’s personal library included a collection of Vergil’s poetry, Publii Virgilii Maronis Carmina omnia (Paris: Didot, 1858), a gift from Joseph Trumbull Stickney in 1902. 6 The goddess Aphrodite (Venus) fell in love with Anchises; Aeneas was their son. 7 “Suscipe, Domine, munera pro tuorum commemoratione Sanctorum: ut, sicut illos passio gloriosos effecit, ita nos devotio reddat innocuos.” “Receive, O Lord, our gifts, in commemoration of Thy Saints: that as suffering made them glorious, so our devotion may render us innocent.” 8 Robert Browning (1812–89) was an English poet noted for psychological insight into character and motivations, abrupt but forceful colloquial English, and perfection of the dramatic monologue in which the speaker reveals something of himself and sometimes reveals more than he realizes. See Santayana’s critique in “The Poetry of Barbarism,” chapter 7 of Interpretations. 9 “Mother Marie Thérèse” and “Falling Asleep over the Aeneid” were both published in The Mills of the Kavanaughs (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951). These dramatic monologues, written in heroic couplets, were two of Lowell’s most enduring works. 10 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), a German philosopher, is known for his pessimism. He held that true reality is a blind impelling force, appearing in individual man as will. The constant mutual resistance of various wills causes strife, but the individual cannot satisfy the wants of his will and therefore lives in pain. Ethics rests only on sympathy for the pain of others. His important works include On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813, 1847), The World as Will and Representation (1818), and Parerga und Paralipomena (1851). 11 Santayana’s reference comes from Ovid’s Tristia IV.10.25–26. The full quote is “sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos, / et quod temptabam scribere, versus erat.” The translation is “Song with a will in ready numbers came, / And what I tried to write—verse was its name.”

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12 Socrates (469–399 B.C.), a Greek philosopher, lived his entire life in Athens. He was a stonemason by trade and reputed to be a courageous soldier. He was concerned primarily with moral questions and specifically the nature of the good. Socrates wrote no works himself, but Plato wrote many dialogues portraying Socrates practicing philosophy. He is generally thought to be more faithfully portrayed in Plato’s earlier works in which Socrates engages fellow citizens in ethical debate. The exchanges typically begin with a search for the definition of an ethical concept such as courage, piety, or justice. Though satisfactory definitions are not established, some ethical principles appear to be consistently advocated by Socrates. For example, it is better to accept injustice to one’s self than commit acts of injustice; a genuine understanding of moral matters is the only good in and of itself; the virtuous aspects of all the various forms of knowledge cannot be separated from one another; death is not an evil; the truly good individual cannot be harmed, the divine holds wisdom inaccessible to humans and is incapable of immoral action; and the unexamined life is not worth living. His dedication to the examined life led him to question famous and powerful Athenians about the virtues they lauded. This earned him the ire of many fellow citizens who put him on trial and condemned him to death for impiety and corrupting the youth of the city. Plato’s accounts are the chief source of Socrates’ reputation, though it is often difficult to distinguish Platonic and Socratic strains of thought. Xenophon (c. 430–c. 350 B.C.), an Athenian solider and writer, also left written accounts of Socrates; but they also present difficulties in determining the true character of Socrates.

To William Gerber 31 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Gerber)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome, Jan. 31, 1948 Dear Mr Gerber1 Your list of “problems”2 suggests pregnant subjects for essays or sermons enough to fill a life-time. If you wrote any one of these, for instance on Suicide, voicing your sincere sentiments without any thought of a system or a first principle of morals, probably a critic would be able to infer from it to what authority you appealed in your judgments, such as conscience, revelation, prevalent opinion, utility, etc, etc. The instinctive choice made by you in that appeal would solve the “problem” for the other “problems” also; so that philosophically it would hardly be worth while to raise them, although if you did the discussion might bring out many interesting remarks. I am writing a book on politics3 (which is a moral subject, as I conceive it) and there I have reduced the authority to which we may appeal rationally (if we wish to be rational) to a combination of two factors, Circumstances, and Primal Will. That both these factors are different in

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different cases does not seem to me to change the moral principle concerned, which is Integrity or Will rationalized, although of course the actions so recommended would vary with variations in those natural factors. I say this, because I am not sure what you understand by “univocal meaning.” Yours sincerely G Santayana 1

William Gerber (1908–99) was a State Department official at this time, and later a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Maryland and American University. 2 This list has not been found. See also the letter to Gerber of 6 July 1947. 3 Dominations.

To Augusto Guzzo 31 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 31, 1948 1 Dear Professor Guzzo, I have received from Heath & Co of London,2 who are agents for translations from English into other languages, a proposal from “Edizioni Comunit” of Milan for a translation into Italian of my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels”.3 It occurs to me that you wrote some time ago that you had made some translations from the second part of that book, and I don’t like to agree to the preparation of another translation if you, perhaps with the assistance of some of your pupils, had any plan of continuing that version. I know that this is improbable, and would hardly trouble you about the matter, except that I am also in doubt about this Milan publisher. Would you kindly send me a line, telling me if you would advise me to accept that proposal, or whether you would think it in any way inadvisable? A dreadful Spanish translation of that book has appeared in Buenos Aires4 made by a person who does not understand English idioms, and makes me say at times the contrary of what I mean! With best wishes and regards Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Augusto Guzzo (1894–1986) was a professor at the University of Turin. Guzzo and his wife, Cordelia Guzzo, translated Gospels into Italian; it was published as L’Idea di Cristo nei Vangeli o Dio nell’uomo (Milan: Edition di Comunità, 1949).

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2

A. M. Heath & Co., a literary agency founded in 1919. The Idea of Christ in the Gospels; or, God in Man: A Critical Essay (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; Toronto: Saunders, 1946). 4 La idea de Cristo en los evangelios, translated by Demetrio Náñez (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1947). 3

To Otto Kyllmann 5 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Temple)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 5, 1948 Dear Mr. Kyllmann1 I am glad to learn, by your letter of Jan. 28, that a revision of the Spanish version of The Idea of Christ in the Gospels is possible; and to show the editors how much such revision is needed, I have made the enclosed notes on three consecutive pages of the book, taken at random, showing various degrees of failure in catching the meaning of the text. Please pass on these notes to the editors. I have no doubt that the translator, Prof. Nañez, can translate French books excellently, for as I already said in my last letter, he is accurate when he understands the text, as for instand in the line quoted from Seneca in these very pages,2 which he expands, losing its terseness, but giving its full meaning faithfully, in a way which would be useful for a person who knew little of Stoic philosophy.3 But unfortunely he often does not understand English idioms, and does not see the point. Someone who is English or has a real command of the language is required to make the revision. As to the drawing of Christ, there are two on the cover, a little fulllength figure on the back, which has an ancient Byzantine air, and is not grotesque, and a large head (not accurately repeating the other) which can never have seen Byzantium. However, that is a minor matter. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Otto Kyllmann was director of Constable Publishers in London. “Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt”: The fates lead the willing and drag the unwilling (Latin; Gospels, 209). Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 3 B.C.–A.D. 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher and playwright who was born in Spain. His extant works include nine tragedies. Seneca saw philosophy as a therapeutic enterprise, designed for moral edification. 2

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3 Stoicism, one of the major Hellenistic philosophies, was founded by Zeno of Citium (334–262 B.C.) and practiced as a philosophy into the Roman era. Stoicism sought to make the personal and political lives of people as orderly as nature, by cultivating virtue.

To Augusto Guzzo 8 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 8, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, I feel greatly honoured and obliged by your willingness to undertake the translation of my book and that your joint names will give the edition a good name that the author alone could not have secured. I have written to the agent Heath & Co (or rather to Mr. Brooks,1 the partner with whom I have usually corresponded) telling him that you and your lady who had already translated portions of the book,2 are willing to complete this work, and that you are friends of the Ingegnere Adriano Olivetti, of the Edizioni Comunità;3 and that if the latter agrees, as he certainly will be glad to do, that you should be the translators, we will at once sign the contract on the terms he had proposed. I think there is no need that I should write to him. It would have been more natural that you should have written to him to recommend me. Luckily it was not necessary. I have had a pleasant visit from Guido de Ruggiero, brought by the young Prof. Dino Pasini, who has become a good friend of mine.4 The distinguished critic was less formidable than I feared. I had recently read his history of European Liberalism, and liked its fairness although perhaps it is all too smooth and simple to represent la vérité vraie.5 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

C. H. Brooks of A. M. Heath & Co. Cordelia Guzzo. 3 Adriano Olivetti (1901–60), whose company manufactured typewriters at this time, was not an “engineer” as such, but had a degree in industrial chemistry. He was active in the Movimento Comunità (“community movement”), a socialist experiment that promoted environmentalism and humanistic ideals, such as decreased work hours and increased salaries and benefits for workers. Olivetti advocated his ideals by publishing a review journal, Comunità, and a series of books, the Editions of Comunità. 4 Guido de Ruggiero (1888–1948), a noted philosopher, first published Storia del liberalismo europeo in 1925 (Bari: G. Laterza & figli); the English translation, The History of 2

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European Liberalism, was first published in 1927 (London: Oxford University Press). Dino Pasini is unidentified. 5 The real truth (French).

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 8 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Sturgis)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 8, 1948 Dear Rosamond Amory’s book on The Proper Bostonians1 came long ago and I read it at once but for some reason haven’t yet thanked you for it. In part it revived all my most youthful and tender feelings about things and people in old Boston; but on the other hand I felt that he treated them all in the wrong spirit, like a newspaper correspondent who is very well informed at second hand, and not scrupulous about not rounding out a story to please himself. For that reason I didn’t read the part about old murder ed ^ ^ Parkman. I was myself corrected by Morrison for trusting gossip on this subject; but I was writing a novel and not borrowing more from history, real or apocryphal, than I chose. And I gave George Parkman some traits of Mr. Thomas Wigglesworth, and a younger brother, Peter, to peter out.2 This point about petering out I was interested to see confirmed by Amory; and he tells many things about the Great Merchants, as I called them, which I didn’t know. For instance, that there was, and apparently still is, a Merchant’s Row designed by Bulfinch3 by the water’s edge at the foot of State Street. I have never seen it, and always regretted that there was no waterfront in Boston, to remind us that it was a seaport.4 The other part that interested me most was the chapter about Harvard Clubs. It was naturally brought down to a date much later than my observations; yet on the whole it seemed true. There is a newspaper man’s sort of error about the Gas House or Delphic Club of which I believe I am now the oldest living (honorary) member. He attributes its foundation to J. P. Morgan (who no doubt was the principal financial supporter of it) and to the year 1889: whereas its founder was my intimate friend Ward Thoron, in 1885 or 86.5 My other two best Boston friends, Herbert Lyman and Boylston Beal6 were also charter members; but I myself was only elected later, when I was an instructor, in ’90. It is of no importance as

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history to get such a trifle right; but it shows the love of turning a thing the wrong side out, if you are not in sympathy with it. I have finally got a letter, two letters, and two unpublished poems from Robert Lowell, and we have struck up an epistolary friendship. He is in Washington, appointed for a year to be adviser on poetry at the Library of Congress. Your information about him was all correct, but incomplete. He had been for a year and a half at Harvard before going to Kenyon, and in prison, not a camp, for a year and one day, for seven months scrubbing floors. [across ] I don’t sympathize particularly with people who make themselves martyrs to discredit a government; but evidently all war-governments are alike in the thirst to make martyrs and be discredited. Yours affly GSantayana 1

Cleveland Amory (1917–98) grew up in Boston in a prominent family descended from wealthy merchants. He graduated from Harvard University in 1939 and worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, as well as a magazine editor, before writing the first of three nonfiction satirical books, The Proper Bostonians (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1947). He later became famous as an animal rights activist. 2 Samuel Eliot Morison (1887–1976), Harvard class of 1908 (Ph.D., 1912), was an American historian and author of numerous books, including several about New England. George Parkman (1790–1849), a Boston philanthropist (Harvard Medical School, 1813), and Thomas Wigglesworth (1775–1855), both eccentrics from prominent Boston families, were models for the character Nathaniel Alden in Puritan, whose younger brother Peter is the father of the protagonist, Oliver. Parkman disappeared in November 1849 while collecting rents on his properties; John Webster, a professor of chemistry at the Harvard Medical School (M.D., 1815) and a debtor to Parkman, was convicted of murdering him. In Puritan, Nathaniel’s father, a slum landlord, had been murdered by an outraged tenant. (See Puritan, 581 and 585, and letter to Rosamond Sturgis, 5 February 1936, about “petering out”; and Puritan, 582 about Nathaniel.) 3 Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), a well-known American architect (Harvard, 1781), approached design as an amateur gentleman of taste. Known for a neoclassical style that combined colonial Georgian and English Adamite influences, Bulfinch is famous for his work on numerous Boston landmarks, as well as for finishing the reconstruction of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. 4 “Peter had been restless at home without knowing what else to wish for. Sometimes he had ingeniously found his way to India Wharf—you may live in Boston all your life without coming on visible evidence that it is a seaport—and he had wondered what would happen if he should run away before the mast, like Richard Dana” (Puritan, 47–48). 5 The Delta Phi Club was called the Gashouse “because all its windows would be lighted up at once by the electricity that was then a novelty; so that it was called ‘The Gashouse’ because of the absence of gas. Yet the nickname stuck, and could be interpreted to refer to the brilliancy of the members’ minds, or the vanity of their speech” (Persons, 349–50). The club was originated by Thoron, Lyman, and Beal of Santayana’s class of 1886. Santayana had no money for dues as an undergraduate and did not

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become a member until he returned from Germany in the fall of 1888. About 1898 it became a final club (a private social club for upperclassmen), changing its name to the Delphic Club. Banker and philanthropist John “Jack” Pierpont Morgan Jr. (1867–1943), a member of the class of 1889, had, like Santayana, belonged to the Delta Phi Club at Harvard. Ward Thoron (1867–1938), “destined to be [Santayana’s] closest friend while [they] were undergraduates,” graduated with Harvard’s class of 1886. A business executive for nearly fifty years, he retired in 1932 and turned to literary work, including editing The Letters of Mrs. Henry Adams (1936). See Persons, 221–24. 6 Boylston Adams Beal (1865–1944) was a member of Santayana’s Harvard class of 1886 and one of his closest friends during the 1890s. Herbert Lyman (1864–1941) was a member of the Harvard class of 1886 and came from a prominent Boston family. Beal and Lyman were among the “pure and intense Bostonians of the old school” (Persons, 224). See Persons, 224–25 and 254–56.

To Arthur Allen Cohen 9 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6, Rome, February 9, 1948 Dear Mr. Cohen:1 Your letter about Kierkegaard raised in my mind more questions than it answered. Does existentialism assume that we are all Christians?2 Is Angst about “Salvation” that of the Jews at the time of Christ or that of later Christians of avoiding hell fire after death? Is not such ANGST a disease, an emotion produced by Protestant theology after faith in that theology has disappeared? And what is this self that feels the Angst and leaps heroically, for salvation into the Unknown? If it were the transcendental Self, or Brahman, it could feel no anxiety because it can be only transcendental, on THIS side of the footlights; it may have interrupted experiences, but it cannot die in the sense of not being capable of having more; and more of them can hurt it if it is purely transcendental, like the comfortable rich man in the stalls watching a tragedy and then a comedy. If, on the contrary, this self is the concrete human psyche or person we know perfectly what its circumstances are and what it needs to be anxious about. There may be wise or foolish decisions made by it, but no leap into the unknown. The whole thing, from this point of view, seems confused and gratuitous. There is another approach to Existentialism, from Husserl, that interests me more. Husserl, in the earlier form of his Pure Phenomenology,3 came upon what I call essences; and the counterpart of these, considered

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as given phenomena (which they need not be) would be pure transcendental spirit, or Brahman, mentioned above, which is all that I can get satisfactorily out of Kant.4 But Husserl afterwards reverted to Kant, and confused (as I think) the spirit with the animal psyche, which might be anxious, precisely because it is not transcendental spirit, but the life of an animal that can fall into all sorts of traps and suffer all sorts of collapses. Besides Husserl I have read more or less of Heidegger,5 and liked his analysis of “pure” ideas, such as Nothing or Death. He sees perfectly that the intrinsic vacancy of these notions lends them the function of repeating or framing-in positive objects, as death, by terminating a life, makes a biographical unit and moral finality of it. This seems to me much more enlightening than leaps or shipwrecks of the Soul in the Infinite Unknown. Could one say, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, that the total Object confronting a life or personal existence was Circumstances? And would God be a religious name for this? If so, I could see the inevitableness, for our animal psyche, to fear, love, and grope for God. And in so far as the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e. the Reign of God) is just this Object in the measure in which its operation affects us, I can see how the Existentialist revives the Christian problem of salvation. But why revive the problem without reviving the concrete beliefs that would explain and solve it? I am about to read a new Italian account of Existentialism by Prof. Castelli,6 who is a serene Catholic and a man of the world, who may make things clearer to me. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Arthur Allen Cohen (1928–86) was at this time a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He later became a publisher, editor, theologian, and novelist. 2 Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55), Danish philosopher, born in Copenhagen, is often credited with anticipating twentieth-century European existentialism. Educated in philosophy and theology, he wrote prodigiously in an attempt, in his words, to reintroduce Christianity into Christendom. He disagreed strongly with the state church of Denmark and refused communion. He believed that confusion about Christianity, which he thought of chiefly as a way of existing, resulted from a widespread confusion about existence. Human existence, for Kierkegaard, is an unfinished process that requires one to take responsibility for his or her individuality. A decision rooted in passion is necessary to achieve individual existence. This passionate decision is obstructed by abstract thought and too much reflection. The highest form of existence is the religious life in which an individual takes a leap of faith in passionately affirming the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Because existence cannot be reduced to intellect or reflection, Kierkegaard emphasizes the importance of passion and especially anxiety

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or dread (“Angest” in Danish, like the German “Angst” and English “angst”). This emotion comes from a sense of the heavy responsibility incurred by humans in making an existence choice to achieve individuality. This anxiety has a double aspect in that it expresses the dread of making a decision of eternity as well as the exhilaration of freely choosing to be an individual. Of Kierkegaard’s many publications, better-known ones include Either-Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846). 3 Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (1859–1938), German philosopher, born in Prossnitz, Moravia, was educated in mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Leipzig. He took his Ph.D. in mathematics at Vienna, and after working in Berlin he returned to Vienna to study philosophy with Franz Brentano. Husserl was a professor at Göttingen and then at Freiburg, where he retired in 1928 and was succeeded by his assistant Martin Heidegger. Husserl was the leading founder of the philosophic method known as phenomenology and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. For him the aim of philosophic activity is precise description of appearances rather than construction of theories. Such description aims at determining the essential structure of things, but not by means of deduction or empirical observation. Rather it employs the method of “imaginative variation” in which features of an object are removed until essential features are determined. This leads to “eidetic intuition” or the intuition of the essence. This method of description leads to a distinction between the given object and the subjective mental activity required for the object to be given. Husserl’s important works include Ideas (1913), Cartesian Meditations (1931), and The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936). 4 Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), German philosopher, born in Königsberg, East Prussia (today Kaliningrad, Russia), established the philosophical position known as critical idealism. His teachers were Pietists influenced by Leibniz and Wolff, and Kant himself found inspiration in Rousseau and Newton. Except for a time when he worked as a tutor in the countryside, Kant spent his life as a student and a teacher in Königsberg. Kant maintained that all knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the mind, though he did not deny that there is a reality independent of this structure. Knowledge of experienced objects or “phenomena” is contrasted with the independent reality of things-in-themselves or “noumena.” Our ability to perceive phenomena includes the necessary “pure forms of intuition,” space and time, which structure the representations delivered by the senses. Our ability to understand phenomena includes the necessary “pure concepts of the understanding” or “categories,” such as causality and substance. His major works include the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), and the Critique of Judgment (1790). 5 Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), German philosopher, born in Messkirch, trained as a Jesuit before becoming interested in mathematics and philosophy. He was an assistant to Husserl at Freiburg University and then taught at Marburg University. In 1928 he succeeded Husserl at Freiburg and later became rector of the university in 1933–34, at which time he joined the Nazi party. He is often credited with a founding role in twentieth-century Existentialism, though he himself rejected the distinction. His philosophical preoccupation was the notion of being. He criticized traditional conceptions of being for thinking of it as a substance. He sought to avoid this problem by asking after the meaning of being. This approach led to inquiry into human existence as that which has some prior understanding of things that are. He understood human existence as active participation, which structured the relations of activities that give meaning to existing things. Heidegger also considered the character of nothing. It is neither

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something nor simply the negation of something, but it is the background from which everything emerges. Heidegger noticed that contemplation of nothing produces a feeling of dread in humans, and he maintained that this dread or angst is an important clue to the character of nothing. His masterwork is Being and Time (1927). 6 Enrico Castelli (1900–1977) was professor of philosophy at the University of Rome. Santayana is referring to Castelli’s L’esistenzialismo (Milano: Castellani, 1948).

To Ginn and Company 10 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Feb. 10, 1948 Ginn and Company Boston, [For the editors of “American Authors Today.”] I have today received with much pleasure a copy of “American Authors Today,” and have looked it over with a feeling that it reflects very well the specifically American character of contemporary writing.1 This is interesting, but not fair to all that America contains. Much there is simply human. What you have quoted from me belongs rather to that other part which was not exactly your subject. I am flattered at being counted as an American writer, although I am not an American citizen; and the two poems you quote under my name are, one a translation from Michael Angelo: “Gli vechi miei vaghi delle cose belle,”2 and the other an expanded translation of a phrase in the Bacchae of Euripides, “to\ sofo\n ou) sofi/a,” made when I was a sophomore at Harvard in 1884.3 They are not very American or of Today; but I am glad that you should have not felt that they were foreign. I am a little embarrassed, however, at being credited with them as if original and recent. Yours sincerely, GSantayana 1 Whit Burnett and Charles E. Slatkin edited American Authors Today (Boston, New York: Ginn and Company, 1947). 2 “Gli occhi miei vaghi delle cose belle” (Complete Poems, 198): “My eyes so nostalgic of beautiful things” (Italian). 3 “It is not wisdom to be only wise” (Greek) is the second line of Santayana’s Sonnet III. Euripides (480 or 485–406 B.C.), a Greek tragic poet, was author of ninety-two plays. The Bacchae, patterned after the Dionysiac ritual, is one such play, in which Euripides shows that unchecked irrationality can lead to disaster.

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To John Hall Wheelock 10 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Feb. 10, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock, Your letters of Jan. 13 and Feb. 6 are before me, and I must explain more precisely what I thought you (and especially Cory) had well understood about Dominations & Powers. I do not expect ever to finish the book, in the sense of exhausting what I should like to make clear on the subject and dismissing it from my mind. It is not likely that I shall live long enough to do that, and if I did, I should be left without any serious work to do. Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie1 which I sometimes say I would write later, if I lived on, is only a fancy, as I may write an article some day, if inspired, on that subject. What I may have said to Cory about getting done during the coming summer is only this: I am already in sight of such an arrangement and correction of my manuscripts (already typed) as to compose a book that, thought —h incomplete, or rather with gaps in the midst of it, could be published and in style and in thought would be good enough to convey the gist of the whole intended work. But there are developments and illustrations that I should still wish to work out, and discarded parts from which I should like to extract and rewrite the serviceable points. There would still remain plenty to occupy me for the rest of my days, even if as I hope the MS will be in good order at the end of this Summer. There is another reason for not expecting or wishing to publish Dom. & P’rs during my lifetime. The book is to serve as a legacy for Cory, together with the rest of my MSS. If I were alive when it appears the ambiguity about the proprietor of the work would subsist, just as it recurs now in your last letter in regard to a new edition of Dialogues in Limbo.2 There can’t very well be an edition copyrighted by Cory when the book is already copyrighted by Constable. It is Constable, I think, that ought to re-issue it, with the new Dialogues included, in the same type, between “The Philanthropist” and the two Dialogues with Avicenna.3 This order is important; because the Dialogues contain a summary history of philosophy, duly criticised, first physics, then morals, and a glance at religion between, in the “Autoloquies —gus”. These three Alcibiades Dialogues are

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my critique of Socrates, as the first is my critique of Democritus, and the last of Aristotle:4 but these “critiques” are not condemnations: far from it. They are readjustments to the truths of nature. —[ Just what Dom. & P’rs is in the historico-political field. —] Now, that the profits, if any, of a new edition of the Dialogues should go to Cory could be easily arranged if I am living, and would be secured by the codicils already made to my will. I don’t think more is needed; but if the lawyers say it is, I am willing to sign any document sent to me with instructions as to necessary witnesses, etc. But I don’t think you ought to undertake a new edition of all the Dialogues yourselves. You could get the sheets from Constable as usual. I have received the last vol. of the Triton Edition:5 many thanks. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. My friend

Herr Horst Wiemer6 24 Markgrafenstrasse Baden-Baden Germany Französe/ische Zone, tells me that now it is possible to send books to him from America and that he would be much obliged if you would send him the two of mine that I had formerly asked you to forward to him when you found that it was not yet possible I suppose the books were the one volume edition of Realms of Being7 and The Idea of Christ in The Gospels He also is anxious that you should reserve for him (he is now a publisher) the rights to a German translation of Dominations and Powers, and not arrange with any Swiss firm for such a translation; because a Swiss trans lation has little or no sale in Germany, on account of the exchange and the price. I have told him that he must arrange that with Cory, not with me: but the warning against Swiss editions is worth conveying, since it would be a shame not to let the Germans have the book if they wanted it.8

}

1 This article was unfinished by Santayana, but later was published by Cory as “On the False Steps in Philosophy” in the 1964 Santayana Centennial Issue of The Journal of Philosophy 61 (1): 6–19, and in The Birth of Reason and Other Essays, edited by Daniel Cory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 145–74. 2 Published by Scribner’s in 1948. Constable did not publish a second edition. 3 “Homesickness for the World” and “The Secret of Aristotle” are chapters XII and XIII of Dialogues (1948). Avicenna or Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (980–1038) was a physician, Islamic philosopher, and polymath. He was born near Bukhara, then part of the Persian empire and now located in Uzbekistan, and he wrote in Arabic. He is known for his work synthesizing Aristotelian Neoplatonic philosophy and Islamic theology. His most famous work is al-Shifa’ (The Cure ).

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4 Democritus (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.), Greek philosopher, born at Abdera in Thrace. Following fellow Greek philosopher, Leucippus (5th century B.C.), Democritus was a materialist who held that all existence is explicable in terms of collisions and conglomerations of atoms (from the Greek atomos meaning “uncut” or “unmown,” “indivisible”) moving in a void. Atoms are, on Democritus’s view, tiny indivisible and indestructible particles imperceptible to the senses. The mechanical motion of atoms, and not human perception, is true reality. Human knowledge results from contact with atoms; mind operates according to the same principles as other material existence. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), Greek philosopher, was born in the Ionian city of Stagira. He entered Plato’s Academy in Athens around 367 B.C. and remained until Plato’s death in 347 B.C. After this he tutored Alexander the Great and later founded the Lyceum in 335 B.C. He was a prolific lecturer and writer in the fields of art, logic, metaphysics, natural sciences, psychology, art, politics, and ethics. He was a philosophic naturalist and rejected Plato’s Theory of Forms, maintaining that the form of a thing was indwelling rather than transcendent. (For Plato, see note 6 for 17 February 1948 letter to Daniel MacGhie Cory). Aristotle has been enormously influential in European culture as well as in Santayana’s philosophy, especially as presented in his five-volume work, The Life of Reason. 5 The Works of George Santayana (Triton Edition), 15 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936–40). 6 Horst Wiemer was formerly employed as a “reader” in Munich by C. H. Beck, the publisher of the German translation of The Last Puritan. 7 Realms of Being, one-volume edition (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942). 8 There is no known German translation of Dominations.

To Augusto Guzzo 15 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 15 Feb. 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, Your tremendous book has arrived and I have read the Introduction and the Summary.1 How I wish that you could have sent me this book fifty years ago, when I was writing my superficial “Life of Reason”. Now it comes at a moment when I am absorbed not in the critical or dramatic elucidation of conscious existence, not in my Self or in a rational conduct of my beliefs or duties, but in the fate of Mankind, conceived or found as a race of animals living in a material world. And as it is too late in my life for me to recast for myself the transcendental problem, or any problem of Existence or knowledge, I don’t dare to drop the train of thought that I am engaged in: “les moments me sont chers”.2 So I am afraid I shall never do justice to your profound revision of things from within outwards. Except that I know how that problem imposes itself on the self-questioning mind,

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and how dramatic is the order of evidence, the causa cognoscendi,3 that reflection can construct by intense criticism. However, I come in my descriptions of “Dominations and Powers” upon distinctions between “vital liberty” and “empty liberty”, between “growth” and “militancy”, between “economic” and “liberal” arts, and many other logical or moral questions; and I shall not forget to consult your pages on these points when I find myself in a difficulty. The fact that you are at work on so vast and important a system of philosophy, even if the outlines of it all are already clear in your mind, makes me wonder all the more that you should be willing to give your precious time to translations, even with such good help as you count upon; and I am all the more grateful that my book on the Idea of Christ is to profit by that willingness. I suppose during the summer holidays you may like to turn to lighter occupation; and I know how fascinating the search often is, in translating, for a word or phrase that will convey the author’s intention. In any case, I have today signed the contract with the Edizioni Comunità for the Italian edition, in which article 8 runs as follows: “The Publishers undertake to use the translation of the said work made by Professor Augusto Guzzo”. I hardly find words to tell you how much I appreciate this favour, as well as the gift of your new book. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

L’io e la ragione (Brescia, Italy: Morcelliana, 1947). These moments are precious to me (French). 3 The known causes (Latin). 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 17 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 17, 1948 Dear Cory: No wonder that Ryle1 riles you with his contemptuous repetitions of “pet dichotomy” “sham-question,” and “unsophisticated” “assumption”. Dons used to be old fogeys, but now at Magdalen they seem to be cultivating modernity.2 Father Benedict3 here keeps bringing me books by a certain lay theologian Lewis (a convert to Christianity,

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apparently) whom I should have never supposed Magdalen would tolerate.4 He has the same cheap way of summing things up in two words, and announcing that all else is effete. However, I find his Ryles handwriting ^ ^ quite legible “semantically,” each word is a hieroglyphic to be recognised as a whole, not an aggregate of letters. This is good psychology; but I don’t know what “semantic” is intended to mean now. Is it anything like “Self-transcendence?” I am very sorry that your paper is refused by Mind, but perhaps you can publish it elsewhere. Weeks, of the Atlantic Monthly has written me another complimentary letter, and sent me proofs of “The Hidden Soul”, which apperently is to appear first.5 I took it to be the second Dialogue, but this makes little difference when they are issued at a month’s time from one another. In the book, however, “The Libertine” must precede; it begins with a touch of landscape for a background, a reference to Limbo, and an echo of Plato’s way of making someone relate the dialogue.6 Besides, there are one or two references to it in “The Hidden Soul”. Essentially, of course, there is nothing serial or consecutive in these pieces; they are chips of the same block. The great event for me since I last wrote has been the solution of the Robert Lowell mystery in a blaze of glory. A long letter (in Roman Capitals) with an account of himself, confirming what I had learned from others, but adding that he had been a year and a half at Harvard, and hadn’t liked it, before going to Kenyon, where “unfortunately” he spent most of his time on Latin. Then that he was condemned to a year and one day in prison, the day being added in order to make him a “felon” and deprive him of his rights as a citizen, I don’t know for how long; and that he actually spent — threefive months in prison and then seven in a hospital, scrubbing floors. He is now “Adviser for Poetry” at the Library of Congress, a sinecure for one year. And, to cap all this, and saying that he had no words to say what my letter had meant for him, two longish new type-written poems in heroic couplets, very good, different, clear (com^ ^ paratively) and full of colour and emotion. In the letter there were also explanations about his going in and out of the Church. What Catholics believe in “true” (he means justified under human conditions) but not “the truth”. This is virtually my own position reached by a different path. He also expressed a preference for some of my books which coincided in part with my feeling, for instance, on Browning: yet his two new poems reminded me of Browning in being dramatic monologues, only genuine. I told him so in my reply, which he

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says brought him “tears of joy.” So you see we are fast friends. There are political matters also on which we agree, about Franklin Roosevelt, for instance, and the policy of the Allies.7 [across ] Other good news is that Guzzo has volunteered to complete, helped by his wife, his translation of The Idea of Christ, to be published in Milan. What goes on very slowly, however, is Dom. & P’rs. Yours as ever GSantayana 1 Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), editor of Mind, had refused Cory’s article on Bertrand Russell’s philosophy (Years, 281). A leader of the contemporary analytic movement in British philosophy, Ryle was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College from 1945 to 1968. In 1947 he had become editor of Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, the most influential journal of British philosophy. His works include The Concept of Mind (1949), Dilemmas (1954), and Plato’s Progress (1966). 2 A don is a head, tutor, or fellow in an English university. Magdalen College is part of Oxford University; it was founded by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, in 1458, primarily for teaching moral and natural philosophy (science) and theology. 3 Benedict Williamson, O.Ss.S. (1868–1948), who lived at the Little Company of Mary at this time (see letter to Cory, 23 January 1947), had authored numerous books on theology and church architecture, as well as biographies and a memoir about being a chaplain in World War I. Williamson also wrote the introductions to a 1928 pamphlet by Benito Mussolini (Italy before the Looking-glass, [London]: Art & Book Coy) and a book by a Fascist Party spokesman (A Revolution and its Leader, Augusto Turati, London: Alexander-Ouseley, 1930). 4 C[live] S[taples] Lewis (1898–1963), British novelist, literary critic, and Christian apologist, was a member of a group of Oxford writers, “Inklings,” which included J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. He was a fellow and tutor in English literature at Magdalen College from 1925 to 1954. His works include The Screwtape Letters (1941), Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956), and The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (seven volumes, 1965; first volume published 1950). 5 Edward A. Weeks Jr. (1898–1989) was an editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1926 until 1937 and became the editor-in-chief, following Ellery Sedgwick, in 1938. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard (1922). 6 Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.), Greek philosopher, born to a wealthy family in Athens. He was a follower of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. He founded the Academy in Athens around 387 B.C. Plato authored approximately 24 dialogues, which typically feature an inquirer and a respondent conversing about or debating a particular thesis. He maintained that the observable world is an imperfect copy of unchanging ideal “Forms” that constitute true reality. His ethical doctrine advocated a life dedicated to study and contemplation of these Forms. Santayana’s personal library contained German and English editions of Plato’s dialogues as well as editions in the original Greek. 7 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), who graduated with an A.B. from Harvard in 1904, served as thirty-second president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. Roosevelt’s political liberalism was anathema to Santayana’s Tory perspective.

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To Augusto Guzzo 17 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 17, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, There is a curious repetition, on page 247 of The Idea of Christ in the Gospels of three lines from page 244, where it seems that they more properly belong. The repetition of these lines on page 247, at the end of the long paragraph, must have been an accident; and I have never understood how neither my secretary Cory nor I nor the readers at Charles Scribner’s Sons publishing house never noticed it. As it would be trouble and expense to change this page and the next after the plates were cast, but a passage of equal length can be substituted for the text without much difficulty, I composed a passage for this place which I believe has now been inserted on page 247. It expresses the same possibility of attaining moral harmony privately as well as socially. It is not absolutely needed, and you might simply end the paragraph, in your translation, nine lines from the bottom of page 249, with the words: “to fly blindly from our true good”. The first nine words at the beginning of the next paragraph, four lines from the bottom of the page, would then have to be omitted too, and the paragraph would begin: “the choice of any stage …”. But I send you the three lines substituted in the original, in case you prefer to include them.1 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The substituted lines that Santayana mentions are unlocated. On page 244 the lines read: “And why should premonitions of [such an] appointed [metamorphosis] not visit us sometimes spontaneously, or be awakened in us by the words and [lives] of prophets, more mature [or more] deeply sensitive than ourselves?” On page 247 the lines read “Any why should [not] premonitions of [this] appointed [metanoia] not visit us sometimes spontaneously, or be awakened in us by the words and [example] of prophets, more mature [and] deeply sensitive than ourselves?” The brackets denote the differences between the two similar statements.

1948–1952

To John Hall Wheelock 17 February 1948 • Rome, Italy

8:31

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome Feb. 17, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock This is only a line, to acknowledge the receipt of The Royalty Account on Feb. 1, and to say, in answer to your question about the MS. of The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, or rather the typed copy of it, that it is of no interest or value for me, and that you may do anything you like with it. Why not throw it away? Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. It may interest you to know that an Italian translation of this book has been arranged to be done (already partly done) voluntarily by Prof. Augusto Guzzo of Turin and his wife. It is a great honour that they should be willing to do it all, and their name will ensure a certain consideration for it in Italy, as he is well known, and very religious. Whether he is an Orthodox Catholic I have never made out. Probably not quite. Perhaps a Valdens/cian?1 1 “Valdencian” probably means one of the Waldensians or Waldenses, a body of Christians arising in France in the twelfth century, who were named after their founder Peter Waldo (died c. 1218). They were excommunicated by Pope Lucius III in 1184 for preaching without theological training and promoting heresy. They adopted Calvinist doctrines in the sixteenth century, suffering severe persecution until recently, and now live chiefly in Piedmont, in northern Italy.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 1 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 1, 1948 Dear Lowell Your note with “Thanksgiving is Finished” 1 came this morning, and I have been reading it over and over, but still would rather wait a bit, and read it again, before talking about it. I am very stupid about catching cues and suggestions, and not used to it, so that it takes me time to fill in the

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background of dramatic pieces like yours; but I feel that the drama is there and little by little gather the elements and see the perspective in which they are presented in the speaker’s thoughts. My first impression is mainly this: Why so sad and so obsessed by sordid visions? You see, I belong to an age that I hated but that was fatuously in love with itself and materially flourishing, every day may —ore comfortable, self-satisfied, and luxurious; so that to study things that are not “nice” seems to me paradoxical, unless it be, as Dickens2 did it, mixed with fun and full also of the milk of human kindness. Of course your way of seeing life is deeper and truer to the secret texture of it. And the surfaces, often lovely, exist too, and exist also in your presentation; but the disintergrating force of the subject-matter drowns this at first sight. Now that you and I are on the comfortable basis of friendship we mustn’t stand on ceremony about writing or answering letters. We must write only when we feel like it and about whatever at the moment is on our respective minds. And there is something, in continuation of what we were saying about the classics that I have been wanting to add. I saw with pleasure that your reason for regretting the time you spent at College on Latin is that you didn’t spend it on Greek. Just what I most regret in my own college and school studies, that I didn’t master Greek, because it was hard for me, and I never make efforts. Later, when on my first (and only) Sabbatical Year I went to Greece,3 I made a feeble attempt to learn a little modern Greek, to see if in that round-about way I couldn’t render ancient Greek friendly and familiar to my ear, as Latin is. But it was too late; I was too old; my proposed tutor not the right man; and I had only two months in Athens. The result is that I never read a Greek author unless I can get him with a modern translation on the opposite page. That does well enough for philosophy, as I make no pretensions to scholarship; but it is useless for poetry, because the sound and savour of it never reaches me: and my sensibility is auricular. But you are only thirty years old. Why shouldn’t you learn Greek now? Hardly the moment to go to Greece, but you could get a Greek tutor in America, perhaps an Orthodox ecclesiastic, who would set you on the right track, from Byzantium backwards, and fill you with enthusiasm. I have just been reading a little popular book by a learned lady, Kathleen Freeman, “The Greek Way”,4 an anthology of characteristic bits from all periods of Greek literature, nicely translated. Unfortunately the original is not given; and some modern illustration, added to those from vases are a blemish. But she says: “Learn Greek … With good help one can learn to read easy

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Greek in a year or less.” Much less, I think, if you already have the elements and will devote a long vacation to it. Now another thing that I have been wishing to say to you regards Latin poetry. You mention the poets you recognize as worth reading, and leave out Lucretius!5 And in your “Lord Weary’s Castle” you translate (very nicely) a macabre passage from Propertius.6 Propertius is also Ezra Pound’s favourite.7 Why is this? I got some years ago a beautiful edition of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius which I have often in with great pleasure.8 I knew that Catullus was charming, but I discovered that Tibullus (whom I had thought little of) had things I liked much more profoundly, Especially, in the Third Elegy, the beginning and the end, the first ten and the last twelve lines.9 They connect beautifully, and if you would make a poem out of them it would be noble, tender, witty, and unaffectedly passionate. Look it up! Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

“Thanksgiving’s Over” is a dramatic monologue in The Mills of the Kavanaughs. Charles ( John Huffam) Dickens (1812–70), generally considered one of the greatest English novelists, was known for juxtaposing tragic and comic elements in his stories and characters, alternately presenting wretched living conditions and wry humor. 3 1904–5. 4 Kathleen Freeman (1897–1959), the British author of The Greek Way, An Anthology (London: MacDonald, 1947), was a university lecturer, translator, and editor, as well as a mystery novelist and children’s author under the pseudonym Mary Fitt. 5 Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 98–55 B.C.) was the Roman author of the unfinished De Rerum Natura (On the nature of things), a didactic poem in six books, setting forth a complete science of the universe based on the philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus: All things operate according to their own laws and are not influenced by supernatural powers. Lucretius hoped to free men from the yoke of religious superstition and the fear of death. 6 Sextus Propertius (c. 47 B.C.–c. 2 B.C.) wrote three volumes of classic Roman love elegies and another volume on mythical topics. Santayana is refering to the poem “The Ghost (After Sextus Propertius).” In the note to the text, Lowell says “When I use the word after below the title of a poem, what follows is not a translation but an imitation which should be read as though it were an original English poem.” 7 Ezra Loomis Pound (1885–1972), an American poet, editor, and critic, lived in Europe from 1907 until 1945, when he was arrested by American occupation forces for supporting Mussolini and returned to the United States to stand trial for treason. Judged insane, he was committed to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. (1946–58). After his release Pound returned to Italy, where he lived until his death in 1972. He is known for his unconventional poetic style and for promoting the works of other modern literary figures, most notably T. S. Eliot. 8 No edition of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius was known to be in Santayana’s personal library at the time of his death. As of 1948, the most recent edition in Latin was C. Valerii Catulli—Albii Tibulli—Sex. Propertii carmina (Florentiae, Apud G. Barbèra, 1942). Santayana quotes Tibullus in Latin in My Host the World, which was completed in 1944 (see Persons, 531, footnote; see also the textual note in Complete Poems, 679). 2

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Caius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 B.C.) was one of the greatest Latin lyricists. His 116 extant poems include many satires and epigrams as well as exquisite lyrics on his beloved, called Lesbia. Albius Tibullus (c. 55–19 B.C.) was a Roman poet, a master of the Latin love elegy. Only two books of his verse have been preserved. 9 “Tibullus Detained by Illness to his chief Messalla: The Opening and the Close” is Santayana’s translation of Albi Tibulli Carmina, Book One, Elegy III, lines 1–10 and 83–94. The translation was first published in NINE: A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism 2 ( January 1950): 9–10, and later was included in Testament. See also Complete Poems, 281–82.

To John Hall Wheelock 7 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 7, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock I must tell you of an unexampled event in my life: the other day I received a cheque for Lire 37,000 = for the right to translate “The Idea of Christ in the Gospels into Italian: and independently it has been arranged that Professor Augusto Guzzo of Turin (who is a good friend of mine) and his wife are to do the translation, on which he had begun spontaneously before the Edizioni di Unità1 of Milan had proposed to publish the book. This payment is an advance on imaginary future royalties: a very hazardous proceeding, it seems to me, but I suppose they are in the habit of making such advances because hungry Italian authors could not give up their MSS without some immediate cash. This cheque represents 25 pounds Sterling, minus 10% for the agent’s commission, which Heath & Co of London who intervened, give their Italian correspondent, getting the same sum themselves, in this case, out of a Sweedish payment for the same book. 37,000 lire = about $65. The dollar last months/ brought 566 Italian lire. I enclose an order for a book I have a personal reason for wishing to have as the author is an old friend of mine,2 born in Calais, Maine, who used to talk to me about his part of the world with a charming interest. Yours sincerely GSantayana SAINT CROIX, INC. $3.50.

BY

GUY

ST. CROIX COUNTRY MURCHIE. NEW YORK: DUELL, SLOAN & PEARCE,

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Charles Scribner’s Sons, Book-Selling Department Please send me a copy of the above book, charging it as usual to my account as an author. G Santayana Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Italy. March 7, 1948. 1

Publishing House “Unity” (Italian). Guy Murchie (b. 1872) received his A.B. and his LL.B. from Harvard in 1895.

2

To Thomas Nolan Munson 12 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 12, 1948 Dear Father Munson,1 I have spent an interested day reading your thesis and being sorry to have been the cause of so much irritation in your study of my books. The latter parts of your paper are much nearer to the facts about my philosophy than the earlier, although even here you are a good deal misled or misinformed about me. I don’t know who the interviewer was that said I preferred to be called an aesthete:2 it is an instance of the mendacity of interviewers. More important is the use you make of a sonnet written when I was twenty as the “final” expression of my philosophy.3 And where do you suppose, even then, I drew the inspiration that prompted me to write it? From the Bacchae of Euripides who says to\ sofo\n ou) sofi/a, which I translated, watering it a good deal in the second line4 of the sonnet, building the rest round that sentiment. But it is true that I prefer the play of imagination round natural sentiments and natural scenes to any “explanation” of them. They all have natural causes, no doubt, but the interesting thing is what those scenes and sentiments are, and how they develop. As to the technique of my philosophy, I find most of your exposition out of focus, and most of your criticism irrelevant. You don’t understand my interests or my methods. If you had trace my works either chronologically or logically, you would have seen better how I came to disinter

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my system: because I did have to disinter it under the alien vocabulary and alien problems that were imposed upon me by my alien education. You are right in saying that from William James5 I got my strong sense of the “contingency” of all facts and of their primacy in the order of discovery; but he thought momentary feelings were the ontological basis of the universe, in the order of genesis and causation: and this I wholly rejected having always been a naturalist in belief (even when I was thinking speculatively on Catholic or on solipsistic lines): for it is possible to be interested in a play at the theatre, without forgetting that we are sitting in the stalls. When I describe a stage-setting, you say that I have abandoned my materialism. That is not true: I have turned my thoughts to something else, but this stage-setting, far from contradicting its sources in real life, gives real life its human form and reflective interpretation. You are absolutely just in saying that I care little for “explanations” (not often finding that they explain anything or make things clearer) for I like interpretations, because those express the tastes of the mind and its affections. There are some odd assignments of influence, and odd omissions of it, in your account of my sources. For instance, Hodgson I saw once at a meeting of the Aristotelian Society in London in 18876 (long before “essence” had come within my horizon) never spoke with him, or read anything of his. Essences I gradually unearthed, like the rest of my personal grammar of thought, helped by various suggestions. One was the idea clara et distincta Cartesii:7 others the “infinite attribute” of thought, with its infinitude of modes (or instances) of Spinoza, and all the “possible worlds” of Leibniz; then Berkeley’s “inert ideas”;8 except that he confused these with existing acts of apprehension, which are not ideas at all, but moments of spirit, or “intuitions” (not in the Bergsonian or feminine sense of this word, but in the Kantian).9 Capital of course were Platonic Ideas: especially an undeveloped suggestion in the first part of Plato’s Parmenides about “ideas” of filth, rubbish, etc., which the moralistic young Socrates recoils from as not beautiful, making old Parmenides smile. That smile of Parmenides made me think.10 But the most exact anticipation of my “realm of essence” I found in a quotation from an Arabic philosopher whose name I have forgotten, in the Life of Avicenna by the Baron Carra des Veaux, a French Catholic of perhaps a hundred years ago.11 My ideas were also much sharpened in 1897 at the English Cambridge in talks with Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore.12 There are two points that I should like to clear up if possible in your criticism. The first is about the meaning of “knowledge”. Are pure vision

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or hearing (in a dream) knowledge? Or must this datum be assigned as a predicate to a substantial object, and will this be “knowledge” (as in Berkeley) even if no such object exists? Or would this belief be then an illusion, and true only if there is an object on which the datum is projected? Or will this projection be still an illusion if the object has not, in itself, that character, although such an appearance may serve, conventionally, like a name, to mark the presence of that object and to induce in the observer the appropriate action in its presence? I may not, in my earlier writings, always have avoided the use of the word “knowledge” for what I call “intuition of essence”; this is cognitive in intent, since the essence is an object which intuition may repeat, and memory may identify: but that object is ideal. Mathematics, or acquaintance with definitions and relations between them, is a teachable science and must certainly be called a sort of knowledge. Yet it is not knowledge of natural facts or their interaction in the world except when the mathematical calculations are found applicable to material facts in the heavens or in machinery: and it is in such cases that knowledge is transcendent, i.e. reveals an object other than the datum or definition or calculation concerned. Locke13 and others reasonably distinguished these as knowledge of fact and knowledge of ideas; but occasioned great confusion, since properly ideas themselves are the knowledge, or the terms of knowledge, in designating and recording facts. I can’t help thinking that the distinction of essences from existentent things greatly clarifies this imbroglio. The other point that I wish to make regards the psyche. You say that I can’t define it, but that Aristotle explained it by saying it is the form of the body. He has a fuller and clearer description of it than that where he says that the psyche is the first entelechy (or functional perfection) of a natural organic body; and further he distinguishes the first entelechy for instance of the general’s psyche when on the eve of battle he is asleep in his tent, from the second entelechy when in the morning he is mounted on his horse and giving orders in the midst of battle. The functional perfection, ready to act or acting, of a natural organic body is precisely what I take the psyche to be; so that if Aristotle is right your cavils about what you attribute to me on this subject fall to the ground. You say that the manifestations of the psyche are not “knowledge” of it. it is unknowable (or something of that kind). But the organic constitution and organic action of the body are the psyche. You know that I do not make it any more than Aristotle, an independent angelic soul that can quit the body or migrate from one species of animal to another, as Plato tells us in his myths.

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I will send you back your thesis, on which I have marked two or three passages, as far as possible packed as it came. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. I have forgotten to mention that what I quote from Leibniz about God choosing the best of possible worlds is not my opinion. I meant it as a reduction ad absurdum. You have not read Voltaire’s Candide? Or Molière about Cur opium facit dormire?14 It is a pity. 1 Thomas Nolan Munson (b. 1924) is an ordained Roman Catholic priest and professor emeritus of philosophy at DePaul University. At this time he was a graduate student at Loyola University, and in 1948 he published his thesis as George Santayana: Metaphysical Musician (West Baden, Ind.: Suaraquin Academy). He later published Santayana’s letters to him in the appendix to The Essential Wisdom of George Santayana (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962). 2 Terence O’Connor wrote this in a letter to Munson printed in Essential Wisdom, 147. 3 Sonnet III, “O world, thou choosest not the better part!” was published first in The Harvard Monthly, April 1886. It has been anthologized more often then any other poem by Santayana. It is included in Holzberger’s The Complete Poems of George Santayana, 92. 4 In his footnote to this letter Cory transcribes this incorrectly as “It is not wisdom only to be wise” (Letters, 372). See 10 February 1948 to Ginn & Co. 5 William James (1842–1910, brother of novelist Henry James), American philosopher and psychologist, born in New York, educated in Europe and America. A student of Louis Agassiz, he received his M.D. from Harvard in 1869. James taught physiology at Harvard. He established the first psychology laboratory in 1876 and began teaching philosophy in 1879. His inquiries into the nature of individuality led him to reject a notion of consciousness as a collection of discrete concepts or an aspect of an Absolute. Instead he maintained that consciousness is best characterized as a “stream” with a fringe and a focus and being constantly selective. Influenced by Peirce, James advocated a pragmatic epistemology according to which truth happens to ideas and ideas are made true by events. True theories are ones that work, by which he means that the truth of a theory cannot be established independently of its experienced consequences. James was Santayana’s teacher and later his colleague at Harvard. Though they were different in philosophical outlook and temperament they maintained a relationship of mutual respect. Important works include The Principles of Psychology (1890), The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), and Pragmatism (1907). 6 Shadworth Holloway Hodgson (1832–1912), English philosopher concerned primarily with metaphysics and epistemology. He was an independent scholar and founding member of The Aristotelian Society for Systematic Study of Philosophy, for which served as the first president from 1880 to 1894. His major work was the four-volume The Metaphysic of Experience (1898). In an 11 May 1887 letter to William James from Oxford, England, Santayana tells of being invited by Hodgson to meetings of the Aristotelian Society. 7 Descartes’s clear and distinct ideas (Latin). 8 Baruch (or Benedict) Spinoza (1632–77), Dutch philosopher, born and educated in the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam. He studied Descartes’s philosophy with a German former Jesuit, Francis van den Enden from 1652–56, and in

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1656 the Jewish community excommunicated him for his unorthodox views. He earned a living as a lens grinder and never left Holland despite being offered a professorship at the University of Heidelberg, which he refused partly because he thought it a threat to his intellectual freedom and tranquility. Famous works include Ethics, Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding, and Theological-Political Treatise, all of which were published posthumously, a few months after his death. Spinoza denied that God and Nature are distinct substances and maintained that there is only one substance. He also maintained a necessitarian doctrine which follows from his claim that God exists necessarily and everything follows necessarily from God’s divine nature. Together with Plato and Aristotle, Spinoza was an important philosophical inspiration for Santayana. At the time of his graduation, Santayana published his essay “The Ethical Doctrine of Spinoza” in The Harvard Monthly 2 ( June 1886): 144–52. Later, he wrote an introduction to Spinoza’s Ethics and De intellectus emendatione (London: Dent, 1910, vii–xxii). Santayana characterized Spinoza as his “master and model” in understanding the naturalistic basis of morality (see Persons, 233–36). Santayana’s personal library contains a collection of Spinoza’s works entitled Benedicti de Spinoza Opera Quotquot Reperta Sunt (The Hague: Martin Nijhoff, 1882–83). The “infinite attribute” to which Santayana refers in his letter is an attribute of God which “expresses eternal and infinite essentiality” (Ethics, Part I, Def. IV). Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), German philosopher, mathematician, scientist, historian, and diplomat, born in Leipzig, educated in law, died in Hanover. He developed the basic theory of calculus independently of Newton and was first to publish his results. Leibniz maintained that the fundamental entities of the universe are monads, which are simple, immaterial, perceiving, and desiring entities. Each monad perceives every other with varying clarity, except for God who perceives all monads with complete clarity. Contrary to appearance, monads do not interact causally with one another; rather any given state of a monad is causally linked only to its own prior or subsequent states. To explain the appearance of interaction among distinct entities Leibniz posited the theory of “pre-established harmony.” On this view each monad is similar to a clock in that it behaves independently of others of its kind; yet all are synchronized or harmonious in their individual activity. God establishes this harmony among monads. Leibniz further considered the nature and role of God, when considered the question of freedom or how some states of affairs are true when they could have been false. The reason for any state of affairs that actually obtains is God, and God’s choice is due to God’s power and moral character. Hence, it is necessary that God choose to create the best of all possible worlds, so what is actual is necessary. Leibniz published only one philosophical work during his lifetime, Theodicy (1710). Other important works include The Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) and Monadology (1714). George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher, bishop of the Anglican Church, graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, lived in Rhode Island from 1728 to 1732, became bishop of Cloyne, Ireland, in 1734. He wrote on the psychology of vision, mathematics, and medicine, as well as philosophy and theology. Important works include Essay Towards New Theory of Vision (1709) and Principles of Human Knowledge (1710). He advocated a metaphysical idealism which holds that all existing entities are either perceiving spirits or perceived entities. This entails that ordinary objects exist if and only if they are perceived, a view summed up in the principle esse est percipi or “to be is to be perceived.” The mind of God is supposed to ensure the continued existence of material objects. In support of his position, Berkeley argued that physical objects are collections of sensible qualities; hence physical objects cannot exist apart from a perceiving mind. Furthermore, Berkeley argued that it is impossible

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to conceive of an object existing apart from mind because to do so involved conceiving that object; hence no object can exist apart from mind. Berkeley mentions “inert ideas,” to which Santayana refers in his letter, in the third dialogue of Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713). 9 Henri Bergson (1859–1941) was a French philosopher who taught at the Collège de France. The basic premise of his intellectual system is a faith in direct intuition as a means of attaining knowledge. This intuition is a non-rational process and must be coupled with the rational intellect to understand the true nature of reality. Kantian intuition refers to the reception of sensible representations of immediate objects conditioned by the mind. The ability to receive sense impressions includes not only the ability to receive sensible contents but also the “pure forms of intuition” which structure sensible representations accounting for their spatial and temporal character. His works include Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience (1889), L’Evolution creatrice (1907), and Reflexions sur le temps, l’espace et la vie (1929). 10 Parmenides (c. 515–480 B.C.), Greek philosopher of Elea, an Ionia colony in southern Italy, and founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Of his writings, 150 lines of a didactic poem remain. The poem has an allegorical introduction followed by two parts: the “Way of Truth” and the “Way of Seeming.” Parmenides argues that what has being necessarily is. Being, according to Parmenides, is ungenerable, imperishable, and unchanging—it cannot not be. Plato attributes to Parmenides the doctrine that “all is one,” though this phrase is not found in Parmenides’ writings. However, the idea that all being is a unity seems consistent with the idea that being is unchanging. Parmenides appears as a character in Platos’s Theaetetus and Parmenides. In the latter, Parmenides smiles at Socrates’ youthful eagerness and then challenges his notion of ideal Forms by asking whether Socrates believes that there are Forms of filth and mud (for ideal Forms, see note 6 of 17 February 1948 letter to Daniel MacGhie Cory). Socrates says no, and Parmenides suggests that his views may change when he matures. Lionel Trilling wrote a review of The Letters of George Santayana (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955) entitled “That Smile of Parmenides Made Me Think,” [A Gathering of Fugitives (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956), 153–67]. 11 Baron Bernard Carra de Vaux (1867–1952), French scholar and Orientalist, author of Avicenne (Paris: F. Alcan, 1900). The “Arabic philosopher” to whom Santayana refers is unidentified. 12 Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872–1958), British philosopher, logician, social reformer, and a founder of analytic philosophy. He was born into an aristocratic and political family. He studied at Cambridge and became a lecturer there in 1910 until he was dismissed in 1916 for his politics. Early on he was a follower of the idealism of McTaggart, Ward, and Bradley, but by 1898 he had abandoned idealism and embraced an extreme realism. He came to call his position logical atomism. In 1903 he published The Principles of Mathematics in which he announced his project of logicism, the attempt to deduce mathematics from logical principles. He developed this program with A. N. Whitehead in Principia Mathematica (3 vols., 1910–13). He did much work in logic and produced a famous essay in 1905 called “On Denoting.” He was jailed for five months in 1918 for his opposition to the First World War. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950. Other well-known works include Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), and the popular A History of Western Philosophy. Santayana was a close friend of Bertrand’s brother, John Francis Stanley Russell, who first introduced Santayana to Bertrand in 1893 at Cambridge University. In his autobiography, Santayana characterized Bertrand Russell as the most distinguished person among all of his friends and wrote that “our philosophies are separate without being opposed” (Persons, 500).

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G[eorge] E[dward] Moore (1873–1958), English philosopher; born in Upper Norwood, a London suburb. He studied at Cambridge University and became a lecturer there in 1911 and a professor in 1925. He was a visiting professor at various universities and colleges in the United States include Smith, Princeton, and Columbia. He is known for his attacks on idealism and his defense of a commonsense view of the world. In ethics he argued that the good is indefinable and the attempt to do so commits the naturalistic fallacy, that is the reduction of ethical propositions to factual propositions. His important works include Principia Ethica (1903), Philosophical Studies (1922), and Philosophical Papers (1959). In his autobiography, Santayana calls Moore one of his “philosophical friends” from his time at Cambridge, though he notes that later during his last visit to Cambridge Moore had turned unfriendly toward him (Persons, 439, 444). 13 John Locke (1632–1704), English philosopher and physician, born in Somerset to a middle-class Puritan family, studied at Oxford. His important works include The Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) and the Second Treatise of Government (1689). Locke is regarded as one of the British Empiricists, and he rejected innate ideas as an explanation for knowledge. He instead regarded the mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth that acquires ideas through experience, specifically through sensation and subsequent reflection. The mind then combines, divides, generalizes, and abstracts these ideas to create new ideas. Locke accounts for physical objects, about which one has ideas, in terms of matter in motion and impacts among material bodies. But Locke characterized the fundamental substance of things as that “I know not what,” and he was unsure about what immaterial and material substances had in common that made both substances. Locke acknowledged a distinction between natural and revealed theology. He believed the existence of God could be demonstrated and that the existence of God was a condition for human existence. 14 A logical reduction to the point of absurdity (Latin). Why opium makes one sleep (Latin). François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694–1778) was a French dramatist and historian who became a leading voice of the Enlightenment, arguing for freedom and tolerance. Voltaire was critical of stale conventions, including the overuse of pedantic footnotes in scholarly works. Voltaire’s satiric novel Candide was published in 1759. Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière (1622–73), born in Paris, was a playwright and actor. Le Malade imaginaire was written and performed by Molière in 1673. Molière played the lead role of the hypochondriac. Cur opium facit dormire is from Intermède III of Molière’s Le Malade imaginaire : “Mihi a docto doctore / Domandatur causam et rationem quare / Opium facit dormire. / A quoi respondeo / Quia est in eo / Virtus dormitiva, / Cujus est natura / Sensus assoupire.” This is quoted on page 50 of The Essential Wisdom of George Santayana ; in the footnote on page 162, Munson translates the passage. When the metaphysician is asked why opium makes one sleep, he replies, “Because it has in it a soporific power, / The nature of which is to deaden the senses.”

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To Frank O’Brien 12 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 12, 1948 Dear Mr. O’Brien I read your “Story”1 when it arrived yesterday and have read it again today. I like it. You flatter me profoundly without seeming to do so, and you way of breaking up a subject, saying something else, and then returning to the old one and adding something more interesting than the first part is very clever and restful. It is like conversation when motoring with a friend who drives, has to interrupt himself, or does so voluntarily because of something new visible by the road, and then turns back in a leisurely way to what was being said — at before. Is this an accepted trick or a discovery or unconscious instinct of your own?/. I particularly like what you say at the end about Lowell, and I think he will like it if he sees it, and I am glad of it because I suspect that he is not very happy. His last poem “Thanksgiving is Finished” is a picture of unhappy sordid life in Third Avenue, N. Y. Yours sincerely P.S. I have marked GSantayana two or three small inaccuracies in your text.2 1 Frank O’Brien, a correspondent for the Associated Press, interviewed Santayana twice about his life in Rome and the writing of Dominations. Attached to this letter was a carbon copy of a five-page typed story about Santayana written by O’Brien on 10 March 1948. Parts of this story, unattributed, appeared in the New York Times in the book review section under “People Who Read and Write” (9 May 1948), BR8. 2 In the margin beside “For 23 years Santayana has lived in Rome” Santayana wrote in red pencil “25 (winters).” In the margin beside “He goes to church” Santayana marked “X.” Beside a description of the location of the hospital of the nuns (where Santayana lived) “in the grounds of an old church near the center of antique Rome” Santayana wrote “?” in the margin. At “[Robert] Lowell who has been married and divorced” Santayana underlined “divorced” and put “X” in the margin.

1948–1952

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 13 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

8:43

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome—March 13, 1948 Dear Cory, I returned the cheque for $10 of which I don’t remember the occasion, but assume that it was due and that you won’t despise the widow’s mite. Don’t be troubled about the contrary fashions in philosophy. They don’t last, and they give the independent critic an external point of view from which to criticise himself. And I approve of your plan to study the English standard authors if you are not afraid to find them still harping too much on the strings of Strong and Russell.1 I should suggest, however, that you begin with Locke’s Essay,2 and mark in your copy (I have none now) every instance of the word “idea”, and record in a note-book the place where it occurs, and whether it mean “essence” or “perception”, understand ing by the latter not “percept” but a moment of Spirit; what I call ^ ^ an intuition. With that scholarly “investigation” or “creative research” you would be respectably armed to point out the tragic consequences of that ambiguity, and the fallacy of thinking that ideas (essences) are “states of mind” or “events.” Such as study could be published in England and meet with recognition. It would be a hint also in favour of my views which are beginning in America to be taken more seriously than at first. I have received (for 1,000 lire) the first volume of the proceedings of the late Philosophical Congress in Rome, where my paper on Some Corollaries (so named originally by me) of Materialism appears in ^ ^ English, being the only contribution in this language and classed as “American”.3 There are several in French, two in Spanish, and one in German. The Italian contributions are much better and more important, especially one by a man name Del Noce,4 which makes me laugh; because Noce, in Spanish (noche) means “night” and is femenine, so that this means to a Spanish ear should be either La Noche, the night or De ^ ^ Noche, at night: but bright light shines in it. He is a sympathetic expounder of Marx (preferring him to Lenin)5 and maintains that his materialism is purely scientific and correct, since matter for him is no hypostasized image or concept (metaphysical or vulgar — idea— lis materialism) but critical and called dialectical because every idea or theory of matter is open to revision, and all its manifestations are unstable and

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insubstantial. Just my view! Banfi, professor at Milan,6 has a rhapsodical paean proclaiming the Communism is about to make us intelligent, just, beautiful & happy. Will it? Anyhow, it certainly has a “good press” in Italian academic circles. The second volume on Existentialism (1,200 lire) will be very instructive for me, as I have not a secure understanding of that theory. “The Middle Span” has been announced again by Constable, but I don’t know whether it has appeared.7 Yours as ever GSantayana 1

Charles Augustus Strong (1862–1940), an American philosopher and psychologist, was Santayana’s longtime friend from Harvard. They lived together off and on for many years in Paris and Fiesole, Italy. From 1887 to 1889 Strong taught philosophy part-time at Cornell University. Later he taught psychology at the University of Chicago and at Columbia University (see Persons, 239–42). 2 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). 3 “Some Corollaries to Materialism” was published in Il Materialismo Storico: Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Promossa dall’ Instituto di Studi Filosofici, Rome, 15–20 November 1946 (Milan: Castellani, 1947): 211–18, edited by Enrico Castelli. The “second volume on Existentialism” is unidentified. 4 Augusto Del Noce (1910–89) was a Roman Catholic philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Trieste. 5 Karl Marx (1818—83), a German social philosopher and radical leader, became the chief theorist of modern socialism. Most modern forms of socialism and capitalism are derived from his dynamic theory of social change. He adapted Hegel’s dialectical method to his own materialistic position to produce the theory of dialectical materialism. His monumental work is Das Kapital, first published in 1867. Vladimir Ilyich (Ulyanov) Lenin (1870–1924) was the founder of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) after the Russian revolution of 1917. Lenin was a follower of Marx, but he advocated using professional revolutionaries to promote proletarian uprisings, rather than relying on historical processes to naturally unfold. 6 Antonio Banfi (1886–1957), Italian philosopher and professor, authored numerous books on religion and philosophy. Santayana may be referring to the work that was later published as Saggi sul marxismo (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1960). 7 The Middle Span (New York: Scribner’s, 1945; London: Constable, 1947).

1948–1952

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 14 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

8:45

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 14, 1948. Dear Lowell A correspondent of the Associated Press, Frank O’Brien, has had two long interviews with me and has written a “story” as he calls it, about me which I have read and liked, making only two or three slight corrections in it about matters of fact. It is mainly about my green old age and the book on politics, “Dominations and Powers” that I am at work on. But at the end there is something about my interest in your verses and in your history, which I hope you won’t think indiscreet of me to talk about, but I have no family or Mrs. Grundy1 to censure my conduct—I mean none for whom I have any respect—and let myself out freely, as in “Persons and Places.” I might not have thought it necessary to excuse myself for this to you, had not the method of composition, in O’Brien’s article struck me as perhaps akin to that of modern poets, and a help to understanding them. He divides his “Story” into very short paragraphs, like the verses in Scripture, and changes the subject continually without warning; but then he is apt to revert to a subject broached before and add something more interesting and important than what he had said at first. Is this a wellknown trick? And is it something like what you do in “Thanksgiving is Finished” and elsewhere? I have now got the elements of this poem (which interests me particularly, although I don’t like it so much as the two you sent me before) as clear as I think they are meant to be. There —y are tragic and realistic elements; what still remains uncertain in my mind is how they hang together. And on that point O’Brien’s article suggests a possibility. This is all reflexion after the fact, as poetry should be; and in reflexion episodes pop up and phrases cross the mind from different quarters or strata of memory. You know the accent and locus of each: but a verbal rendering of those shreds and patches does not easily convey their background to the reader. I don’t want you to explain your poems to me, as T. S. Eliot2 explains his to the public. No. It is like stained glass, which to an imperfect eye-sight like mine, presents a harmony of colours and traceries, without making clear the objects, and much less the scenes depicted. I think the thing should be felt as a whole, like music, and analysis carried on later, so far as the musical magic remains in the parts, but

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no further: for more anaylsis would be grammatical parsing, not intuition. Am I right? Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Mrs. Grundy, a character in Thomas Morton’s (c. 1769–1838) Speed the Plough (1798), symbolizes the extreme in moral rigidity. 2 T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot (1888–1965), an American-born poet, dramatist, and critic, graduated from Harvard in 1910 with an M.A. in philosophy and became a British subject in 1927. He was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in literature for his contribution to poetry. T. S. Eliot had been a pupil of Santayana’s at Harvard in the first decade of the twentieth century.

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 20 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 20, 1948 Dear Rosamond, The “Vapex”, in a shape new to me but very convenient and efficient, arrived safely in its little box and white cotton wool. It works, and I have it now always at hand as it seems to check the flow of mucous stuff in the throat no less than the ordinary symptoms of a cold in the head. Thank you very much for it. Also for the large parcel of eatables or drinkables that has arrived also. I think I really don’t need anything now, because the Sisters can get things in the market, “black” or white: but if it doesn’t annoy you too much I should like now and then to get gifts of tea and coffee and cocoa, in order that my consumption of them daily and abundantly may not deplete the quantity supplied for guests in general. Really, I think I don’t consume more than my share; as I don’t have butter or sugar and very little bread or meat (because I prefer biscuits and vegetables, and just one egg a day, for supper. And they have lately raised the price of board here, to 2000 lire per day. The lira is now worth between 1/5 and 1/6 of a cent or between 500 and 600 of them to the dollar, 2000 lire is equal to about $3.50, which is reasonable for a first class nursing home. But our new Australian Head or “Mother General”1 has grand ideas and we have had central heating and running hot water all winter, for which we pay extra, 300 lire a day. All together, however, my monthly bill here is not more than half of what I get from Mr. Salmon, so that I have plenty of pocket money.

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8:47

A real anxiety, however, is hanging over us now, in the form of a general election. There is a “People’s Front” composed of Communists and most of the Socialists, although a part of the — Com— mu— nist latter party has ^ ^ turned against Moscow and joined the Catholic (“Christian Democratic”) party which is in power, supported also by the Liberals, the Right, and other minor parties. If these moderates win the elections, we shall breathe freely at least locally and for a time; and this would perhaps have a decisive influence over the course of events in France, and consolidate the proposed West-European Union which the American Government is trying to help along. Governments, however, are not very clever (except superfi^ ^ cially the Russian government); and I don’t think even in Russia they see very far ahead. That system may collapse before it spreads; and I think is sure, if it spreads, to change its character. I don’t think America has anything to fear if it [across] doesn’t go to war, or even then, except for the loss of life, time, and money. Of course, I should hate to see Europe overrun, especially Italy and Spain, but nothing lasts for ever. Yours afftly GS. 1

Mother Bernard Martin LCM (née Norah Margaret Martin, 1888–1977) became a postulant and a trainee nurse in the Little Company of Mary in 1908, received the habit in 1909, took her final vows in 1912, and passed her nursing exams in 1913. She was elected Superior General in Rome, the order’s highest office, in 1947. In 1959 she returned to Australia after finishing two six-year terms.

To Winifred M. Bronson 26 March 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Berkeley)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. March 26, 1948. Dear Miss Bronson1 It is pleasant to hear that one’s recollections may awaken others that are of perhaps more importance and no less fit to keep old age green. I have enjoyed writing “Persons & Places” (all three parts will eventually form a single book) more freely and unreservedly than I did the episodes themselves, when it was always doubtful what might come next, or how one’s appreciations might prove mistaken. My association with Houghton,2 as you know, was confined to our student days at Harvard and in Berlin. His affairs in business and politics carried him far beyond the range of my academic life and modest travels. I admired but did not

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envy him. The astronomer can survey things better if he doesn’t become a planet. Please give my regards to your father and tell him that I was glad to hear from him, and from California, a word about my old College friend and about his other friendships.3 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. Alanson Bigelow Houghton (1863–1941), a member of Santayana’s Harvard class of 1886, was president of Corning Glass (1909–18), New York congressman (1918–22), ambassador to Germany (1922–25), and ambassador to England (1925–29). 3 Probably Ira Hull Bronson, who received a bachelor of law degree from Harvard in 1889. 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 10 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 10, 1948. Dear Cory: Your letter with those from Mr. Weeks and his Vermont correspondent have made me laugh; and I was pleased to see that you (I suppose) had got them to publish The Libertine before The Hidden Soul. I had not mentioned this question in writing to Mr. Week’s because I didn’t want to seem fussy and fault-finding when we were in the honeymoon of our literary relations, but I am glad you straightened the thing out. I have not received any copy of The Atlantic Monthly. In view of the request for more “copy” from the Atlantic, I have reread Chapter I of vol. III, “Metanoia”,1 and I think it would make a readable article if, as you suggest, we made some omissions. For instance, from the last line on p. 8 of the typed copy to p. 13, line 9, those too personal matters might be left out; and the text of lines 13–14 might be changed to read as follows: Eventually four thoughts merged their currents and carried me—etc, etc. Then again, at the end, I think it would be better to leave out the passage on page 17 about Stendhal,2 from line 3 —[ Stendhal …]— to line 9 from the botton —[ … perfection]— and then resumes: This presupposes etc.

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instead of —[ It … —] But use your judgement in both cases as in other passages. The last chapter I think is all right as it stands. Yours G.S. 1 “Metanoia” was changed by Cory to “A Change of Heart” as chapter I of Host. This chapter was published in December 1948 (pages 52–56). 2 Stendhal, pseudonym of Marie Henri Beyle (1783–1842), was a French novelist known for his vivid characterizations and psychological analysis. His works include Histoire de la peinture en Italie (1817), De l’amour (1822), Promenades dons Rome (1829), and Romans et nouvelles (1854).

To Evelyn Tindall 10 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 April 10, 1948 Dear Miss Tindall1 Here are ten more short chapters for Dominations & Powers, less than 100 pages, about which please take your time. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Evelyn Tindall, an Englishwoman, served as secretary for the British Legation to the Holy See in Rome. Beginning with Puritan, she typed Santayana’s manuscripts for nearly twenty years.

To John Hall Wheelock 10 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 10, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock Cory has sent me a letter from Mr. Weeks asking for more contributions, and enclosing one from a schoolmaster in Rutland Vermont who has been feeding his rustic swains on The Libertine, with the result of producing I don’t know what dangerous revolutions in the ir ideas. ^ ^ However, he says that this will cure them of “materialism.” I am touched by this —ese testimonials and will encourage Cory to publish one or two

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chapters of vol. III of Persons & Places to supplement his somewhat scanty finances and to keep the ball rolling in the young brain of Vermont. I am glad to learn by this that The Libertine was published first*, as was desirable because that opening gives the reader a picture of Limbo and of the somewhat dejected condition there of the Shade of Alcibiades. Readers of these Dialogues could not be expected to have read or remembered the book from which they were omitted because unfinished. I enclose an order for books of mine to the sent to a friend and to a stranger who ask for them. Yours sincerely GSantayana [in left margin ] *I have not received any copies of The Atlantic Monthly. Rome, April 10, 1948. Please send the following books to Monsieur J. R. DURON1 Directeur du Service des Lettres Ministère de l’Education Nationale, 53, rue St. Dominique, VII, PARIS, FRANCE By G. Santayana

{

Realms of Being (1 vol. edition) The Idea of Christ in the Gospels Persons and Places The Middle Span.

And to Herrn Clemens CORMAN,2 Haagstrasse, 3 E RLANGEN, BAVARIA, G ERMANY. By G. Santayana: The Last Puritan and charge all five books to my account GSantayana 1

Jacques Duron (1904–52) was a French public school teacher and a student of Santayana’s philosophy. 2 Unidentified.

1948–1952

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 12 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

8:51

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 12, 1948 Dear Mr. Cardiff,1 Your letter and the selections enclosed make me very hopeful of the value of the whole collection proposed.2 They also give me a salutory view of my own foibles, because many of these sayings show a bias which I had forgotten that I ever had. I mean that they are preponderantly antitraditional and anti-clerical. I still agree with what I say there, yet I shouldn’t now say it in that tone; and I now feel too ignorant of “science” = century way, as to and too much puzzled by it to appeal to it, in the 19 th a well-known fountain of truth and light. However, littera scripta manet,3 and it is right that you should choose these old jibes, as they seem to please you and as they evidently pleased me. I should make only one suggestion: Don’t include anything merely for being true. It must not be commonplace. You have some selections that I cannot place, but think capital in point of saying the truth tersely, and a not generally recognised truth; for instance (at the top of page 5) the passage about “malicious psychology” and making ideas objects of knowledge instead of knowledge of objects. This seems to me just as well as pointed, and the sort of epigram worth selecting. I was also much pleased that you took things from “The Last Puritan” and from “Persons & Places”. The longish passage from Mr. Boscovitz’s mouth about religions, jewels, flowers and women makes me feel hypocrital; those are distinctly his sentiments rather than mine. But I wrote them and like them better than my own usual feelings. Do put that pasage in. And if you have not chosen it already, please put down Mario’s where he tells Oliver4 that he doesn’t “make up” the stories he relates but that “we must change the truth a little in order to remember it.” That is cynicism without bias, and psychologically exact. I have counted 55 extracts in these pages and you say you have made over a thousand. Probably if we had the whole collection I should not feel = part of it has made me feel, namely, that you brought out what this 20 th my materialism more than my Platonism. The philosophers say these two sides of my philosophy are incompatible, but I find them perfectly harmonious, because Platonism is poetry and materialism science and faith is not to be absolutely given to either. Both employ ideas only as signs or

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myths; and it is not ideas of either sort, but our insides that form a part of the inside of — the— rest— of reality. I am still writing: this time a book on politics: but I am afraid there are fewer plums in this aged pudding than in my candied works of younger days. My friend Daniel Cory, to whom I mentioned your plan, suggested a title for it from some lines of mine, to be published later, called “The Poet’s Testament”:5 nanely, “Atoms of Light”. But perhaps “Atoms of Sense” would be better for the positivistic bullets. Yours sincerely G. Santayana 1

Ira Detrich Cardiff (1873–1964) was a professor at several colleges and universities in the United States. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1905 in Karyokinesis (morphology, cytology). 2 Cardiff’s collection is entitled Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts From George Santayana (Toronto: Mcleod, 1950). 3 The written word is permanent (Latin). 4 Mr. Boscovitz, Mario Van de Weyer, and Oliver Alden are characters in Puritan. 5 The Poet’s Testament: Poems and Two Plays was published by Scribner’s in 1953.

To Francis H. Appleton Jr. 16 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, April 16, 1946/ 8. Dear Mr. Appleton The elections here are the day after tomorrow and I thought for a moment to postpone answering your note until the result was announced; but on the whole it will make, I understand, no immediate difference, unless civil war should break out. They tell me that even if the Communists get in, legally or cavalierly, we shall not be disturbed at first in this establishment, and I certainly sha’n’t move from it unless I am compelled. I don’t know what I may have said to justify the interviewer1 to say that I “was considering” going to Switzerland. I may have said that I tried to do so seven years ago, before I came to this house; or that if compelled to leave Italy I should incline to go to Switzerland now, probably to the Lake of Geneva, where I have been often and now have some friends. But it would be a great nuisance and would separate me again from my books.

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8:53

For my remittance from The Old Colony Trust Company for April, for about $500 I got Lire 283,707, which amounts to about 560 lire to the dollar. The new arrangement, by which banks pay the average rate prevailing during the previous month in the open market is a great improvement on the old method from our point of view. I will certainly cable to you if I move anywhere. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified.

To Augusto Guzzo 16 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 16, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, I am greatly obliged to Signora Guzzo for being willing to work so long as so hard over my book, and even more for liking to do so. If she will send me a list of the obscure places, I will try to clear them up or even to translate them into my own best pipiu1 Italian. As to reading the translation, I should be delighted to read it all and should do so in any case when it is printed, as translations give me a new sensation about the character of one’s thought. It is sometimes a salutary lesson. You learn to be like Le Misanthrope2 in Molière: Et ses propres sentiments sont blâmes par lui Lorsqu’il les retrouve dans la bouche d’autrui.3 If you have parts of the translation typed that you could send, I would return them in a few days: that is, if peace and pleasant weather prevail after the 18th instant. With best regards from GSantayana 1 Possibly Santayana meant to write the Italian superlative adverb più here, so that this passage would mean “my own very best Italian.” 2 Le Misanthrope, a comedy, is one of Molière’s masterpieces. The play centers on Alceste, who vows to speak and act with complete honesty and no longer adhere to the conventions of a hypocritical society. 3 And he repudiates his own opinions / when he finds them in the mouths of others (French).

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To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 29 April 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 29, 1948. Dear Lowell, The useful and indispensable note at the head of Thanksgiving is Finished was a sufficient guide from the beginning to the surface chronology of the drama: there was a scene at the Church door at midnight, with the French sailors and the “She” parking her motor and whistling to the lay Brother; then there was a troubled night with indigestion and a dream with a ghost in it; and then in the early morning there was another scene in the church, with the snapping of the rosary, and another voice from Beyond, and a smile from “Him”, beyond the altar lamps assimilated to bedside veilleuses.1 That was all right, wasn’t it? But during the disturbed night there were several scenes and speeches about the order and reference of which I remained in doubt. Some things were Michael’s half-waking memories, like seeing his wife jump from the window; and other things were parts of her ghost’s reproaches. Here my love of objective truth—out of sympathy with modern poetry—left me puzzled. This I recognize to be due to my age, race, and dullness. But I felt at once the analogy with Cynthia’s ghost in Propertius: and this rather explained your choice of that rather non-pagan passage for reproducing. Yet the self-reproach of Propertius for not treating his old girl better and turning her down after she had inspired so many of his verses, is almost decadent Christian, rather than decadent pagan: might be Baudelaire.2 Your Michael, I understand, had nothing to reproach himself for. He was “wild” and didn’t know the shady side of the world or of the heart well enough. But he had “tried”. That is Bostonian. Although we are “friends” you are still shy, on account of my venerable age to tell me where I go wrong: but not all modern young talent has such scruples. A young Russian, become a Canadian,3 came to see me the other day in an open brown flannel shirt, round goggles, and dirty yellow hair brushed back from a forehead already very high and like Josiah Royce’s:4 and he began by demanding what I recognized for my principle in ethics. While I hemmed and hawed, his eye caught, some three yards off the title “Lord Weary’s Castle” on the narrow back of your book, which was lying in a heap of others on the table. And he relei —ieved me by asking if I read that. I pleaded guilty, and told him why I was especially interested

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8:55

in it, and mentioned that you had sent me three more of your poems. He asked to see them, and I showed them to him, where I kept them under the flap in the paper cover of your book. He immediately seized them, and without asking permission or excusing himself, began to read them one after the other to himself, without once lifting his eyes from the pages as he passed from one to the other, and leaving me to wait, as if I didn’t exist. When he finished the third, very quickly, he murmured, “Yes. That’s all right.” I said I admired the intensity of his attention, and /this speed in reading. “Yes,” said he, “I can read 600 words a minuit, and I always read poetry fast once, to see if it is right; if the end picks up the beginning. Then I study it in detail.” But he didn’t proceed to put your poems in his pocket for that purpose but put them back quite accurately in their places, and said he was a Neo-Kantian, that everything was a part of everything else, that this could be proved, and that he had found some difficulty in interviewing Croce.5 And before he went he offered to leave me a copy of a list of some fifty men of science that he meant to visit before returning to Canada, which list I declined with thanks. But the joke was that while I taught him nothing, he taught me something: namely, that I ought to have said to myself, in reading your poems, respice finem,6 and thus your last lines, as I had already noticed, are particularly important. I like the two book reviews in the Atlantic by Maugham,7 but the rest seemed a bad climate for my little sprouts. You shall have the new book of Dialogues when it appears Yours sincerely GSantayana [across ] P.S. Your box of food has not yet arrived, but it is kind of you to think of sending it. I will write again when it arrives and explain that I really don’t need anything, and can order anything I want through Scribner’s, who are very obliging. 1

Nightlights (French). Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821–67) was a French Symbolist poet, art critic, and translator. 3 Unidentified. 4 Josiah Royce (1855–1916), Santayana’s dissertation director, was an American philosopher, English instructor at Berkeley (1878–82), and philosophy professor at Harvard (1882–1916). Influenced by the German idealists, Royce held that the world exists only insofar as beings with minds know it and the finite self knows truth only because the individual mind is part of the world-mind. Among his works are The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892), The World and the Individual (2 vols., 1900–1901), and The 2

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Philosophy of Loyalty (1908). Santayana published this description of Royce, “his great head seemed too heavy for his small body, and his portentous brow, crowned with thick red hair, seemed to crush the lower part of his face. ‘Royce,’ said William James of him, ‘has an indecent exposure of forehead.’” (Character, 97). 5 Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) was perhaps the best-known Italian philosopher of the twentieth century. His broad idealistic thought is reflected in Philosophy of the Spirit (1902–17). Santayana’s library included at least one book by Croce, Ce qui est vivant et ce qui est mort de la philosophie de Hegel: etude critique suivi d’un essai de bibliographie Hegelienne (Paris: V. Giard and E. Brière, 1910). 6 Look to the end (Latin). 7 A review of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (March 1948): 89–94, and a review of Stendhal’s novel The Red and the Black (April 1948): 97–103. William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was an English dramatist, novelist, and short-story writer. A financially successful writer, his fiction was widely read, and several of his novels and stories were made into films. Like Santayana, he was a great traveler.

To Arthur Tisch [May 1948] • [Rome, Italy]

(MS: Tisch)

[…] Science is neither a method nor a body of knowledge. It is a body of changing, learned opinion, aspiring to be true. There are certain facts about nature and history; our grasp of those facts is constantly changing. […]1 1

Arthur Tisch (b. 1926) was attending Tufts University in 1948 and got into an argument with his sociology professor who claimed that science was a method while Tisch said it was a body of knowledge. Tisch wrote several scientists and philosophers. Above is an excerpt from Santayana’s reply.

To Augusto Guzzo 5 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, May 5, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, Your letter with the translation of the “Conclusion” of my book came this morning and I have read both with almost unmixed pleasure. My only regret is that I gave you the trouble of typing your manuscript. What led me to ask for a typed copy, if I was to read the whole book before it was printed, was this: that my eyes are weak and I should have strained them if the handwriting was difficult to decypher. But your letter today is

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perfectly clear to read, and for short “specimens”, as you call them, I could perfectly read the manuscript. Of course I wish to read the whole for pleasure after it is printed; and a solution of my difficulty might be found if you could ask the publishers to send me a proof when that is ready. I can see (what I foresaw) that there will be nothing of any consequence to criticise in your rendering, and far from disowning my own sentiments dressed in their Italian lucidity, I shall only convince myself that they were more beautiful than I knew. There are only two places in the “Conclusion” where the exact or full sense of the English is not quite reproduced. I have marked the words with a red pencil. The first (next to the last page, 15 lines from the bottom): “Già” seems to me not to serve the purpose of “Yet”, which here suggests rather “none the less” or “on the contrary”. The other troublesome word (of which our friend Prof. Petrone1 complained) touches “irrelevant”, occurring twice at the top of the last page. “Irrelevant” = mal à propos, incongruous, out of place, not belonging to the context or the argument. What I call “irrelevant excitements” are random or accidental excitements, “distractions”. When people have no aim in life, no master thought, all life is a medley of things for them “irrelevant” to one another. As to the important question of the meanings of “God in Man”, I see that I should have been more explicit. According to Catholic dogma, in Christ himself, in Jesus, God existed as in no other man. But I am not discussing that doctrine, but only the teaching of the Gospel (especially in John) that God and Christ himself will come to dwell within others, Christ’s disciples. Here it is evident that God and Christ are forms of thought and with which may be infused into other spirits. God is an ideal in them; whether he exists also hypostatically in himself, is a question of fact, objective information conveyed by faith and dogma, not a question of the complexion of spiritual life in a man when he or others say that God is dwelling in him. I therefore say decidedly that it is the second of the three meanings you suggest that the phrase “God in Man” is the one to assign as my subject in this book. When I say that Christ, being God, can reflect the whole divine nature, I am talking of the idea of Christ as conceived by Christian faith. I think that a myth: what I think real is the ideal and partial presence of divine will and knowledge and love in humain beings. What you mean by “God humanised” is not clear to me. The divine nature in Christ, according to Christian faith, was not humanised: it remained simply divine. But it was conjoined with a human psyche, so

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that the latter became sacred, utterly united in intent, by faith and love, to the divine nature, yet preserving the temporal, successive, limited experience proper to a human being. And I should add, proper to existence itself. For the life of God in eternity is an idea only: it has moral reality, but does not designate an actual fulfilled existence. But this is an endless subject. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Michele Petrone, before the war a professor of Italian literature at the University of Berlin, admired Santayana greatly and visited him often up through 1952.

To Richard Colton Lyon 6 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 6, 1948 My dear Dick1 I indulge in this sudden familiarity because you are only twenty-one, live in Texas, and have struck the bull’s eye, as far as my heart is concerned, by saying that you especially like my Dialogues in Limbo, and the idea of “Normal Madness.” 2 That was a challenge: and such critics as have noticed it all, as far as I know, have coldly remarked that if normal it cannot be madness and if madness it cannot be normal. Now you (as the excellent style of your letter shows) are no odd or wild young man. You like good form, and take to it naturally. Yet you have felt the force of that paradox which I have attributed to Democritus. If we could reproduce the mentality of a spider, and beside it, that of the fly [illegible ]caught in the spider’s web, we should see, shouldn’t we? that — both— were each was normal, yet if taken by them, as it normally would be, for miraculous literal knowledge of the world as it is, they would both be illusions. Normal illusions; and not illusions but normal valid signs, if we catch them accurately and know that they are subjective. Why then not accept our images gladly, without suffering them to deceive us? I know there was no need of rubbing this doctrine in; when you have understood it even in the playful form that it has in the Dialogues; but old men must be excused for repeating themselves. And that is the only qualm I feel in encouraging you to come to Rome to see me late in

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August. Of course, I should be delighted to see you; but I can’t, living in this clinic, do what I should have done ten or twenty years ago when I lived in hotels, namely, invite you to come and stay with me; which, in a hotel, would not have interfered with your freedom nor with my routine. I should have kept to my room and work the whole morning, and at one o’clock we should have gone to lunch in one of the attractive restaurants that then abounded in Rone; after which we could have gone sight seeing or simply walked and sat in the Pincio Gardens or the Villa Borghese,3 as I used to do daily. But I can’t invite you to come and stay in a konventhospital, nor even ask you to lunch or dinner, which I have alone, on a tray, in my bedroom. Tea you could come to when you chose: but you would have to live somewhere by yourself or with other friends. That would be expensive and the journey also, not comfortable except by air. Then besides I must forewarn you that I am deaf—can’t catch the words, although I hear the voice loudly enough. This, however, is not a real impediment when a single person is with me, who had/s learned the trick: it is simply to be near, speak clearly, and in a quiet place. There is also the fact that I am so old that much walking or talking tires me, and I seldom go out except when I have something to do or to get, and then drive in a taxi. Would it repay you to come all this way to see me? No: I think it would not: yet coming to see Rome (and me by the way) is another matter. I don’t know whether you are in college or otherwise have fixed dates. As to expense, if time were at your disposal, I think it could be arranged so long as you are in Italy. But I don’t want to encourage you to come exclusive ly on my account. It might be a disappoint^ ^ ment, and you have already got at the best of me by yourself. Write again in any case and tell me frankly what the circumstances are. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Richard Colton Lyon (b. 1926) was the founding dean of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and before his retirement in 1989 was professor of English and American studies. Prior to his work at Hampshire, he was chairman of the American studies curriculum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds degrees from the Universities of Texas, Cambridge, Connecticut, and Minnesota. A member of the board of the Santayana Edition, he wrote the “Introduction” to Persons and Places, Volume I of The Works of George Santayana (MIT Press, 1986). 2 Dialogue III of the original edition of Dialogues. 3 The Pincio is a hill overlooking Rome, located in a public park that is the site of the Villa Borghese (including flower gardens) and a favorite retreat for Santayana.

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To Ira Detrich Cardiff 8 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 8, 1948 Dear Mr. Cardiff It is too bad the Scribner’s take this view of the prospects of your project, but from the point of view of their interests as eventual publishers, I can’t help thinking that they are prudent. I have too many books already on the shelf, and selections, which would not recommend themselves to teachers as text-books for their classes would have only the scanty demand that slender books of moralizing poetry find as presents for the farmer’s wife’s parlour table. I wish the laws of copyright did not condemn us to pay the original publisher for every sentence quoted from his publications. We might then find a modest firm to undertake the work, or might even guarantee them against loss. But Scribner’s, who have almost all my copyrights, are not generous in small matters or to free individuals. Perhaps I ought not to say this, since they published my first book that everyone else had rejected: but they have a keen eye for business, and good business enables them to carry a certain amount of unprofitable merchandise for prestige. They are going to reissue my Dialogues in Limbo, with the three new ones that have just appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; which is certainly not a book to sell: yet it conveys the radical foundations of my philosophy in a playful form, which pleases some people more than dry arguments, and which is really, perhaps, a safer medium. This, with the observation that I made to you in my previous letter about the bias of your selections, suggests an idea, perhaps too farcical, of what might give both spice and unity to a book of selected maxims. In Reason in Science, towards the end, I have a paragraph about pre-rational proverbial wisdom, with a list of authoratative sayings contradicting each other. If in reading my books you have marked with some sign of protest the sentences you didn’t like, could you not divide the whole into two hostile bands, to illustrate the contradictions of wisdom or “Left Hand, Right Hand”—to quote the title of Sir E /Osbert Sitwell’s Autobiography.1 Or you might have a plurality of legions, like those of the angels, Diabolical Doubts, Philistine Facts, Chestnuts, Fallings from

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Us, Vanishings, Misgivings of a Creature Moving about in Worlds not Realized. —[ Or the exact words of Wordsworth, which I may misquote —] .2 If you have any more serious suggestion to make or plan to carry out I should be very glad of it. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Sir (Francis) Osbert (Sacheverell) Sitwell (1892–1969) was an English novelist and poet. Left Hand, Right Hand! (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1944), later subtitled The Cruel Month, is the first of five volumes of Sitwell’s autobiography. 2 William Wordsworth (1770–1850), an English romantic poet, is known for his worship of nature, humanitarianism, democratic liberalism, and interest in the common people. In 1843 he was appointed poet laureate. He is buried in the church field at Grasmere. Quoted from Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” lines 142–48 (Oxford Book of English Verse, 1939): … those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 11 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 11, 1948. Dear Cory I am not sure whether Mr. Wheelock has or has not asked for a preface to the New edition of the Dialogues. The original has none only a beautiful half-line from Lucretius on the title-page, and I have written this page and a half which may help the critics.1 If you approve of it, send on the typed copy and preserve the MS. as a document of legal import. I am revising 10 newly typed chapters of Dom. & P’rs. Many repetitions which I try to eliminate, but some good pages. I hope, by the end of the summer to have one good copy of all that I ready in good shape so that you could publish the book if I should leave it on your hands without warning. I have a lot of trivial interruptions that make me despair sometimes. On the other hand, if I have a clear day, I sometimes feel quite empty and

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accomplish nothing. One has to leave it to what Aristotle calls chance, i.e. irrelevant efficient causes, like the brick dropping from the eaves. I have read Robert Boothby’s “I Fight to Live:/” with mixed feelings.2 He might be a great man, but doesn’t quite fit and is rash. Very good on Renaissance & Reformation. Am quoting him in a note. Have finished Toynbee’s vol. VI, but am going back to read the Appendices. Atmosphere of general relief here & Spring weather with needed rain. GSantayana 1 Iuvat integros accedere fontes: It is pleasant to approach untainted springs (Latin), De Rerum Natura I, 927 and IV, 2. Santayana wrote a three-paragraph “Preface to the New and Enlarged Edition” of Dialogues. The holograph manuscript is held by Columbia University. 2 Robert John Graham Boothby (1900–1986) was a British author and politician. I Fight to Live (London: Gollancz, 1947) is an autobiography.

To Augusto Guzzo 14 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 14, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, Our publisher in Milan had mentioned in his letter to me some time ago that he would like “a few lines” of preface for your translation. I have written a few remarks, as much to the point as I could, without adding more than a page and a half to your labours or to the length of the book. Here they are.1 I forgot in my last letter to explain the phrase, really not strictly logical, “a recollected moment”. This might seem to mean, “remembered moment”, but that use of the word “recollect” is not now very good English. I use the word in its etymological sense of gathering up a harvest, raccolta, and storing it in oneself in moral perspective. In other words, a recollected moment or moment of recollection, means a synthetic moment, a comprehensive moment, when things appear in their ultimate moral perspective. Un moment de recueillement.2 Yours sincerely GSantayana

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P.S.—A French translation of The Last Puritan has just reached me.3 It is very good at first sight but the lady misses the point in irony as in metaphysics, as it becomes her Christian heart. 1 Santayana’s “Foreword” (in English) to the Italian translation of Gospels is reproduced in “Ten Letters and a Foreword,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 820–21. The holograph manuscript of Santayana’s remarks is unlocated. 2 A moment of meditation (French). 3 Le Dernier Puritain, translated by Antoinette Sémeziès (Paris: Gallimard, 1947).

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 21 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 21, 1948 Dear Cory, It makes no difference whether the little Preface for the Dialogues goes in or not. I had an idea that Mr. Wheelock had asked for something of the kind, and wrote one only from the point of view of the bewildered critic. I had nothing to add of the same kind as the text. As to a Christmas poem for $750, I am afraid I can neither pass off any old rhymes n or compose any new ones. The offer is certainly tempting, ^^ but it would be another interruption, and also another step into an unhealthy climate. I don’t like that of The Atlantic Monthly at all: so little, that I haven’t read the Dialogues, nor anything in the May number, seeing that Maughan this time was writing about Jane Austin.1 I had liked what he said about Stendhal. It explained to me why Rouge et Noir had stuck in my throat when I tried to read it. I had read La Chartreuse de Parme through, but not liked it.2 But the medley in the Atlantic Monthly makes me feel that I ought not to appear in it. This does not mean that I don’t want you to publish the two chapters of Persons & Places III, if Mr. Weeks wants them. That is a business matter and agreed upon. I only tell you frankly that I feel out of place there. And that repeated false portrait!3 I will answer the “Associated American Artists” directly, because the proposal is generous and these people are all well meaning and deserving of respect. I will excuse myself as civilly as I can.4 Don’t think from the tone of these remarks that I am out of sorts with the public or with my various publishers. On the contrary, most of my news lately has been most flattering. The French translation of The Last

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Puritan has appeared—a nice thick volume in which I have been reading with pleasure and new lights. The translator, a woman, does the domestic scenes—Oliver and the Baronne, for instance—very well; but Mrs. Darnley loses her local colour, which Mrs. Alden, on the contrary retains. I have not yet looked up her Edith and Rose and Mrs Van de Weyer. Her Irma is splendid. Were the American critics right in saying all my women were “impossible”? I begin to doubt it in this translation. And Lady Russell5 said that I had been reading Irma’s letters over her shoulder! Constable’s Middle Span also pleases me very much. I see how well they managed the new insertions, and I think the passage on pp. 77–8, instead of that about the “Billings Girls” 6 is an improvement in tone and just feeling. I hope you will have this correction retained if there ever is a standard complete edition. I also had a new admirer in Texas, named Dick Lyon, who prefers “Normal Madness” to all my writings, is 21 years old and threatens to come to see me! I am made happy by things like that; and that British philosophers [across] dislike me is perfectly natural. I belong to a different phase of reflexion, and glad rather than grieved at not being in the spirit of my times. Toynbee, however, seems to me my contemporary in history. In philosophy he is simply a time-server. GS. 1 Jane Austen (1775–1817) was a British novelist whose works deal with the social relationships of the rural educated class in which she lived. Maugham’s review of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is included in the May 1948 issue (pages 99–104). 2 Le Rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black, 1830) is Stendhal’s most celebrated work, acclaimed for its psychological study of its protagonist—a provincial young romantic— and as a satiric analysis of French social order under the Bourbon restoration. La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839) is a historical novel, a chronicle of the adventures of its young hero. Set in the post-Napoleonic era, it is an analysis of Romanticism. 3 An uncredited line drawing of Santayana accompanied the excerpts from Dialogues that appeared in the March 1948 and May 1948 issues of the Atlantic Monthly. 4 Associated American Artists was founded in 1934 with the aim of making fine art affordable to the public, and in 1939 they opened galleries at 711 Fifth Avenue in New York. They may have solicited a painting from Santayana for a “famous amateurs” charity exhibition that ran from 27 September to 13 October 1948. 5 Countess Mary Annette Beauchamp von Arnim (1866–1941), became the third wife of John Francis Stanley Russell. A British author, her works include Elizabeth and her German Garden (London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1898) written under her pen name “Elizabeth.” 6 Kate and Nelly Williams appear as “Jennie” and “Emma,” the “Billings sisters,” in Persons (see pages 569, 596, and 666–67). In 1888 “Jennie” was a housemaid in Broom Hall, the mansion at Teddington that John Francis Stanley Russell had purchased. The girls’ mother was Russell’s nurse. Santayana had been shocked to observe Russell’s

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public display of his relationship to these young women, as “Emma” (and perhaps “Jennie,” too) was evidently his mistress. The Constable edition does not include the paragraph about the sisters, instead it describes Russell’s library. The critical edition retains the original reading.

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 21 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 21, 1948. Dear Rosamond I have waited for the camphor to arrive, as it does today, before thanking you also for your letter and for the large photograph of Chiquita1 in her (or your mother’s) wedding gown. She does look lovely in it; but not on account of the gown but of the simple and very youthful and appropriate expression of her face and attitude. I can understand that you like her so much; and it occurs to me that when Bob has finished his elaborate studies at Cambridge you might wish to ask them to come and live with you. I don’t know how your finances and theirs stand, but in any case, at least for a time, it might be convenient as well as merry for you to club together: and so much the more if there was a baby banished from “apartments” in modern residential hotels. But to return to the photograph: your mother’s wedding dress was evidently very grand: the stuff seems magnificent, and the cut (which I remember perfectly in the 1880’s) also had a grand air, in the sense of being elaborate and complicated, expensive, and suggesting receptions at court, even if not quite in that of Louis XV and Madame de Pampadour.2 In remodelling the dress for Chiquita I can imagine that there was some difficulty in deciding how far to go, and any possible compromise would be in some respect unsatisfying. A wedding isn’t a fancy-dress ball; and you and Chiquita I feel were hardly the women to seize a pair of scissors and ruthlessly to cut and rip everywhere and turn the costume of the last century into an ultra modern artist’s model of today. I am sure that the pouf at back was the great difficulty, and you showed yourselves wise philosophers by not attempting to solve a problem that didn’t ask to be solved but only to be left as it was. As to more paper or other gifts which you kindly ask about, as yet I need nothing more. Without sending a large parcel (although tea and coffee are always welcome) you might later send me another tube of vapex.

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This new form is convenient, but doesn’t preserve its strength so well as did the liquid that I used to pour a drop of in a handkerchief which was good for the day, — in and the rest, in the bottle kept its strength for years. But my tube is still efficient, and summer is here, so that it will serve every purpose for months. Yours affectionately GSantayana [across ] P.S. The camphor is not late. We have been having cool and rainy weather until this time, and I have not yet put away my winter clothess/. The scent of last year’s’ camphor is still perceptible in the wadrobe, although the pieces have disappeared. 1 Joan “Chiquita” Eleanor (1922–96) attended Park School and the Erskine School and served in the United States Coast Guard as a yeoman during World War II. She married Robert Sturgis in 1947 and had four children: Susanna, Roger, John, and Ellen. Santayana’s grandnephew, Robert Shaw Sturgis (b. 8 July 1922), eldest son of George and Rosamond Sturgis, served in the United States Air Force and visited Santayana in Rome several times during 1944. After the war, he studied at Harvard and became an architect. 2 Louis XV (1710–74) was the king of France from 1715 to 1774. Madame de Pompadour (1721–64), born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, was Louis XV’s mistress.

To Richard Colton Lyon 23 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 23, 1948 My dear Dick Even if you had not mentioned it I should have gathered from your second letter that you are not “predominantly pensive”, but are ready to volunteer to work all July in the East End of London, and to pay your way as a newspaper correspondent and no doubt by other expedients. That you should when still so young have found life a hard struggle is a thought that, personally, would frighten me, because I have always been more willing to get on without things than to work hard to get them; and although I began modestly and had to earn my living by “teaching”— when I was aware of knowing almost nothing—yet I had in my family circle some remnants of luxurious life, and in later life have never had to worry about money. But as a philosopher, I am aware that working one’s way up is good discipline, especially in America, and that though it might

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sound unfeeling, it is really true that it is not to be regretted. Still, there is no need of having a hard life on purpose, and I hope and believe that you may find the path smoother as you go forward. And it is evident that you have the ability and inspire the confidence that will ensure your success. As to coming to Rome in August, there is no need of making a decision before the moment arrives. In London you will hear reports of many young Americans who have been here, and you may find some other opening that will tempt you more for the moment. In other days the trip would have enabled you, without added expense, to see a great many interesting places; but now the kind of rambling journeys that I used to make when I was young, going short distances second class (in France, etc) third in England, of course, and stopping for two nights at each Cathedral town, so as to see that thoroughly, as well as the country from the train on alternate days, has now lost its charm, everything being crowded uncomfortable, expensive and slow. You could come from London to Rome by air in one day, with a stop at Marseilles for lunch, very comfortable; but in/ t costs about $100; and the return trip has also to be paid in Sterling. This is the quickest way if you are pressed for time and don’t care to lose yourself in little towns where you don’t (probably) know the language. That is a question of taste and of the direction in which your interests lead you. August in Rome is hot and close, perhaps not hotter than Texas, and it may have begun to cool off at night. But you must think twice of this, and of your health. After six of seven busy weeks in London at that season you may need a rest. But if you have time to remain in Rome for a week or two (I assume that you are returning to College in Austin) you might rest y/here.1 As I hinted to you in my first letter, I should be glad to relieve you of all expenses while you are in Italy. I can do that without any inconvenience at all, having a bank account in Italian lire; but unfortunately it is hard for me, and takes time, to obtain dollars or sterling. I have to write to Boston or New York to have the funds sent over, and people don’t always do it quickly, or like to do it. Besides it advertises one’s affairs. I had a bank-account in London, but it was blocked during the war, and I have not yet succeeded in getting it released. I therefore will leave you to your own resources and preferences for the journey, if you decide to make it, but you needn’t worry about expenses in Rome, as I will look after that. And I think at that season you had better not attempt to find a cheap boarding house or to eat in crowded Italian restaurants, but go to a quiet hotel, for instance, Hôtel de la Ville in the Via Sistina, and take a room with “pension” there. In the morning you can see sights, and after lunch come and

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see me, and stay for tea. Send me your address in London, and let me know how you get on. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The University of Texas at Austin, where Lyon earned an American studies degree.

To Augusto Guzzo 26 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 26, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, There is hardly anything to say about your translation except that I am delighted with it. It seems to me clearer, purer, more limpid than the original (doubtless because Italian is a clearer, more vowel language) and you have been so absolutely faithful that I feel you have conveyed the spirit in which I wrote, not wishing to refute but to clarify and not to prove, but only to reecho certain words. But let me reply to one or two points that you raise. As to the word changed in the Preface I think the one you substitute “pleasure” is certainly right; but the one I wrote, “honour” was right also.1 I was not making any hierarchy of rank or dignity between you and me; the only difference is that I have the unfortunate privilege of being twice as venerable in years. But the honour comes from the willingness to give so much labour to a translation. Do as you like about this point, but I think it would be fair to have both words, “honour and pleasure”. I see no reason why you should send the English text of this to the publisher: but I don’t want it. Please do as you like about this also. On the second part of the Preface, where I have marked a +, I had a feeling that something was missing, and needed to make the statement less positive, something like “perhaps”. At the top of the second page of “Il concetto della creazione” there is a blank. The text says: “as if by deputy”, and I see that after the word “recita” this was troublesome, because if Good recited the part, he could not do it by deputy. But I was thinking of God as Shakespeare and not as Hamlet,2 and by the word “enacted” I meant “put on the stage” rather than acted in person. If he acted all the parts in person, he would be the God of pantheism. The God of “monarchical theism” acts them all “by deputy”. He is the stage-manager or author or both.

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I thought there was another place where you left a blank, but I can’t find it. My memory was that the word in the text—a long Latin adjective— had the same meaning in Italian. But this may be a false memory. If not clear, please let me know and I will explain it another day. There is no hurry, and I hope neither of you will feel burdened by this long task. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 “The unexpected honour of seeing this book turned into Italian by my friend Professor Augusto Guzzo and his distinguished lady …” (from the original English version of the “Foreword.” 2 Prince Hamlet, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is the son of the King of Denmark and Queen Gertrude and nephew to Claudius, the king’s brother and murderer. Hamlet is convinced by the ghost of his dead father to kill Claudius. He resolves to feign madness in order to get revenge, but his actions imply that he may have actually become insane.

To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 29 May 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bidwell)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 29, 1948, Dear Raymond, = I got your letter of April 8, I wrote at once to When on April 30 th David,1 to wish him joy, and enclosed the letter, marked per posta aerea (although I usually don’t do so, having eternity before me) [illegible ]and one for Mr. T. P. Salmon at the Old Colony Trust Co asking him to send it on to your house at Weston, 93, with a present for the happy bridegroom, who I don’t doubt is happy enough without it. But until today I had had no reply from Mr. Salmon, who now, writing about business, says nothing of my previous communication. I infer therefore that my letter was lost, or possibly that the Sister who stamps and sends the letters, didn’t notice the label air mail, and sent it by ordinary post, so that it might possibly still arrive. However, I have written today to Mr. Salmon asking him to send David his present in any case: and please tell him that I asked him to send me his photo and that of his bride, and to excuse my not writing again, today, things being still uncertain. I am sorry about this little contretemps,2 but hope you will forgive my apparent silence.

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As to things here, there is a feeling of relief for the moment; but we are living in what Toynbee (great man!) calls an “age of troubles” to be followed by a “universal State,” which let us hope may be one of felicity, in this world or in the other. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 David Dudley Bidwell (b. 1926), son of Josephine Sturgis and Raymond Brewer Bidwell, worked as director of product development and manufacturing for Procter and Gamble for twenty years. Afterwards, he worked as a consultant, project manager, real estate developer, technical director, and businessman in Japan, Sardinia, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland (where he lives now). 2 Mishap (French).

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 4 June 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, June 4, 1948 Dear Cory: Shane Leslie has been an invaluable unknown friend to me on account of his Eton Story The Oppidan1 from which I drew details of school life at just the date of Mario’s and Oliver’s presence there. My real Etonian friends, beginning with Howard Sturgis, The Babe, and Robert Bridges2 were of earlier generations and would serve for general moral effects, but not for details of School life. I was therefore much interested, and a little afraid, of his review: but not on account of Eton, which doesn’t appear in The Middle Span, but on account of his Catholicism and Irish blood, which I thought might have been offended by my treatment of Lionel Johnson.3 But no: he positively approves. Does he confess that faith is often “histrionic”? The rest of the review is also friendly, as I should have expected. He is an Etonian who understands Eton. I am reading Sitwell’s Great Morning,4 which Leslie mentions and compares pleasantly with my book. Sitwell is another thankless /) Etonian, like Percy Lubbock:5 but Sitwell is charming in many ways: and this volume is well illustrated as my other two, in the American edition, are not. For Desmond MacCarthy’s review I don’t care, and he is careless.6 My mother was not a Puritan but a Stoic and not, as he implies, a New Englander.7 GS.

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1 Sir Shane Leslie (1885–1971), also known as John Randolph Shane Leslie, was a British author. The Oppidan (London: Chatto and Windus; and New York: Scribner’s, 1922). 2 Eton boys were frequent guests at Queen’s Acre and sometimes were given pet names by Howard Sturgis. Among them was Willie Haines Smith, called “The Babe.” Smith became Sturgis’s companion for life (Persons, 357–60). Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) was appointed poet laureate of England in 1913. The quintessential English gentleman, Bridges was educated at Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford (Persons, 489–505). The philosophical poem entitled The Testament of Beauty (1929) is considered his finest work. 3 Lionel Pigot Johnson (1867–1902) was a Welsh poet educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford. His published writings include Poems (1895), Ireland and Other Poems (1897), Post Liminium (1911), and Some Winchester Letters of Lionel Johnson (London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1919). Santayana met him in 1887 at New College, Oxford, where Johnson was then in his first year. Santayana expresses sympathy for Johnson’s poetry and religion (he was a convert to Roman Catholicism) but describes him as “a spiritual rebel, a spiritual waif who couldn’t endure the truth, but demanded a lovelier fiction to revel in, invented or accepted it, and called it revelation. In part like Shelley, in part like Rimbaud, he despised the world and adored the unreal” (Persons, 301–2). 4 Great Morning! is volume three of Sitwell’s autobiography. Santayana is most likely referring to the British edition published in London by Macmillan (1948). Santayana’s library contained the American edition of volume two, The Scarlet Tree (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946). 5 Percy Lubbock (1879–1965), an English essayist, historian, and novelist, wrote Shades of Eton (New York: Scribner’s, 1929). In 1926 he married Sybil Cuffe (d. 1943), the widow of Santayana’s friend William Bayard Cutting Jr. (d. 1910). 6 Sir Desmond MacCarthy (1878–1952), an English journalist and critic, was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. MacCarthy became literary editor of The New Statesman in 1920 and afterwards drama critic. Later editor of Life and Letters, he wrote several books and contributed to the London Sunday Times. His review is unidentified. 7 Santayana’s mother, Josefina Borrás, was wholly Spanish, though born in Glasgow, Scotland. Her father was from Reus, Catalonia, and her mother from Barcelona.

To Page Smith 8 June 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Rome, June 8, 1948 1

Mr. Page Smith President of the O.K. Dear Prexy, It was pleasant to receive your letter and poem, informing me that the O.K. has been resurrected. I was not aware that it had died, except as in the course of fifty years such a gathering, even if it retains the same name, must more than once give up the ghost. The spirit of Harvard, undergraduate and official, seems to one of my generation to be changed, in the

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sense that it has carried out completely the ideal of President Eliot,2 to make it an integral part, and a servant, of the contemporary world. But in my time there still stirred in some of the Clubs and in some literary circles, like the O.K. and the Harvard Monthly,3 a certain speculative and moral freedom. We still dared to prefer the end of life, realizable in every free and happy moment, to the means of keeping the world going faster and faster in an unknown direction. Of course, it must move on, and we with it; but we may sometimes look out of the window from the aeroplane. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

[Charles] Page Smith (1917–95), an author, historian, and educator, received his in American history from Harvard in 1951. The O.K. Society was an organization formed at Harvard in 1858 for literary and social purposes. 2 Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) began teaching at Harvard following his 1853 graduation. After study in Europe, he became a chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1865. He was appointed president of Harvard in 1869. By 1909, at the end of his tenure, Harvard had become one of the great universities of the world. Characteristic of his curricular reform was advocacy of the elective system and abolition of a required curriculum. Santayana viewed Eliot’s reform program as a movement away from traditional liberal education toward mere “preparation for professional life” and “service in the world of business” (Persons, 396). 3 The Harvard Monthly was founded in 1885 by A. B. Houghton and was dedicated to the publication of the best work by the Harvard student body and faculty. Santayana was a member of the original editorial board, and many of his early works first appeared there. Ph.D.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 9 June 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 9, 1948. Dear Clemens,1 For some time I have been feeling guilty for not replying as they deserved to your various occasional letters, questions, and publications, but this last notice that I have been unanimously elected a “Knight of Mark Twain,” 2 and this accompanying cheque for $1.00 really puzzle me. Is it a joke? Or should I write a formal letter of thanks, as if it were serious? = year, and concentrating You must remember that I am old, in my 85th my time and energies, such as I have, to getting a last book ready, even if

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not complete, for my literary executor to publish after my death. I can’t work for more than 2 or 3 hours a day, and the rest of the time, when there are no visitors, I give to reading books that either I know to be rewarding, or hope may prove so. But they must be, directly or indirectly useful for my work and stimulating to my mind. The newspapers tell me enogh of current events and celebrities. I have read the six volumes of Toynbee’s A Study of History, I am reading the third volume of Osbert Sitwell’s autobiography, and I have been attracted, as you know, by Robert Lowell’s poetry. But I have had many disappointments with books I have ordered and then found more commonplace or deceptive than the reviews in the Times’ Literary Supplement had led me to expect. For instance, I find little or nothing to my purpose in Boothby’s “I Fight to Live” or in Laswell’s “The ory Analysis of Political Behaviour” 3—a —— ^ ^ promissing title. The French “Existentialists” also are hardly worth reading. We seem to be crossing a foggy swamp of intellectual and political impotence. You will think this simply an old man’s incapacity to keep up with the times. I am indeed not trying to keep up with them but to look to the end and to the whole. As you and your interests are distinctly contemporary, I think you ought not to expect me to follow your publications, because I really have no time or inclination to attend to matters that I forget at the next moment, as they have no relation to my interests. Please, then, do not send me more books or questions; and I return the check lest it should dangerously increase my taxes for unearned income. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Cyril Coniston Clemens (1902–99) was a cousin of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) and for many years editor of the Mark Twain Quarterly. 2 “Esteemed Knight of Mark Twain” was an honorary title given by the Mark Twain Society for outstanding contributions to the arts. 3 Boothby’s book was reviewed in “A Tory Radical,” Times Literary Supplement (10 January 1948): 19. Harold Dwight Lasswell (1902–78), an American political scientist and a professor of law and economics at Yale, wrote on politcs, economics, and psychology. The Analysis of Political Behavior: An Empirical Approach was published in London in 1948 by K. Paul, Trench, Trubner. Founded in 1902, the Times Literary Supplement is published weekly by the Times of London.

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To Melvin L. Sommer 12 June 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Sommer)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 12, 1948 Dear Mr. Sommers1 Many thanks for the photographs; I am sending those you wished autographed back to you in the envelope intended for them. Many years ago two Frenchmen, brothes, named Doumic2 (which the profane pronounced De Micks) made an observation which I always remember about nationalities. Germans and British, they said, were races; but France and the United States were milieux. Now my long residence in America having been exclusively in Massachusetts, I might almost say, at Harvard, and my friends a special type of Harvard men, I feel the American essence much more in other Americans, who represent the great milieux or active society of the U.S. with its cordiality and ease; whereas the inhabitants of my corner of Boston, though certainly Americans, had a racial and social quality of their own, American topographically, but not American historically. That is what made me say (was it rude?) But are you “real” Americans? I should have said, “b/But did you come in the Mayflower in 1632?” 3 As to feeling a difference in Jews, I feel it I think, only if they do; and then it doesn’t signify a preference or the opposite, but only a diversity. My best pupils were Jews, as was my only modern “master” in philosophy, Spinoza. But many are not happy, and that is a pity. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Probably Melvin L. Sommer, M.D. (1916–2003), who was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and moved to Los Angeles in 1939. 2 A French literary critic, René Doumic (1860–1937) edited the Revue des Deux Mondes and from 1923 was secretary of the French Academy. His criticism was nonrelativistic in seeking to discriminate between the good and the bad in literature. A New York Times article of 6 March 1898 reported that René’s brother (name not given in article) came with him to the United States to study architecture “at the request of the French Government.” Max Doumic (1863–1914) wrote Pourquoi notre architecture est-elle en décadence? 3 The voyage of the Mayflower, resulting in the founding of the Plymouth Colony, occurred in 1620. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, developed into the city of Boston.

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To Ira Detrich Cardiff 19 June 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 19, 1948. Dear Mr. Cardiff, It is encouraging to see how constant you are in your purpose about this collection of tit-bits from my books. I had given up all fond expectations of seeing it, because I supposed that every quotation would be charged at a fancy price. True, one half of that exaction would have been credited to my account by Scribner; but I never scrutinize that account, so that I should not have felt the sum charged as a profit, but you would have been loaded with twice that sum before any probably trifling profit accrued. I am surprised to learn that quotations are now officially recognized to act as advertisements and propaganda in favour of the book quoted. I always thought that they ought so to serve, and that it was an outrage to prevent reviews from “reproducing any part whatever of this book” without paying toll for a special permit. Has this ceased to be the copyright law? I am afraid that the Christopher Publication House1 will say that they were not aware that I was the “Boston’s most celebrated citizen”, for although for nine years of my boyhood I lived there and sponged on the City by attending gratis the Boston Latin School,2 after that date I have lived in Brookline, [across ] Roxbury, or Cambridge, Mass. or in even remoter parts unknown. However, let us hope these clouds also may ^ ^ clear and let through our atoms of light. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The Christopher Publishing House was a Boston book publisher (1910–2005). Santayana attended the Boston Latin School from 1874 to 1882. A complete listing of Santayana’s addresses is included in the “Editorial Apparatus” of this book. 2

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To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 24 June 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 24, 1948. Dear Lowell Today, to honour la festa della Natività di San Giovanni Battista,1 your generous box of food has arrived. I am at this moment munching the chocolate, but feel that on the whole you are taking at Washington too tragic and charitable a view of the state of things in Italy, at least in establishments like this of the “Blue Sisters”. We have everything we need to eat, not always (the bread, for instance) of the best quality, but no scarcity of the stock things like butter and sugar. It is true that at my age I don’t ask for much in the way of meat, which is not of good quality always; so that I feel the shortage less than would a normal person. What I feel is the disorder of international policy and the absence of competent leaders in all the nations. But I won’t go into this because my information is not good and I don’t want to antagonize anybody. Let them boil in their own broth. Is you r engagement at Washington coming to an end? What are your ^^ plans? And when shall we see more poems? Don’t send me any more boxes but come yourself if you can and want a change of air. Yours sincerely G Santayana 1 Feast day of St. John the Baptist, celebrated on his birthday, 24 June (Midsummer Day).

To Richard Colton Lyon 9 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 9, 1948 Dear Dick I am delighted with your two letters of June 8 from Austin and of July 5 from London. They give me many lights on you and your antecedents, surprising me by the variety of things you have seen and done, working and going to school and speaking through the radio to the public at home

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and from San Francisco to the Navy in the Pacific. California, where I spent my last summer in America in 1911,1 seemed to me in its atmosphere and spirit more like Southern Europe than like the rest of the United States; but it is true that I have never been south of Washington and Baltimore. No doubt, in the way of business, life is as tight in California as in the rest of the country, and what I saw at Berkeley, in the Summer School, was business; but I moved as soon as I could to the University Club in San Francisco, and dined every evening in Italian restaurants in what they called the Barbary Coast, after walking in the Park among the eucalyptus groves: and people too seemed to me more easy-going and happy than in New England. Your first impressions, at Plymouth, of the English countryside and its neatness were exactly like mine on first seeing the British coast near Cardiff in 1872, except that the little white sailboats moving through the blue water attracted my wonder even more than the emerald-green hills and toy cottages.2 Narrow lodgings between two houses being reconstructed are not in harmony with that first impression, and your work, whatever it is, in the East End of course doesn’t show you the soft, rural, aristocratic yet simple charm of old-fashioned English life. I am afraid you will see nothing of it this time, unless in clerical circles; but you will have begun by a plunge in cold water, and next time you go to England you may feel how clement its climate is, both physically and morally. I am glad to see that you mean really to come to Rome; and if war or something else does not prevent, perhaps you will allow yourself a little leisure here, where at least materially the war has left no trace. It occurs to me that, if your return voyage is not prearranged, you might find it much more economical to sail from here, perhaps to New Orleans, which would save you the expensive return passage from Rome to London. You need not supply yourself with more than 1000 lire (10 shillings or so) of Italian money before you reach Rome (if you come by air) as I can at once supply you with a little pocket-money when you turn up here. I hope very much that everything will go smoothly with you GSantayana 1

Santayana gave a six-week lecture series at the University of California at Berkeley in the summer of 1911. The lecture subsequently was published as “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy” in the University of California Chronicle 13 (1911) and in Winds of Doctrine (1913). 2 See Persons, 128–30.

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To Cyril Coniston Clemens 17 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, July 17, 1948 Dear Clemens, No, THANK YOU, both for the Knighthood and for the books. We seem to be again on the brink of war more or less everywhere, and I shall hardly be able in future to profit by these generous offerings Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 21 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 21, 1948. Dear Lowell You would be surprised at my surprise when I read in your letter received today that you had never been in Europe! That is of course the best of reasons for coming now, although Europe has lost in the last few decades a good deal of its distinction and picturesqueness. Come by all means; and Rome is one of the places which though partly modernized has gained by the change, because only slums were cleared away, and only one secondary church hit by bombs, while immense vistas were openned which nobody had seen in all these centuries, including the front approach to Saint Peter’s.1 And the climate is good at all seasons. But as an intellectual novelty or stimulus the place of chief interest for you, I should think, would be Paris; and Paris, and France generally, would be better from the point of view of people, lodgings, food, entertainments, exhibitions, and all modern winds of doctrine. Also for language, if you know more or less French and no t Italian (which, however, is easier). ^^ However, assuming that you decide to come to Rome, I don’t know, what sort of arrangements you prefer by way of lodgings and meals. At your age, I should have liked a single room for lodgings, and taken all my meals in restaurants, of which there was a great variety in Rome formerly,

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and there may still be, but with troublesome restrictions, dearer, and very crowded. Lodgings, too, I believe, are hard to find, as the city is terribly overp o o/p u lated. But I really know nothing of all that now except by ^^ ^^ report, since I hardly leave my cell (where my meals are brought to me on a tray) and see nobody except passing Americans who know less about it than I. This house, by the way, is not possible for you, unless you are ill (senectus ipsa morbus)2; it is a hospital, although this wing, called the Ospizio,3 contains reception rooms, and bedrooms where guests and a few permanent lodgers are received. Besides, it is not well situated for a young man loving his freedom, far from the centre, with doors closed at 9.30 p.m. and modest food (there is a dining-room, but melancholy, only decrepit people at a table d’hôtes)4 which I went to on [illegible ]my first day but have not entered since. For me, it is just the refuge I needed, with nurses and doctors at hand, and a nice view from my room, and moral and social quiet, although trams and motors make a good deal of noise. The thing for you to do would be to go to a hotel (if you come by air from London, which is the best way, they will take you to the door of the Flora, which is a favourite hotel for Americans) for a day, and look about for whatever kind of accommodation you fancy. You might begin by coming to see me here and we could talk, and if you came early in the afternoon, I could take you about in a taxi and show you how the land lies. These wars and rumours of wars are a nuisance. If we were in the good old times of Edward VII, you might enter Europe by the Pillars of Hercules, in a good Italian liner, for Genoa;5 Gibraltar and Ceuta, if you could see them would give you your first sense of the Old World, and Genoa, of the same modernized, and thence you could go comfortably, in short day journeys through interesting country, to Pisa, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, and so to Rome. That would have been a real introduction to Europe. If you come by Southampton and London you will merely feel foreign without being charmed by the strangeness of the sights. As to the money required to live comfortably, I don’t know how things stand. I used to have an apartment, sitting-room, bedroom, and bathroom in a good hotel (The Grand, for instance) and go out to the best restaurants, often with guests, and to the best English tailor, and not spend more than four or five thousand dollars a year. Now I have more and spend less, half being swallowed up by taxes, trustee’s, etc. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 Saint Peter’s Church, as it exists today, is located in the Vatican City and was built between 1506 and 1626. 2 Old age is itself a disease (Latin). 3 Hospice (Italian). 4 A meal served at a stated time for a fixed price (French). 5 Edward VII (1841–1910), king of England from 1901 to 1910, was known as Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. In 1863 he married Alexandra of Denmark, and they had six children. A liberal patron of the arts and sciences, he led a notable social group and was a sportsman. His love affairs offended his mother’s moral sense and distressed the proprieties of Victorian England. The Pillars of Hercules are promontories at Gibraltar in Europe and at Ceuta in Africa, at the east end of the Strait of Gibraltar.

To Francis H. Appleton Jr. 25 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 25, 1948. Dear Mr. Appleton, The fame of young David Bidwell had reached me, through his father, some years ago, for getting nothing but A’s at Harvard. That did not convince me that he would prove a genius, but perserverance and being chosen as an all-round man are good signs. You know he was married to Miss Carol Jones of Minneapolis, fresh from Smith College, on June 18; and I had a letter from him saying that they were thinking of (incidentally) coming to see me. This early marriage is true to the desire of all Sturgises, but not all were able in my day to satisfy it so conspicuously, at 21, or even to satisfy it at all. The line this boy takes in scientific, and he was kept in Japan, I think, during the war, on technical work, so that, as I told him, he may turn out to be the distinguished member of the family in his generation. I saw, by the way, in your School Bulletin, that “Clip” Sturgis is your oldest graduate: must be about 90. He wrote me offended at my remarks about his father’s Evangelical household1 I forget that anyone is still alive. GSantayana. 1 Richard Clipston Sturgis (1860–1951) was the son of Russell Sturgis (1831–99). See Persons, 355–57 and 680.

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To Whit[ney] [Ewing] Burnett 25 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6 Rome, July 25, 1948 Mr. Whit Burnett1 The Story Press 116 East Thirtieth Street New York Dear Mr. Burnett, I am pleased to hear of your proposed book, in which something of mine is to be included.2 You do not speak of the length that would be suitable. [illegible ] Some of the pieces you mention are of considerable length, and might prove heavy to the average reader. There is another which I personally prefer, namely, in “Dialogues in Limbo”, the third Dialogue entitled “Normal Madness”. I have rashly lent my copy to a friend, and have only the reprint in the Triton Edition, where it fills 15 pages. But it could be abrideged to advantage, without touching the three themes that I think in depth and variety reveal my philosophy better than any other selection could in the same compass. The book has been out of print, but is to be reissued soon by Scribners together with the three “new” Dialogues that have recently appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. In case you approve I suggest in the enclosed the possible cuts. Yours sincerely GSantayana. Normal Madness A Dialogue in Limbo Persons in the Diaologue The Shades of Democritus Alcibiades Aristippus Dionysius the Younger.3 The Spirit of one still living on earth, called The Stranger.

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Passages that might be omitted. Paragraph 2, 3, and 5 lines of 4. From “There is little philosophy” to “dictate these judgments” (inclusive). 5 and some 10 lines of 6, from, “What Aristippus” to “Not so, '' however” (inclusive), resuming with “These closed systems” and omitting the words “those systems” on the next line. '' 7, after the first 7 lines, ending with the words “What is false,” omit everything from “If ever appearance” to “talking or thinking.” (inclusive). '' 10 From “Such is the origin” to '' 11 “religion among nations” (inclusive). '' 12

}

1 Whit[ney] [Ewing] Burnett (1899–1973) founded and edited Story magazine along with his first wife, Martha Foley. After they divorced and Martha left the magazine, Hallie Southgate, Burnett’s second wife, became the assistant editor of the magazine. Burnett was an editor for Scholastic Press when he died. 2 105 Greatest Living Authors Present the World’s Best Stories, Humor, Drama, Biography, History, Essays, Poetry (New York: Dial Press, 1950) includes Santayana’s “Normal Madness.” 3 Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435–366 B.C.) was a follower of Socrates and the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy which promoted hedonism; the idea that pleasure is to be the sole pursuit of one’s life. Dionysius II (c. 397–343 B.C.) followed his father as ruler of Syracuse. He studied with Plato, but was uninspired and became unpopular with the citizens. He was forced to leave Syracuse by his uncle Dion.

To Peter Robert Edwin Viereck 27 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Viereck)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 27, 1948. Dear Viereck1 You are very good to send me this little drift of hay from your threshing floor. It smells of fertility and cheerful work, but I can’t say that for baking bread it supplies much substance. I have read it all—except the Theological Crade/le Songs which I knew already: The review of Ivan the Terrible; the Old English Ballad, properly very French, and the Growlings of the Two Decrepit Lions, Classicism and Romanticism,2 which make a learned pot pourri but hardly a manifesto, at least to my slow intelligence. Let me confide what I should say on the subject, if I had to make a manifesto. Archaism in both directions is necessarily still-born (see Toynbee on

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that point) but the principles are both required for any good thinking or writing. Romanticism must lie beneath, in the sense of vital irrational facts and feelings; but Form, Measure, Clarity of some kind must be approached in the expression, or the work will have no memorable communicable essence, and be mere sound and fury, signifying nothing.3 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and historian Peter Robert Edwin Viereck (b. 1916) earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University (1942). In 1948 Viereck was a Guggenheim Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. 2 The poem cycle called “Six Theological Cradle-Songs” appears in Viereck’s most recent book, Terror and Decorum: Poems 1940–1948 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 21–29; it is a revision of “Five Theological Cradle-Songs,” which had appeared in Poetry, v. 71, no. 3, December 1947. Ivan Groznyi (Ivan the Terrible, Part I ) is a 1945 film written and directed by Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898–1948), which opened in March 1947 in the United States; the review is unlocated. The “Old English Ballad” is probably “Ballad of the Jollie Gleeman” (Terror and Decorum, 54–56). The last item is the prose poem “Manifesto of the Two Lions,” which appeared in Cronos 4 (March 1948): 18–21. 3 From Shakespeare’s Macbeth, V.v.26–27.

To Eric C. Parsons 28 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, July 28, 1948 Dear Mr. Parsons,1 I am much touched by your anxiety to help me—not out of my evil ways, as some benevolent persons are—but on the contrary in order to pay an imaginary debt. But fortune and the public and my many friends have always been so kind to me that I should have been amply repaid for any effort or sacrifice that I might have made to please or to correct them. But I have never made any efforts or sacrifices, so that according to old-fashioned morality I have deserved nothing. I have only been enjoying myself in a way which luckily has extended at moments to a few sympathetic spirits, of whom you are evidently one. That ideal sort of friendship is its ideal reward; and it becomes a positive satisfaction when it is discovered. So that I think it is I that owe you some real debt for telling me that you owe me an ideal one, for having been an unconscious partner to some of your pleasant thoughts.

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Let me then thank you for your most friendly letter, and assure you that I have everything that I need materially, and all that at my age I can enjoy socially.—With best wishes and regards from GSantayana 1

Unidentified.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 31 July 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 31, 1948 Dear Cory: It is a long time since we have written; probably we were both a bit uncertain about things in general and the tone to take about them. Here the weather has been unusually cool, cloudy, and even rainy for the season; only in these last days of July has it become warm enough to sit in my blue pyjamas. By the way, I am going to have two sets of winter pyjamas made by Plank1 at some fantastic price in lire, which really is not extravagant, considering that I need no other clothes. I have been well, except that my cough, without ever becoming severe, has remained persistant, especially for a while in the middle of the night. The least change in temperature brings it on; but on putting off or putting on the proper garment it dies down. This perhaps has tired me a little; and the confusion and threatening revolution in Italy and in Europe has “distracted” me a good deal. That, or other causes, have reduced the amount of work I could do and spoilt the result of most of it, so that although I have scrawled a lot of pages, and thrown away severely, a good deal of old stuff, the total result has been disappointing; so much so that during this last week I have deliberately stopped work, like a striking communist, partly to see if a recess would do me good and partly because I had an interesting new book on the Evolution of Mankind by Sir Arthur Keith2 an old Darwinian whom Strong used to swear by, and who is really a “sound naturalist” although a prosy writer, given to vain repetitions: would he were the only old man with that foible! However, I profit by that bad example and at least in reading him skip all the summings up and introductions to each “essay” (as he calls his chapters) originally evidently lecture notes. But I have learned some thing important for Dom.

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& P’rs, namely, that inbreeding, in a healthy race, brings out all its potential virtues. This is something that Toynbee ought to have been told. Another thing that has happened to me this winter is that I have wandered from the subject of my book into ramblings proper, not to politics, but to Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie, and have actually put aside some twenty or more pages as possible contributions to that other book! I know it is folly; I don’t mean to indulge in it; but when a good idea strikes me, why should I not make a brief note of it? Perhaps some day you might use it as a text for a yearly essay of £500. I infer from what you say in this last letter that the first and the last chapters of vol. III are really to appear in the Atlantic Monthly.3 I am glad of it for you, and to keep the ball rolling before the public eye. But I hate the vulgar aspect of the Atlantic Monthly now; and I hope they at least won’t re-publish that dreadful pen sketch from my dreadful photograph. Is there no other paying review that would publish my articles? I could ask Miss Tindall to copy chapters from Dom. & P’rs that might be intelligible by themselves, and send you these extra copies, reserving the corrected one that I keep — inas my official copy, which is the one on stiff paper, heavier, but better for rehandling and correcting than the carbon copy. As to coming to Rome, on the whole I think you had better not do so this autumn, unless there is a marked change for the better in the political outlook. I don’t think the Russians want a war; they think they can absorb the rest of continental Europe by underhand saturation and opportune advances. I dreamt last night that they had occupied Berlin in a night attack and published a proclamation, saying that they would advance no further, if the Allies did not attempt to retake it; but that, if they did attempt it, the Russian forces were ready to overwhelm them and to liberate the rest of Germany where every patriot was calling to them for help. On reading this proclamation, however, all the people of Berlin had risen and burnt the City; and the Russians had backed out. Not likely: yet who knows what will happen? G.S. 1

Santayana’s tailor (see 30 August 1946). Sir Arthur Keith (1866–1955) was a Scottish physical anthropologist and anatomist particularly interested in human evolution. Essays on Human Evolution (London: Watts and Co., 1947). 3 “A Change of Heart,” 182 (December 1948): 52–56; “Epilogue on My Host the World,” 183 ( January 1949): 26–30. 2

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To Paul Arthur Schilpp 6 August 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 6, 1948. Dear Professor Schilpp1 It was a pleasant surprise to receive the richly bound volume of the book about my philosophy which gave us so much trouble in the early days of the late war.2 I have transferred to this choice copy the corrections which I had marked in the old volume, whose place it has now taken in the first shelf next to my other books. I remember that Prof. Dewey3 said that this account of my philosophy would be the one to be most convenient for any student who wished to understand it; and I think myself that my part of the book is a more lively and intelligible exposition of my views than my other versions of them: so that, as Prof. Dewey also said, it was to your enterprise that I owed the occasion and stimulus to explain myself best. These are not his words (in either passage) and perhaps he meant that the other critics had helped me to clear up my thoughts: but that was not the case. I find that at present I am better understood than I was at that time, the self-confidence of modern philosophy having yielded a little in the public mind with late events. With many thanks, GSantayana 1 Paul Arthur Schilpp (1897–1993), founder and president of The Library of Living Philosophers, taught philosophy at Northwestern University (1936–65). Later he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University. 2 The Philosophy of George Santayana is volume II of The Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Schilpp (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University, 1940). 3 John Dewey (1859–1952), American philosopher, psychologist, educator, and political activist; born in Burlington, Vermont; received his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. He was at the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, and Chicago before moving to Columbia. Early in his career he was a Hegelian, but during his time at Chicago he and his colleagues developed instrumentalism—a philosophy related to pragmatism and about which William James wrote to Dewey: “I see an entirely ‘new school of thought’ forming and as I believe, a true one.” More generally Dewey can be understood as a naturalistic empiricist. He advocated a conception of experience based on contemporary biological science rather than traditional philosophies. In place of the traditional conception of truth, he preferred the notion of “warranted assertability.” He believed that the experimental attitude of the scientific method could be fruitfully applied to human experience generally and not only to a range of accepted disciplines. Dewey’s important works include Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature (1925), and Art as Experience (1934).

1948–1952

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 13 August 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Columbia)

Rome, Aug. 13, 1948 Dear Cory Your letter about my escapades into Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie is a great comfort; it encourages my weakness by reinforcing my secret conviction that what I feel like writing will be better than what I write under a certain alien pressure: although in this case the pressure is not that of the College bell, making me lecture when I have nothing to say, but the pressure of an old inspiration of my own: because the new plan of Dom. & P’rs, and the new points to make in it, really interest me more massively than anything else at present. Yet this major interest, being a long-term affair, demands occasional holidays.—I have —d already returned (before getting your letter) to the main line, and begun to revise the chapters in Book III (The Rational Order of Society) about “Government of the People by the People and for the People”, which will attract most attention in the U.S.—When these are done the general outline will be complete, although I hope to fill out the “Militant Order” much more fully. In fine, my slack feeling is gone, helped no doubt by the rain and change of weather that we have had here. It has been the dryest summer I ever have known in Italy. A casual (American) visitor the other day, when I mentioned the difficulty I (or you) found in getting articles into reviews that would pay for ^ ^ them, said he knew of two very nice ones The Partisan Review and The Kenyon Review.1 You might inquire or look them up when you return to London, and see what they are like. Of course stick to Mr. Weeks if he is willing to pay handsomely; but I have a feeling that he will fall between two stools, and miss the popularity of the grossly popular illustrated “Life”, etc, and miss the respectability of an old fashioned academic literary review. How is it about the British publications? As to coming here, do as you like. Italy is quiet and seems increasingly safe internally: but of course if the international forces came to blows, there might be attempts to overthrow the government here. The Communist now say that they want Italy to be neutral; but they would rise and join their friends if the latter were successful elsewhere. Sometimes I

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suspect that the Russians are insecure; but would they find solid resistance if they attacked? If you decide to come to Rome, you may count on me for your expenses while here, as last year, but I think it would be better for you to be independently lodged in town. Yours as ever GSantayana 1 Partisan Review, a quarterly magazine founded in 1934, started as a social and political publication. Kenyon Review, a quarterly journal founded by J. C. Ransom in 1939, is a literary publication that ran until 1970 and restarted in 1979.

To Richard Colton Lyon 16 August [1948] • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 16, 11 a.m.1 Dear Dick Your letter from Vevey has just come. I have spent many months at different times at Glion above Montreux, a little further up the Lake from Vevey, so that we can compare our old and fresh impressions about it.2 You will find the journey by rail from there to Rome a very good introduction to Italy, especially if you are coming by Genoa and the coast line. You will need a good night’s rest after your journey; do whatever you like in the morning, and then, after you have had your luncheon in the hotel, say at about 2.30 or 3 o’clock, come here. This place is not easy to find, and the hour will be the hottest of the day, so please take a taxi x, and keep it when you arrive here, because I should like to take you to tea somewhere else, in the Giardino del Lago,3 not far from your place, and be safe there from interruptions, as here I often have unexpected visitors. Don’t worry about ignorance of philosophy or anything else. The only thing that is annoying is set opinions when they are not one’s own and are asserted without good arguments.—I shall be very glad to see you tomorrow. GSantayana [across ] xEither below your place in the Piazza di Spagna or at the foot of the Via Sistina, in the Piazza Barberini.

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1 “Urgente a mano” (urgent [delivery] by hand, Italian) is written in a hand other than Santayana’s on the unstamped unpostmarked envelope. 2 Santayana spent time in Glion-sur-Montreux, Switzerland, at Hotel Victoria in 1936. See letter of 12 August 1936. 3 The Giardino del Lago is a garden in the Villa Borghese public park, which is patterned after English naturalistic landscape gardens.

To John Hall Wheelock 24 August 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Aug. 24, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock, = with the welcome news that Many thanks for your letter of August 18th the new edition of Dialogues in Limbo is to be issued on Sept. 13th and that you have sent me an advanced copy. I will write again when I have received it and had time to browse a little in it, because this is one of the very few of my books that I can reread with pleasure. The others are The Last Puritan, Persons & Places, and my “General Confession”1 in Schilpp’s book on my philosophy: all recent things. I think I have not changed my opinions since adolescence, and yet I can’t swallow my old ways of expressing them. I also have to thank you for the accounts enclosed in your kind letter of August 9 th. You need not take the trouble of giving letters of introduction, or notifying me in advance, if any young (or old) man (or woman) wants to visit me. I receive them all with pleasure; they will be disappointed if they wish to recommend their own views to me, as I am too deaf to make out what they say, but if they wanted a whiff of mine they ^ ^ can get it for the asking. As to the accounts, they are satisfactory and I am glad to see that there is a credit in my favour; but I wish you would tell me frankly if it troubles you to send occasional sums to people in the U.S. as you did last Christmas—because if not, I would ask you to do the same for me next Christmas: namely, to send $500 to Cory, and $500 to Mrs. Rosamond Thomas Sturgis, Weston, 93, Mass. My Boston Trustees have been bothered by the authorities in doing such favours for me, and even in sending me $500 every two months: it must now be $250 every month, and addressed to a particular bank in Rome It reminds me of the song an old

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lady sang in Berlin in 1888: Wie dumm Sind die Leute von heute!2—only it is truer now. I have another favour to ask in a matter of business. My friend Prof. Michele Petrone received long ago a set of the Triton Edition of my works, which he lost, in whole or in part, in the Berlin bombardments; and he never received vol. XV., the Realms of Truth and of Spirit. He modestly asks if he can obtain that volume now; but as he has lost the others, or most of them, I imagine that it is a whole set that would be appreciated? Is such a set available, or even more than one—because there is another person who I think wants one? Prof. Petrone is at this moment homeless, the Italian government, for economy, having suppressed the Italian Institute in Geneva where he officiated;3 but if you could — send reserve one or two sets (one for abroad, the other — in for the U.S.) I could ^ ^ later send you the addresses. This would help to cause that little credit of mine with your firm to circulate, as I understand money now ought to be kept doing, it having been prove d that saving is primitive and capital^^ ism criminal. I will put the order for author’s copies of the Dialogues in Limbo, complimentary or to be charged to my account, on a separate sheet, which may be more convenient. Yours sincerely GSantayana Dialogues in Limbo, by G. Santayana Please send, and charge to the Author’s account, 2 copies, besides the one already posted, to G. Santayana, Via S. Stefano Rotodo —/,^ondo,^ 6, Rome, Italy. 1 copy to The Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 1 " " The Delphic Club, 9 Linden St. Cambride, Mass. 1 " " Mr. R. C. Lyon, 2516 Wooldridge Drive, Austin, 21, Texas. 1 copy to Major Philip Lane, 314 St. Benedict’s, Rd. Small Heath, Birmingham England.4 1 copy to Mr. Robert Lowell, Congresional Library, Washington, D.C.

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1 Santayana is referring to “A General Confession,” the autobiographical section in The Philosophy of George Santayana. 2 How dumb are the people of today! (German). 3 Unidentified. 4 Philip Lane was a military officer with the British intelligence service (see 8 April 1947).

To Enrico Castelli 27 August 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Castelli)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Aug. 27, 1948 Dear Professore Castelli, Yes, I shall be most happy to read your new book1 and to write a few lines about the light which I am sure the translation of your work, even in part, will contribute to the American outlook. Apart from any person sympathy or divergence in our personal opinions, I think your traditional roots combined with your active participation in contemporary intellectual life will open a vista for many American — men readers into regions of which they had no knowledge. An old book of mine—“Dialogues in Limbo”—which has been out of print for years is to be published next month in New York, with some additions: when I receive my copies, I will take the liberty of sending you one, in acknowledgement of your many attentions Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Introduzione ad una fenomenologia della nostra epoca (Firenze: Fussi, 1948). The English translation is unlocated.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 27 August 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome. Aug. 27, 1948 Dear Cory Just a line to say that I myself have felt that “Metanoia” was a trifle pedantic. It can be readily translated into “A Change of Heart” Wouldn’t

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that be attractive to the general (feminine) reader? “At the Crossroads” would be another equivalent, but I think not so good. Europe before the lights go out would be a tempting sight if the lights had not been half extinguished already. But you may not feel this so much as I did even in 1932 and 1935, the last times I went to London and Paris respectively.1 Rome, as you know, looks as nice as ever, but is not happy. Yours as ever GSantayana 1 Santayana was in London in September of 1932 giving his Spinoza lecture and was in Paris in June and July of 1935 for a visit.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 31 August 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 31, 1948 Dear Lowell, I had just answer ed your letter about the possibility of your coming ^ ^ to spend the winter in Rome, when your present of books came; and now I see I am just in time to catch you in Washington before your time there is up. Let me say first that perhaps in discussing small obstacles, I forgot to express my joy at the thought, not only of having you here, but even more of having you plunged into this atmosphere. The other day I took a young man from Texas in a taxi round about Rome, and I was myself filled with wonder at the beauty of it and the pleasant modern life, not too anxious or hurried, that goes on in that scene, where things long past cast such luminous shadows. My young friend, the tallest person I have ever seen, 6 foot 7 inches, was much impressed, especially, to my surprise, at the “astonishing” high altar of Saint Peter’s. As to your books, one—The Treasury of Modern Poetry1—was familiar to me already. Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s was so proud of it that he sent me a copy when it was first issued, and then the compiler Williams2 had two more copies sent me, I suppose because there were two pieces of mine included, and I think still another copy or two reached me from other persons, who were anxious to cure my blindness to the lights of the modern mind. But they didn’t enlighten me much, although I read the whole attentively, especially everything quoted of Hopkins’s3 and Eliot’s,

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who seem to be the most esteemed, although they are the least obscure. It was you who first really interested me in the modern condensed method of being dramatic and profound. Besides I had a hint, from your leaning to Catholicism, of the spirit of your discontent with the world as it is: and modernism that opposes modernity has all my sympathy. Of the other two books I liked “North & South” especially for its delicacy. If it were not for the Darky Woman who is lookind/g for a husband that shall be monogamous, I should have thought that Elizabeth Bishop4 had little sense of reality: but I see that she sees the reality of psychic atmosphere or sentiment in their overtones, and prefers for the most part to express that. It is very nice, but a little elusive. As to William’s play,5 part 2, it seemed to me Ezra Pound clarified. The alternate themes or voices are realistic and clear; but I can’t think the whole attractive. I like to be shown something worth seeing, not something that simply happens to be so.—Let me hear further of your plans— GSantayana 1 A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry, English & American, edited by Oscar Williams (New York: Scribner’s, 1946). 2 Oscar Williams (1900–1964) was an American poet, critic, and editor, who also worked in the advertising industry for 16 years. He is well known for his poetry anthologies. 3 Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89), an English poet and Jesuit priest, is best known for the following poems: “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” “God’s Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” “The Leaden Echo,” and “The Golden Echo.” His poetry was not published until 1918. 4 Elizabeth Bishop (1911–79), an American poet, won the Pulitizer Prize in 1956 for Poems: North & South and A Cold Spring. She frequently used geography as the subject of her poems. 5 Unidentified.

To Enrico Castelli 4 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Castelli)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Sept. 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

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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.1 Toynbee, in his great “Study of History” says since the 13th 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 action s ^^ without a purpose has turned subjective frivolity into a compulsory ^ ^ = century we feel nightmare. Looking back to the 13th or even to the 19 th 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 = century. But pictorially: we can’t dress or fight or speak as in the 13th 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: 1st The real conditions of life on earth, and 2nd, 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 vari^ able 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 GSantayana 1

The French Revolution (1789–99) tore down the traditional institutions of the French monarchy, opened the path for nineteenth-century democratic liberalism, and hastened the advent of nationalism and the era of modern, total warfare.

1948–1952

To John Hall Wheelock 5 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Sept. 5, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock It was mere carelessly —ness in me to imply that Cory was returning to New York before Christmas. He can’t very well do so as his Fellowship is payable only in the “Sterling Area”.1 I had in mind, gifts to Americans, as the main trouble the Old Colony Trust Company seems to have is in sending money to Spain or even to me here. Their tone may be judged by the following expressions in a letter, just received from Mr. Appleton, dated “8/27/48.” “I was delighted … to hear at last that your accounts are now apparently unblocked. It is a great relief to all of us here, much more than you can realize. We all felt that outside legal advice was needed, and though the bill is not in yet … . I feel whatever it is well worth it. … We consulted Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg.” 2 He adds that he hopes I shall feel as they “all” do, but my relief would be greater if the unblocking were not merely apparent and the bill for it had actually appeared You seem to sail in calmer waters, and seem to see no ghosts barring the way of sending a Christmas present for me even to England. I have written to the “Vendome” about sending me parcels every month if possible, as had been our idea at first; but of late it seems to me that parcels arrive more rarely: and I noticed that the charge for them in your last account was very modest. And I don’t know whether that and the rest of the accounts were for a year or for 6 months. 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

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to science and normal madness, but to being wilfully wrong without necessity. I have hardly written anything on this subject, and probably will not attempt it, as I am now fit again to carry on Dominations & Powers. I have, however, a project that I have mentioned to Cory. It is to send him a copy of selected chapters of that book that could be published separately or in groups (they are short chapters not more than 5 or 6 pages each); and these selections, if I never got the big book into decent shape, might make a suitable abridgement for the public: really perhaps better for their digestion than the impossible saurian I had planned, which even if it had not proved unfit to live would have overtaxed their appetite. I have been reading “A New Theory of Human Evolution” by Sir Arthur Kie —eith, who says in-breeding, when people are healthy, brings out all the potentialities in the race and makes progress go by leaps and bounds. This, taken with a grain of salt, fits beautifully with my views of politics, and I am going to adopt it. Let us have small societies, all different, and perfect each in its way. The wholesale business can be relegated to the “Universal State”, as Toynbee calls it, which according to his theory should follow this “Age of Troubles.” I will write again when the Dialogues arrive Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Cory was the first American recipient of Strong’s International Philosophical Fellowship Fund. The fellowship was originally administered by Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Charles Dunbar Broad in England. 2 Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg was a prominent Boston law firm founded in 1865 by John Ropes and John Gray Jr. It is now known as Ropes & Gray.

To Augusto Guzzo 10 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Sept. 10, 1948 Dear Professor Guzzo, Your nephew Orlando1 made me the other day a very pleasant visit, and left me the typed copy of your version of chapter IV, which is as beautifully done as the parts I had already seen. It is a pleasure for me to read them, but I am afraid typing them may cause you some delay or

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annoyance. If you could trust your manuscript to the post, I am sure that I should be able to read it easily: but let me not bother you to send the other chapters if it adds to your labour. It is hardly necessary as a control for your translation. There is only one passage in this chapter where your rendering seems a little obscure. On page 199 of the original, 6 lines from the bottom, the words: “Where tenderness and forgiveness are found at all, it is usually in the mother”, the first clause is conditional “If or whenever”, and “at all” means “affatto”, and the sense is, Se si trovano affatto, è generalmente nella madre, etc. This does not touch any profound question of theology, and the other words I have marked with a red pencil raise even more trifling questions of choice of words and shades of suggestion. For instance, in the first line of the first paragraph (and again in the last) the word “bounty” is an old term with regal associations in English, such as “Queen Anne’s Bounty”— a fund to succour impecunious clergy men;2 and in general it suggests more the cornucopia overflowing rather than the sentiment of the giver, or the mind of the River God. I feel therefore that “munificence” or “abundant gifts” would be more what I meant than “generosity”. At page 196, 6 lines from the bottom, I felt that “any” required some such word as qualunque, ogni or tutte. My point was that dialectical, or rather logical, relations may be surveyed reversed, since they are not relations in time, but between essences. Even relations in time or development are reversible in the mind, since they may be surveyed dramatically or forwards, or else backwards in retrospect, seeking the cause rather than reading the news. I am sending your copy back at once; I suppose it will be safe if registered. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Orlando Guzzo wrote “Il ‘Candide’ inglese: ‘Ras Seias’ di Samuele Johnson,” Filosofia 3:2 (October 1952): 267–96. 2 Queen Anne’s Bounty. “A fund created out of the firstfruits and tenths, which were part of the papal exactions before the Reformation. The first fruits are the whole first year’s profits of a clerical living, and the tenths are the tenth part annually of the profits of a living. Henry VIII annexed both these to the Crown, but Queen Anne formed them into a perpetual fund for the augmentation of poor livings and the building of parsonages. The sum equals about £14,000 a year.” Cited from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) at www.bartleby.com.

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To John Hall Wheelock 20 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Roma, September 20, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock “Dialogues in Limbo” arrived the day before yesterday—one copy—and smi —imultaneously I had letters from Cory and from Robert Lowell saying they had received their copies. Cory and I are much pleased with the carefully designed front page of the jacket. The colours are particularly well chosen, and the Greek border not too pretentiously Greek. I have a lingering prejudice against large lettering, especially for the author’s name: but the letters in themselves a very nicely drawn and edged, and I cannot really find fault with them. No more can I find fault with the laudatory judgments quoted on the rest of the cover: they sound fulsome, but they will have a salutary effect on shy critics who might not dare to take ^ ^ the Dialogues seriously without some reputable pace-maker. I am glad this time there is no portrait of me. Do you know of any of Alcibiades? A Socrates could be easily found, and there is probably some spurious Democritus that could be rigged out in a long white beard. I like to imagine this book illustrated. Alcibiades gazing at his image in the fountain, with Socrates coming up behind would make a lovely one. Also Avicenna sitting in the Suk on the saddler’s doorstep, and reading by a lamp. I have promised the two more copies that I am expecting to two Italian professors, Guzzo and Castelli, and I should be much obliged if you would have two more sent me, as I shall have occasion to give them for Christmas presents. Also, if it is not bothering you too much, to have a copy sent, with my compliments to Dr. Ira D. Cardiff, 709 North First Avenue, Yakima, Wash. As to anticipating the publication of chapters of Dominations and Powers, I see the justice of your view. We must not take the wind out of the sails by prematurely satisfying the public appetite by a family dinner before the banquet. But perhaps a bite “at the cocktail hour” may keep the illusion up. Anyhow, I am having a few selected chapters recopied, to send to Cory for his consideration. I know that he is not interested in the book on its own account, but think there is a chance of his waking up

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when he sees what it is like. He has become suddenly an admirer of the Dialogues. These lazy intuitive-fellows have to be allowed to take their time. The matter of “Vendome” was a misunderstanding. I suggested only occasionally sending not whole parcels but “Mrs. Bentzsen’s Danish Cookies” Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 21 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Sept. 21, 1948. Dear Mr. Cardiff, The paradox of “Washington” by the Pacific evidently does not settle into my aged Appercepzionsmasse1 easy/ily, and Idaho substituted itself there as lying in the right direction. But there could evidently be only one Yakima in the world, and my blunder was duly corrected. You practice the supernatural virtue of hope (against evidence) in the case of Christopher, as the Western Powers do in that of Russia. There is a Spanish proverb, not mine, that runs: Piensa mal, y acertarás: “Think evil, and you will guess right”. I have asked Scribner to send you a copy of their new edition of my Dialogues in Limbo containing three not in the old edition which you may have seen. In glancing over the pages I came upon the following which I thought might appeal to you: (p. 120) Socrates: Those who worship the statues of gods, rather than the gods themselves, are called idolaters? … The Stranger: Yes Socrates: And if a man worshipped an image of some god in his own mind, rather than the power that actually controls his destiny, he would be worshipping an idol? The Stranger: The principle would be the same; but usage among us applies the word idol to the products of sculpture, not to those of poetry. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Apperzeptionsmasse: frame of reference (German).

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To Daniel MacGhie Cory 22 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Sept. 22, 1948 Dear Cory, The Dialogues in Limbo reached me the other day, somewhat after your letter. There is no need of thinking that one of one’s book s is “the best”, but I feel as you do now about the Dialogues: it is ^^ one that I can reread with pleasure: also The Last Puritan and Persons & Places. These are still the expression of my living thoughts and tastes. Yesterday—a nice visitor having said that he had been forced by Prof. Parker1 to read my “Reason in Religion,” and found it “dreadfully hard,”— I fished out the book and read a few pages at the beginning. What a horrible tone! I agree entirely with the doctrine, but the apperception and the diction are so cheap and common! And yet at that very time I was writing these dialogues, which breathe such a different air! It was life in America and the habit of lecturing that dominated one half of my celebral cortex, while England, Greece, the poets, and my friends dominated the other half, and they took turns in guiding my pen. How I wish I could erase all that cheap work! Yet there are sentences and even paragraphs in the Life of Reason that are good, and I like them when I find them quoted; but I can’t put up with the paedogogy of long-winded stretches. Materialy/ly I can’t quite share your satisfaction with the volume Scribner has produced. The front page of the cover is carefully designed, and good, although I don’t like the large lettering, especially of my name; the letters themselves are excellent, also the modest Greek border, but there is a rage in America for large letters, large faces, and crowded pages, the whole elegance of a design being dependent on space around the inscriptions and the portraits. If you ever can get out an édition de luxe of Persons & Places do see that the illustrations—including my class portrait—are at least kept “refined” if they originally were so. Especially, too, Russell’s photo of 1890 or ’91.2 I hope Mrs. Cory will weather the operation easily;3 and it doesn’t seem to me that you lose much by not coming to the Continent now. Next year, if the sky has cleared, would be better; and I have a feeling that I shall survive this winter.

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Today I left 20 chapters of Dom. & P’rs at Miss Tindall’s who had been on a holiday in England. 10 of these chapters were already typed, 3 (out of 7), from “Preliminaries”, and 7 (out of 16) from Book One, First Part. I will send these to you when copied, and you can see if anything seems printable. G.S. 1

Perhaps De Witt Henry Parker (1885–1949), professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1949. 2 John Francis Stanley, second earl Russell (1865–1931), was the grandson and heir of Lord John Russell, the reforming prime minister; son of Lord and Lady Amberley; and elder brother of Bertrand Russell. The critical edition of Persons includes a picture of Russell in 1890, “at the time of his first marriage,” between pages 414–15. 3 Cory had married Mrs. Margaret “Margot” Degen Batten in Vevey, Switzerland, on 23 April 1940.

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 23 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Sept. 23, 1948. Dear Rosamond It is a long time since I have written and owe you thanks for both the camphor and the Vapex. They are both very useful. My laziness has had no definite cause, as I am well; but the whole summer and autumn have been unusually cool and cloudy, which perhaps has affected my catarrh, which has troubled me a little, especially at night, all through the season when by rights it ought to be in abeyance. However, I have managed to do a little writing and much reading, and have seen a stream of strangers who now insist on looking me up. The other day I even had an offer of ^ ^ marriage from a lady in California whom I knew in 1911.1 She tells me her husband is dead, that he died smiling, (at the change?), calls me George and says now is the time for us to put our heads together. I have replied, feigning not to understand, and congratulating her /ion being so happy with her painting and her friends and the eternal music of the Pacific Ocean. She may still write me another diplomatic note, as the allied ministers do to Molotov.2 I have had a letter from Mr. Appleton, greatly relieved that my account ha has been “unblocked” by the Treasury. I replied making various sug— gesions as to what to do with this property which seems now to be again

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in our hands: suggestions which he won’t like. But at the same time I have written to Mr. Salmon, who really looks after my affairs, asking if this release means that I may now dispose at will of my whole income, which on paper is considerable, although I live on a very small part of it. They say now that it is wrong to save, that money should circulate, and that nobody should be allowed to have a large unearned income: so that if I don’t spend the income I have and increase my capital, I am in danger of being black-balled and reduced by taxation to the semblance of democratic equality. But how am I, at my age, (unless I marry my California sweetheart) to spend all that money? I might go back to live in a hotel, as I did when you and George came to the Bristol;3 and then I could invite anyone I chose to come to visit me. But it is wiser for me to stay where I am, and perhaps I could make money circulate notwithstanding. What are your views on this subject? Not being in Boston the right thing to do may not occur to me. Yours affectionately GSantayana 1

Unidentified. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (1890–1986) was a Russian diplomat, political leader, journalist, author, and editor. As foreign minister for the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1949, he negotiated several important treaties, including the Nonaggression Pact with Nazi Germany (1939) and the Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945) agreements. Molotov was a notoriously intransigent negotiator, earning the nickname “Iron Pants” for his ability to sit for hours in conferences without yielding to demands for compromise. 3 George and Rosamond Sturgis visited Santayana in Rome in 1926 (see 26 March 1926). They also planned to visit Santayana in May of 1933 according to the letter to Sturgis of 25 January 1933 written from the Hotel Bristol in Rome. 2

To Richard Colton Lyon 29 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Sept. 29, 1948. Dear Dick, It is pleasant to know that you have got home safe and sound after your first “World”-voyage; that London and New York are nothing to you now but the same old places; and that you were ten days at sea (you told me nothing about you eastward crossing of the Atlantic) which if I may judge by my own experience is an important experience. The sea is four times as extensive as the land, probably the element where life first

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appeared, and more “normal” (though sometimes “mad”) than the partly rigid and partly sticky earth. Just as the night sky, when starry, opens one’s eyes to the place of man in the universe, so the sea opens one’s eyes to the conditions of special forms of existence. Plato inserted in Heraclitus.1 Your visit to Rome was a sort of holiday for me, and after getting over the surprise of seeing you so tall, I didn’t feel that you were at all a stranger. You must have behaved perfectly to make me entirely forget that you were so young and that I was so old. Certainly this was an unusual and picturesque adventure for you, and you will remember it, as I did and do my first travels to foreign places. I hope it may be possible for you to come here again. Congratulations on your scholarship. Write to me about your studies when any thing interests or troubles you, and we will discuss it. Yours sincerely GSantayana [across ] P.S. Scribner has replied that [illegible]a set of the “Triton Edition” is available and I am asking them to send it to you, so don’t order it on your own account! 1

Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 B.C.) was an ancient Greek philosopher who held that the only reality is change and that permanence is an illusion; he believed that fire was the underlying substance of the universe.

To John Hall Wheelock 29 September 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Sept. 29, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock I forgot in my last letter to report that I have not yet heard anything from Professor Michele Petrone about his new appointment, probably not yet made. But since you have at least two sets of the Triton Edition still available, may I ask you to send one complete set to Mr. R. C. Lyon, 2516 Wooldridge Drive, Austin, 26, Texas.

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It is a present from me; but as the young man (who came to see me recently all the way from London) wished to order one set for himself, although a poor chap comparatively, relying on scholarships, I think it would be unfair for you to charge me less than he would have paid, if I had allowed him to do so. Please charge it, then, to me as if ordered by him, and at least I shall make $15 in royalties. Yours sincerely G Santayana

To Evelyn Tindall [c. October 1948] • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Friday Dear Miss Tindall As usual, your account seems to me rather too closely reckoned, and I enclose a cheque for a slightly rounded sum. You have been wonderfully patient and quick in this troublesome work, and I enclose a single page which I should like to have recopied with the revisions and additions indicated. This, as far as I know, brings the whole first “Book” of the whole work into good order for the press. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 4 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Oct. 4, 1948 Dear Mr. Cardiff, The copies of your letters from and to the Christopher Publishing House in Boston confirm some impressions that I have been gathering for some time, and decide me to tell you frankly and fully what my feelings are about this project. In the first place Christopher evidently does not think much of ^ ^ Harvard, of Boston, or of me, and fights shy of your proposal. He is estab-

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lished in Columbus Avenue, in the “South End,” not a fashionable place, at least in my time. In a word, he is a second rate or third rate publisher. Now you know I have long had some thoughts of arranging for a book of Pensées or Epigrams from my writings: but I should wish it to be a beautiful book externally and internally, in its tone and spirit. But would Christopher, even if he finally undertook the publication make a handsome thing of it? Or would it be as scrimpy and cheap as possible? What you say in your reply to this last letter of his, that you have made your selections partly for your own pleasure and for the pleasure of eventual readers, has recalled to my mind what I wrote to you on first seeing the part of your collection which you had sent me as a sample, namely, that your choice was biassed in favour of the naturalistic side of my philosophy and neglected the Platonic side. You replied that this would recommend the maxims to the public and that you yourself could not see how I made the Platonic part consistent with the other. In other words what I had called your bias was only your good sense in selecting the wise things that I wrote and leaving out the nonsense. Now, if your complete collection is made on this principle, and published in a cheap form, perhaps with a “biassed” title or comments on the jacket, it would not be at all a book I liked, but a sort of sectarian pamphlet. Nor could I satisfactorily redress the balance by getting some “spiritually” minded friend to make a counter-collection; for that would only emphasize the dualism or rather incoherence alleged to run through my philosophy. In reality it is merely the dualism in point of departure or interest between physics and morals in any clear mind. The moral actions of a man are events in the natural world to be accounted for only naturalistically; but the moral feeling or loyalty in the most radical materialist are sentiments and perfectly immaterial in their being and in their themes. That a materialistic should love the beautiful is an accident of his physical disposition, but is no contradictory —ion or inconsequence to its own natural cause. I should very much prefer, therefore that a selection of my thoughts should not only include The Platonic part of them but should combine this part with the scientific understanding of their natural basis, shown in other passages. If Christopher, therefore, does not finally accept your collection, and you give up the idea of publishing it, I should very much like to buy it, if you were willing that I myself, or some other friend of mine, should use it, or a part of it, in making a collection without this “bias”, and giving this —eir place to the moral and aesthetic interests which after all count for more than the natural sciences (not for “truer”) in my own mind.

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Your selection would save half the work involved in such a supplementary arrangement. The whole “Life of Reason”, for instance, might not need to be reviewed. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Paul Arthur Schilpp 6 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Oct. 6, 1948. Dear Professor Schilpp, I have not yet got over the pleasant surprise of suddenly seeing you in the flesh, and now you appear again in the spirit in your so-called “Lamentations on Christmas”.1 But they are not lamentations, but explosions of wrath. One of the “Beatitudes”,2 which you quote is “Blessed are they that mourn;” so that if you were a really blessed Christian you would be mourning joyfully and full of expectations of soon being comforted, not by the “human Jesus”, but by The Divine Christ coming with “more than Twelve legions of angels” to put an end to this evil world.3 You seem to me very unregenerate in wanting to have no enemies to love, and no footpads to steal your coat, to whom you could give your trousers also. And you ought to expect tribulation and persecution (and you don’t seem to be persecuted) so that you might be truly Jesus-like and not resist evil. You seem to me not to have understood that the “peace” that Christ is the Prince of is not the absence of wars in this world, but the absence of revolt in the soul to any temporary trial or martyrdom. You seem not to like to be martyred. Can it be because you have nothing to be martyred for? Christian peace is like that of St. Laurence who said to his executioners, “Turn me over on the other side, for on this I am already roasted” 4 ^ ^ Yours sincerely G. Santayana 1

Lamentations on Christmas (Printed at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 1945). The Beatitudes are blessings spoken by Jesus at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount. See Matthew 5:3–12 and Luke 6:20–26. 3 “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” King James Bible, Matthew 26:53. Jesus makes this statement after his followers try to prevent his arrest by the authorities. 4 Saint Lawrence (d. 258) was a Roman martyr who supposedly was roasted to death on a gridiron. 2

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To Melvin L. Sommer 8 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Sommer)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6 Rome, Oct. 8, 1948 Dear Mr. Sommer I am very much pleased to see Hook’s criticism1 of Toynbee and hope other critics will not hesitate to show the worthlessness of Toynbee’s philosophy, disguised to the unguarded reader by the extreme interest of his classification and analysis of social movements. I was surprised when I came to the simile of the Cliff2 at the silliness of it, compared with passages of genuine history which I had come upon here and there on receiving the first three volumes, before I sat down to read from the beginning. After a while, I saw the need of skipping where he preached. It is prosy, commonplace, and a blot on his better work. There is one point ofin Hook’s criticism where I think he misses the —art — point, not so much of Toynbee’s theory as of the idea of a Civitas Dei, or Society of the Faithful. The 13th century was, on the whole, a “time of troubles”, but it contained the flower of Christian life, social, artistic, and spiritual. What happened to it in conflict with Saracens,3 Heretics, or corrupt powers, or with the beginnings of the Renaissance, does not distroy the preeminence of that age, any more than the fatal Peloponesian War4 destroys the Athenian pre-eminence in the 5th century B.C. The Christian political theory does not prophesy any universal peace or agreement under its auspices before the Day of Judgement. AntiChrist will be rampant always and especially towards the end. But there will always be a Civitas Dei more or less concealed behind the disorder of the world, in which the peace that Christ gives—an inward personal peace— prevails among the elect. The Jewish expectation of universal dominion for the Chosen People is transferred in Catholic theology to the life of the saints after the Day of Judgement,5 in a “heaven” which will be on a transformed earth, with no more revolutions (even of the sky!). When I heard that Toynbee had published a one-volume edition of his work, I smelt a rat, or rather a pot-boiler. This new apparently worthless volume is another pot-boiler.6 But I will read the future volumes of the big work with undiminished interest because they will help me to feel the vicissitudes of things. How Toynbee can be a Christian when he calls the Gospels the work of “the internal proletariat of the Syriac7 civilization”—

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with borrowings from the Hellenic8 proletariat as well—I do not understand. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Sidney Hook (1902–89), American philosopher and political activist, born in New York City. Hook received his B.S. from City College, where he read Santayana’s Life of Reason with Morris R. Cohen. He studied Santayana with John Dewey at Columbia University, where Hook received his Ph.D. in 1927. He then became a professor of philosophy at New York University, where he retired in 1972. Early on he was a Marxist but later became a well-known anti-Communist. In addition to many articles and books, including ones on Marx and on American life, he wrote a review essay of Toynbee’s Civilization on Trial (New York, 1948) for Partisan Review 15 ( June 1948): 691–700. 2 “Primitive societies, as we know them by direct observation, may be likened to people lying torpid upon a ledge on a mountain-side, with a precipice below and a precipice above; civilizations may be likened to companions of these ‘Sleepers of Ephesus’ who have just risen to their feet and have started to climb on up the face of the cliff ….” (Toynbee, Volume I, 192–93, London: Oxford University Press, 1963). 3 “Saracens” was a term used in the Middle Ages to mean Arabs and, more generally, Muslims. This term should have been applied only to the people of northwest Arabia but came to mean particularly the Seljuk Turks. 4 This war (431–404 B.C.) was a struggle in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta, longstanding rivals. After its surrender in 404, Athens never regained its old glory. 5 A future day when Jesus Christ will return to judge the righteousness of mankind, followed by his thousand-year reign on earth. 6 A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes I–VI by D. C. Somervell (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1947). 7 The Syriac civilization of the first century A.D. consisted of the remnant culture from the ancient Assyrian empire, much of which still used ancient languages such as Aramaic, especially among the lower classes and in rural areas. These areas had become part of the Roman Empire by 230 B.C. and generally comprised the region between Persia and the Mediterranean Sea (modern-day Lebanon, Syria, southern Turkey, and northern Iraq). 8 Hellenism is the culture, ideals, and pattern of the life of Greece as represented in Athens at the time of Pericles. Often it is contrasted with the Hebraic seriousness in the Old Testament. Any modern attempt to revive Greek ideals is called Hellenism.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 12 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, Oct. 12, 1948 Dear Cory, The enclosed will explain itself.1 I have answered briefly, saying that I am sending you his letter, that all arrangements and payments for possible publication of advanced chapters of Dom. & P’rs. are to be made

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with or to you personally, and that I think it likely that during the com^ ^ ing winter you may submit to him the chapters that have Lincoln’s words for a text.2 These chapters are not quite ready, but they will be in the next batch that I send you. I am working well now: have formed a new habit of working between tea and dinner, when no visitors turn up, and that helps me on, because I am often interrupted by urgent letters, etc. in the morning Hope all goes well with Mrs. Cory. Yours GSantayana 1

Unlocated. Chapters 26: “Government of the People;” 28–31: “Government by the People,” I–IV; and 32–34: “Government for the People,” I–III of Dominations from the final line of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 17 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotundo, 6 Rome, October 17, 1948 Dear Cory, Miss Tindall has been quicker than I expected and has already returned the twenty chapters. In a few days, when I have had time to revise them, I will send you the carbon copies, retaining the other copy in case of miscarriage or other accident. I may even include a few carbon copies of chapters from Book III, suitable for the Abraham Lincoln Association.1 $50 is rather little for 5000 words; but my chapters are often only about 1000 words; and I think they would please more published separately that two or three together, because they require attention. However you can judge for yourself: but it occurs to me, that considering the fitness of at least the three chapters on “Of the People”, “By the People” and “For the People”, you might bargain for $50 for each, although they are not, I think, any of them as long as 3000 words. Or perhaps another more popular review, like The Atlantic would do better later. I enclose a cheque (smaller than last year) for Three Philosophical Poets and hope it may help if you are having extra expenses at this moment. Yours as ever GSantayana

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1 The Abraham Lincoln Association was organized in 1908 under the title of the Lincoln Centennial Association. It is dedicated to promoting studies and research on Abraham Lincoln.

To Lawrence Smith Butler 29 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. October 29, 1948. Dear Lawrence1 I was shocked to learn that you had been so ill, but living as I now have for seven years in a hospital, and in good health for a man of my age, I picture illness less distressingly than it used to be when it went on in the bosom of a hushed and anxious family, even if a nurse was called in to take charge at night. And you are in your own establishments at Garden City, with all the advantages of home added to those of a professional and scientific calm on the part of your attendents. I suppose your sister and her family,2 and other relations are within easy reach, as after all, with motors, New York must be now for most of your friends. I hope you are now quite well again and able yourself to move to town and have the pleasure of seeing and hearing a lot of entertaining things. As for me, I don’t want entertainments and have quite enough excitement with the papers, morning and evening now, on account of the critical condition of all these moribund European nations that used to think themselves boiling over with progress and prosperity. I don’t expect another war soon, because Stalin3 counts on underhand conquests (which he calls peace) and these will now be resisted by the western countries in their own territory, as France is doing at this moment. When a fight may really come I think might be if any of the “satellites” became restive (Tito’s rebellion doesn’t count because his is principally an Orthodox or Byzantine people)4 and Russia, who may not feel prefectly secure at home, feels obliged to crush the “war-mongers”. You are very good to think of sending me another box of eatables, but I have more than enough solids. It is the drinks—tea, coffee, and cocoa— that I like to relieve the Sisters from supplying, and I also like some trifles like mayonaise sauce and “vapex” (to inhale for colds) which my niece sends me sometimes but they are soon used up. But nothing is urgent now, so don’t trouble about me unless you like to send something and I

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assure you I shall like to receive it. You (as I have recorded in print) are ^ ^ one of the most satisfactory of friends, always the same, never growing old, or minding that other people do so. You know the Greeks had three kinds of love e)()rwj, a)gaph(, and fili/a,5 of which the last is the best, the most durable and the least sticky. With much fili/a, then. Yours as ever GSantayana 1

Lawrence Smith Butler (1875–1954) graduated from Harvard in 1898. After studying architecture for three years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1941 he was an architect with Ford, Butler, and Oliver, Park Avenue, New York City. 2 Susan Butler Huntington and her husband Francis C. Huntington. 3 Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953, exercising his authority through a series of ruthless purges, deportations, and massacres. He is credited with industrializing the USSR and leading it to victory over Germany in World War II. 4 Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) was a Yugoslav communist leader. In 1941 he was a partisan leader against the Axis occupation forces in World War II. By 1944 he had the full support of the USSR, England, and the United States. Marshal Tito had King Peter II deposed and became premier of the People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (1945). He ruled dictatorially; in 1948 the Cominform accused him of deviationism, but Tito held his own against Russian pressure. He had to turn to the West in his foreign policy. 5 Eros (erotic love), agape (altruistic, “brotherly” love, or charity), and philia (friendship).

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 30 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6, Rome, October 30 1948 Dear Rosamond Mr. Appleton and Mr. Salmon have changed their tone, and far from worrying me about possible troubles ahead, now thank me effusively for telling them which of the Spanish people mentioned in my Will are dead (almost all, and Mercedes 92 years old)1 with the addresses of the survivors. And they tell me there is no difficulty whatever in having a large income—no legal limit, “we are not in Russia yet.” So that I needn’t mind how much I don’t spend; they will be pleased to look after no matter how encumbering an amount; and they don’t say anything about the advantages that there might be (for me) in drawing a larger sum every two months. So tranquillity has returned to my bosom, and there is no need whatever that I should ask them to subscribe in my name to any of the worthy charities that you mention. In fact I should have to leave it for them

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(or for you) to choose the worthiest recipient, and also the amount—not stingy, and not ostentatious, which Boston would think right. What a relief! And of course, nothing is lost for those deserving objects, because the less I spend the more there will be for my heirs, who would be better fitted, living on the spot and congenitally unselfish, to dispose of the right sums for the right things. The fact is I never thought of contributing to public charities. That is now the business of socialistic governments. It is to “rich” people when they are in difficulties that I sometimes have given something, and if I returned to a freer way of living I should like to invite friends (you for instance) to come and visit me which at a good hotel (better than the old Bristol)2 would be pleasant for them, leaving them free to spend their time as they chose, and not disturbing my habits, except that I should see them at meals, unless they chose to go elsewhere. But I am getting too old and deaf for much society, even of this informal kind, so that these possibilities had better remain in Limbo. I am full of politics, contemporary and philosophical, but can’t go into that. Yours affectionately GSantayana 1 Mercedes Ruiz de la Escalera e Ipparraguirre (b. c. 1855) never married and was regarded as a member of the Santayana family. Her parents were Victorina (Santayana’s mother’s life-long friend) and Toribio, a retired army officer. After leaving America permanently in 1912 Santayana lived, during March and April of that year, in her home in Madrid. She also owned a seaside summer house in Galicia, at Bayona near Vigo. In 1929 the town council of Vigo proposed her name to the Spanish government for an award of distinction because of the evening schools for workingmen that she founded. She was a devout Catholic, dedicated to her friends, and an active philanthropist. 2 Cesare Pinchetti, proprietor of the Hotel Bristol, rebuilt the hotel. The renovations began in 1939 and were to take two years to complete. See 22 June 1939 to Cory.

To Peter Robert Edwin Viereck 30 October 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Viereck)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, October 30, 1948 Dear Mr. Viereck Every day brings evidence of what I prophetically said to you when I gathered that you were the author of the war-book you had lent me, and

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which I had read with mixed feelings.1 You may not remember, but I can still hear the words I impulsively offered as an excuse for not having understood your name: “Oh, then you are a great man. You will be a professor”. Now you are not only a professor and a great man, but distinctly a great man of your time, just what I had vaguely felt in your political book: that you had taken pains to dominate your subject and wrote like an authority, but like a voice of the time: and that is what I meant by my mixed feelings. You were intelligent enough to be fair and see matters philosophically. There was one page in your book that showed that you could express the fascist mind: but in your book as a whole you had not the time to consider it. Your voice was an official voice of the moment. Your new poems2 show an extraordinary variety of observations and moods. I don’t see how it is possible to digest and turn into poetry so many different impressions, even in the course of eight years: and I don’t find “Terror” or “Decorum” emerging clearly as the burden of the whole. What struck me most was the vim with which you touch repeatedly on lust. Naturally that is a passion, suppressed by “Decorum” which peeps out in a military campaign. I remember some French book treating that point very frankly, but in a detached philosophical way; you, in the modern poetic manner treat it hotly, not at all as “recovered in tranquillity.” I suppose nobody, except me has time for tranquillity now. Yesterday I spent most of the morning at the requiem mass sung by the choir of the English College and the priests of the Beda3 in the chapel of this house, at the funeral of an old Scottish priest (a convert) who lived here and often came to see me. It was tranquillity in view of life and death and of all things, for the service might have been Byzantine or Egyptian or pagan of the remotest times. But of course you have no time for such things in the modern experiment, for life has now become an experiment not the old old story that it used to be. Congratulations. It is what you were born to do and you will be great at it. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 The chapter “O Sacred Mediterranean” of Viereck’s Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind (Milan: Einaudi; and New York: A. A. Knopf, 1941) is based on Santayana’s “Ode V”; the 1944 publication of that chapter in a Roman periodical provided the grounds for their first meeting. 2 Terror and Decorum: Poems 1940–1948 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948). 3 This refers to ordained priests who have graduated from the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, which from 1947 to 1960 was located at 67 Via di S. Nicolo da Tolentino, near the Piazza Barberini. This college was founded in 1852 primarily to educate English clergymen from other Christian denominations who had converted to Roman

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Catholicism. Saint Bede or Baeda (c. 673–735) was an English historian and a Benedictine monk, also called the Venerable Bede.

To John Hall Wheelock 5 November 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Nov. 5, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock, Without saying ditto to everybody about the Presidential election,1 which leaves me calm, let me stick to business. Cory has received 10 short chapters of Dominations & Powers, 3 from the “Preliminaries”, and 7 from Part I of Book I entitled “In the Jungle” which treats of the bio-psycholigical beginnings of morals & government. He seems to be impressed favourably, but has no definite plan about publishing them or any of them, in any particular review. From my young friend Lyon, of Austin Texas, who has received the set kindly sent by you of the Triton Edition, I hear the following: “A friend asked me: “Will you cut the pages? The books will be much more valuable if you don’t, you know.” He is now an acquaintance.” My account at Blackwell’s is approaching the point where my credit would be exhausted. Would you be so good as to send a cheque from me, for another $100 = to B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., 48–51 Broad Street, Oxford, England? I have recently got from them two lovely eighteenth century editions, one of Lucretius2 and the other of Ovid. In the latter I have discover ed that the end of Romeo & Juliet comes from that of Pyramus and ^ ^ Thisbe!3 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Harry S Truman won reelection in a victory that was surprising to many. These volumes are unidentified. However, Santayana’s library already contained Titus Lucretius Carus, De rerum natura libri sex (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1886), translated and with notes by H. A. J. Munro; this was given to him at Harvard. 3 Publius Ovidius “Ovid” Naso (43 B.C.–c. 18 A.D.) was a Roman poet. His masterpiece is usually considered to be Metamorphoses, a series of tales in Latin verse. In one, Pyramus and Thisbe were lovers in Babylon. Thisbe flees their meeting place after encountering a lion there. Pyramus finds the bloody mantle dropped by Thisbe and kills himself because he thinks she is dead. Thisbe returns and kills herself with his sword. 2

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To Richard Colton Lyon 7 November 1948 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Nov. 7, 1948 Dear Dick—or Reincarnation of Oliver, It had never occurred to me while you were here that you are like Oliver; but now that you suggest it, with your introspective letter to back you up, I see it clearly. I didn’t know you had so much psychological atmosphere—“vapours”—in your mental landscape. It is very romantic, northern, and you must be of Scandinavian descent; but don’t let the delicate mists thicken into fog. Spiritual pride and independence are like Oliver and the American transcendentalist of a hundred years ago; and in your letter you are more like Oliver than he was like himself in my book; because it would have been impossible in a novel to reproduce the actual flux of half-formed thoughts and images that floats down through the mind. Even in the two places where I pretend to quote Oliver’s compositions—the “thesis” on Platonic love and the verses about Rose Darnley—I make his style more terse and mature than it could have been, even when he was older: for he had the same difficulty in landing his fish than/ t you complain of. But don’t worry about it. Angling is a sport; you don’t go fishing for the fish, but for a healthy foolish game in the fresh woods and the stream full of lovely reflections. It is a bit cruel—unintentionally, but nature always is so by the way. I don’t think there is anything mysterious or defective in images and thoughts being elusive and dissolving before they are quite formed. Nature, again, is everywhere wasteful, and breeds a hundred seeds for one that ever flowers—You mustn’t mind that. A choice selection of lucky ideas, that actually could take shape, will be enough to show what you were after. I don’t like the word “attitude” to describe “the young philosophers that— are trying to be born” as Molière calls [illegible ]it. I should say possi— bility, potentiality (when the possibility is already latent in the seed or the organic habit) or impulse. It is not you, complete, turning towards an object, itself complete, which would be an “attitude”, but a confluence of movements in the organism beginning to form an idea which fails to become definite.

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Berkeley, by the way, like an eighteenth century man of wit, in the wake of Descartes,1 thinks only in crisp, clear, conventional terms, and is entirely artificial in his psychology and radically confused in the first principle of his philosophy: that “ideas” are the only “objects of knowledge.” They are knowledge only if they are indications or descriptions of other objects, existing whether noticed or not: and when regarded in themselves, as in logic and mathematics (or decorative art) ideas are not properly cognitive, but our acquaintance with them is a free possession of ^ ^ the imagination, like poetry. But don’t gather from this that I dislike Berkeley. I love him. Read my essay on him in vol. VII of the Triton Edition.2 It was great fun to write. Also the one on Locke in “Some Turns of Thought.” 3 Now as to “solipsism” and the “transcendental ego”, these are not wellchosen words for what is probably meant, or ought to be meant if we mean to be scientific in regard to the facts. There is a transcendental function or relation between any witness and what it or he perceives; it should not, however, be called transcendental, but ciscendental (as I used to say to my classes) because the relation or function signified is that of any and every spectator, in the dark on this hither side of the footlights, seeing only the phenomenal play on the lighted stage. If the play is not a dream, but one actually written by a playwright and acted by players who are not at all, in real life, the characters in the play, then the author and the performers, and the theatre and audience, are transcendent (not transcendental, — i.e. or ciscendental) realities, conditioning the spectacle, but rooted in a much larger “real” (or dynamic) world. Now, as a matter of fact, the transcendental function or relation of the witness is exercised by a material man, part of the same transcendent world in which the author and the actors have their dynamic places. If, then, I say that “I” or the “ego” am something dynamic and self-existent, but that the play is all make-believe or a dream in me (which view would be real solipsism) I am contradicting myself; because my natural person and power are a part of nature transcending all phenomenal presence to thought or dream; and it is absurd that a part of the material world, by going to a material theatre and seeing real actors perform fictitious parts, turns them and himself, as a man, into a mere phenomenon in his mind. Solipsism, then, understood strictly, is absurd; even “solipsism of the present moment”, because the visioned scene is not a self, and if there is a self that has that vision, this self is part of a transcendent world, and not alone in existence.

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What I think a more correct way of speaking is to say that “transcendental” is only spirit (or attention) in anybody: a spirit (or attention) which can arise only in animated bodies, as they receive impressions and prepare reactions on other bodies or natural agents. Spirit (or attention) can never be disembodied: therefore it is never solipsistic in fact; yet it is, in each intuition or feeling, a focus, transcendental and invisible, for whatever it sees. The Germans confuse this transcendental function with dynamic mythical “spirits” existing in a void. More another day from G. Santayana 1

René Descartes (1596–1650), French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician commonly referred to as the father of modern philosophy. He was born in a small town near Tours and educated at the Jesuit college of La Flèche in Anjou. Famous philosophical works include Discourse on the Method (1637), Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), and Principles of Philosophy (1644). In his philosophical inquiries he sought an “Archimedean point” or solid ground of indubitable knowledge on which to base all scientific knowledge but that also allowed a place for the individual soul or mind. He claimed to find such a ground in the seemingly certain statement that “I think therefore I am.” However, this foundation introduced a sharp divide between the world of the mind and the external world, and, furthermore, made certainty the standard of all true judgments about the world. He claimed that the mark of true ideas was their being clear and distinct. 2 “Bishop Berkeley (1685–1753),” Triton Edition, volume 7 (1937), 203–16. 3 Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933) included Santayana’s lecture “Locke and the Frontiers of Common Sense” which was presented before the Royal Society of Literature in Bloomsbury Square in London on 19 October 1932.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 12 November 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Nov. 12, 1948 Dear Clemens Does this suggestion of a Nobel Prize come from you or from some American source, or does it possibly come from Sweden, where a version of my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels” has appeared recently in a very appropriate form? This would make a great difference in my feelings about the proposal; but in either case there are obstacles to such an award (besides the improbality of it) that I think are insuperable.

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1. I am not able to travel to Sweden or to make a public appearance there. 2. I am not, as is often supposed, an American citizen, yet cannot be classed as a Spanish author, since I write only in English. 3. I have no need of the prize; but perhaps the money could be diverted by the Swedish authorities to some worthier object. 4. In what science or art could I be said to have accomplished anything? Literature? Philosophy? It is doubtful. Therefore I beg you, if the idea is yours, to drop it at once, and not to undertake anything of this kind in my favour. I might seem bound to express overwhelming gratitude for your interest, but I do not feel that it is interest in anything that I care for. It is your love of action. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To John Hall Wheelock 15 November 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Nov. 15, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock It would be very mean not to let Peter Viereck (or Quadangle, as I call him in my academic thoughts)1 to make the best of my compliments. I was evidently in a humble mood, thinking that this pot-luck accepted in life and in poetry is the strong side of the rising generation, and that we back-numbers had better back out gracefully. In the temporal world, that is; for how (even if we tried) can we quit our pigeon-hole in the realm of truth? I saw Viereck several times when he was with the army in Rome, and read his book about Fascism2 which was professor-like, but, except in one page, didn’t see the non-official reality. I advised him to rewrite it some day when the dust of battle had settled; but he will be busy then about other things. Thank you for sending $100 to Blackwell at Oxford. I still have a credit of £5 there but am ordering old books, and new ones, freely, and reading them. But your kind offices in regard to victuals have not yet brought any more parcels from “Vendome”. What can be the matter? Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 A literal translation of “viereck” would be “four-corners,” usually rendered as “rectangle” or “quadrilateral” (German). 2 Metapolitics.

To John Hall Wheelock [16] November 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Nov. 15, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock A word to correct at once my letter of yesterday in respect to “Vendome”. A box, strengthened with wire, arrived this afternoon with the desired contents. All is well, if it is kept up. May I also trouble you to order the books below to be sent to the given addressed and charged to my account? Yours sincerely GSantayana Please send a copy of Santayana’s “Realms of Being.” “The Last Puritan”, and “Dialogues in Limbo” to Mr. Robert T. Smink,1 1421 Arch Street Philadelphia, 3, Pa, and charge the book’s to the Author’s account. 1

Unidentified.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 27 November 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, November 27. 1948, Dear Lowell On the day that I received your last letter (of Nov. 14, from Yaddo)1 I also received a visit from Mr. & Mrs. Fitzgerald,2 who had preannounced themselves as friends of yours; and they did give me a closer vision of you

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in body and temper than I had got from your poems and letters. And this, by the way, seems to me a sign of your real vocation, because with a strong individuality and big physique you forget yourself intellectually and artistically; which signifies that you speak for that intellectual side of human nature which enables us, when most sincere, to forget and transcend ourselves. The Fitzgeralds have made me feel a little afraid of you, or rather a little afraid of what you would think of me, if you came here. Of course, I am in my last years, but perhaps only just reaching maturity in philosophy, which I began under a heavy handicap, in that my times and my surroundings were deadly for my vocation. Now this vocation has asserted itself; and I wonder how far it would chill you or seem to you contemptible if you came to close quarters with it. You are exclusively American, although you transcend Americanism—not only in your rational judgments but also (like all your distinguished predecessors of a hundred years ago) in your partly unconscious or rejected traditions. And America has been my Schoolmarm, not my mother and grandmother. The vivid picture you give me of Yaddo and its inhabitants, together with what you tell me of your work on this great new poem,3 confirms and broadens what the Fitzgeralds told me about you: it was very little, they did not gossip at all about your adventures, but for me enlightening. I am curious to know what the subject and inspiration of this long poem are. In the present state of the world they can hardly help being political, in the broad sense of this word: just as what I am at work on “Dominations & Powers” is a broad political subject and if finished would make a big book. Some chapters may be published by Cory (my old secretary and future literary executor) at intervals in Reviews, as he is now publishing in The Atlantic Monthly the first and last chapters of the third part of my autobiography I should have these articles sent to you if I had a conve^^ nient way of doing it, but I have no direct means of paying any small bills in the U.S. or in England, and have to trouble my Trustees or Scribner to pay them for me, which I don’t like to do. But The Atlantic is probably at hand in Yaddo, and you can read them if you like. They will explain what I mean by my “vocation”, and indirectly perhaps even by yours. Your previous letter, which I have not answered, set me thinking on the meaning of “agreeing to differ”. I don’t like the stock phrase: it is ambiguous. We must all differ more or less in everything because we are complex unique compounds of different parents and different circumstances: even brothers or twins are wholly individual and irreproducible. But there is also a sense in which “differing” is a disappointment, not a

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sign of integration on both sides. It suggests that we hoped to agree and ought to have done so, only one or both of us was perverse or blind; and we have to put up with these faults in one another. Now I don’t feel that this is at all the case in regard to the contemporary poets that you appreciate and I don’t know or probably should appreciate if I did know them. I might learn to understand what it is that you appreciate in them. That is what I read them for, but fail to accomplish unaided, just as I don’t appreciate much of the best music because uninstructed in the art: whereas I can understand the merits of architecture of many styles, even if I don’t like them all equally, and perhaps don’t like some of them at all. What you might help me to see is the quality of the merits in this cryptic poetry; but that need not compel me to esteem or enjoy it, except as a curiosity, in that people can come to produce and to like that sort of thing. That which I call the “Spirit” is potentially omniscient, being the pure faculty of apprehension; and in the exercise of this faculty (which is an animal activity like any other, and not emotionally indifferent) we may take a certain pride; but love of the object so discerned or the mental process so executed is a personal matter. The indulgence may disturb the harmony of your life; it may be, for you, a waste of energy or a vice; so that even the mere cognizance of its possibility may not be worth while for you personally, although “Spirit” in you would a priori wish to be omniscient.4 But spirit incarnate cannot be omniscient nor absolutely impartial; and therefore there are things (as Aristotle says) that it is better not to know. I think Aristotle would have been speculatively wiser if he had said “better not to know for a particular natural creature”; but he ^ ^ was wise only as a moralist. Now, as to the concrete case of Contemporary poetry, painting, music, and sculpture, my interest in history and in the future of mankind makes me wish not to miss the values, if any, that the coming age will appreciate: to miss, I mean, understanding them. As to share/ing those, or any other interests if alien to my nature, I am not concerned. Nothing is worth loving, unless you are already secretly in love with it. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Formerly the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Trask at Saratoga Springs, New York, Yaddo was established in 1926 as a working retreat for writers, composers, and other artists of professional stature. Lowell lived at Yaddo during 1948 and 1949. 2 Robert and Sarah “Sally” Fitzgerald. Robert Stuart Fitzgerald (1910–85) was a poet and translator of Greek classics. A graduate of Harvard University (A.B., 1933), he was professor of English there from 1964 to 1981. Some of his works include A Wreath for

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the Sea (1943), Spring Shade (1972), and Enlarging the Change: The Princeton Seminars in Literary Criticism, 1949–1951 (1985). 3 Most likely the title poem of Lowell’s third collection of poetry, The Mills of the Kavanaughs, which was published in 1951. “The Mills of the Kavanaughs” is Lowell’s longest poem and deals with the lament of a widow from Maine for her husband. 4 The Latin phrase a priori (“before” in English) is used in philosophy to refer to knowledge which is independent of (and precedes) experience.

To John Hall Wheelock 12 December 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 12, 1948 Dear Mr. Wheelock Your good impressions on reading the proofs of the two chapters from the third part of Persons & Places are most comforting, as I am always afraid of offending by my indiscreetions in print. I shall be glad to see them / se ^chapters^ in print myself, as that will give me a new impression of my own work. Weather, circumstances, visits, and confusion in my papers on account of confined space for them and short memory have all contributed to make me very slow in finishing another set of chapters from Dominations & Powers, Book III,/ (The Rational Order of Society) which discuss Lincoln’s well-known formula in the Gettysburgh speech—or rather take that formula for a text for sermons of my own. My old friend Professor Michele Petrone asks me to send you his (enclosed) temporary address1 in Naples (it is his Sister’s house) as his ^ ^ future destination, probably Heidelberg, is still uncertain, and to ask you for the two books, published by you long ago, which he has wanted to see. If they are obtainable, please send them and charge them to my account. He also would like a comple set of the Triton edition, having lost his in the bombing of Berlin, but I understood from you that the set you sent for me to Austin, Texas recently was the last to be had. Prof. Petrone has most of my books separately, so that I am not altogether anxious to send him a complete set, although if you have one I would like to please him by letting him have it. In any case, we will wait until his address is permanent. He is a little overpowering, but enthusiastic, and borrows things that I sometimes miss. He has my original copy of Dialogues in Limbo in which the one or two misprints were marked; and I was annoyed not to be able

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to have them corrected, if possible, in the new edition. Many thanks, by the way, for the two extra copies of this, just received. One will go to the irrepressible Petrone on his promise of sending me back my original one, with the errata marked in it. I have discovered a historical blunder in one of the new Dialogues. Socrates had not reached Limbo before Alcibiades, but six or seven years later. Changing two words (on different pages) would correct this mistake; but I understand that corrections are almost impracticable in this form reproduction. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unlocated.

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 20 December 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec 20, 1948 Dear Rosamond My Christmas present1 was not meant to acknowledge your various gifts nor to encourage you to send more (though there would be no harm in that); but from long meditation on death and on last Wills and Testaments, it has been borne in upon me that it is a pity that you, who are my best friend among my relations in America, should get nothing when I die; yet that is the result of a “fortuitous concourse” of events. All my property, apart from a few legacies, including a Fellowship for Harvard,2 will go half to Josephine Bidwell and half to your three boys, representing their father. This is the strict legal order of distribution if I had died intestate; and I wanted to make my Sturgis heirs receive their conventional lots, without showing any bias on my part, because it was Sturgis money, and Sturgis administration that had formed my fortune,3 with the contribution of my savings which were always a good part of my income. I am afraid Robert’s six grandchildren4 will get very little, after taxes and expenses have been deducted: and it looks, with their early marriages and uncertain plans, that they will not be free from sordid cares, as I should have wished, especially if they were artists or literary men, who ought to be independent of official awards or public favour. Now, I have a source of income quite separate from the Sturgis fund, namely, my royalties from publishers; and

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as I don’t need this earned income, I can devote it to the objects that please me personally, without regard to heirs or trustees. Mr. Appleton has charge of this private fund, as well — ofas of the Trust, and that rather keeps me from making free use of it. Mercedes’ allowance comes out of my general income, and Mr. Salmon (was this once Salomon?) sends it regularly for me without any protestation: but I feel in my bones that he disapproves. Cory is taboo; so that if I wish to help him I must do it through Scribner; Mr. Wheelock luckily is a friend of his. And although I don’t know why my agents should have any prejudice against you, I feel that it is better to keep your name out of their accounts: so I appeal, while I have a credit with Scribner’s, to their assistance and send you a small legacy by anticipation of its unfortunate absence at a future date. “Dave” and “Carol” Bidwell have been here and I have seen them often and found them charmingly childlike. He is less intellectual than I expected, but affectionate and tactful—Happy New Year to you from G. S. [across ] = birthday was amusing with its revolving wheel P.S. Your card for my 85th =. of dates from 61 to 100. I have not felt any older since the 16th 1

$500. The fellowship was established at Harvard in 1952 after Santayana’s death. 3 Robert Shaw Sturgis gave Santayana’s mother ten thousand dollars when her first husband, George Sturgis, died. This “fund” was inherited by Santayana at his mother’s death. Santayana’s half brother and later his nephew managed his financial affairs. 4 Santayana’s half brother, Robert Sturgis, had six grandchildren: Robert, Neville, and Nathaniel (sons of George and Rosamond Sturgis), Arthur (son of Arthur Eldredge Sr. and Josephine Sturgis), and David Dudley and Jane Sturgis (children of Raymond Brewer Bidwell and Josephine ). Josephine and Arthur’s first child (a daughter) died in January 1923. 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 24 December 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Christmas Eve, 1948 Dear Cory, I thought that you might find a prize in the lottery — mig— ht — be convenient for you at this time, and Mr. Wheelock is always obliging in sending small sums1 for me for objects, like you, that are not especially favoured at the Old Colony Trust Company. The tone of these magnates, however, has

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changed lately for the better, and they sent a wedding present in my name to the second of my grand-nephews, David Bidwell to be married , who ^ ^ graduated last June from Harvard, summa cum laude, in physics, after being 3½ years in the army, doing electrical work during the war on the Pacific front. He had entered Harvard at 16: and these facts had led me to suppose that he must be an Einstein minor;2 but marriage at 21 was a sign of the contrary, confirmed on his recent appearance here with his wife. I took them one day to the Pantheon and the Forum, and another day to the Zoo (which was a better success) and they came repeatedly here, always staying a long time: and I must confess that I found them charming, although their speech was not always intelligible to me. Youth and simplicity are so attractive! He is going into the soap business. As to the “Lincoln” chapters, I had not expected that you would send those that that you had on hand to the Abraham Lincoln R /Quarterly,3 but only, eventually, those directly referring to the Gettysburg speech, on which I am still at work. Early in January I mean to take several of them to Miss Tindall (four are already to send you, but I prefer to send them all at once, so that you may make a choice). Some copies of this Quarterly have reached me. They are dry and academic. One long article in each about Lincoln’s birthplace, or his relations with Dick or Harry; and then notes on Lincoln publications. I don’t think that more than one or two of my chapters are really suitable for it; but it is perfectly respectable (more so really than the Atlantic) and you and the editor may do as you like. My cough is sometimes troublesome and also visitors and letters to answer or worthless things to read. The result is that I do very little work. I feel cramped in this little room and often can’t find what I am looking for. This is due partly to crowding and partly to old age. My father4 used to say: “In this house even the stones have wings” when he couldn’t find a paper-weight which was a small slab of marble. I feel the same way, but am silent. Yours as ever GSantayana 1

$500. Albert Einstein (1879–1955), born in Germany, was an American theoretical physicist who won the 1921 Nobel Prize. He is best known for his “special theory of relativity” regarding the relationship between mass and energy. 3 The Abraham Lincoln Quarterly was a journal published by the Abraham Lincoln Association from 1940 until 1952, taking the place of the previously published Abraham Lincoln Papers and The Bulletin. 4 A retired colonial official, Agustín Ruiz de Santayana y Reboiro (1814–93) married Josefina Borrás (1826–1912) about 1863. 2

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To Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov 14 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Lipinsky)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan 14, 1949 Dear Mr Lipinski1 I shall be very glad to sit for you any afternoon for the sketch that you wish to make of me. I have not sat for anyone since 1896, when Andreas Andersen2 did a charcoal drawing of me by the firelight in my room in Staughton Hall at Harvard, which to me seems the only real portrait that was ever taken of me. I do not usually see the Atlantic Monthly, and should be glad—not that it is necessary as an introduction—to see a photograph of anything that you have drawn Yours sincerely G Santayana 1

Lino Sigismondo Lipinsky de Orlov (1908–88) was a painter, illustrator, and historian. Born in Rome, he studied in England and Italy and later became an American citizen. In 1967 he became curator of history at the John Jay Homestead in Katonah, New York. Lipinsky made several drawings of Santayana in the Blue Sisters’ Nursing Home during August 1950. 2 Andreas Martin Andersen’s (1869–1902) original drawing is in the Houghton Library’s collection, Harvard University.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 14 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 14, 1949. Dear Lowell = is full of things that I am very glad to know. Your letter of January 5th First is that T. S. Eliot is publishing a selection of your poems,1 no doubt with a flattering introduction. He is the Matthew Arnold2 of the 20 th century, and this delicate attention on his part will establish you as the most interesting of American poets (he himself, of course, being the most important); and I don’t know why I say American, for now since the death of Paul Valéry,3 I see no other interesting poet in any country. And those

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selected poems will sell enormously and ease your finances, which is always a good thing for one’s peace and liberty. What you tell me of your new long poem also pleases me immensely. Incest and suicide may be romantic; they certainly express the Spirit rebelling against Fate and taking the law into its own hands. But they also involve coming up against the ultimate; and that is classic rather than romantic. But Spirit, according to my view, should never attribute power to itself; and if it recognizes its dependence, as Christ in the Gospels does continually on the Father, the spirit becomes the spirit of observation and worship, rather than of adventure. You will see, when you read my Dominations & Powers, how I conceive the predicament of militant action between the natural growth of things and the rational order that might arise if the children were all good. Those who rush into incest and suicide are brave and self-justified, but they cared too much for things that are not worth while. As to your method, I think sticking to what you know is a good plan, and the device of letting your heroine describe how she imagines her lover fighting is capital. You kill two fools with one bullet. I see that your poem is almost a novel: perhaps in later years you will write a novel describing your youth. I have reread Paterson, Book II4 and found more in it than on a first reading. There are truly poetic passages, and a general sense of commotion on the poet’s part. All the vulgar and tiresome things he finds—including that woman’s endless letters—excite, exasperate, and bewilder him: why are they all like that? But what is the matter with him, I should ask, that he can’t take the world for granted and pick his own way through it without being angry? I agree with all you say about the curious personal relation between us, without having met. My philosophy is not urgent or “militant”: you can manage perfectly without it, but you will find a quiet solidity in it at the end. And it is not urgent for me to understand modern poetry, except your own, because of very special elements that appeal to me profoundly, like your having tried Catholicism, and not stopped there. And while some of your verses are difficult, they are not perverse or ill-bred, like so many of your friends’ medleys. Certainly if you came here and cared to do it, you could teach me to see the intention of many “cryptic” passages. But is it worth while? The subject-matter is not common property, like that of Shakespeare or the Latin poets. To catch the “illogical associations” in their private minds would not teach me anything pertinent, would it? Besides, I am too old to learn or at least (as a teacher of Italian once said to me) I am too old to remember what I learn. It is not for that that I hope you will

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come some day to see me, but because I feel that you have a kind of strength and of experience that I never have had but that I have admired in some of my friends, especially in Russell (Bertrand’s elder brother) and that brought me into contact with a powerful current in nature, the élan vital,5 which excites me without making me envious. I want my pagan and Indian philosophy for myself; but I prefer an impetuous force in others. You sign yourself “affectionately”, and that gives me great pleasure and confidence in you. But as yet it is not exactly affection that I feel towards you but a sort of reliance in spite of uncertainty. I can’t count on living much longer, although I am well for my years. What are you going to do next summer, if your poem is finished? That ought to be done in America, where I see you have been having interesting and profitable rencontres.6 It will mark the climax of your recent adventures there. But after that is done, wouldn’t a season in Europe be a pleasant and enlightening change? Please consider yourself invited to spend a month with me here, whenever you like. All the months from April to November, inclusive, are pleasant here, if you don’t mind the hot sun, or are willing to avoid it, which in Rome is comparatively easy. I have now spent seven summers in this house and found them comfortable, not to say luxurious, for I live all day in pyjamas. But it is not to this house that I invite you. As I wrote to you before, this is not a good place for a visitor unless he is ailing or aged. But I can very easily supply you with funds for living in a good hotel, and also, if you need it, for your journey from America and back. Although I live simply, I have plenty of money, obtainable both here and in America. So don’t put off coming for reasons of economy, if you have to think of that. Consider only your work and your inclination, and remember that you will never be younger and have not seen the most interesting parts of the world. For, according to Fitzgerald, you were never at Stambul, although your book seemed to come to me from there, and I inferred that you were at the American Embassy, and envied you for it. G.S. 1

Poems 1938–1949 (London: Faber & Faber, 1950). Eliot was a director of Faber & Faber. 2 Matthew Arnold (1822–88) was a Victorian English poet, writer, and educational reformer. 3 Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (1871–1945) was a French poet, essayist, and literary critic. His works include Regards sur le monde actuel (1931), Propos sur l'intelligence, and Variété, a collection of essays in five volumes. 4 Paterson, the long poem by William Carlos Williams, was published in five books (in 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1958) by New Directions Books, New York. 5 The vital force or impulse of life (French). 6 Personal contests, as in debate or repartee (French).

1948–1952

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 17 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan. 17, 1949 Dear Mr. Cardiff I am not sorry that your negotiations with “Christopher” are broken off. His manner from the first made me feel that he was out of sympathy with our project, and his extravagant demands for an advance of 1,580 dollars shows that he meant to wreck it. As to the other unreasonable demand from Scribner’s for $1000, I think that if you found another promising publisher, we could liquidate it. They have usually given me one half of the fees payed for quotations on a small scale. If this were their intention in this major case, $500 would come to me, and could be at once cancelled, as I should not accept it. I never count on royalties, usually small, and use my credit with Scribner for paying bills or making presents in America, where I have now no bank account. I could in this case ask Scribner to release you from any payment, and to deduct the $500, which would be their share of what they demand, from my royalty account for other books. It would not be a “present” to you, but only intervention to redress an abuse of privilege on their part. I should do it gladly, because they are very considerate to me now, and this way of theirs of “spurning patient merit” has never been employed against me directly by them, but only on marginal undertakings by others—e.g. the compilers of “Obiter Scripta”1—who were disturbing their peace. They grumble like the Wurm in Siegfried: “Ich lieg und besitze: lass mich schlafen.…” 2 You said in one of your letters that you liked the suggestion of “Atoms of Light” for a title of this collection of sayings. It may be a bit too poetical for some of your selections, but if you think it appropriate, you are at liberty to use it. It comes from one of six stanzas in a “Posthumous Poem” called “The Poet’s Testament”. Blow what winds would, the ancient truth was mine And friendship, mellowed in the flush of wine, And heavenly laughter, shaking from its wings Atoms of light and tears for mortal things.3

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The “tears” are mostly confined to my verses, which of course are not included in your survey; but there ought to be some “pessimistic” observations. In any case, do as you think best. If you chose the title “Atoms of Light” you might also quote those four lines in your preface by way of explanation. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Justus Buchler (1914–91) and Benjamin P. Schwartz (1913–99) coedited Obiter. Buchler was an educator, philosopher, author, and professor of philosophy at Columbia University. Schwartz was an educator, author, and professor of history at Harvard. 2 Siegfried is the third of the four music dramas comprising Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung. The dragon Fafner says: “I lie (here) and possess: let me sleep.” 3 Testament, 14. See also Complete Poems, 268–69.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 21 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 21, 1949. Dear Clemens Why do you force me to write twice, when my first answer was perfectly clear, with all reasons given? As to any definition of mine for “democracy”, I have no recollection, but if it has been already published, it belongs morally (I abstract from copyright) to the public. Only, if it comes from an early book of mine, it ought not to be said to represent my views today, after all the lessons that events have given us But, as you know, I am at work on a book on politics, in which the matter will be treated—that part is already done—in an elaborate philosophical way, which wouldn’t lend itself to discussion in a “symposium.” Don’t be surprised if I don’t always answer your letters. If you stop to think a moment, you can supply my answer and save yourself the trouble of writing. But you seem to enjoy it! Yours sincerely GSantayana

1948–1952

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 26 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan. 26, 1949. Dear Lowell That you should mention The Pillars of Hercules in speaking of your eventual journey to Europe seems a kind of telepathy, for I had been doubting whether to mention them or not in writing my last letter. Now that I understand better how things stand with you: that your poem will not be finished, that you will not leave America before the autumn, and that you think of staying two years, my reason for insisting on the Pillars of Hercules is reinforced. If when already a man of experience and an accomplished poet you come to Europe for the first time and land in England, your sense for that country will be that it is odd, small, somewhat annoying in being different from the United States; and it will take time, which perhaps you will not care to spend there, for you to feel its charm If on the contrary you sail into the Strait of Gibraltar (and your steamer will probably touch there, so that you could “take in” the Rock, the port, and the Spanish coast, as well as the spurs of the Atlas on the African shore) you would receive an impression of grandeur with details in the foreground of an original simple ancient truly human civilization. This would be increased, if you stopped at Gibraltar, in order to go from there to Tangiers and perhaps inland into Morocco. I don’t know how profoundly things may have changed since I was at Tangiers in 1893; but then Tangiers was barbaric beyond words, the Moors thoroughly Moorish, camels, donkeys, and sheep resting on the bare ground of the vast market amid pools of urine, and on a rock that emerged in one corner, a minstrel, looking like Homer,1 reciting at intervals to a sparse audience, all sitting on the ground. He was repeating, I was told, old tales of chivalry, like The Romance of the Cid.2 I won’t say more: but everything was as remote non-Christian, savage, and yet tightly established and dignified as the Old Testament. If instead of going to Morocco you made a short trip into Spain, the scene say in Ronda, Cadiz, and Seville, would be less antique but just as incomparable with anything in America as Africa itself. You might not like what you saw, but you would not think it, like England, an irrational variant of things at home, and annoying. Even if you came straight to Genoa or Naples your first impression would be of

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the Mediterranean, blue and tideless, with streets and houses down to the water’s edge, and the manners and colours of a beautiful world. As you went on to Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice your comfort would increase with your appreciation of the glories of art and nature, and nowa-days you would hardly feel that you were socially among barbarians. At certain moments, in certain places, you would feel the opposite. If then from Italy made your way to Switzerland, Paris, and perhaps Flanders, you might be fascinated by the order and justness of things, and their pleasing quality, like well-cooked food and refinements of art and manners. If from this then you finally reached England, you would cry at Dover: Almost like home! England then would have to make no apologies for not being American enough, and might seem, especially if you went into the country, the most perfectly home-like of places, more than anything since ancient Greece on the human scale clement, quiet, and friendly. By all means come if you can by the Pillars of Hercules, let Europe sink into you in chronological order, without comparisons with America, as it grew and as it was gradually overpowered by modernity. Thucidides was a political observer, not a poet.3 He saw Alcibiades as the embodiment of civic disease, like a sort of Mussolini4 if remodelled physically and socially into a Byronic god.5 I take Alcibiades, not as a demagogue and a rash general, but as a first outburst of romantic egotism, to balance and complete in vice the egotism of Socrates in virtue. My ^ ^ Alcibiades is young, not yet debased, but already perfectly free. Compare what he says to Democritus on p. 55 and what Democritus replies.6 It is this self-annihilation succeeding vanity and insolence that makes me love and respect him. I don’t understand what Eliot’s selection of your poems is for, if he doesn’t tell us why he has made it and is not thereby going to introduce you to the British as well as to the genteel American public: which I supposed involved a vast sale. I am sorry if I was wrong. I have perhaps not studied Eliot’s poetry or criticism as thoroughly as they deserve. I have not even seen his “Family Quarrel” which I only learned the other day, by chance, was a pendant to Oedipus.7 I agree with you in admiring his sensibility. He has caught that from the French critics who almost by heredity seem to voir juste.8 But I think he is timid, mincing, too content with non-radical views. All views should be radical, but not absolute; an opposite radical insight should redress the balance. But he is refined and safe in his indecision. Eliot was once in one of my classes, and perhaps it was I that gave him his first start in Dante; but he has gone far beyond me in studying him and using him. It is his approach to Catholicism, which I

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didn’t need. Perhaps because his Catholicism was so blameless and purified, he decided to sing on that perch. You and I know better, don’t we? the entrails of that angel. I shall hope to be still here when you arrive. The back of this winter is already broken, and I feel very well Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Homer, an Ionian poet who probably lived before 700 B.C., is considered the author of the earliest extant Greek epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. 2 Poema del Cid is an epic Spanish poem written about 1140 by an unknown Castilian bard. It is based on the exploits of Rodrigo or Ruy Díaz de Bivar (c. 1043–99), who was known as El Cid (“lord”). 3 Thucydides (c. 460–400 B.C.) Greek historian, Athenian soldier and general, and follower of Pericles. He fought in the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.), about which he authored a famous and incomplete history commonly known as The Peloponnesian Wars. He is recognized as one of the greatest ancient historians. 4 Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), the Italian dictator, author, and founder of the Fascist party, was dismissed from office and imprisoned in 1943 following the Allies defeat of Italy. Rescued by Germans, he later was captured by Italian partisans and executed. 5 George Gordon Noel Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788–1824), was an English romantic poet. Handsome, athletic, brilliant, and magnetic, Byron was himself the model for the ‘Byronic heroes’ of his verse narratives. He was Santayana’s first and lasting literary hero. Many of Santayana’s early verses were written in imitation of Byron’s meter and manner. The detachment, humor, wit, and satiric character of Santayana’s mature style owe much to this early influence. 6 Dialogues. 7 In Greek mythology, Oedipus kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta. The Family Reunion (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1939) is a play by T. S. Eliot, in which Lord Monchensey, after murdering his wife, returns to his mother’s home. 8 Grasp the essence of a work and express it precisely (French).

To Lawrence Smith Butler 27 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. January 27, 1949. Dear Lawrence, Your nephew William Huntington1 came to see me the other day and gave me good news of your convalescence, and today your box of presents has arrived, which is a sign that you are about and felt like stretching a hand in the direction of Rome. The black tie especially shows that you remembered an old fancy of mine. The first black tie is still in daily use and in spite of hard usage looks smooth and (to my eyes, at least)

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stainless. Now it can be replaced by the new one on the days when I wear a white shirt instead of pyjamas in order to look respectable on an excursion to the bank, the apothecary’s and the stationer’s—my constant round when I go in town (in a taxi, because it is beyond my range on foot at present). The glorious large jars of mayonnaise sauce are going to transform my suppers, on the days of hard-boiled eggs and salad—even if potatoe salad—beginning with this evening, particularly apropos, because there is a strike of gas workers and a stoppage due to repairs at the electric works, so that hot dishes are temporarily abolished. However, in the big kitchen down stairs they have a coal or a wood fire; but for my minor meals Sister Angela provides in the ladies’ kitchen in their corridor, and the Italian maid Maria brings them to me on a tray, because the dismal atmosphere of the table d’hôtes on my first arrival here—seven years ago—appalled me, and I have all my meals in my room. Your “Irish” tea will delight Sister Angela, a native of Eire, but I suppose it is not green tea, now that the Eirish colours have changed. All the other things are equally welcome and just what I need. “Need”, as I think I said in my last letter, is not an accurate expression, because we are now provided wth all the necessaries, but I like to get tea and coffee, so that my daily consumption of both may not cut into the Sisters’ share. Being most of them of Irish extraction they like tea, and like it strong. I wish in the Spring you might come and make us a visit, but perhaps you might do well to get a friend, a young friend if possible, to come with you and look after details. I know you are twelve or thirteen years younger than I, but what is that at our venerable age? In my case, deafness, bad eyesight, and general vagueness about what people are up to make it impossible for me to think of travelling, especially as the doctor forbids airplanes. You are probably all right in that respect, and Rome is not in ruins, but lovely. Nothing could give greater pleasure than to see you to your old friend GSantayana 1 Probably the son of Butler’s sister Susan Butler Huntington who is mentioned in the letter to Butler of 29 October 1948.

1948–1952

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 28 January 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome. Jan 28, 1949. Dear Rosamond It is a mystery to me why I have let more than a month pass without thanking you for your Christmas flowers and the two inhalers. Perhaps the Bidwell’s visit had interfered with the normal direction of my thoughts towards Weston, Massachusetts; or that I had a false dream-impression that having just written to you before the presents arrived I had virtually thanked you for them in advance. Never mind the cause: the facts are that everything arrived and was appreciated; but I was suffering a good deal, especially at night, from cough, which didn’t let me sleep; and I had a great number of visitors and letters, so that I was tempted to postpone everything that was not urgent. Of late, things have got better. I feel as if the back of the winter were broken; there is more sunshine, and the callers and letters have fallen off in number. Moreover, the Benzedrine Inhaler which I had not used at first has proved most useful on a fair trial. It is not so pleasant, and like cologne or a nose-cocktail, as the old liquid Vapex used to be; but for about an hour it actually arrests the flow of mucus and consequently the cough, so that it is a great comfort, allowing me to read or to sleep for a while untroubled almost at any time. The directions suggest that it may be used continually, saying, not oftener than once an hour, which would allow 24 doses a day, and that it lasts for two or three months. I use it at much longer intervals, and hardly ever at night, as I have a sirrup that is supposed to heal as well as relieve; and this carries me over the night fairly well. My catarrh is chronic, and I don’t expect to be cured of it; but often I forget that I have it and pass days and weeks without any sign of trouble. This winter, however, has been trying, although in Rome not at all cold, but unusually dark and rainy: and although now the “central heating” works it does not help as much as the sunshine. Now at last we are having clear weather and I can work in the morning by my open French window. Moral of all this invalid letter: Please send me more of the “Benzedrine Inhaler”, in case my tube should be exhausted. The political “cold war” seems to have settled down into a sort of normality, and the Chinese, who are being whipped seem not to mind it very

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much. I am less worried, since Truman and also the French and English seem to have realized that Russia cannot be reconciled. They don’t want to risk a war, and hope to annex Europe and Asia by stealth. But in the light of day, this will be difficult. [across ] We may have a long peace.—I am going to write one of these days to Chiquita, in answer to her Spanish letter, but in English. Yours affectionately GSantayana

To Richard Colton Lyon 10 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, February 10, 1949. My dear Dick =, I have Since your short letter of Jan. 15, which reached me on the 22nd been wanting to reply, but putting it off until I could announce the arrival of your Christmas presents, which have been nearly two months on the way. This is not exceptional, the parcel post even from England being very slow. What is exceptional is the superior character of your package and all its contents. I never had such a choice and luxurious combination of things sent me, and especially the handkerchiefs in a red silk holder, which I think must have been your mother’s idea. Please thank her for me. It happens that handkerchiefs, and minor articles of dress generally, are things I always need and forget to get for myself, as if a sort of subconscious prohibition were holding me back. And I am touched by the affectionate words of your message; which leads me back to what I wanted to say in reply to your last letter. Don’t think that if you are writing to me, it must be in a literary style with profound thoughts and wise conclusions on every subject. You need not write to me at all, unless you feel like it, and then, if you do, it will be about what interests me to hear, namely what you yourself are doing and planning, and what, if any, books you have been reading that appeal to you.1 In another letter you mentioned Means,2 and seemed dissatisfied with his way of philosophizing. I have barely heard of him and never read him, but I understand that he is a psychologist of the statistical school, who study mankind medically, with a view to making them into perfect economic machines. Think, if you could learn to do everything in half the time that it takes now, how splendid! You would have twice the time in which to do twice

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the number of things at equal speed, without a single error in spelling or typing! If I am wrong and Means is an idealist full of Christian tenderness, I beg his pardon. But not long ago—I think after I saw you, but if before, I have probably mentioned him to you—Professor Laswell of Yale’s latest book on psychology came in my way, and I was impressed.3 It showed me how things were moving in academic America. And since then I have had another sign. My grand-nephew David Bidwell graduated last June from Harvard magna cum laude,4 and got a Guggenheim travelling scholarship, on which he and his bride, fresh from Smith College, came on a lightning tour through all Europe, and were several days in Rome. I took them once to the Forum, and another day to the Zoo, and they were very good in coming on the other afternoons to see me in my cell. He is nice looking and reported a genius in modern science, and I asked him what he was going to devote himself to after such a brilliant beginning. He said he didn’t want to be a professor, that theory interested him less than actually running machines, and that he was going into the top office of a first class soap-making company. And I had thought of him as a second Einstein, who would reveal it me the real constitution of matter! But the uses of soap are external, and what would be the use of knowing what is of no use for anything? Yours sincerely GSantayana

1 In the margin here Santayana sketched a boy in a tub and labeled it “accident” to cover an inkblot. 2 According to Richard Lyon, he had been reading and telling Santayana about George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), the American pragmatist philosopher who greatly influenced psychologists and social scientists. 3 Santayana might be referencing Lasswell’s Power and Personality (New York: W. W. Norton, 1948) which was published when Lasswell was teaching at Yale. See also 9 June 1948 to Clemens. 4 Actually David Bidwell graduated summa cum laude (25 December 1948).

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To Francis Gardner Clough 11 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 11, 1949 Dear Mr. Clough In recent times I have received a considerable number of volumes of recent American poetry, of which for many years I had completely lost the traces; and a few of them are like yours,1 in the versification and with the religio-cosmic questionings which we all had in the nineteenth century; but I am afraid we are destined, even if brand new, to seem nothing but back numbers. That does not remove the intrinsic interest which such verses possess; it only deprives them of public attention. A man would have to be a positive genius, with a vision of old truths and a great technical competence to seem a modern poet today if he were clear and rational. Most of those who honour me with thin copies of their cryptic visions are all for economy of exposition and concentrated pellets from which the miraculous intuition of the reader is expected to elicit vast cloudscapes of tumultuous but silent passion. We are not in that competition, and must be content with a few old-fashioned uncritical admirers. I long ago abandoned verse for prose, and I suppose you reserve your verses for private sympathy only. Your portrait, unless the Italian love of violence misrepresents you, suggests hard usage and struggles. A novel, perhaps, would be the surest means of getting a hearing for such an experience. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Francis Gardner Clough (1895–1966) was a poet whose works include Word Is Out … (Newburgh, N.Y.: author, 1944) and I the Hymn (Newburgh, N.Y.: Pen-Acre Pub. Co., 1947).

1948–1952

To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 17 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Bidwell)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 17, 1949. Dear Raymond Your letter of Feb. 3, received some days ago, is as full as ever of interesting facts about the family and the state of the country, except for the cryptic document of “Procter and Gamble” in which I can make nothing out but get the suspicion that it contains a diabolical invitation to gam^ ^ ble and prosper. To which I oppose an old motto from the London Punch of the 1890’s:1 DON’T! And you don’t happen to mention one bit of information that I have been wishing to have, namely, Dave & Carol’s address during their wanderings. I had a nice letter from them when in Milan, saying how much they enjoyed the opera at La Scala, which is indeed the home of Italian opera, and I was glad that they found something first rate here that was not a ruin or an antiquity. The opera companies here have hardly learned to travel so that each large town has only its local artists to count on; and this winter in Rome we are having no opera, because the deficit of the last season was more than the city government liked to pay up. It is too bad, but makes no difference to me personally, as now I don’t go even to matinee performances; I used to do so regularly on Sundays when I lived at the Bristol, and always took Stall No 17 third row, end seat, from which I could slip out at any moment by the side door when I had had enough.—But I haven’t been told how letters to the young Bidwells should be addressed, and it seems ridiculous to send them to America when they may be only an hour or two from here by air: for I suppose they will not stay in Scandinavia long; that is one of those places where first-rate human beings are manufactured (according to the ancient authority of Tacitus)2 but from which they like to migrate to less heroic places. Paris is the natural Mecca of young travelling Americans, and the foreign place in which they can at once feel at home, and I don’t remember that they said anything suggesting that they had already been there. I found them charming to be with, and wish they were always to be here. I had only one disappointment, not due to them, but to you for starting a false expectation in my mind that Dave was to be a second Einstein. But he said that theory didn’t particularly interest him, and he preferred

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to plan and to run machinery, which I discovered was what he was busy doing when in the army, with electrical appliances for discharging guns at a distance. Imagine my disappointment when I had been hoping that he would at last explain to me how matter doesn’t exist, and how every portion of it is everywhere. That is more like what the catechism taught us about God. It is very kind of you to take so much trouble about sending me another box of provisions. Every thing will be useful, but I feel that you are being imposed upon, as we really do not need anything now. It is merely a matter of getting better or more special things or to lighten the Sisters’ burden in looking after one’s particular tastes. Yours affectionately G. S. 1

Punch is an English humor magazine. Cornelius Tacitus (C. A.D. 55–c. A.D. 117), Roman historian and government official, born in northern Italy. His works include Dialogues and Agricola, the latter an admiring biography of his father-in-law who was a governor of Britain. He wrote Germania, an account of the indigenous German tribes which many read as a moral critique of a decadent Roman society. His major works are the Histories and the Annals, multi-volume histories of Roman life, society, and politics. 2

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 21 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Feb. 21, 1949. Dear Clemens How indefatiguable you are! Little did I foresee, that afternoon when I took you and your mother1 to tea at the Pincio, what I was letting myself in for in the way of unmerited publicity! You know, or ought to know, that I detest publicity, and that if publicity there must be, I like accuracy, although I find that even in well-intentioned interviewers’ quotation of my words, accuracy cannot be hoped for. Much less from you, who seem to gather reports from the four winds of heaven with perfect innocence. I see that your proposed publisher demands misrepresentation of my feelings /ion the matter of “Americanism”, and the Catholic bee in your bonnet would inevitably lead you to misrepresent me in regard to religion. Howgate, long ago, published a book about me in which all the facts of my life up to that time were recorded accurately, and he also was a fair, if not profound, critic of

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my philosophy.2 He consulted me, and I helped him. You are not in so good a position for figuring as a biographer. If I have any legal or friendly claim to prevent you from writing such a biography, here goes my prohibition, request, or prayer NEVER to attempt such a thing.3 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Katharine Boland Clemens (1874–1968). George Washburne Howgate (1903–50) wrote George Santayana (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938), the first book-length critical biographical study of Santayana. 3 Clemens did not write a biography of Santayana. 2

To Evelyn Tindall 23 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

February 23, 1949 Dear Miss Tindall Here are the last two chapters on/f the group on Lincoln’s formula for democracy which I am sending to Mr. Cory for possible appearance in Reviews. It has been a tough job to get them arranged, and I shall now go on more freely to filling gaps in other parts of my endless book. No hurry. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 27 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 27, 1949 Dear Cory, Miss Tindall, who is prompt, will probably return to me in a few days the two last chapters of my book on the text from Lincoln. They are ten in all, and I will send them to you at once. The first would probably excite The Abraham Lincoln Review; but as the chapters are short, I think it might be better to submit some or all to Mr. Weeks. They are not about Lincoln, but about the nature of government in general, and would gain very much in weight if they were read more or less together.

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I also will include one (the next to the last) page, revised, of The Marriage of Venus, which I wish you would substitute for the corresponding page in the manuscript that you have. I don’t know whether you have read these old plays; if you have, you will have noticed the obvious patches of new stuff sewn on to the old garment, contrary to the advice of the gospel.1 But I have done it in full consciousness of the danger, because it is the moral, rather than the literary quality, of these pieces that I care about, and I have now a much firmer conception of this moral than fifty years ago, when I wrote them. But what I wish to avoid is shockingly bad lines, either in the old style or in the new, and there were several such in this important page of The Marriage of Venus. I hope this revised version is passable in form, at least enough to convey the force of the moral. So, too, in the last lines of the other play.2 I am now reading Russell’s “Human Knowledge” 3 but amid so many other books, letters, and visits (although the last have luckily become rarer) that I am making slow progress in it, and will not tell you my impressions until I have read the whole book and can control them rationally. But comparing it with the “Philo of Alexandria” two thick volumes beautifully printed, that the author, I think once a pupil of mine, Wolfson,4 and now a professor at Harvard, has sent me, I feel how much the human mind has descended in dignity as it has increased its miscellaneous information; and I sympathize with your impatience of the meanness of contemporary views. I also have two books of Indian philosophy to restore my tone, sent me by Swami Nikhilananda,5 who visited me here lately, and was very sympathetic. I follow the Indians in their notion of Brahman, Spirit, in its essence, but of course not in its absolute status as the root of all things. It is the root, in an animal psyche, of the universe of appearances; but the real universe, with its movement and competion, must first have produced the psyche with its interests and powers: of which the cry for liberation is one. I am glad you are thinking of coming in this direction soon. If you can manage the journey, and whatever stay you make in Switzerland, you may rely on me for your expenses in Rome, or elsewhere in Italy, where my Italian cheques can be cashed, and you need not limit the length of your stay. I hope this summer to finish my Dom. & P’rs. provisionally, giving it a presentable form, beginning, middle, & end, but leaving parts open to future developments, if circumstances permit.—I am better now that Spring has come. Yours affly GSantayana

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1

Matthew 9:17; Luke 5:37. The Marriage of Venus: A Comedy (written in 1896) and Philosophers at Court (written in 1897–1901) were both revised in 1946. 3 Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948). 4 Harry Austryn Wolfson (1887–1974), Harvard class of 1912, was Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard until his retirement in 1958. His works include Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle: Problems of Aristotle’s Physics in Jewish and Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929) and The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Processes of his Reasoning, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934). Santayana is referring to Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947). 5 Swami Nikhilananda (1895–1973), an ordained monk, disciple of Sri Sarada Devi, and author, founded the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York in 1933. 2

To Ervin Paul Hexner 28 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Pennsylvania)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 28, 1949 Dear Mr. Hexner1 The pieces that have been appearing in The Atlantic are not “essays” but fragments of books, the one you refer to being the Epilogue to my autobiography. Others have come from Dialogues in Limbo, and some may follow from Dominations & Powers. They have appeared because my publishers think it advisable to keep my name before the public, and my books are long-winded and I am now slower than ever in finishing them. If you have dipped at all into my philosophy, you know that I am not a dogmatist in morals. It is for each man’s nature—not for his consciousness or opinion—to determine what his “true” interests are. It is what I call his “primal Will”, which is unconscious, that decides the matter, and then the possibility of realizing this Will is determined by circumstances. This unconscious nature or Will may well be unselfish or social or, as the Indians maintain, mystically negative, so that every mans “true” interest is to become Brahman, or the Absolute. I think this is the “true” interest only of a very special Will, which if dominant would destroy all Will or life, and so would not justify itself to itself. There are forms of natural happiness that do so.

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I meant to answer your letter in a few words, but the subject has made me run on automatically. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Ervin Paul Hexner (1893–1968) was at this time a professor of political science and economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and later at Pennsylvania State University.

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 28 February 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome. February 28, 1949 Dear Rosamond Your letter of a week ago brings unexpected news and it has taken me a few days to digest it. I see what a completely new and actively social life your marriage will open before you,1 and how this, added to the warmth of a new affection, will bring you. But my idea of your domestic life to come is still incomplete. Apthorp House is a familiar sound, but calls up no image. I must often have seen it in my undergraduate days, because Ward Thoron lived where the Delphic Club stands now, and in the years 1883–5 I used to go almost daily in the afternoon to see Ward. Neither of us played games, but we took a walk or read French books aloud. To the present clubhouse I think I went only once, to inspect it after it was built; but I then knew none of the members. I have of course never seen your brothers who were members long after my time. I have looked up the Adams House in a map I have of modern Cambridge, and it seems to stretch rather between Plympton and Bow Streets, and “Squash Courts” seem to separate it from Linden Street, but Apthorp House itself is not marked in my plan. I should like to see a view of it, some day. Of the Adams House I have a picture which shows only a glimpse in a rather crowded knot of streets or courts, but showing a nice lantern tower.2 More important than the setting is to have some idea of your future family circle. As to Mr. Little himself, being master of a House in Cambridge and being Secretary to the University are both positions of which I have no first hand knowledge, but they suggest administrative and executive duties rather than teaching, and you don’t tell me what Mr = cenLittle was before there were Houses at Harvard. Garrick and the 18th tury sound like a specialty in English history or literature. And then of his

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four children, which are boys or men and which girls or women?3 That must make a great difference in the ease with which you can slip into your new position. I have some experience of this sort of problem, as my sister Susana had six step-children as well as a middle-aged husband with fixed habits.4 Anyhow, give him my compliments and congratulations; and I can understand how you too can feel a fresh glow of youth and excitement at the prospect of this new life. What I cannot sincerely congratulate you on is the procession of visitors and official functions which will demand your time and attention. But I am an old bear, and could never feel the charm of society where it went beyond real friendship or a real feast to the eye and to the gullet. Your parcel with eatables and also magazines arrived duly, was appreciated, and I don’t know why I didn’t thank you for it at once. Spring has now set in and I am feeling better and working with more pleasure Yours affectionately GSantayana 1

Rosamond married David M. Little on 26 May 1949. Adams and Apthorp are the oldest of Harvard’s Houses and are considered to be the most architecturally significant buildings in the Harvard University Housing System. 3 David Garrick (1717–79) was an English actor, playwright, and manager. The Letters of David Garrick was edited by David M. Little and George M. Kahrl (Harvard University Press, 1963). David M. Little Jr. became a noted anesthesiologist. 4 Celedonio Sastre Serrano (c. 1840–1930), a lawyer and small landowner, was a widower with six children when he met and married Santayana’s half sister Susan Parkman Sturgis (1851–1928). Celedonio’s children by his first marriage were Antonia, Antonio, Rafael, Luis (Rafael’s twin), José “Pepe,” and Eduardo Sastre González. 2

To Richard Colton Lyon 1 March 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 1, 1949 Dear Dick I had put off answering your letter of Feb. 6 until I should feel quite clear in my own mind about what to reply, and now your “paper” has come treading on the letter’s heels, and giving me new light as to your abilities as the letter did about your disposition. I feel that I now know you much better than before; because being with you revealed your personal character—that that was all right; but partly on account of my deafness, I remained somewhat in the dark in regard to your philosophical

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vocation and affinities. Your having caught on to “Normal Madness” had made a great impression on me: it was so unexpected and cut so deep. Or could this be a sort of accident and would it not signify much to you when you had studied the great philosophers? The letter explains clearly that (as fits your physique) you are naturally a Nordic in reflection: you stand on the Self and the rest is the not-Self; and you at once recognize your attitude in Fichte.1 That is splendid, because Fichte, though not a very weighty or sound philosopher, is radical and fearless and defends an ultimate position. If you had approached German idealism from the British side, because Kant had said that Hume2 had roused him from his “dogmatic slumber”, you might have got entangled in the psychological net that keeps people like Bertrand Russell, for instance, from being clear either in their naturalism or their theory of knowledge. Fichte is consistent in the latter; and he is not a dogmatist (though a wilful fanatic) in morals; because this too is merely the Will of the Self asserting its right to autonomy. And your difficulty in distinguishing essence, unless it be the essence of existence, in the depths of consciousness or introspection, is in perfect harmony with the romantic idealism of all these non-Platonic minds. They are looking for fact substance, support: looking for foothold, not for the pleasure of seeing. Therefore there is all this struggle and ambiguity of Selves, and psychological existence attributed to the image or thought, which to a Platonist, is only aesthetic or logical. This clear position of yours made me think of recommending you to look into the Existentialists or the Indians. But with your allegiance to a relative and therefore not catastrophic or Apocalyptic moral sense, you would not care for Kierkegaard: perhaps Jaspers3 would interest you more. But the existence of the image (spirit for him is a substance) appears also in Berkeley: and this brings me to your paper. ^ ^ Naturally I appreciate your wish to find me in the same boat with Berkeley, and I stick to my contention that his “ideas” are essences having only the status of words; yet, though he says this himself and it makes the whole beauty and wonder of his treatment of the world as an air-castle in the imagination, as our idea or knowledge of the world really is, he nevertheless takes his “ideas” to exist. This I should attribute rather to ^ ^ intuition (a moment of life, of spirit, and of keenness and synthesis in the unconscious currents of the psyche and the body). The element of existence belongs to the self and leaves the “idea” to be, as in Plato, ideal: ^ ^ a visionary term or a form. Spirit, I said just now, was a substance for ^ ^ Berkeley, who in this respect was scholastic, Christian, and Cartesian, not

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a transcendental critic, like Fichte; yet grammar or logic would not allow him to say that spirit was the subject and the idea the predicate in vision, so that when you admire the “velvet lawn” it is your spirit that is green. No: the “idea” itself is green. Berkeley, as I remember him after fifty years of separation, didn’t say much about spirit, assuming, I suppose, that it was like an angel or more technically, like l’esprit in Descartes, for whom it was identical with actual thinking or consciousness, but who also called it a substance, in as much as it existed in itself, without any bodily organ and could affect the body only by miracle, in man, not in the animals, who were bêtes-machines.4 You, who are fresh from e/ Berkeley, can perhaps tell me how he conceived the relation of this existing angel-soul to an existing psychological idea or perception. It seems to me that a perception (which in so far as it is spiritual I call an intuition) is either, behavioristically, a reaction in the body to a physical stimulus, or a moment of spirit, spirit for me not being a substance but a flash of feeling in a psyche, intermittent and immaterial. This psyche or self in its animal life, when especially attentive, emits this immaterial cry, and sees this immaterial idea. A pure sound, as heard, and a pure light, as seen do not seem to me to be anything but illusory phenomena, signs for the spirit of the body and the world in which it is incarnate. They do not exist except as features or qualities in its own moral, immaterial, volatile life. My philosophy as a whole, and in its form of wisdom, is therefore very different from Berkeley’s, although in the matter of nominalism I think I am more radical than he turned out to be in the end. At first, of course, he was a young hound after the fox of abstract ideas. But my essences are not abstract and even when they are concepts or “laws” they exercise ^ ^ absolutely no control over the course of events, either in the world or in the mind. They are therefore as multitudinous, separate, and “inert” as any nominalist could desire, and functionally they are just words. The mature Berkeley, on the contrary, was obliged to discover tar-water and other efficacious “ideas” quite Platonically ruling the world and the destiny of spirits. In this respect my essences are not Platonic at all but very like the ideas of sense in Berkeley and Hume, only less material, thinner, and not mistaken for dynamic elements of existence. They are only dramatic elements in the moral life of spirit, who lends them all their momentary deceptiveness, while they possess in themselves only an ideal timeless identity. Words, in every phase of their evolution, have this logical reality and this material non-existence. Plato’s Ideas are for me just as “nominal” as any sensuous term.

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But these are useless repetitions, and what I wish especially to say is that your paper seems to me splendid, mature and professional. It shows that you are ready to become a professor of philosophy, as far as intelligence and ability go, and at ease also in criticising and quoting your authorities ^ ^ aptly. Did your instructor refer to Bergson in connection with Berkeley, or was it your own idea? In any case, it is very illuminating, because Bergson said that Berkeley did not deny the existence of matter, but gave a fruitful new view of it—i.e. Bergson’s own, for whom matter is the pack of which ^ ^ “ideas” are the cards. This shows how completely subjective Bergson’s conceptions were. Matter = any theory of matter—All you need is to complete your study of the great philosophers, beginning not with me but with Thales.5 So there you are! G.S. 1 Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher, political thinker, born in Saxony and educated at Jena and Leipzig. His chief philosophical influence was Immanuel Kant. Fichte’s best-known work remains Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (1794–95). His main philosophical concern was reconciling human freedom with natural necessity. He took the free human will to be primary and then sought to understand how human beings with free will could be part of the natural world of causally determined material objects. He was an influential figure for German romanticism. 2 David Hume (1711—76), Scottish philosopher and historian, born and educated in Edinburgh. Hume is regarded as one of the British Empiricists and claimed that philosophy could not go beyond experience to any ultimate origins. He wrote several important works including A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), History of England (1754–62), and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1778). Hume is known for his claim that, despite the persistent human belief in necessary causal connections, neither sense nor reason can discover such a connection. Sense experience reveals only temporal or spatial contiguity. Reason offers no direct access to the truth of causal connection because there is no contradiction in imagining an observed correlation happening otherwise than it has so far been observed. The belief is explained as a habit conditioned by the experience of constant conjunction of things said to be causally related. Hume did not, however, reject inductive reasoning based on causal relations; rather he offered a new description of reason as a habit of mind. (See An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Sections IV and V). 3 Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) was a German philosopher associated with the existentialist school developed by Heidegger, based on the writings of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. His philosophy is subjective and nonrational. 4 A rough translation from the French is “animal machine.” For Descartes, animals, though they give the appearance of thinking and feeling, are only machines; humans by contrast really do think and feel. Descartes discusses the distinguishing traits of human beings compared to other animals in, among other texts, Discourse on the Method (1637), at the end of Part V. 5 Thales (c. 624–546 B.C.), the earliest recorded Greek philosopher, taught that water, in all its forms, was the principle of everything.

1948–1952

To John McKinstry Merriam [1 March] 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Merriam)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, February 29, 1949. Dear Merriam When I read in your letter that Fraser1 was dead I felt a distinct emotion, more of sudden recovery than of regret. That name carried me back suddenly to the schoolroom in the new building on Warren Street that we occupied during our last two years at the Latin School,2 and I saw him sitting quietly in his dark clothes in the right hand corner seat of the back row, No 1, for he was always at the head of the class. And I didn’t see him often, as I always sat one or two rows in front of him, and he never made himself conspicuous among the boys. I hardly remember any incident or conversation connected with him; nor did I ever meet him in College, even at the Phi Beta Kappa where, as you say, we were elected together, but it must have been for very different reasons. I was an interloper, and he born to be a Charter member. But there I saw him yesterday for an instant; and it confirmed me in the theory that time is a great illusion, when it makes us think that it brings or destroys anything. Everything is eternal, except our attention. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Henry Edward Fraser was a member of Santayana’s Harvard class of 1886. Boston Latin School.

2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 15 March 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 15, 1949 Dear Cory, I am very glad to know that you are coming so soon, and approve of your choice of an English pension near the Porta Pinciana.1 The tram Circolare interna stops there and can bring you, in either direction, as far as the Colosseum, if you don’t feel like going down first towards the attractions of the Via Veneto and the c/Corso, to take your favourite bus to the Lateran.2 As to the price, 200 lire a day is what I now pay here; you

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will have 10% extra, I suppose, for service and something for wine, washing, and stamping letters, let us say 250 lire a day: or 75,000 lire a month.3 I will give you a cheque for 100,000 when you arrive; if you feel virtuous and economical you can make it do to cover pocket money as well, as you don’t want to get books here. If it is not enough, I can give you a petit supplément at my other bank (you know I now have two bank accounts, one at the Banco di Napoli, and another at the Banco di Roma. We can then begin the second month with a nest-egg, to relieve the sense of too great exactitude in the budget for the/at next month. You can stay on this system as long as you like, but I suppose you mean to stop in Florence and in Switzerland, still in good weather, on your way back. I suppose by this time you have received my 10 chapters on Democracy and have seen whether, they, or some of them, will do for Weeks. (We are having such a dark Spring that at 3 p.m. I can’t see to go on writing where the last word left off. Of course, it is partly my blindness, although I still see perfectly to read, if I have a good light.) I have been reading on in Russell’s book, although I have several other things half-read that really interest me more. I saw the rather unfair article about it in the Times Literary Supplement,4 but I can understand a general feeling of disappointment at the medley of special points that interest the author especially, or that are the latest to be talked of in some special circle without preserving proportion ing —and a natural hierarchy in the subjects to be treated. Of course, many details are good; but yesterday, on reading the chapter on Space in Psychology, I was really exasperated. This is more artificial than anything in the Scholastics.5 I never felt so clearly what a fatal error the British School made in setting up “ideas” or “percepts” or whatever they call them, for constituents of the cosmos.”/ They are appearances: and from the beginning animal faith (which Bertie calls animal inference (is it an improvement?) takes for a sign, a call, an aspect, even if at first faith (or intellect) — it has nothing but ^ ^ the casual appearance to describe it by. But it is a dynamic thing a force on the same plane as our total action. No: Bertie has missed the bus, for all his talent and omnipolence. G.S. 1

Porta Pinciana is one of the gates of the Aurelian walls, which were constructed under the Emperor Aurelian (270–75) for protection from invading barbarians. 2 The circolare interna was a tram that traveled a circular route in the interior of Rome. The Lateran is the name given to a group of buildings in the southeast of Rome that face the Piazza San Giovanni. 3 Santayana was paying 2,000 lire per day (about $4.00 per day or $120.00 per month) for his room and board; likewise, he meant to offer Cory 2,500 lire per day to live on.

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4 “Philosopher’s Stone,” a review of Russell’s Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits, appeared in the Times Literary Supplement (5 March 1949): 156. 5 The Scholastic philosophers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, were known for building up complex abstract proofs based on Roman Catholic Church dogma.

To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 30 March 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bidwell)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 30, 1949. Dear Raymond Yesterday came your large and well-filled package, announced in your letter of weeks ago. The three boxes of Crax have stood the journey nicely. In the one I have already opened, which was the most exposed to crushing by heavier cans and pots of marmalade, etc, had only a few crackers broken, and just as good to eat as if whole; the only damage was in a pot of jam, which had been smashed and bits of the glass fallen into the preserve inside, so that Sister Angela, the Irish-born houskeeper from Chicago, sadly condemned all the contents as dangerous. Probably the servants in the big kitchen down stairs thought better of it, and have made a feast of the jam, without fear of atomic glass. All the rest will tend to keep me plump for some time, against my ascetic purpose of growing thin, as more suitable for an old hermit: but such ideas of propriety can always be put off until the contrary temptation has disappeared. This I say to remind you that there is no need of sending me more eatables. I have five meals a day, like an Englishman, and they feed the furnace little by little quite well enough to keep the philosophy warm. I am in hopes of finishing the big book on hand during this coming summer, not so that certain parts may not be filled in afterwards, if I am still alive, but so that the book may be ready to publish. This is a great satisfaction for me, as I was afraid that the task would prove to be beyond my strength. As soon as I got your last letter, I wrote to Dave at his Oslo address, and I have had since a nice letter from him, in which he says nothing about Einstein or the constitution of matter, but asks me what I think about the power of resistance in Western Europe. I haven’t answered him yet, as he says they are to stay, or at least be in communication with their present address until they sail for home. Besides, I don’t know anything about the situation from the inside. It is all a matter of conjecture: but I

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think this Atlantic Pact1 is a great improvement on the United Nations, because it has somebody at the head of it. That has been until now the principal advantage of the Russians. Perhaps the mere existence of a definite power and policy on the other side may be enough to check them now. But from a military point of view they have an obvious advantage everywhere. Still they honestly prefer peace; that is, non-resistance to communism. It was a great pleasure to see Dave and his nice bride, and to see them, at least, from your side of the family. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a defensive alliance created in 1949 and originally included the United States, Canada, England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Portugal.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 9 April 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 9, 1949. Dear Clemens, No: I have no long-distance (or short-distance) radio, and no desire to listen to any broadcasting, which with my deafness I should not understand. It is not in my [illegible ]power to regulate what people may say or publish about me, but I have repeatedly begged you not to busy yourself about me. I don’t think you are the right man to do so; but I suppose publicity is your profession and you are willing to take up any subject that seems to supply “copy”. It is the same with visitors and interviews. People come to see me without asking leave or needing introductions, and between 5 and 7 p.m. I see them, and occasionally feel that perhaps it has been of some interest, and not merely a passtime, like going to see the oldest old woman in the village. If you write me more letters and get no answer, please understand that, as far as my consent is required for any useless project, I do not give it, but that the thing may nevertheless be realized if the essor vital1 in the ^ ^

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persons concerned is irresistible. I like to be quiet, but do not undertake to stop the steam-roller of modern enterprise. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Vital impetus to action (French).

To John Hall Wheelock 18 April 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, April 18, 1949. Dear Mr. Wheelock I have received various short notes, with enclosed letters from Strangers, which I have not thanked you for at once, as they required no immediate answer. Yesterday I gave a visitor, Mr. Peter Russell,1 my last copy of Dialogues in Limbo, because he expressed regret at not being able to order it from England; and I am writing to ask you to be good enough to have two more copies of this book sent to me, as being my favourite child, I don’t like to be parted from it for long. Cory has come to Rome and seems happy in a Danish “Pensión” that he has found near the Pincian Gate; and he comes almost every afternoon to have tea with me here. Under his instruction I am undergoing a re-education in the works of (my pupil) T. S. Eliot, especially in Four Quartets,2 which Cory especially admires, and confesses that he would like to imitate. I am making very slow progress in this; and materially in Dominations & Powers also: although morally I am much encouraged and hope this Summer to get it (if not completed, which it may never be) at least well-ordered and publishable, in case of accidents. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 [Irwin] Peter Russell (1921–2003) was an English writer, poet, and editor. At the time of Santayana’s letter, he was the editor of NINE: A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism, which was published in London from 1949 to 1957. 2 Four Quartets (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1943) is a long poem by T. S. Eliot, which many critics consider to be Eliot’s major poetic accomplishment.

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To Wincenty Lutoslawski 20 April 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 20, 1949. Dear Sir,1 It was a pleasure to hear from you after so many years, and to know that you, too, have weathered these times of war and ruin. As for me, I had already retired from “the world” when troubles began, and was put to no great inconvenience, and to no positive loss, by events; I merely moved from the hotel in the city, where I had lived for many years, to this hospital-refuge kept by an Order of English-speaking Sister, called the “Little Company of Mary” or “The Blue Sisters”, from the colour of their veil. I am happy in my cell here, and do not expect to move again. The just impression that you got of me in the first instance, that I was a sceptic and sincere lover of beauty, I think is still true of me in spite of the pretentious titles to some of my books. My system is only a system of categories or grammar of human imagination, not claiming any scientific or literal or exclusive validity. But modern philosophy was always alien to me, and I could never accept the dogmatic side of Platonism or Hinduism or Christianity as anything but a moralistic mythology. But I am perfectly content that language and thought should remain symbolical and merely human, even in the most objective possible science. “Reality” can take care of itself, and of us. Writing has been a pleasure for me, not a means to any other end than that of a poet and I have doubtless written too much. Nevertheless, I can’t stop, and I am still at it, composing a big book about Government. I will very gladly send you (from the publishers’ in New York) any one of my books that you may care to see: but which? There is even a novel, “The Last Puritan” and two short parts of a kind of autobiography, called “Persons & Places” of which the second part, published separately, was given the temporary title of “The Middle Span”. These books would give you the best account of my life and religious opinions, if they interest you. But I have properly no religious opinions, only historical and psychological views about religion. Nevertheless, in my own terms, I could accept your conviction about pre-existence, in that, without any belief in transmigration of souls, I do believe in a profound existent potentiality in psyches; not indeed, in my view, infinitely old or infinitely transmissible, but

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like Karma, dominating our passage through human society, which is not at all a favourably environment for the spirit which the psyche is capable of developing. I have even written a book about “The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, or God in Man”, a piece of psychological Christology, not a “Life of Jesus.” Perhaps the best book to send you would be the one volume edition of “Realms of Being” containing the four volumes on Essence, Matter, Truth, and Spirit. My own favourite, however, and best written book, is “Dialogues in Limbo” of which there is a fresh edition. If you will send me word, on another post-card, as to which of these you prefer, I will ask Scribner to send it to you at once. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Wincenty Lutoslawski (1863–1954) was a Polish philosopher.

To John Hall Wheelock 27 April 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 27, 1949. Dear Mr. Wheelock = instant (how quick things Cory and I have read your letter of the 22nd are now!) with much pleasure, and smiled at the considerate way in which you write to me about procrastination as something about which you know YOU ought to be patient, instead of cursing me out frankly for a dawdling octogenarian. But I hope (we are in a hopeful mood today about the blockade of Berlin,1 and emotions spread in an irrational way from one thing to another) that your patience may be rewarded. I work slowly, but advance somewhat, and feel stimulated by what happens and what I read, so that the book is being enriched as well as brought nearer to a conclusion. The conclusion, by the way, is written, partly by introducing and supplementing an essay of 1934 about “Many Nations in One Empire” published then in a Review called The New Frontier, edited by a young man named Otis.2 Do you know anything about him? I have heard nothing since of him or his Review. My re-education continues, and I am sending to Blackwell’s for a copy of “Four Quartets” since Cory will take his away, to keep under his pillow, and for Prof. Bowra’s The Creative Experiment,3 reviewed in this

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week’s Times Literary Supplement,4 which seems to cover the whole aerea of synthetic obscurity, including Spain and Egypt and the Gipsies. May I trouble you to pass on the enclosed slip to your book-selling department? Lutoslawski [across] is an old wandering Pole who published a good book many years ago on the chronology of Plato’s Dialogues.5 He now writes to me, with Slavic civility, saying he cares nothing about my opinions by/ut is interested in my life and character, as the opposite of his own. GS. Please send a copy of my Persons and Places and The Middle Span to Prof. W. Lutoslawski, 10 SZWEDZKA, DYBNIKI–KRAKOW, Poland and charge them to my account. G Santayana

{

April, 27, 1949. 1 After World War II, the American, British, and French forces occupying Berlin ended up inside the Soviet-occupied zone of eastern Germany. Tensions between the former Allied powers increased until 24 June 1948, when the USSR started blocking road and rail access to Berlin, as well as cutting off electricity. The Western Allies airlifted food and supplies into West Berlin through September 1949, although the Soviets lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949. 2 New Frontier (Exeter, N.H.) 1 (1934): 6–10. Brooks Otis was chairman of the Humanities Division and the Department of Classics of both Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He was a member of the faculty from 1935 to 1957. Otis received his B.A. in 1929, M.A. in 1930, and Ph.D. in 1935 from Harvard. 3 Cecil Maurice Bowra (1898–1971) was educated at Oxford University and was associated with the university for most of his life. During 1948–49, however, he held the position of C. E. Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. He authored numerous books including The Creative Experiment (London: Macmillan, 1949). 4 “The Poetry of Life,” Times Literary Supplement (23 April 1949): 264. 5 Probably Wincenty Lutoslawski’s The Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic, with an Account of Plato’s Style and of the Chronology of His Writings (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897).

1948–1952

To Richard Colton Lyon 8 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 8, 1949 Dear Dick, No wonder that I blundered about your supposed “Nordic” descent because as you say the trouble is with one’s vocabulary. Genealogy also, especially pre-historic genealogy, is very unsafe being full of lies as well as of fables. What I should have said, with becoming English understatement, is that your descent can’t be largely traceable to the little Black Men or Pygmies. I have sent for a new History of England from the earlist pre1 = century, and perhaps I may learn from it how historic times to the 13th the Highland Clan of Lyon came to Britain with the Conqueror as/nd was originally from Southern France. Lyon is certainly in that direction, and the Normans eventually got to Sicily and Constantinople and Palestine, so why not to Southern France? If I get any light on this subject when the book comes, I will let you know. My notion could be sufficiently justified, mutatis verbis,2 by saying that you must be a Norman. On the philosophical side this could produce only a predisposition to subjectivity or idealism, not a system; and I didn’t mean to say that you did or would accept the German transcendental idealism on the whole or as Fichte or Hegel or Schelling3 understand it. You are too good a disciple of mine for that; and in this last letter of yours which touches on so many incongruous systems, you almost always end by adopting a benevolent satiric solution of my sort, reducing Subjectivism suavely to the Subjective “point of view” (all “points of view” are in the observer) and retaining the comfortable orthodox conviction that the whole phenom^ ^ enal world, as it appears, is “música celestial” in the human head. Your course in the philosophy of religion must be capital celestial brain-music of this kind. The trouble will be at the end, when all the tolerant and sympathetic appreciation of each religion will be in great danger of one of two disasters: either, a quick emotional proof that one of the religions is absolutely sound, if you don’t remember the others; or else a sweeping conclusion that the history of religion itself is the true religion to end religion. I leave it to you to suggest here, as if it were well known, that salvation lies in the fact that religion is poetry and poetry is truer, in a Pickwickian sense,4 than science: for in regard to matter it is non/t more

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symbolic or metaphorical, and in regard to moral allegiance it is superior to worldliness. My old friend and secretary, Daniel Cory, of whom I believe I spoke to you, is now in Rome and has been cramming me on the subject of modern concentrated poetry, especially T. S. Eliot; and I have reread, or read for the first (5 or 6) times all his poems except the plays. I think I have made progress, and if my great but yet unmet friend, Robert Lowell, (like you before you came to Rome) makes me a visit in the autumn, as I hope, I shall be better able to get a C in my examination. Pray for me when the time comes. There is a special patron for people passing examinations, Saint Expeditus , a young martyr. 5 ^ ^ . Don’t overwork: it’s like overeating. G.S. 1

An Introduction to the History of England, from the Earliest Times to 1204, by Douglas Jerrold (Collins: London, 1949). 2 By changing the word (Latin). 3 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), a German philosopher, was born in Stuttgart. He studied theology at Tübingen where he met as students the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Hegel is widely known as an Absolute Idealist who believed in the supremacy of reason. Hegel’s philosophy maintains the priority of a collective human spirit against the modern assumption of the priority of the individual subject. For Hegel, the subject matter of philosophy is the history of human experience, which is the history of human spirit coming to self-consciousness. This self-consciousness is achieved through the dialectical interaction of spirit and matter in history and results in the realization of universal rational order. The influence of Hegel’s philosophy has been extensive. It has also been quite various due to the varying interpretations his philosophy invites. His most famous works are The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), The Science of Logic (1812–16), and The Philosophy of Right (1821). Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854), a German philosopher, was born in Leonberg near Stuttgart and educated at Tübingen and Leipzig. Schelling, along with Hegel and Fichte, is one of the most influential thinkers in the tradition of German Idealism. His philosophic outlook changed often during his life reflecting the great intellectual ferment of the culture. His significance today has three aspects: his philosophy of nature, which provides an understanding of nature that does not restrict the significance of nature to what science discloses; his anti-Cartesian conception of the subject; and his critique of Hegelian Idealism, which influenced Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. His important works include Ideas Concerning a Philosophy of Nature (1797), System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), and Philosophical Investigations Concerning the Nature of Human Freedom (1809). 4 In the “Pickwickian sense” means that in “this instance” the words or epithets used do not hold the same force or implication that they would normally have. 5 Saint Expeditus is the patron saint of emergencies, solutions, and procrastination. Little is known about him and there is some speculation that it is only because of a copyist’s blunder that he is listed among the saints at all.

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To Ira Detrich Cardiff 13 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 13, 1949. Dear Mr. Cardiff Your inquiry of April 21st= has lain under a pile of other papers, and I am sorry to have forgotten, among “the forty thousand things” that caused Lao Tse1 to sigh, that it had not been acknowledged. The lines in question belong to the elegy on King’s College Chapel,2 and may be found on page 109 of my collected Poems published by Constable in 1922, and reissued by Scribner with their own title-page. It is reprinted in the Triton edition of my works also, vol. I. The lines must have been written in 1897, when I was for a year a member of King’s and lived for a part of that time, the “Long Vacation”, in rooms from which I had a view of the whole north side of the Chapel in violent perspective, which made it look like a cliff. I would often go in to hear the Vesper service, which in that summer season was little frequented, and of course with no sermon, so that the scene and the music could be digested in peace. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Lao Tse (b. c. 604 B.C.), a Chinese philosopher, is also known as Lao Tze or Lao Tzu. He is the legendary founder of Taoism, a religion based on the text bearing his name, which is called the Tao te ching. 2 The last stanza of the poem reads: “Unhappy King, look not upon these towers, / Remember not thine only work that grew. / The moving world that feeds thy gift devours, / And the same hand that finished overthrew.” (See also Complete Poems, 173.)

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 13 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 13, 1949 Dear Rosamond Many thanks for the two inhalers, old and new, that arrived yesterday in a neat parcel. I wonder, in writing, whether this will find you in your

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old home, or pursue you in your flight to pastures new. I was rather expecting a more definite announcement of the date of your marriage, which is to be this month. Perhaps, when you are away on your trip of six months, which suggests rather prolonged stops at various places of perhaps chiefly at one, you will have more leisure than in these last busy weeks to send me word of your whereabouts and plans. I wrote, as I think I have told you, to Chiquita, wondering whether Bob and she were included in “the boys” who are to keep your old house. I don’t feel quite at home in the way people have now of being employed out of their own families—I mean women—after they are married, and before, when they are not obliged to earn their living. But perhaps they are obliged to earn something if they want to live in the way they like. Yet this seems a contradictory state of things; because they can hardly be very free or gay or studious, if they have to be in an office at nine every morning for the best of the whole day, especially if they have no servant to look after the house and dinner. But I see the tendency that modern conditions encourage, and which I yielded to all my life in what people then thought a very selfish and unsocial fashion, always in hotels or rooms and restaurants. But it is of course the realization of socialism, which leaves the individual alone in the tight network of economic semi-public duties, with only a chance and variable set of comrades in business or pleasure. Is this tendency quite human? I have managed well enough on that plan, but only because I was fatally a Stranger, not only in any particular place but in the world at all; and I think normal people, living in the socialistic way, will take their revenge by multiplying their societies and, besides the big economic and political one, forming all sorts of clubs, teams, secret societies, and mystical religions, where they will enjoy segregation and distinction from the hoi polloi1 that envelop them. I seem to notice this already going on. The less home, family, and country signify for the imagination and the moulding of a man’s interests and affections, the more he is absorbed in sports and “ideologies”, parties, or religious societies, not for religious progress in the mind, but for a sort of social bond, like singing in a chorus or rowing in a boat. Everything is too much to care for: we need to take pride in something choice. I am now being re-educated, so as to join the Bacchic2 rout of contemporary wild poets—luckily I am too old to go into a frenzy myself but I want to be let into the Mysteries of the Cult. Best wishes from your affectionate uncle GSantayana

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1

Ordinary people (Greek). “Bacchic” refers to the Greek god Dionysus whose common cult name was Bakchos (the god was adopted by Romans as Bacchus) and whose followers are called bakchoi. His is the son of Zeus and Semele, and he was removed from the womb of his dying mother to be carried by his father, who birthed him from his own thigh. The rites of this god are often frenzied and violent. He is known foremost as the god of wine and intoxication, but also of madness and ecstasy, of impersonation and the fictional world of the theater, and of the realm of the dead and the afterlife. The essential nature of the god seems to lie in his transcendence of existential boundaries. 2

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 17 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 17, 1949. Dear Rosamond =, only nine Chiquita writes me that you are to be married on the 26th days ahead, and this wakes me up from a stupor into which I had fallen in consequence of not knowing what to do to celebrate the event. You know that I have two separate funds at my disposal, my earnings for my writings, and the family money, inheritance and savings, at the Bo —Old Colony Trust Company, which I don’t feel so much master of as the other, but which luckily has not the same way of being depleted at the wrong moment. Now, under the sense of having dawdled, I have suddenly decided to send you a wedding present from the Old Colony Trust Company, contrary to my usual custom, because this is a single occasion, and the gossips will not mumble anything if they get wind of it. Besides, my account at Scribner’s is getting low, as I have not published any book this year. I hope you may receive it in time; if not it will somehow accompany my best wishes for all the rest of your days. Yours affectionately GSantayana

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To Allison Delarue 24 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 24, 1949. Dear Mr. Delarue1 Your kind note and Eugene Berman’s2 designs make me think of Paris and the Russian Ballet of fifty years ago rather than of Italy where I live pleasantly but far from all artists and festive shows. They also make me think of an old friend who I understand has become a sort of patron empressario for ballets in New York, George de Cuevas.3 His wife is the daughter of Charles Strong, with whom I had my pied-â-terre4 in Paris for many years; and I took his place (he being at a sanatorium in Switzerland) at his — her daughter’s marriage. You see how modern the ^ ^ ^ ^ existence of an old recluse may become in this “age-of-troubles”. The Russian ballet was, of all modern novelties, the one that seemed to me to set the arts really on the highway again. But [illegible ]have they kept to it? Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Allison Delarue was a photographer, collector, and writer, who had an interest in ballet. 2 Eugene Berman (1899–1972) was an American artist and designer. 3 George Cuevas (1886–1961) later became the Marquis de Piedrablanca de Guana and was known for his work as a ballet impresario. He became an American citizen (1940) and founded the American Ballet International (1944). He bought the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo in Europe in 1947. Margaret Strong (1897–1985) was the only child of Elizabeth Rockefeller and C. A. Strong. She married Cuevas in August 1927. 4 Temporary lodging (French).

To John Hall Wheelock 26 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 26, 1949. Dear Mr. Wheelock I have spent this whole day—the feast of the Ascension,1 which is a crowded day for the Sisters, when my own routine is interrupted, especially this year when this vast establishment is being repainted from a

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dubious brick-colour to cream-white walls and bright-green blinds—in reading Miss Isabel Bolton’s The Christmas Tree.2 Cory, who is off next week to Florence and Siena, had carried off the book on T. S. Eliot, which arrived with the other book, and which I shall read attentively when he is gone. As to The Christmas Tree, I have read it with curiosity rather than pleasure, because novels do not interest me as plays, for their own living interest, but only for their documentary human or historical value. What kept me reading this book (beginning at the end, and skipping where I felt I had caught the drift of the argument, was the picture of New York, as a scenario and a social atmosphere, both now obviously very much changed from their character in my time 1890–1910. Not long ago I read in the Times Literary Supplement that American Novelists are now dipicting the Freudian3 themes that British novels/ists affected after the first general war. Abnormal eroticism does not seem to me a good theme for feminine treatment: they are not able to be frank and philosophic enough, but if they are shy (like Isabel Bolton) they are vague, and if they are sympathetic (as she is in spots) they are sentimental. Proust and Gide4 (not to go back to Petronius)5 are both definite and free, and unblushingly sympathic (Gide) or scrupulously scientific (Proust). I don’t think Isabel Bolton’s treatment worth the pains she takes with it: but I am glad to have read her book. Apart from the dramatic force of the final scene, which I suppose will prove a great success, it represents a degree of moral “emancipation” which astonishes me; can it be anything but an extreme and rare thing in America? I know that speech is freer now: but do manners show such a great licence? In addition to the copies of my Dialogues in Limbo which I asked you to send me recently (and which perhaps are now waiting for me to fetch them from the P. O, for I have received a notice of something there) I should be much obliged if you would have 2 copies of The Idea of Christ in the Gospels sent to me also. Somehow, the feeling that these volumes are obtainable makes me generous in letting yearning visitors carry them away, and I never seem to have a copy of my own when I want to look up something. My memory is so treacherous that I am not sure that I have not got the above titles mixed, and that it was the Idea of Christ that I had asked for, and the Dialogues that I need to add now. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 This is a celebration of Christ’s ascension into heaven occurring forty days after Easter Sunday. 2 The Christmas Tree (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949). 3 Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian psychiatrist and the originator of psychoanalysis. Santayana’s library included Freud’s Die Traumdeutung ([The interpretation of dreams] Leipzig: Franz Deuticke, 4th edition, 1914). 4 Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was a French novelist. His complicated style seeks by total recall to recapture the minutest psychological and sensory detail; his work recreates a past society with the illusion of complete objectiveness. He wrote À la recherche du temps perdues (16 vols., 1913–27; translated as Remembrance of Things Past, 1922–32). André Gide (1869–1951), a French writer and editor, reacted passionately against the prohibitions of revealed religion. His works address the problem of reconciling personal freedom and responsibility. Gide is as well known for his influence as a moralist and a thinker as for his contributions to literature. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in literature. 5 Petronius (d. c. 66 A.D.), a Roman satirist, served as proconsul and later consul of Bithynia and is credited with writing Petronii arbitri satyricon.

To Lawrence Smith Butler 29 May 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 29, 1949. Dear Lawrence I am delighted to know that you are well and are coming in July! All my life I had assumed that only “four cats”, as the Italians say, could remain in Rome during the summer, and I would go to Cortina or to Switzerland, like any tripper; but now, since I came to this house, I have spent seven whole summers without moving, and found them very tolerable—in fact, better than the winters when, during the war, we had no central heating and often not enough light. However, I live in pyjamas and seldom go out, so that it is easy for me to keep cool and to profit by the comparative quiet, as far as curious strangers are concerned who come to have their copies of The Last Puritan, or of Persons & Places autographed by the author. It may be different for you who naturally will want to go about; and it is very hot in the sun until the evening, when both temperature and landscape are perfect. If you and your friend find the heat in Rome oppressive, I can recommend a really cool place within easy driving distance if you have a motor: there is a train, but it is likely to be slow and crowded. It is Fiuggi in the Appennines, at 700 metres, where there is a good hotel, Palazzo della Fonte, on the top of a hill—there are wooded

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hills all round, and excellent air; but I found little to tempt me in the way = as of walks. From there you could come back to Rome after August 15th the Italians do, in the belief that the “canicula” heat is over: and certainly the sun is not so high or so broiling, but there is not much difference in the temperature until October. I don’t know whether you have been much in Italy before, or at all, and whether you are a sightseer or would prefer a fashionable watering place, gaier than Fiuggi, like the Venecian Lido. I used to stay in Venice for some weeks both in early and in late summer; but of course stayed in the town, where there was often music in the Piazza San Marco in the evening, and I dined regularly in one of the restaurants in that square. I shall be grateful for a chance to see you at any season, and am sorry that my gadding days are over, else I would urge you to come to Venice and Cortina with me. Here I am deep in work; but the afternoon is always free, and on some days we might drive when the sun begins to go down, and the light is at its best, for a sight of the City and the Villa Borghese and the Giardino del Lago, where we can get an ice or a cocktail! You probably have been advised about hotels in Rome, but there is time still to give you a hint if you want one and tell me what sort of atmosphere or situation you prefer. When the Bristol, where I lived for years was pulled down, I spent one winter at the Grand: it is good and more diplomatic and European than the Excelsior. The Hassler and the Hôtel de la Ville are in the best situation, and the first, just rebuilt, the most select. Yours affectionately, G. Santayana

To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk 4 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 4, 1949 Dear Onderdonk1 It seems to me only the other day that I received and answered your last letter; surely it must have been this year, and a year at our age is little more than a wink. Anyhow, there is nothing new to report. I do the same thing every day, and see people who seem to me replicas of the same pattern, produced in series. My book—Dominations & Powers—will

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be old and worm-eaten before it is brought to light. I make some progress, working every morning, except in case of force majeure,2 but gaps seem to open in one place as soon as they are filled in another, and I despair of ever coming to an end—except my own. Sometimes, I am set up and encouraged by my “distinguished” visitors. A man named Max Eastman,3 who said he had received “delightful” letters from me, has been here twice; and the second time, with two other people in my tiny room, I rambled into talking about translations of poetry, and how I wrestle at night with some lines of Tibullus4 that I have learned by heart in the wish to translate them, and when I recited the first line, in the original and in my version there was spontaneous approval from all three listeners, and one cried “That is epic!” Such are the rewards of tilling the sands. I now hope to finish my translation! Yours sincerely G.S. 1

Santayana’s friendship with Andrew Joseph Onderdonk (Harvard, 1910) began when the latter was an undergraduate. Onderdonk graduated from the law school in 1913 and became a Wall Street lawyer and an expert in international law. Santayana previously had named Onderdonk as his literary executor, but in 1928 he named Daniel Cory. 2 Absolute necessity (French). 3 Max Forrester Eastman (1883–1969), born in New York, was educated at Williams College and Columbia University where he studied philosophy with John Dewey. Initially occupied with aesthetics, he later turned to political and social issues. He was an active in leftist politics and took over the editorship of the left literary journal The Masses (1913–17). The journal ran afoul of the government for its opposition to World War I. He helped found the journal The Liberator (1918–23). In the 1940s he became an anti-Communist and supporter of Senator Joe McCarthy. By the time of his death he was known as a political moderate. He authored many books and translated works of Trotsky. He wrote Since Lenin Died (1925) and Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution (1926), both of which warned of the threat posed by Joseph Stalin and the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union. Other books include Enjoyment of Poetry (1913), Enjoyment of Living (1948), Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955), and the autobiographical Love and Revolution (1965). 4 See letter to Lowell of 1 March 1948.

1948–1952

To Robert Stuart Fitzgerald 5 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Fitzgerald)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. June 5, 1949. Dear Mr. Fitzgerald On Palm Sunday Lowell wrote me a short note in telegraphic style, saying: “I can’t at this moment tell you . . . . . how I’ve been having rather tremendous experiences … I’m in sort of the same kind of place you are.” (sic)1 This gave me the idea of some confusion, but I thought of a loveaffair or a flight to the seashore for solitude, not at all of any public or moral crisis. Your absorbing letter—so very clear and fair in every way— has given me facts, of which I had heard nothing. I think I see the groundswell of public opinion, at least among the intellectual proletariat, rising now into sympathy with communism and then into a sacred horror of it, and lifting or sinking the “innocent” individual who thinks himself an independent — thin— ker spirit and a “creative” centre of life. The howl raised by the “alumni” of Yaddo shows that the place was formerly recruited by uncivilised people, and the alarm of the spy-hunting police shows that ^ ^ when people become professionals they must, if at a loss, invent occasions for exercising it. This has become an age of intolerance and terror all round and these are things that impose themselves on those who attempt to suppress them. As you say, people do not admit “the massive unregeneracy of mankind—its sheer preoccupation”. Lowell had written to me earlier about his presence at the “Cultural” congress of literary lights,2 and seemed to have been pleased with it. I had no hint of any change in his own mind, much less of this revulsion against the world in the midst of warring impulses to reform it and to defend himself against it. I am going to write to him, at least to express my concern at what he has had to suffer and my profound sympathy with the call he feels to another order of values. He must have felt it before, when he was first converted;3 but neither in his poems nor in his letters have I found any clear expression of the motives that guided him then. I was only attracted by the wonder that a Boston Lowell should have become a Catholic at all: it proved so clear, so radical, a sense both of the inadequacy of Boston and of the sphere in which adequacy might be looked for. And I was hoping that, if I could persuade him to come to see me, we might spontaneously

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compare our sentiments on this subject. I feel the revolt of spirit against facts; but I doubt whether any different facts, if they were equally temporal and particular, could be more acceptable. What the Church announces seems to me only in fact liberation, not substitution of facts for facts. I fear that our friend may not have come to the end of his troubles. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

After an altercation at Yaddo involving allegations of communist infiltration, Lowell suffered a nervous breakdown and entered Baldpate, Inc., a psychiatric hospital in Georgetown, Massachusetts. Santayana describes Baldpate as “an asylum or nursing home” in a letter to Cory (11 June 1949). 2 This is most likely a reference to the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, 25–27 March 1949, a gathering of prominent literary and artistic figures opposed to American militarism. The conference was widely rumored to have been organized by Stalin, and so was disrupted by anti-Stalinist leftists led by Sidney Hook. Lowell was observed at the conference objecting to an insult directed at Hook (Commentary Magazine, May 1949); years later, both Lowell and Hook were named as collaborators in an anticommunist group called the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-sponsored attempt to organize leftist intellectuals against communism (Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, London: Granta Books, 1999). 3 Lowell’s conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1940 was relinquished by him in 1950.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 5 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 5, 1949 Dear Lowell Your friend Fitzgerald has sent me a long account of your experiences during the last months, of which you had given me a vague hint, which I had misinterpreted. You smelt a rat at Yaddo: the anti-spy police also did; and your zeal for the beauty of the Lord’s house, dedicated to the nurture of artists, carried you and some of your companions there to denounce to the Directors of the Institution what seemed to have been an abuse ^ ^ of confidence and trust. I gather that Communism had been the fashionable thing to sympathize with among liberal intellectuals; but now the official mot d’ordre1 is reversed, and Communism must be hunted down. The old emancipated Spirits, however, dislike this change; and your effort for reform was resisted on the ground that it was a fantastic denunciation of a mare’s nest.2 All that was unfortunate; and you were not only

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attacked unfairly by the chronic enemies of discipline but by some of your old friends. Here there comes a change of key that Fitzgerald seems to explain by your fresh perception of human and public corruption. Your feelings turned again towards the Church, as to the only safe guide and just authority. This is the only point in Fitzgerald’s letter that does not seem to me adequately presented. Those intrigues about Yaddo were surely too trivial, after all that the war and the peace have shown us of human folly, to make you suddenly despair of the world. I may be wrong; because as I never at any age imagined that the world was rational or decent, fresh scandals seem to me a matter of faits divers3 such as one expects to find in the papers. You, a Lowell, a Bostonian, a descendent of Jonathan Edwards,4 have a strong conscience that cannot endure the thought of acquiescing in evil by letting it alone. Your morality must be militant, even when it cannot be victorious or when the victory won here would breed a greater evil there. I quite understand that, and try to do justice to it in the book I am at work on, where “The Militant Order of Society” is one of the chief divisions. And I know that what is imposed by force or authority for a season, say in education or training, may grow into the flesh, possibly (indirectly) even into the heritage of the race, so that the practice of that kind of virtue will become a part of the “Generative Order of Society” instead of a part of the “Militant Order”. In other words what was tyranny may become free virtue. But now, this way of passing from forced and painful virtue to natural goodness is the way of evolution, summed up by Bergson at the end of his Deux Sources5 by announced that men are destined to become gods. But this, for a Christian, is blasphemy. Supernatural grace may sanctify natural powers when they are exercised expressly for supernatural ends, like St. Paul “eating and drinking for the glory of God.” 6 But human nature can never become divine; it may be at best, as in Christ, humbly obedient to divine control, always against the natural will, as in Christ praying in the garden. And the moral preference for effort over joyful conformity and for progress over perfection is characteristic of liberal Protestants and modern Jews, and utterly un-Catholic. I think, therefore, that your quarrel with the Spirit that seemed to prevail at Yaddo, and strong proposals for reforming it, or even your disgust at seeing friends misunderstanding your motives, could have been only incidental occasions for reviving your faith in the Church. I have often wondered what your line of approach to that faith could have been originally. I saw, and dipped into, a book by the young

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Dulles,7 whom you must know, in which his approach was described in a very interesting and normal way—just the way, we might say, that philosophy took in becoming Catholic, through the moralism of Socrates and the conceptualism of Plato and Aristotle, against the Naturalism of the older Greeks and even of the Stoics and Epicureans.8 Now that, I should guess, could not have been your path, because you would not have noticed my philosophy, or taken any interest in my criticism, if you had already left my point of view behind in your development. More probably you felt it as an escape from the moralism of your own background. Some day I hope we may be able to talk this over at leisure. Now what I should like to do is to assure you that in any case my intense interest in your mind and in your welfare will be unchanged. I am not a believer in anything, science, religion, or common sense, except in the measure and in the sense in which existence compels me to believe: and even then my trust is provisional and qualified: I can’t help assuming, and so believing, that the sun will rise tomorrow, but it is not certain, not even unlikely that it may not rise tomorrow for me; and even if it does, the image of the sun and the categories by which astronomy conceives it and its properties are all merely human impressions received from that source, determined in their quality by the spontaneous reaction of my organs, and only in their occasions by the Sun itself. All knowledge, even the most immediate and physical is poetical, a child of the psyche, and not a reproduction of its object but only a human name for it, a word. So I am full of respect and admiration for the wisdom of poets and confident that they see further than merely learned men; only it seems to me to spoil and to materialize their faith to regard it as revealing facts of the same kind, and continuing time and space into unexplored regions. It should be rather a transference of all temporal events into eternity, with liberation, on the soul’s part, from anxiety about them.—Let me know how you are and what your plans are and if there is anything that I can do for you. Do you know Bowra’s “The Creative Experiment”? There are good critiques in it of Eliot, and some poets of other nationalities. Shall I send it to you? G. S. 1

Watchword or keynote (French). “To find a mare’s nest” is to make what one supposes to be a great discovery but which proves to be no discovery at all. 3 News items (French). 4 Jonathan Edwards (1703–58), an American theologian and philosopher, was educated at Yale University, and preached in New York City and Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards was a leader in the religious revival known as the Great 2

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Awakening. He became the third president of Princeton University in 1757, but died shortly after he was inaugurated. Philosophical influences include Continental rationalists such as Malebranche, Cambridge Platonists, and John Locke. Edwards believed that what are called causal relations are actually constant connections, such that true causes necessitate their effects. God is the only true cause and, as it turns out, the only true substance: Edwards characterizes God as “being in general”. Edwards argues for Calvinistic views of sin and grace in his works Freedom of the Will (1754) and Original Sin (1758). In these works Edwards defends determinism, compatibilism, and occasionalism, and discusses the notion of identity. Other important works include A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746) and On the Nature of True Virtue (1765). 5 Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion (The Two Sources of Morality and Religion ; Paris: F. Alcan, 1932). 6 “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). 7 This is probably Avery Robert Dulles (b. 1918; A.B., Harvard, 1940), a Jesuit theologian and son of the statesman John Foster Dulles (1888–1959). In 1947 Avery Dulles published A Testimonial to Grace (New York: Sheed and Ward), the story of his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Dulles eventually was ordained a priest, taught theology at several universities, and was appointed a cardinal in 2001. 8 By “the older Greeks,” Santayana means the pre-Socratics, those philosophers living up through the time of Socrates who were not influenced by him. Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus (341–271 B.C.), was characterized by disdain for (rather than opposition to) political society, devotion to philosophical discussion, and a cult of friendship.

To Brooks Otis 6 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

6, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome, June 6, 1949. Dear Mr. Otis, You may remember than/ t in the days when you edited “The New Frontier” you published a long article of mine entitled “Many Nations in One Empire”. Once or twice during these years, I have thought of republishing that article, or parts of it, on which events have cast a new light, but I was never able to discover your address to consult you on the subject, and the article, to my knowledge, has never reappeared. Now I am at work on a general philosophy of government to be called “Dominations and Powers” in which I should like, at the end, to include the principal parts of that article, to be followed by another short chapter treating on the relation of the United States to that problem. I mentioned the fact that I had lost track of you to Mr. Wheelock, of Scribner’s, and he very kindly has made inquiries, and found that you are now a professor

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at Hobart College. It is with pleasure that I profit by this information to send you my greetings, as the spirit in which you managed “The New Frontier” has left me with the desire to know what you have done since and how far events have corresponded at all with your views. I suppose it is hardly necessary now to have your permission to use that article, but perhaps it may interest you to know of my plan. Yours sincerely G. Santayana

To Peter Russell 6 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Virginia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 6, 1949 Dear Mr. Russell Your letter and Hulme’s “Speculations”1 have arrived together and I am much obliged to you for both. A philosopher new to me who appears under the auspices of [illegible ]Epstein2 and Bergson would not have ordinarily attracted me; but in this case the bust of the author by Epstein reproduced on the frontispiece reconciles me to Epstein and the definition of Bergson’s position given on p. 177 (that he insists on the fact that all “pictures of reality” or so-called “laws of nature” are products of the human psyche and not factors in the constitution of the world at large) reconciles me, not to Bergson, but to Hulme’s version of him. And I have seen elsewhere, in dipping into the book, that the style is clear and precise, and more sceptical than romantic. I expect to like Hulme very much on further acquaintance. As to my translation from Tibullus, it is not yet complete, although your encouragement may end by helping me to surmount the obstacles which have arrested me for so long If it is ever finished, I see no reason why it should not appear in your new Review, and the same is true of short chapters from Dominations and Powers, there or in The World Review.3 But I relegate making any arrangements of that kind to my old secretary, Mr. Daniel M. Cory, whose permanent address is C/o Brown Shipley & Co 123, Pall Mall, S.W.1,4 to whom I send copies of anything that seems fit for immediate publication. (The proceeds are his perquisite.). Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883–1917) wrote Speculations: Essays on Humanism and the Philosophy of Art, edited by Herbert Read, with a Foreword by Jacob Epstein (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., Inc., 1924). Hulme was the key figure in starting the “imagist” movement in English poetry, which was later attributed mostly to Ezra Pound. 2 Jacob Epstein (1880–1959) was a sculptor whose best works were portraiture. Born in New York, he became an English citizen in 1907. Remembered for his controversial academic sculptures, he later turned to abstract works. His Rock Drill (1913) is important, though his fame rests in the portraits of the famous. He was knighted in 1954. 3 Formerly The Review of Reviews (established 1890) and World Review of Reviews, this London periodical was named World Review from March 1949 until its last issue of April/May 1953. 4 Brown Shipley and Company was Santayana’s London bank, which he used as a permanent address.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 9 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

June 9, 1949 Why take any notice of a little joke of this kind?1 I hope you won’t do so. GS. 1 This reference is to a quotation from Rollo Walter Brown’s Harvard Yard in the Golden Age (New York: A. A. Wynn, 1948): “George Santayana: the Yard’s spoiled bright boy” who “found bad taste in almost everyone.” The passage was quoted in a newspaper review by Irving Dilliard, who was then an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 11 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

June 11, 1949 Dear Cory I am very glad you are again in love with Florence and have also liked your trip to Siena. Almost together with your letter came Laughter in the Next Room,1 the most civilized book, to open at least, that I have ever seen. I have given up the whole afternoon till now to look at the illustrations. The portrait of the author, a photograph, in a grey topper and a very high turn up collar and puffed tie is the most perfect image of a London Swell, and satisfies all my Platonic thirst for perfection. There is another, however, of him in his study, grown fat and puffy, but surrounded by an

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enviable abundance of folios, one of which he is taking notes from through his goggles. There are also two amusing caricatures of him and his brother by Max Beerbohn,2 and lovely glimpses of other high class vistas and interiors. This, with what may be expected of the text will give me more pleasure now than could a return to Florence and Siena. Your idea of coming to Rome for the winter months suits me very well. The financial question can be arranged easily: but I am glad to know of your plan beforehand because I may possibly have a visit from Robert Lowell, whom I have invited, but who now is plunged into a sea of troubles, physical, mental, and perhaps financial. He is in retirement in the place called Baldpate, Inc. at Georgetown, Mass, an asylum or nursing home, having collapsed after an unsuccessful crusade against the old lady who kept “Yaddo”,3 on the suspicion (shared by the Government detectives) that she neglected artists and poets and harboured Communist agents. All the radicals, pro-communists, some of them his old friends, attacked him publicly, and caused the Trustees of Yaddo to dismiss the charges against the management. This rebuff, for so high-spirited and violent a young man as Lowell caused a brain-storm; with the incidental effect of converting him again to the Catholic Church; but apparently too late to console him, since the report I have from his friend Fitzgerald (who had been here some time ago) says he “broke down” and is “in retirement”. This was, however, previous to the telegraphic note from Lowell that I showed you, which at least was not insane, though evidently excited. I have written at length to both Lowell and Fitzgerald and hope to have further news soon. This is a tragedy in which I might be of some use, as I am equally appealed to by the conversion of a man like Lowell to the Church and by his subsequent perception that there are flies in that ointment. If he is inclined to come to Rome, and in a state to look after himself morally, I will encourage him to come and help him if he needs money (he has something of his own) but I can do it in America before he starts, so that my bank account here need not be depleted.—I should be glad if you were here to look over some parts of Dom. & P’rs and advise me about omissions, etc. G.S. 1

The fourth volume of Osbert Sitwell’s autobiography was published by Little, Brown in Boston (1948) and by Macmillan in London (1949). This was undoubtedly the British edition, since the American edition was not illustrated. 2 Sir Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) was an English satirist and caricaturist, and a drama critic at the Saturday Review. Osbert’s brother was Sir Sacheverell Sitwell (1897–1988), an English poet and writer on art and travel. 3 Unidentified.

1948–1952

To John Hall Wheelock 21 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6 Rome. June 21. 1949 Dear Mr. Wheelock Disappointment does not seem to discourage my unfortunate friend Prof Petrone from asking for more blessings, and yesterday after making me an interminable visit, he left the enclosed little list of books that he wishes you to send him.1 He had the Triton Edition but it was smashed during the war, and he has been disappointed at not receiving a fresh set, and wants to make his collection good, as far as possible, by sweeping up the separate editions. I might have been tempted to expostulate, if I hadn’t considered, and warned him, that many of these books may be out of print, and those published by Constable not easily procurable even if available in England. May I then, trouble you to have such of these books sent to him as may be at hand? Of course, to be charged to me I am busy tying up the loose ends in various parts of my big book: there is still a great deal to do, but I am not discouraged because I feel well and flatter myself that, although slowly, I succeed in putting the argument into better shape. I have availed myself of the information you were kind enough to get for me about Otis the old editor — the who published my article on Many Nations in One Empire, and have written to him telling him that I mean to use it, cut in two, in my book. I wonder if he has become a Communist? I receive various invitations to make war for peace and to help found The Science of Peace with its Mecca at Vienna. From Pasadena I got a letter today in praise of Togliatti!2 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Santayana enclosed a handwritten note from Petrone which read: Opere che mi mancano: The last Puritan The Genteel Tradition at Bay Platonism and the Spiritual Life. Poems Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies Character and Opinion in the United States. The Sense of Beauty Interpretations of Poetry and Religion The Hermit of Carmel and other Poems

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Winds of Doctrine The Life of Reason - Vol. II, III, IV, V. Little Essays Drawn from the Works of G.S. by Logan Pearsall Smith. The philosophy of Berkeley da spedire a Michele Petrone Hotel La Résidence Geneva (Switzerland) 2 Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964), a founder of the Italian Communist Party, succeeded in building it up after World War II into the largest party in Italy, primarily by supporting liberal democratic compromises. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Turin.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 26 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome June 26, 1949. Dear Cory My enthusiasm at seeing “Laughter in the Next Room” has been sadly chilled on reading it. Only once or twice did I really laugh aloud, and the wittiest bits are the letters from Henry Moat, the butler; the folly of the old man, the author’s father, is comic but monotonous, and there is mixed with it a certain discomfort at the deceptions practiced by his sons upon him. Then, as the author becomes a man, the limitations of his sympathies, and his opinionated temper, contemptuous systematically except regarding the most modern artists and poets, become tiresome. As I read on, I began to lose my respect for him as a character and a mind; he has not really the independent genius and insight that he thinks he has. This appears even in his style when he turns from describing beautiful gardens and ridiculous people, to a long solemn account of the aesthetic musical farce that he and his sister1 with a musical genius in his teens gave their whole heart and soul to producing for months and months. For children it would be intelligible, but from superior persons of thirty you expect more sense. And so in another long chapter about the “General Strike”, not told so as to be dramatic, but only to describe how agitated he was buzzing about Lord and Lady Winbourne2 to inspire them to do something about it. In this chapter he is no longer an aesthete but writes and thinks like a newspaper correspondent. In the last chapter, about his

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father’s last days, in Italy, with the butler’s letters, he becomes interesting again, and the closing long soliloquy representing his father’s (imagined) last thoughts is capital tragi-comedy. Perhaps the most important point about this book is Sitwell’s own complete sense of defeat, enlarged to cover the state of the world in general but so hopeless and extreme that I think it must rest mainly on his own sense of futility, in the midst of his literary success. He ought to become a communist (he has many of the requisite blind spots) and then he could at least feel that he was being carried gloriously on the top of a great wave, as he feels or felt about modern painting when that was his mania. The proofs of the Italian translation of The Idea of Christ in the Gospels have been sent to me with a request for suggestions if I find any thing not satisfactory. There are a few slight misunderstandings, and I have been reading it for two days. I hate to be interrupted in this way, and also by visitors. Prof. Petrone was here for hours the other day: but I can’t help it. From Lowell I have had no further news. How about those chapters you sent to Weeks? G.S. 1 Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) was an English poet and prose writer known for the brilliant, experimental patterns of sound and imagery in her poems. The production was Façade, an experimental poetry recital accompanied by music. At its first London performance in 1922, Façade received a derisive response from critics and audiences, but later it was acclaimed as a landmark work of modern poetry. 2 Lord Ivor [Guest] Wimborne and Lady Alice [Grosvenor] Wimborne held informal talks at Wimborne House in South Wales in an effort to help resolve the General Strike of 1926, which was precipitated by the British government’s suspension of subsidies to coal mining companies.

To Augusto Guzzo 29 June 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, June 29, 1949 Dear Professor Guzzo, Some days before your letter I had received the proofs of your admirable translation, and had read a great part of it for pleasure, without especially looking for printer’s errors, or for correspondence with the original words: in fact, I could not do this, because I find myself without

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a copy of Scribner’s edition, having given away to some casual visitor the last one I had and not yet received the fresh one I asked for from New York. I suppose I have a manuscript or typed copy somewhere; but my papers are so crowded and in such disorder that I should never find it. Luckily it is not necessary. There are very few passages where your version was at all different from what I knew I had meant to say, and then I could recall easily what my text was. Only in one place, at the top of p. 284, I can’t remember just what I meant to say. Marcus Aurelius,1 as intelligence, sees the vanity of things and of his own efforts: but what does it mean that he “copre” 2 his own transcendental intellect in seeing all that? Did I try to say that he retreated to the absolute point of view, yet found there no comfort for his empirical trials? Of course, it could be only a refuge: yet that refuge was where a Stoic tried to live—against nature! Your version, and that of Signora Guzzo as well, throws new light for me on my own ideas: I found some passages strangely moving, as I had not imagined that they were. You have been wonderfully sympathetic and faithful to my sentiment, which most readers will not think I had any right to indulge in, from my sceptical point of view. But I am willing that they should not be sceptics, if they find scepticism incompatible with understanding spiritual harmonies. I don’t find it incompatible: on the contrary, I find it a support for appreciating natural harmonies as well. You don’t know how much your appreciation of this lame duck of mine encourages me in reviewing the work of my life. It makes me hope that at least in the end, after so much rambling, I may have got somewhere. And my Dominations and Powers is also well advanced and more interesting to me than ever, since events help to make those questions alive. I have marked such few printer’s errors as I noticed, in spite of your saying that you had corrected them, because I know how easily the mind, prepared for sense, overlooks details that, if noticed, would turn it into nonsense. With immense thanks for your friendly labours, from GSantayana 1

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121–180 A.D.), born Marcus Annius Verus, was a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. He was the author of Meditations, a work in Greek which set forth practical moral precepts of the philosophy of Stoicism. 2 From the Italian coprire, meaning to cover or to hide.

1948–1952

To Lawrence Smith Butler 10 July 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 10, 1949 Dear Lawrence I should have written yesterday to be sure to welcome you to these shores but I couldn’t find your letter in the mess of my papers, and this morning, in despair, I am trusting my memory and writing to the Hotel Continental, on the chance of being right. If not, I await word from you as to your arrival in Rome. I am afraid the hottest weather has set in and that you will find Capri and Pompei oppressive under the midday sun. I think I made a mistake in the name of the new “select” hotel which you said you would come to here. It is properly the Hôtel Hassler-Roma, Trinità dei Monti. It is at the top of a/the grand stairs leading up from the Piazza di Spagna to the level of the Pincio Gardens, and central enough without being in the midst of crowded streets. Au revoir, G.S.

To Richard Colton Lyon 11 July 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 11, 1949 Dear Dick Your letter on getting out of “school” (I thought it was a “college”) and having a glimpse of fashionable society, and settling down to broadcasting would make me sorry for you if it were not all just the thing to keep you fit and not feeling too much alone with the problem of your own “existence”. I have — hato make an effort to understand “Existentialists”, at least Kiere/kegaard himself, with their Angst as if it were unnatural to exist, to have bones in your body, eyes in your head, and accidental occasions for knocking about in the world. It is all natural, stale, and a matter of course, and not anything to be “anxious” about. But if I had even been half as much caught up in circumstances, tasks, commitments, and plans as you are, I should have been made sick by it all, and seceded somehow

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from human society. But I was driven with very loose reins, and very much in the directions in which I should have wandered if wholly free; only I should have wandered much further afield. And that is what I wish it could become possible for you to do, because your present outlook, though full and varied and healthy enough, is, or would be for me) too pragmatic. It doesn’t leave you enough “Lebensraum”1 beyond “life”. But you mention one thing that I am delighted to hear: that you are going to learn French thoroughly. That will not be at all unprofitable for your philosopher: because although there are not many great French philosophers, they all write good French; and why? Because they know how to see and to judge the world. They are not so good in the heights and the depths, because these can’t be written about in good French, and they ^ ^ don’t talk inflated nonsense about those super- or infra-human things, because the French language will not permit it. Yet they do manage to say quite clearly what is intelligible about the greatest subjects, for instance, Descartes about “spirit”, and Pascal about “existence” and its irrationality.2 There is a whole class of clever French sophists, who reason well without first principles, Montaigne, Rousseau,3 Voltaire, etc; but what is far superior in true understanding in human affairs is the wit and sentiment of French poets like Lafontaine, Racine,4 Molière, and (in his short comedies) Alfred de Musset.5 Let me know (if I am still alive) when you begin to enjoy reading French, and I will send you these old standbye’s, or such as I can get hold of, to encourage you to think and feel without Angst, but with good humour and just feeling. And I forgot Leibniz, whom you ought to read some day, and who wrote in French, though not a Frenchman, and his philosophy is technically first rate, but absurd, because like Pascal, he was too good a mathematician to be a man of the world. Descartes, also a good mathematician, saved himself by stopping always at the edge of the precipice. I think, nevertheless, that he was artificial in speculation in the hope of being exact: a false ambition in that sphere. I am working harder than usual myself because I feel that my book (Dom. & P’rs.) is getting into shape at last and that I may be able to finish it. My work is mainly revising, which I do on the principles of a wise Frenchman, derided as a fool: “Ajoutez quelque fois et souvent effacez.6 Add sometimes and often rub out. With best wishes for the rest of the season from GSantayana

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1 Living space (German). Lebensraum often connotes psychological or spiritual liberty, rather than physical space. 2 Blaise Pascal (1623–62) was a French scientist and religious philosopher. His religious writings, primarily collected in the Pensées (1670), are mystical and pure in literary style. In the Pensées, Pascal showed the futility of trying to explain existence using human reason, including mathematics, science, or philosophy. 3 Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–92) was a French moralist and sceptical philosopher, generally credited as the creator of the personal essay. He studied himself in order to describe human nature in Essais (c. 1580), his most important work. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) was a Swiss-born French philosopher and political theorist. His closeness to nature, sensitivity, individualism, rebellion against established social and political order, imagination, and glorification of emotions made him known as the father of French Romanticism. His works include Dissertation sur la musique moderne (1743), Du contrat social, ou principes du droit politique (1762), and Émile, ou de l’éducation (1762). 4 Jean de la Fontaine (1621–95), a French writer of comedies, lyrics, elegies, ballads, and licentious tales, is best known for his collections of fables. Santayana’s library includes a 1948 edition of La Fontaine’s book Fables; Contes et nouvelles (Paris: Gallimard). Jean Racine (1639–99), a French dramatist, based many of his tragedies on the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. His works include Alexandre le Grand (1666), Phèdre et Hippolyte (1677), and Cantiques spirituels (1694). 5 Alfred de Musset (1810–57), the French Romantic poet and dramatist, had been a favorite of young Santayana. Santayana translated de Musset’s poems “Souvenir” and “The May Night” (Complete Poems, 198 and 205). 6 This line is from L’Art poétique (1674) by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711), a French literary critic and poet. In The Art of Poetry, Boileau, a friend of La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière, set down the principles of Classical French literary style in verse. Broadly influential in several countries during the Classical period, he was later reviled by Romantic authors.

To George Grady 25 July 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 25, 1949. Dear Mr. Grady1 It is not worth while that I should make any comments on your poetical technique because it baffles me entirely; and your reference to Greek and Latin prosody being not a matter of ictus, like that of modern European languages (not exclusively ictus, of course, since alliteration, and euphony of all sorts count also) does not seem relevant, since the great foundation of all dance-music is rhymth, and that exists and dominates the tonic accent in Greek and Latin, as it does in the modern Romance languages too. But I find little or no consecutive rhythm in the new poetry. That single phrases or periods, as in prose, often have an

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impressive rhythm, does not turn them into poetry. Prose may be poetical in sentiment: but that is another matter. As to my position in regard to Catholic dogma, it has not changed in the least since in 1900 I published Interpretations of Poetry & Religion. The — first last sentence of the firt paragraph of the Preface reads as fol^ ^ lows: “Poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life and religion, when it merely supervenes upon life, is seen to be nothing but poetry.” 2 The people who have talked with you about my acceptance of the idea of Christ as a model for the ideal presence of God in Man, evidently have not read a work of my book on that subject. I would gladly send you a copy if I thought it could help you in your apparent perplexities: but you say something that keeps me from doing so. You believe in forming a religion to suit America; a dogmatic naturalism, with miracles interspersed, and a supernatural, but temporal and spatial, world above and beneath it, seems to you out of date. It could not be out of date if it were true, as the Church maintains, and it must always have been out of date for a clearsighted philosopher, if it were — true false. Your proposed American philosophy will apparently not be concerned with truth at all, but only with popular appeal, for the time being: because even America, especially America, will not be slow in transforming its ways of feeling. An ethos (for isn’t that all that your American “religion” would be?) would be an interesting thing to formulate: but it ought to have been formed first spontaneously in the people. Now, is there or is there likely soon to be a uniform ethos in the American people? My impression—not worth much, since I have not felt the American pulse anywhere but in Boston and Harvard, and that not for these 37 years—my impression is rather that the unison of American life is external only; and that those for when a spiritual allegiance seems necessary are profoundly different and mutually opposed in their judgment. Some Americans might always be ready to be good Catholics. But how long would the great majority follow, for instance, the lead of John Dewey? Therefore the choice of a person like Lowell, though it is not my choice, seems to me to cut much deeper than any “religion” without historical and cosmological dogmas; that is, without any allegiance to a supposed truth. I myself am a naturalist: i.e. I believe in commonsense and natural science as the normal and nearest possible human approach to the truth. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified.

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2 The last sentence of the first paragraph of Santayana’s “Preface” reads: “Poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life, and religion, when it merely supervenes upon life, is seen to be nothing but poetry.” (Interpretations of Poetry and Religion [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900], page v.)

To Lawrence Smith Butler 28 July 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 28, 1949. Dear Lawrence Your account of Garden City has given me a lot of information on points of interest in regard to your family which I had got more or less wrong, basing my fancy on stray remarks dropped by you or your Mother in the old days. I still don’t quite understand where, in your family, tree, the Stewarts stop and the Smiths begin and leave off again. But a more interesting matter is the Cathedral. I thought you had built it and were the architect; and it was on that account that I called it a “toy” cathedral,1 supposing that it was rather an ornament in a park than actually the Anglican Cathedral of all Long Island, and built in the 1880’s! Of course Gothic of that date is something altogether different from what you would have designed, even if you chose that it should be Gothic. I don’t know how you feel on this question of archaistic art. The trouble is that we hardly have any church style that is not archaistic. However, the extremely “pointed” effect of your spire, and the pointed large windows and very pointed gables above them in the upper part of the tower, where the bells would naturally be, do not seem to me natural. There are two well-known spires that I thought of at once, St. Stephen’s, in Vienna, and Salisbury’s which is a landmark in a wide plain like yours.2 A single very high spire is just the thing for such a site. And the model of St. Stephen’s might authorize what otherwise might seem inartistic, namely, the conical effect of the uninterrupted sloping lines from the ground up to the cross. It is just so in Vienna; but then that is an immense, very elaborate and sculptured tower, where the genuine up and down tension of the masonry, which is heavy and broken into stages, relieves the sliding or tent-like character of a cone that the mere outlines have. You gain much more in height and beauty if you vary the storeys, from square to octagon, from octagon to twelve faces, etc, perhaps even ending with a pure fool’s cap

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or extinguisher at the top, as in St. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice,3 which I like immensely, in spite of its being on a small scale, perhaps because I have so often lived facing it from my window at Danieli’s. This does not detract, I am well aware from the magical effect of a slim high tower, especially at night, even if not lighted from below. Think of almost any minaret by moonlight! I am delighted to hear that you may come to Rome again next year; if you could come earlier or later in the season we should be freer to walk about the old streets and study architectural details with a professional eye. Best regards to George Rauh4 and many thanks for your overflowing cornucopia and general kindness—from your old friend GSantayana 1

The Cathedral of the Incarnation in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island is located in Garden City, New York. The cathedral spire is 208 feet (63.4 meters). In Persons, 381–82, Santayana writes about Butler and the “toy” cathedral. 2 St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna was built in 1147 A.D. with a tower that is almost 137 meters high. Salisbury Cathedral, completed in 1258 A.D., is considered to be one of England’s finest examples of medieval architecture. Its spire is 123 meters, the tallest in the United Kingdom. 3 San Giorgio Maggiore, on the island of the same name, was designed by Andrea Palladio; the building was completed in 1610 4 Unidentified.

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 30 July 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 30, 1949 Dear Mr. Cardiff. Congratulations on having your exemplary patience rewarded at last and you and I rendered immortal in compendium. The title “Atoms of Thought” (now that atoms are so complicated and dynamic) seems to me a good title. “Light” was excusable only in a poetical epitaph. As to copyright, Constable & Company, of 10, Orange Street, London, W.C.2, originally had it for everything x between “Soliloquies in England” and “Persons & Places,” but Scribner has reissued even that which he has^ ^ n’t reprinted, so that he must have some legal agreement with Constable about such matters. Ask him, or let “The Philosophical Library” do so.

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[in margin ] xI forgot that “Winds of Doctrine” & “Egotism” were published by Dent.1 Two and a half per cent on the sale price seems to me very little: I have always got at least 10%. but as in this case everything must properly go to you, who have had all the work involved, and you are satisfied, all is well. As to Scribner’s $10 for 1000 words I feel flattered; and as I suppose half this wealth is destined for me, and I don’t want it, I can ask Scribner to charge the other half to my account, as I expect to profit by the advertisement of thi/ese “Atoms” or “Pills”, so much more easily — y to take in ^ ^ than my folio pages; and Scribner will profit by the advertisement, too, without having taken any new risk. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Joseph Malaby Dent (1849–1926) founded Dent & Sons of London.

To Richard Colton Lyon 1 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, August 1, 1949 Dear Dick, Your letter of July 24, just received, is not egotistical, except verbally, as the trouble seems to lie rather in the confused usage of words than in a nervous Angst in your real psyche, and I feel like writing you a schoolmaster’s letter on this confused use of words—not yours, but that of the various schools of philosophy. To begin with “existence”, this word is used in French, and I daresay in Continental philosophy generally, for “life” as a career no less than as a momentary state of motion or consciousness in an animal. The Existentialists probably have in mind the history and continuity of a man’s life rather than the pure, minimum, analytic “constatation” 1 (another French term) of something going on. On such constatation what is caught existing is consciousness, not its object, which might be an essence only: but the fact that this essence is considered, reviewed, contrasted with something else, at least with its absence just before, introduces existence into the fact of observation or “consciousness”. So that existence is a natural varying reality of being in time. Even in Berkeley’s “Spirits” existence and consciousness would have to be in time, a survey,

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not an unchanging stare; for the latter would be sucked up into the realm of essence, without life or individuality through a continuous “existence”. As to the proof of existence from consciousness, Descartes is perfect if you notice that by “constatant” thought he infers the existence not of the thought in its logical essence but of himself who thinks. If thought were not a process, a phase of natural life, its being would not involve existence either for it or for its object. —[ I worked this out in the new Preface to “Egotism in German Philosophy”, 2nd edition. I believe this is included in the Triton edition.]— On the dialectical or ideal (not biological) relation of life to death I think Heidegger is splendid. Hegelians are all historians at heart; history for them is the truth even of pre-history and futurity. Now a life is conditioned and bounded by the dates of its beginning and end, and by what happened in its day. Until a man dies, the picture is incomplete. —[ Hegelians forget that it is never correctly drawn afterwards]—. Death frames life in, completes its dramatic essence, and so “conditions” it; i.e. the truth about it. This has nothing to do with life insurance or reunion in heaven. It is pure “objective” or “conceptual” idealism. As to Angst my quarrel with it is temperamental — in and you must not take it seriously. The reality is what Schopenhauer calls the Will, the Will to Live. It makes the child anxious to get the breast or the bottle, the lover his girl, the workman his Saturday-night wages, and the invalid to get well. You can’t help caring. But these natural cravings and fears are occasionally, they can be modified or placated, you may “care” about something else, Latin poetry, for instance, which carries no Angst with it, though it is rich in interest and in reassuring knowledge of life. What I dislike about calling Will Angst is the suggestion that it is mysterious and non-natural. It is fundamental but can be appeased. It need not end in Collapse but may be transcended throughout by charity and reason. The existentialists’ reaction against inhuman philosophy and politics is healthy, but they do not seem healthy themselves. And egotism is not cured by becoming personal. It is simply made easier to practise. It is naturally prevalent and won’t cause any wars or totalitarian tyrannies. Meno male!2 G.S. 1

Assertion or verification of fact (French). “It’s just as well!” or “All the better!” (Italian).

2

1948–1952

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 5 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, August 5, 1949 Dear Rosamond Your letter of August 1 comes to wake me from a sort of telepathic lethargy—I mean, unconsciousness of anything at a distance, and you in particular seem now to be nowhere in particular and everywhere in general, which seems to make letter-writing useless. And this when I ought to have thanked you long ago for your last box of food and drink, which contained some of the soluble coffee you mention. But coffee making goes on out of my sight, so that I never know what kind I am drinking, and the same with tea. Very likely I sometimes get Convent tea or coffee instead of that which comes to me from America. But I am not very sensitive to quality, if things are not too hot (easily remedied) or too cold, too salty, too tough, too oniony, too greasy, or too nasty in some other way. The greatest difficulty is the meat, which is not often good here. At the old Bristol the great stand-by in that department was “faraony/a” a savoury dark sort of fowl which I believe is guinea-hen—but they seldom give us that here. I don’t really mind at all, as I don’t eat much in any case and the spagghetti, etc, especially rice are what I count on to support life, and for good things to taste I rely on fruit, deserts (often very good) and teathings. To-day, with my tea, with plenty of cream, I had a big segment of Sister Angela’s home-made apple-pie. She is Irish from Chicago. This summer has been unusually hot, and still is so; but I am in good health generally, and have no end of interesting things to read, including a German Review1 published by the American authorities in Berlin, which is very good. They send it to me by way of compliment, and talk of translating the chapter on Germany from vol. II. of Persons & Places (“The Middle Span”)2 Very clear-headed things by Germans or Swiss appear in it, also by Jews about Russia. About Italy and Spain they are less impartial, because they don’t mix with the best people, and are less at home generally than in Germany or France. Don’t trouble about sending me more boxes. You must be busy now about what Lao Tse calls “the forty thousand things”—and some of them new, which must be even more exciting.

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Love to all the family from GSantayana 1

Der Monat was a monthly journal sponsored by the American occupation authorities in order to reintroduce the German public to American and western European intellectuals, particularly anti-communist liberals. The founding editor was American journalist Melvin Jonah Lasky (1920–2004), who helped found the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) in Berlin in June 1950. Lasky also edited the journal Encounter, and although both magazines were well respected for their writing, they were later criticized for accepting money from the CIA-supported CCF. 2 “Aus den Erinnerungen eines Philosophen” (From the memories of a philosopher) Der Monat 12 (September 1949): 72–80, in the section “Im alten Deutschland” (In old Germany).

To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 8 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bidwell)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, August 8 1949. Dear Raymond, You do write very interesting letters, like what the French call a journal d’information, with the cream of the facts from everywhere without any political comments. I am much obliged for yours of the 4th instant, and ashamed to have been so negligent for so long especially in not answering a letter I had long ago from Dave in Norway, a good deal like your letters, only not so impartially distributed over all vital facts. But you see, in my life there all not going to be any vital facts except my death, of which I don’t see as yet any immediate signs Not that my days here are in the least dull. I hardly have time to work with two Italian papers, one morning and one evening (on account of the ticklish state of the political world) and five meals to digest, however light, and new books to examine to see if they would be worth reading, if I had time for it, and receiving all the visitors that fall from heaven, and whom I am at least sure of never seeing again: with all of which it is impossible for me to do more on Dominations & Powers (my big book) than correct the errors in what I wrote on the day before. I have nevertheless made some progress, especially in tearing old manuscripts and deciding what to leave out in the more recent ones; and besides, this is a little like Penelope’s weaving.1 I don’t want to finish it, because there are always a thousand things that I should like to tone down or to brighten up, and others that I should like

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to add. For instance: I now receive, and read in great part a German review called Der Monat sent to me (as a compliment!) by the American Army who publish it. A part consists of translations from the English or French, but much is by Germans or Swiss; and I find it instructive and refreshing, so that sometimes it sets me writing a fresh chapter for Dominations & Powers (the chapters are very short, five or six pages usually) and they are not strictly consecutive, but only collected and touched up a little so as to fall into groups and develop the points of my grand general plan, which — is gives the essential thesis or doctrine of the book: namely: that there are three Orders of Society: the Generative, that grows up of itself: the Militant, which is imposed on mankind in all sorts of contradictory ways by bandits, conquerors, prophets, reformers, and idealists; and the third, the Rational order, which doesn’t exist except in the imagination of philosophers. These Orders are treated in the three Books into which the whole work is divided; but Book I. is divided into 3 parts, Growth in the Jungle; Economic Arts; and Liberal Arts; and Book II. is divided into 2 parts; Faction and Enterprise (which is where you would come in). Book III. is not divided into parts, but contains a minute analysis of government of the people, by the people and for the People. This portion is finished, and may appear separately earlier. You see how easily a new idea could be slipped in wherever it fitted best in this scheme. I have got a hint from Der Monat, for instance about what the mistake was in settling the German question after the war, and also (from another writer) what is the fundamental situation in France. The first illustrates the error of Militancy, the second the strength of Generative Growth. Love and best wishes to all from GSantayana 1

Penelope is the wife of Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. While waiting for Odysseus to return home from war, one of her schemes to fend off suitors was to claim that she needed to finish weaving a shroud for her father-in-law. Each night, however, she unraveled what she had woven the day before.

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To John Hall Wheelock 14 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, August 14, 1949 Dear Mr. Wheelock This is my first attempt to write with a stylographic pen, which after years of protests at my blots, wasted time, and stubbornness the Sisters have at last persuaded me to let them get for me.1 I realize that it will be a great convenience, especially in winter or if I am ill, as it will enable me to write comfortably in bed. Thank you for the half-yearly account received a few days ago. I see that my first book, “The Sense of Beauty” remains my “best seller”: I had a shock on reading that “The Last Puritan”, for 3.50, had not sold any copies at all; but at the foot of the page I found that “The Last Puritan” for $5.00, had sold several hundred copies. I do not understand these mysteries of the trade, but decretely bow to them. The total credit remaining for me being still about $2500.00 I shall be encouraged to repeat—if you don’t mind the trouble—my request of the last year or two to send Christmas gifts of $500 to Cory and to my niece Rosamond—but no longer Sturgis. I don’t know whether you have heard that she, the divorced and (if that is legally possible) widowed first wife of my nephew George Sturgis has recently married Mr. David M. Little, secretary to Harvard University and Master of Adams House, so that while cheques should be made to Mrs. Rosamond Thomas Little, letters should be addressed now to Mrs. David M. Little Appley House, Plympton Street, Cambridge, Mass. You needn’t trouble to make a note of this request now, because I shall send you word again when the time approaches; but I have mentioned it here, because in Cory’s case, I expect that he will be in Rome when Christmas comes; but may be hard up now, because he “has been in bed for a fortnight with a duodenal ulcer in the liver” and as disclosed by x rays, “the barium somewhat deflected”. And the worst of it, for his spirits, is that the doctor cheerfully tells him that he probably will not have a relapse if he gives up nicotine and alcohol. If you would send him—C/o Brown Shipley & Co 123, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1—$500 from me it might cheer him up now and accustom him to a milk diet. In Rome, at the Danish pension where he was quite happy last year he can recover on spagg/ hetti and beer.

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The project of Mr. Cardiff, as you may have heard, has at last been launched. “The Philosophical Library” has accept ed “Atoms of Thought” ^ ^ and arrangements seem to be on the way. Of course I don’t wish to make any profit out of Mr. Cardiff’s work and persistent efforts to get it published, and I am sorry that he should have to pay us anything for selections that may serve us as an advertisement in circles that my regular books hardly reach. But I understand that “The Philosophical Library” is satisfied with the fee for quotation that you charge; only he is getting only 2½% on the possible selling price. I do not pretend to know anything about business ethics in these matters, and I see that Mr. Cardiff is director of various North Western Companies; so that apparently he is well off, and the matter has no importance for him either. But at first he gave me a different impression. The main defect of his book, as I imagine it, is that he has quoted too many of my positivistic materialistic outbursts and few of my etherial flights. “The evil that men do” etc. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Until now Santayana had written either with a pencil (drafts of his literary works and philosophical essays) or with a pen holder and steel nib (letters and fair copies of his works).

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 14 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. August 14, 1949 Dear Cory —[ I am struggling—but give it up and fall back for the moment on prehistoric ways—with my first fountain pen.]— Very sorry to hear of your “duodenal ulcer” and “deflected barium”, which last I had to look up in the dictionary “barium, heavy earth,” etc. When you recover you had better not remain in a nice hotel where there is an attractive private bar, but return to London—the hot weather now has yielded to distinct coolness—or come here as soon as you can. On receipt of Scribner’s account for six months, I see that I still have a tidy credit on their books, and I have written to Mr. Wheelock (the fountain pen still flowed) asking him to send you your Christmas present now, in case you are short for doctor’s bills and for coming to Italy. But before you leave England, please subscribe for yourself (you can pass it on to me each time) to “NINE” as per enclosed circular.1 I don’t

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remember whether you were here on the day when this Peter Russell was in my room with two or three others and I recited my favourite passage from Tibullus and parts of my translation, which Russell afterwards asked me to let him have for his future Review, which then was to be called “Forum”, I think (or I may be confusing this with the German publications). Anyhow, the way that translation was praised has spurred me to finish it and I am going to send it to him. But as I can’t subscribe to it directly from here, I will tell him that you will do so for me. I have kept well in spite of the unusual heat, but rather relaxed and have not done much work. However, I have looked over the various parts of the MS already in place, and I am encouraged as to the possibility of arranging it all soon. If you will come and take a hand in advising me about what to leave out etc. it would be a great help, because my chief difficulty is that I can’t remember what each chapter contains, so that I am at a loss to decide, without rereading everything, what ought to be kept, or put in another place, or left out altogether. Yet this would be too much for you to decide alone, since after all the important point is to develop the doctrine of the whole consistently and so that the leading principles are respected and enforced throughout. And too much rereading also dulls my judgment, and perhaps makes me too impatient of repetitions and things that seem to me stale. Der Monat is going to publish the article you sent to the “American Scholar” about “Some Developments of Materialism” 2 Have just read a well-written light book about South America by G. S. Frazer,3 one of the NINE. G.S. 1

Unlocated. American Scholar 18 (1949–1950): 26–30. 3 George Sutherland Fraser (1915–80) was a Scottish poet, critic, teacher, biographer, and travel writer. The book Santayana refers to is News from South America (London: Harvill Press, 1949). In the first issue of NINE, the editorial board is given as Peter Russell, G. S. Fraser, and Iain Fletcher. 2

1948–1952

To Peter Russell 15 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Virginia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, August 15, 1949 Dear Mr. Russell The announcement of NINE has reached me and prompts me to send you a copy of my translation (with some variations and padding) of the fragments of Tibullus that we talked of when you were here. I have finished it, at the risk of doing violence to the text, encouraged by your good opinion of it. I gave up, in particular, the roseate horses of the dawn, and looked out of my window at sunrise instead for inspiration. Of course you need not feel in the least pledged to publish it if the NINE do not approve. I happen to have just finished reading G. S. Frazer’s “News from South America” which paints society in that part of the world much more flatteringly than I had ever imagined it, and instructively, too, in the contrast naturally always in the author’s mind with England. I think, however, that the mature humanism which he attributes at the end to Europeans as contrasted with Latin American awe of the cosmic flux and its fatality might be reversed. The South and certainly the North American is full of his own possible and actual achievements, overestimating the cosmic importance of both; whereas in the fixity of his personal allegiances and sense of honour, excluding all fundamental compromise, the Spanish mind, in both hemispheres, is less subject than the Anglosaxon to the sense that he ought to swim with the stream. My friend Daniel Cory will subscribe for me to NINE. I can’t do so because of blocked bank accounts. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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To Ira Detrich Cardiff 21 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, August 21, 1949 Dear Mr Cardiff. “The disreputable Russell trial” to which I refer and in which I was a witness was that of Lady Scott and others for libel; and the plaintiff was Bertrand Russell’s elder brother, about whom there is a whole chapter in “The Middle Span”: also another chapter in the third part of my memoirs, not yet published.1 It, the trial, was held at the Old Bailey in ^ ^ London, in 1897. As to a photograph for our book, you put me in an unpleasant position, because the only portraits of me that I am not ashamed of (except perhaps when they are enlarged in reproduction) are early, one my college class photo, of 1886, badly vulgarized in the Triton edition of my works, and the other reproduced nicely (reduced/) in size) for vol. I. of the same edition, from a charcoal drawing of 1896. I have another, almost as little to your purpose: because although taken in 1923, when I was nearly 60, it is touched up by the Photographer, Elliott & Fry,2 to look as young and spry as possible, and belongs to the old-fashioned formal dressed-up variety of conscious photography which every one now detests. I have nothing else; and the snapshots of me in this house, in dressing-gown & pyjamas, are all violent instantaneous shots, that I dislike and do not wish preserved. I am helpless in Scribner’s hands, knowing that they are strict business men, and I put up with their jackets and frontispieces with only a feeble groan. ^^ My preference in this new case would be no photo at all in the book; in the jacket, if there must be one, see if you can find something to suit you. I will not interfere, /Ibut I will not be an accomplice. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Bitter courtroom battles were fought between John Francis Stanley Russell and Lady Maria Selina Burney Scott (d. 1909) and her daughter Mabel Edith (Russell’s first wife), whose sensational allegations gave Russell the “wicked Earl” title. Santayana testified on Russell’s behalf at the 1897 trial held in London’s Old Bailey, in which Russell accused his mother-in-law of libel. See Persons, chapter XIX, “Russell,” and chapter XXVIII, “On the South Downs.” 2 Joseph John Elliott (1835–1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry (1840–97) started a commercial photography business in London in 1863. The Elliott and Fry company survived until 1965 when it became part of Bassano and Vandyck. Nearly all of their negatives were ruined during World War II bombings.

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To Evelyn Tindall 31 August 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Texas)

August 31. 1949 Dear Miss Tindall, I am not now writing much new stuff for my book but only revising what I have on hand, much of it already typed by you, so that I shall not have M.S ready to any extent for some time, and the corrections or additions to the old chapter — are can very well wait N / till your return in November. I may later, however, if you are not too busy, ask you to ^ ^ copy large portions of the entire work, so as to give the whole a tidy appearance, as much of it has been defaced with erasures and additions. I round out your total a little, as I always feel that your fees are too official: and it may interest you to know that I have received an official invitation to petition for the return of my London bank-account, and have done so, signing the necessary papers at the British Consulate here. Now I am awaiting news from Brown Shipley & Co to whom the papers were sent. With best wishes for your holiday from GSantayana

To William Bysshe Stein 1 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Sept. 1. 1949 Dear Mr. Stein1 When you ask what my position is in regard to literary criticism you seem to be thinking of the set of contemporary critics with which I agree; whether I agree or disagree, for instance, with T. S. Eliot, who at one time was a pupil of mine. Now I agree in general with his tastes in literature; just as I disagreed radically with the taste of the admirers of Browning; but I don’t agree in taste at all with Ezra Pound, whom Eliot once thought the “best of workmen”, quoting Dante about the most artificially laboured of Provencal poets.2 As to being a perfect workman, I remember the judgment of my friend Robert Bridges on Shakespeare: “He is the greatest of poets and the greatest of dramatists, but he is not an artist”, i.e. he did not

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take pains to exclude everything low or improper from his plays, but wrote professionally to please the pit. I myself am not distressed at the bawdy jokes in Shakespeare; they are part of the fun and of human life, and he was pouring out his riches from a cornucopia, carots and onion with the lilies and violets. It was the Renaissance. Matters of taste are matters of sympathy: people who have no taste except for onions sin from ignorance and insensibility, not from liking onions, which is not a sin. I remember a pilot in the Rhone who when asked what he would like for dinner said bread and an onion, and when asked if he wouldn’t like a steak or chop besides, said, No, thank you. He did not pretend to criticise the French cuisine, but he was a true lover of bread and onions. I do not ^ share his tastes, but I like him. ^ This touches a different point, my position as to the place of literature or the plastic arts and of criticism of them. This is a broad philosophical and moral question. Religion may decide it for us dogmatically if we are believers, the place of literature and the arts and of everything would be to save men’s souls or to serve the Church or to strengthen morality, or whatever you said was the highest good. Now in morals I am not a dogmatist. I think the centre and criterion for moral preference is, in each case, the endowment of the psyche, and its capacities. You must do seriously what Socrates did perhaps ironically, ask your pupil to give his answer, and then question him further to see if he knows his own mind or not. Socrates, up his sleeve, had a narrow dogmatic theory of morals, the right code for an old-fashioned Greek city, not the dissolute changing ideals of Athens in [illegible]his day. But the structure of society, and the balance of human faculties changes from age to age and from place to place; so that while I follow Socrates in making the psyche, or primal Will in oneself, the source and judge of morality then and for that kind of psyche (of course public morality has to be social, but that is not final, only conventional for the individual), I depart decidedly from his parochialism, though it has the same homely “piety” in it as the Rhone pilot’s fidelity to raw onions. Does this make you see what my position is in literary criticism? I have personal tastes, like everyone else; but I assign no authority to them for being mine. It is simply impossible and would be artificial and ridiculous for people to insist on everyone’s having the same tastes. And I am a naturalist in philosophy, not assigning an absolute authority to any particular form of morals or government, none, for instance, to “democracy.” Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 William Bysshe Stein (b. 1915), a literary scholar and critic, was a professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton. At this time he was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida, writing a dissertation on Hawthorne. 2 See letter to Lowell, 25 December 1950, note 3.

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 2 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, September 2, 1949 Dear Mr. Cardiff, Your request for a preface did not find me instinctively so refractory as your request for a photo. On the contrary, I at once thought of something I should like to say. And as the text of your selections is not necessary for this, and I felt ready to write the preface at once, I have devoted two or three days to it entirely, and send it with this letter.1 I am sorry that it is in manuscript, but the lady who does my type-writing is on her holiday (in England) and I don’t know of any one else that could copy it for me at once. Perhaps you or the Philosophical Library can have it copied; and, as my handwriting has become rather shaky, perhaps you could send me a thin paper copy of this Preface, or of the proofs of it, in case its “baroque” quality has misled the typist or the printer. I assume that you will frankly say so if you think this preface would do more harm than good. I know I was rather in a playful mood, and may not have said the correct thing. A thing may be all the worse for being right write a — good good of its kind, if it is the wrong kind. But I refuse to — bad preface of the “right” kind. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. I am hoping that you are writing an “Introduction” of the right sort, with a recipe for the number of pills a day that it will be safe to swallow. 1

Unlocated.

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To Peter Robert Edwin Viereck 8 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Viereck)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, September 8, 1949 Dear Viereck You may not remember it, but after reading some years ago your first book on the late war, without suspecting that you, the blond young man who had lent it to me, were the author, I told you on discovering your identity, that you would be a great man and a professor, and that then I hoped you would rewrite your book, which showed great industry in gathering information but not yet a sympathetic insight into the European mind. Now you have proved me a prophet, as prophet usually are ^ ^ proved, by being partly right. You have now taken in fully the wisdom of Metternich, Disraeli, Burke, and (unknown to me) Melville and finally Winston Churchill.1 This list, and some incidental remarks in your text,2 make me doubt whether you ought not, another ten years hence, to write a third book. Of course you will; but will you have caught on to the European mind in its Continental forms? Metternich and Burke were philosophic statesmen, Disraeli and Churchill clear-headed politicians who could see the drift of things in their own day and from the British point of view, Disraeli humorously and Churchill passionately; only Melville, apparently was a pure universal philosophy/er, although until now I thought he smelt strongly of Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket: but I have not read his South Sea books;3 perhaps he restores the balance there. Now as to your position, it seems to me quite well-informed and fair retrospectively, although the intrigues and the undercurrents of such a troubled time can hardly be unravelled yet by anybody: in Der Monat (which they kindly send me and which I read parts of with great pleasure) I have found very good things especially Crossman and Lüthy4 in Nos 8 & 10, on “Democratic Realism” and on “The Fourth French Republic”. This last is new and penetrating. I recommend it, if you want to know what I mean by “insight into the European mind.” The author I believe in/s Swiss, but more French than Swiss —German without the incurable French national egotism. As to your outlook and “Conservative path to liberty” I should agree in the abstract heartily, for that which liberty sets free is the psyche, that

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is, the conserved, largely [illegible ]hereditary demands and powers of a man or a society. If you are nothing liberty to go any where can’t do you much good. Reform cannot begin by destroying yourself. The question is how much of yourself you can preserve and develop (for the psyche is a bundle of potentialities) without running up against destructive agencies. Can these be destroyed without hurting you much (that is the totalitarian solution) or must you fight to the death rather than yield an inch (this is the martyr’s or hero’s solution) or must you bargain for a compromise (this is the mercantile tradition, natural to England and America). I think the trouble with this is that it does not distinguish ends from means. Compromise is [illegible ]rational in regard to means, but dishonourable in regard to ends; unless indeed you can remodel your ends themselves and constantly become a new man or society to fit your changing surroundings. But this is martyrdom by inches to suit the timid. You should not demand it from everybody Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859) was chancellor of Austria from 1809 to 1848. Beginning with the defeat of Napoleon, Metternich was instrumental in promoting general European unity while helping to suppress radical movements for nationalism and political liberalism. Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) was a British novelist of Jewish descent who became prime minister twice. As a leader of the Conservative party, Disraeli’s policies of “measured reform” and imperial expansion came to define Victorian-era politics. Edmund Burke (1729–97) was a British statesman known for his conservative political philosophy, advocating the divine right of aristocracy as well as the just treatment of imperial subjects. Herman Melville (1819–91) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. In 1851 he completed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale, an epic of a literal and metaphysical quest. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965), an author and statesman, was the British prime minister during World War II (1940–45). He was widely respected for his foresightedness, leadership ability, and powerful rhetoric. 2 Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt against Revolt, 1815–1949 (New York: Scribner’s, 1949). 3 Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. During a Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas (1846). Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847). Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849). 4 Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (1907–74), English writer and Liberal party statesman, was the editor of The God That Failed (New York: Harper, 1949), a collection of essays by ex-Communists. His essay, “Demokratisher Realismus” (Democratic realism) appeared in Der Monat 8/9 ( June 1949): 7–10. Herbert Lüthy (1918–2002), a Swiss historian and journalist, is best known for his book Frankreichs Uhren Gehen Anders (Zürich: Europa Verlag, 1954), a critique of French traditionalism that was translated as France Against Herself (New York: Praeger, 1955). Lüthy’s essay “Die Vierte Republik” (The Fourth Republic) appeared in Der Monat 10 ( July 1949): 39–48.

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To Daniel MacGhie Cory 15 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome Sept. 15, 1949 Dear Cory I am making a desperate effort to make my new fountain pen run: c’est le premier pas (rather coup) qui coûte.1 Here is a cheque for “Three Philosophical Poets”. You might use it for coming by air instead of in the stuffy everlasting trains. I used in the old days to love looking out of the carriage window at the landscape and the stations; but that traveller’s passion is spent, and as you know in the end I travelled only in the wagon-lits.2 I have had a letter (from Venice) from Robert Russell,3 very flattering to my version of Tibullus. He says, “the diction is old, but the poem is a modern “poem”. From Robert Lowell, no news. Either he is ill, mad, or absorbed in mystical experiences which my infidelity would disturb. If this is the end of this affair for me, I shall be disappointed but also relieved. It would have been a worse disillusion if he had turned up and proved a wild red Indian (he admires them) and a rugged reformer. GS. 1

The first step (or rather stroke) is always painful (French). A wagon-lit is a railroad sleeping car in continental Europe having beds in separate compartments. 3 Peter Russell. 2

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 22 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome Sept. 22, 1949 Dear Mr. Cardiff. I had been hoping to receive word from you of the arrival of my letter with the desired (or possibly undesirable) Preface enclosed. It had taken me three or four days to write, and I especially charged the servant here to send it by air mail at any price. It contained only four sheets of paper,

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but the three of the Preface were written on both sides, for which I had chosen my usual manuscript paper which is a little heavier than this letter paper which I write on now. Possibly they refused to accept it for airmail, or you have now got it by ordinary post; or it may have crossed the Atlantic by air, and then gone by rail, because I suppose it would require extra postage to cross the U.S. by air from New York. Something of this kind may explain the delay, or else the letter is lost altogether, which would be annoying as I have no copy to send you. I could rewrite it after a fashion, but I am afraid I should miss the fun which I had writing the first version. If when this reaches you, nothing has turned up, and you care to wait for a second version, please telegraph simply, “Rewrite”, and I will do so at once, as briefly and pointedly as I can, summing up the old (somewhat playful) Preface, and send it on at once. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Rimsa Michel 22 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Virginia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome, Sept. 22, 1949 Dear Mr. Michel1 Since I seem to be responsible for turning you into the wilderness of philosophy, I suppose I ought to help you to get out of it, but I am not sure that there was ever any “Humanism” in me that I have given up. Certainly I have given up talking about the superiority of rational to inspired poetry, or vice versa. I am not a dogmatist in morals, which for me include both aesthetic and political judgments; and in judgment or love or taste I am entirely a humanist in the sense of thinking that the human psyche is, in each case, the only possible judge; and naturally each psyche the only possible judge, for it own satisfaction, of the satisfaction that it finds in the satisfactions of the others. But what I don’t believe, or seriously ever did, is that any human authority, private or social, has any absolute control or jurisdiction over what “ought” to be done or praised. In fact, I have been attempting, in my old age, to re-educate myself in the matter of poetry, so as to be able to appreciate the “modern” forms of it. But I have never so much enjoyed and admired the old Latin poets as of

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late years: and have actually translated, at great expense of sleepless = Elegy of Tibullus, Book I, which will come out in a hours, a bit of the 3rd new English little Review which will begin publication before L / long. The editor writes that my diction is still traditional but that the poem is a modern poem. So you see I practice what I preach. Edwin Edman2 is a sour-sweet friend of my philosophy, but was (before this last war) much offended at my Toryism which he felt to be Fascist. He appreciates some parts of my philosophy—the “spiritual” or religious radiations of it, but I am not sure that he respects the respect I have for matter or “Will” (according to Schopenhauer). Ask him what he thinks of my “Idea of Christ”. My own opinion of it is that I was never more religious in insight and never less religious in opinion. The Catholics s like and condemn it. Prof. Guzzo, of Turin and his wife has/ve beautifully translated it into Italian; they think I am more ^ ^ truly Christian than any of the Fathers; but I hear that an American Catholic Bishop has said that not one sentence in that book could have been written by a Christian. I agree with both judgments, if by being a good “Christian” you understand being a disciple of Christology or worshipper of God in Man. I don’t think I have moved, ever, either to the Right or to the Left. I have radiated, and now feel more at home than in my callow youth in both camps: but I don’t agree at all with the Left about the Right or with the Right about the Left. It is only where they love that they are intelligent, both of them, in regard to what is good in their object; neither sound, however, about the cosmological importance of their interests. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Miss Rimsa Michel was most likely a graduate student at Columbia University. The address on the envelope is one block from campus, and Cory’s footnote for 8 July 1950 refers to the “essay” as having been rejected as a master’s thesis (Letters, 398). 2 Irwin Edman (1896–1954) received his degrees from Columbia University, where he spent his career teaching philosophy. The Philosophy of Santayana: Selections from the Works of George Santayana, edited and with an introductory essay by Edman, was published in 1936 (New York: Scribner’s). His most popular book is Philosopher’s Holiday (New York: The Viking Press, 1938).

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To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 23 September 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. September 23, 1949 Dear L /Rosamond Two letters, a box of provisions, a magic bird’s eye view of the Harvard Yard in two parts, and numbers of Life and Time full of innumerable coloured pictures of happiness, abundance, youth, travel, and laughter have transported me to a sort of dream-world where everything is a merry-go-round. Is America really like that? No: I know it can’t be. But you are having a splendid holiday after a good many years of comparative seclusion, and there is really a sort of youthful gaiety, as if everybody were dressed in brand new clothes, and rushing from one “delightful” thing to another. Is this really so, or are people putting on a public smile as soon as they come in sight of anybody else, and do public prints reproduce the same appearance of joy as a professional duty? I am perfectly happy myself in the absence of any gaiety or variety; but I feel that the world is very shaky indeed and morally lost and drifting among shams which it doesn’t believe in, but can’t give up. And I think most Europeans feel as if the end of the world were at hand. Even the late Mr. Whitehead,1 the mathematical philosopher who was for years professor at Harvard, but was an Englishman (I knew him in 1897 at Trinity College, Cambridge)2 one of whose books I happen to be reading is full of this feeling, although, writing in America, he veils it in a haze of cordiality and religious hope. He is an excellent philosopher in spots but there seems to me to be a contradiction between his physical science, which is straightforward, and his philosophical and moral reflections, which are all subjective: history, for instance, or the past, when he speaks of them, do not signify the “concrete” events but the feeling, memory, or imaginative view of them that people have taken or now take . — abou— t ^^ the— m. The social world is a novel, like Balzac’s;3 and the scientific world — seems to disappear. However, he does recognise that this century, so far, has been catastrophic: which would seem to me to show that the philosophy of the nineteenth century was fatal sophistry; yet that is just the substitution of a novel for a science as the truer picture of the world. Excuse me for running into these depths, or shallows; if you don’t see what I mean, you might show this letter to your husband, and give him

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my best regards and congratulations. I was surprised at seeing him looking so young, sturdy, and solid in his picture. He will perhaps tell you that I am all wrong, which may turn out true, because of America Yours affectionately GSantayana [across ] P.S. Don’t bother about my needing anything. Supplies of everything reach me, and I don’t need very much now-a-days. 1

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) was an English philosopher and mathematician. His idealistic and mystical philosophy, which is aimed at a knowledge of God as the Absolute, is based on his mathematical ideas. He and Bertrand Russell coauthored Principia Mathematica (Cambridge, 1910). His works include A Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898), An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919), Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (1927), and Modes of Thought (1938). 2 Santayana was a member of King’s College in 1886, taking a leave of absence from Harvard for a year, but studied at Trinity College under Henry Jackson. See Persons, 394 and 439. 3 Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), the founder of the literature of social realism, was a French novelist best known for La Comédie humaine (The human comedy), the title he gave in 1841 to his entire body of published and unpublished writings.

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 16 October 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6 Rome, October 16, 1949 Dear Mr. Cardiff Yesterday I had the immense relief or/f knowing that my delayed letter and Preface had arrived at last, and that you were not rubbed the wrong way by my tone in that effusion. I thought more than once in my dreams that the passage about “pin-pricks” and shutting the thick album of moral gems had better be ruled out; and you must do so for me if you think it worth while.1 There was one amusing misreading of my shaky and perhaps crowded handwriting “pavilions” had become “pair-lions”! There were a few slight changes of a word that seemed to me advisable and I have sent the copy you enclosed to the Philosophical Library in New York direct, in case they were already printing it. Your own Introduction is admirable, except that at a first reading it seemed to me too fulsome in its praise. On rereading it today and trying to be absolutely sincere, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one phrase of yours that would be excusable only in an obituary notice, since it is positively attributing to me a virtue conspicuous for its ^ ^

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absence, where on p. 3, 10 lines from the bottom you say I am a citizen of the world, AS WELL AS ITS BENEFACTOR. It is misleading to call even a good writer or philosopher a benefactor; and in my case there was no such motive. I write for fun or by impulse. At best it is art, not benevolence.2 There are a few other passages where you quote things that seem to me excessive, as the comparison with Plato. But this is said by an American (to me unknown)3 and it is evidence of appreciation which is genuine. He was not actively conscious of Pascal, Descartes, Hobbes,4 Berkeley, Bacon,5 Schopenhauer or Nietzsche,6 to mention only professional philosophers: there are a lot of others, like Rousseau and Voltaire who are masters of style. On the whole, I think comparison and giving grades to authors is a mistake. The just criteria are different in each case. You also seem to misunderstand what I say about poetry being the reality of religion, but not vice versa.7 Poetry “intervenes in life” when fables are acted upon as if they were facts, when people fear hell, for instance. Hamlet talks of that, but doesn’t act upon it. The slaughter at the end is general. The absence of religion in Shakespeare appears where he is speculative, Macbeth’s last speech, Jaques, Prospero;8 what he seems to admit is if anything superstition, witches, prophecies, etc. About my considering myself an American, — con there is some ambigu9 ity. I am not legally an American citizen and travel with a Spanish passport: also pay the U.S. 30% of my income as taxes proper to a ^ ^ non-resident foreigner. But socially and as a writer, I am an American in practice, and almost all my friends have been Americans. Many of my books, however, were first published in England, by Bent and by Constable. These are trifles, and your presentation of me is in the right spirit of a well-wisher to my reputation, to which I have perhaps been too indifferent. I did not feel that I was doing good Yours sincerely GSantayana [across page one ] P.S. I appreciate particularly your references to the Soliloquies. They, with Dialogues in Limbo and The Last Puritan are my favourites. 1

Cardiff’s book retains the sentence “A thick album of moral pin-pricks is soon closed: you must go for a country walk or a commonplace conversation.” (Atoms of Thought, ix). 2 “Lovers of liberty of France and America have honored Paine for his magnificent work as they doubtless eventually will honor Santayana whose grasp of the great universal truths of the race make him likewise a citizen of the world, as well as its benefactor.” (Atoms of Thought, xiii).

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3 This reference is to Corliss Lamont, who also contributed some of his Santayana quotations to the book. Lamont (1902–95), a humanist, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, author, and lecturer, was educated at Harvard (A.B., 1924), New College, Oxford, and Columbia. Lamont collected Santayana’s manuscripts, letters, photographs, and books, which he donated to the Butler Library of Columbia University. His uncle, Hammond Lamont, was a member of Santayana’s Harvard class of 1886. His works include The Illusion of Immortality (1935), Humanism as a Philosophy (1949), Dialogue on George Santayana (edited with Mary Redmer, 1959), and The Enduring Impact of George Santayana (1964). 4 Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), an English philosopher, set forth a rationalist materialism that offended the religious. His best-known work, Leviathan (1651), made him the first great English political theorist. “Leviathan” is an ultimate, unitary authority that wields absolute power over society but is restricted in its scope to keeping the civil peace. 5 Francis Bacon (1561–1626), an English philosopher and statesman, introduced the inductive method of modern experimental science to philosophy. His Essays (1597) are his most popular works. 6 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), a German philosopher, condemned traditional Christian morality as the code of the slavish masses. When freed from the values created by the diluted will of the majority, an individual’s will to power impels him to exceed other men and become a “superman,” who is beyond good and evil. 7 “Some of his [Santayana] statements will be puzzling to the layman, as in his ‘Poetry and Religion’ he attempts to show that religion is but sublimated poetry […].” (Atoms of Thought, xii). 8 Macbeth is a general and thane of Glamis in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Encouraged by his wife, Lady Macbeth, he murders Duncan, who is the current king of Scotland, and becomes king himself. Prospero, the true duke of Milan, reigns over a magical island in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Jaques, the melancholy supporter of the Duke in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, performs the famous monologue, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players: […]” (II.vii.41–42). 9 See Atoms of Thought, xiii.

To Bryn[ jolf] J[akob] Hovde 18 October 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, October 18, 1949 Dear Dr. Hovde,1 Your request for a contribution to the book of tributes to John Dewey reaches me too late. You evidently did not know that I have been living in Italy for many years. Moreover, in spite of repeated suggestions to the contrary, I have thought it better not to figure among the many admirers who have arranged this demonstration for Dewey’s ninetieth birthday. It

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is not the sort of think/ g to which I am naturally drawn, and there are particular reasons in this case why I should abstain from any expressions of regard and admiration that might seem perfunctory, or inadequate Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Brynjolf Jakob Hovde (1896–1954) was president of the New School for Social Research and an active member of the John Dewey 90th Birthday Committee.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 25 October 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, Oct. 25, 1949 Dear Cory, You can imagine the satisfaction it is for me to have my London bank account again active, after — four ten years of torpor. It will make my arrangements with you in particular much easier. What an “Italian account” exactly means for B. S. & Co I don’t know, and am inquiring in acknowledging their letter. “Nine” is modest in appearance and, as you say, contains some good things.x I compared yesterday the translation from the Paradiso with the original. It is a good translation and in part an honest unaffected effusion, as if poetical only by chance and without being able to help it, as Dante himself is; but to make a good English poem of it would require, I think, to be recast in the translator’s mind so that it should seem, as the original is, a natural composition, most of it simply telling the story, but in two or three places rising into devout rapture: It is a very fine passage that I had never especially noticed before,1 but requires some preparation of the reader to understand its allusions. I was floored completely, at first, by the barbarous word “aguglia” 2 (which I read with the accent on the second syllable) until I suddenly saw that by putting it on the first it became almost identical with the Spanish águila, common or garden eagle. I read the whole canto and part of the pres/ceding one, to recover all that Saint John says and looks like. He is only a light, like an electric star, because he has not yet his body back: but neither has Beatrice,3 who looks human. I am writing with my new stylographic pen, obtained for me (for 5000 lire) by the Sisters, and I find it a great convenience, only that the pen is too fine and the ink at first at least too thin, so that I can hardly see what

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I have written without dropping the pen and picking up the magnifying glass. The ink gets a little darker in time, but I should have preferred a larger — one pen altogether, with a heavier handle containing more ink, so that refilling is not so frequent. I have learned to refill it myself, and now spill less ink about. I have almost finished the revision of all the parts of Dom. & P’rs that were typed but not satisfactory. When you come, I think it would be possible for us, together or separately to re-read the whole work from the beginning suggest what might be left out, or needs to be added, and have Miss Tindall recopy the whole as revised. You might then take away with you and/ entire copy, on thin paper, and (if you approve) send another to Mr. Wheelock for safe-keeping. I sometimes have dreams, or semidreams, of a communist revolution breaking out here, and the Sisters and I being driven out. It would then be better to have everything valuable on the west side of the iron curtain There is something I need that you could get for me in London: a strong good pair of scissors to cut my toe-nails. The big one on one foot has become so thick that I can [across] hardly manage it with my old shaky instrument. Come whenever you think best, without counting too much on the future. G.S. [written across left margin of page one ] xBut is Robert Russell4 a wild communist? And is Ezra Pound dead?5 1 In Years (297) Cory notes that this verse is Paradiso, Canto XX, verse 22 . However, the translation from Dante that appeared in the first issue of NINE was titled “Dante: Paradiso XXVI (25–78),” translated by T. W. Ramsey (October 1949): 8. 2 Church spire or compass needle (Italian). In Italian, this word is pronounced with the stress on the “u”; by contrast, in aquila (the Italian word for “eagle”), the “a” is stressed. In medieval theology, the eagle was the symbol of Saint John. 3 Dante first met Beatrice in 1274 when he was nine; they met again nine years later. After her death in 1290 he wrote La vita nuova, which reveals the significance of his idealized love for her as the inspiration for most of his works. 4 Peter Russell. 5 Pound remained at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital near Washington, D.C., until his release in 1958.

1948–1952

To Mrs. Walter F. Fauerbach 4 November 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Pennsylvania)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, November 4, 1949. Dear Mrs. Feuerbach1 You were right in thinking that your interest in my youthful verses, and this translation of “Solipsism” into German would give me pleasure, and I thank you for your kindness in writing and sending me Mr. Fritz Hemmann’s version.2 Simple sentiments translate very well from German into English and vice versa, because at the roots they are the same language, but the difficulty begins when grammar and thought become more complex, because then the genius of each language is unlike that of the other. So in this version, the first stanza — verse is almost identical, in effect, with the origi^ ^ nal; but the last — verse stanza is more cumbrous in the German, and loses the naïveté which the original attempts to preserve. It is curious to see that gentle minds can still accept kindly the effusions of my boyhood, when I naturally copied the facility of Spanish and Italian poets, and did not feel the horror, that English poetry now has, for clichés and sentimentality. If I wrote something, even in prose, on Solipsism now it would be less appealing, because I should imitate the Indian sense of identity underlying all transitory differences—which is the only tenable kind of solipsism: “Thou art that.” It would be a stale thought and my diction would be condemned as obsolete. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. See Complete Poems, 164. The translator is possibly F[rederick] H[enry] (“Fritz”) Heinemann (1889–1970), who was the author of Neue Wege der Philosophie (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1920) and Existentialism and the Modern Predicament (New York: Harper & Row, 1953) and was a professor of philosophy in Frankfurt until 1933. The translation is unlocated. 2

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To Richard Colton Lyon 8 November 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Nov. 8, 1949 Dear Dick: This, of November 2nd, is the most interesting letter you have written me, the richest in matter, and it would take more time and paper than I can fill up with writing letters at this moment to reply to all your suggestions. I admire your omnivorence and hope you are not overtaxing your strength with so much work and so much thinking at double quick marching time. For one thing, at least in one subject, essence, you think you are in more trouble than you really are. I am sure that you can catch what 1 Hussler —erl called the pure phenomenon. Of course there is a lot of other things involved in its presence, so that looking about at once gives you existential subject and existential objects implied in it presence here to you. But when you play chess, and in deciding on your next move you trace the possible moves that your opponent might make in answer to each possible move of yours, your very intense (though not properly anxious or forced) perception of those various developments, though it involves you and the chessboard existentially, does not contain them intrinsically. That is all that is needed to distinguish pure essence, in this case, the series of each possible move, response and further move, etc. Those are timeless and place less series of positions in chess, with their essential relations according to the rules of the game, but not positions ^ ^ or relations in the existing world But the most interesting thing in your letter is what you say about love, which seems singularly mature for your age. But I think, in regard to marriage, that what you say does not preclude true love or true happiness in that relation. Love, in English, is a very wide term. What poets and philosophers, at least of the classic school, talk about is the passion of love, the madness, divine madness, of Plato. But attraction, confidence, mutual delight, and complete devotion to a chosen mate is not madness at all: it is a phase, a settlement, of the sane affections of one human being to another, where all sane possible bonds, physical, domestic, social, intellectual, and religious bind the two together for life—common material interests and children being strong material buttresses to such a complete

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union in after years. More than once, at friends’ houses in England or in hotels, I have found myself divided only by a frail closed door from the bed in which an elderly pair were exchanging confidential judgments and ideas; and I have been impressed by the perfection of friendship and sympathy in such a union. The only advantage—for me important—that the ideal friendship has over such a happy wedlock is liberty. Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendship of the same intimacy. On the contrary, in friendship union is more about ideal things: and in that sense it is more ideal and less subject to trouble than marriage is. But I am not a lover of life; I prefer it at a distance, or in the distances pictured in it. When it is actually tumbling over itself I feel that it is spoiling its own treasures. I too, by chance, have been just rereading the whole of Byron’s Don Juan.2 Some parts bored me, the invectives especially; but as you say, he is witty and his rhymes sometimes surprisingly clever. But he did not respect himself or his art as much as they deserved. GS 1

See “Postscript: Corroborations in Current Opinion,” Essence, 168–80. Don Juan is an unfinished epic satire in which the title character only slightly resembles the legendary Spanish rake. It is sprinkled with digressions giving Byron’s views on wealth, power, society, chastity, poets, diplomats, and England. Written in ottava rima, it contains 16,000 lines in its sixteen cantos. 2

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 22 November 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, November 22, 1949 Dear Clemens = birthYou and your friends are very kind to wish to celebrate my 86th day by sending me something. I receive regularly parcels and of course money from America, but apart from cryptic modern poetry, or books by cranks, asking for a word of endorsement to figure on the dust-jacket of their first work, I receive little that is beautiful; nor have I any place in which to put any object of any value. It occurs to me that I almost ordered the first volume of a monumental history of Thomas Jefferson that has begun to be published,1 and which I suppose has illustrations and details about his ancestry and youth. I desisted, thinking how casual my reading is in the few good editions—except a Lucretius, an Ovid, and a volume

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with Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius together,2 that I possess. But Latin poets are not the characteristic things to ask for from Missouri. Jefferson is at least nearer; and if you and your friends could send me that first volume of his life and works, it would certainly open a new scene to me that is not only important but also beautiful Or send me anything small that you may prefer. I say small, because I have only one small room of my own; and even my books have overflowed into the adjoining public reception room. With grateful regards from GSantayana 1 Probably Jefferson the Virginian (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), by Dumas Malone, volume one of the six-volume series Jefferson and His Time (1948–81). Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), second vice-president and third president of the United States, wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. In addition to his life as a statesman, Jefferson was also a lawyer, author, architect, and founder of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. 2 See letter to Lowell, 1 March 1948, note 8, concerning Tibullus volume. Volumes of Lucretius and Ovid are probably the eighteenth-century volumes mentioned in letter of 5 November 1948.

To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk 22 November 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Nov. 22, 1949 Dear Onderdonk I have been in bed for some days with a complication of my catarrh, and four little bottles of penecilla/in have been injected into me and set me again on my legs, or rather in my armchair. I received your copy of the Dewey supplement to the New Republic;1 but having been pestered with a lot of notices, as well as demands for a = birthday, I put it aside, to look testimonial, on occasion of Dewey’s 90 th over later and see if I could find any thing not of the after-dinner or obituary-notice character of selected exaggerated praise. Dewey has been an opportune leader for those who demanded a special American philosophy; but I don’t think America is, or can long pass for being, what he represents; and his importance is not philosophical but only incidental in the history of American opinion. Moreover, I have come lately on something of his that I liked very much, at least in part: an article, translated into German, in Der Monat, a review published by the American authorities

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in Berlin.2 That article begins with a sketch of the natural history of soci^ ^ ety (very much like parts of my “Dominations & Powers”); but when it comes to moral directions for the future (apparently of all mankind) it seems common Comtian positivism, and stale.3 If I weather this winter (as I think I may) Dom. & P’rs will be ready for publication. Parts are beginning to appear as articles.4 Best wishes from GSantayana 1 “Dewey, The Greek,” written by Alvin Johnson, was published in the 31 October 1949 issue of The New Republic. The article focuses on Dewey’s achievements and celebrates his 90th birthday. The New Republic, founded in 1914 by Willard D. Straight, is a weekly journal of liberal views and opinions. 2 In honor of Dewey’s 90th birthday, Der Monat published “Vom Ursprung des Philosophierens” (no. 13, October 1949). This article is a translation of “Changing Conceptions of Philosophy,” the first chapter of Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt, 1920). 3 Isidore Auguste Marie François Comte (1798–1857), a French philosopher, advocated the theory of positivism. This philosophy only admits knowledge gained by scientific method as real or positive. Comte hoped that, through the use of such methods rather than through idealistic appeal to absolute principles, social reform might be achieved. His works include Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42; translated as The Course of Positive Philosophy [1896]), Le Système de politique positive (1851–54; translated as System of Positive Polity [1875–77]), and A General View of Positivism (1957). 4 Published in World Review (see letter to Schimanski, 8 December 1949).

To Peter Robert Edwin Viereck [Late] November 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Viereck)

Sunday, Nov. 1949 Dear Viereck You had better not come on Monday or Tuesday, as I have still some mucus stuff at the bottom of my lungs, which has to be spitten out; but I feel much better after having four bottles of penicillin injected into me to prevent a development of pneumonia. I think I shall weather this, and hope to see you when you return to Rome in December. Your attack on the cryptic poets1 crosses the sincere attempt I have been making to understand them, especially now that some of them consent to write almost traditional verses. The translation from Dante in No 1 of the Nine is creditable and free from absurdity, as the best of them hardly are. But the point is to discover what the good thing is that they are trying to introduc. In drawing it is clearly caricature, which is a form of idealization. If you will send me this No 1 I shall be much obliged,

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because perhaps some one of the nine may prove genuine, and I should like to trace his progress. I envy you your visit to Athens and Istanbul. There is much now to admire in both that was not unearthed in 191/05, when I was there. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Probably “My Kind of Poetry,” Saturday Review of Literature 32:35 (27 August 1949): 7–8, 35–36.

To Cornel Adam Lengyel 8 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: New York)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 8, 1949. My dear Lengyel1 The heavy autumn rains, much wanted for public reasons, seem to be depressing to me now, in my last years, and have kept me from answer ing your letter to me (and to yourself): for this can’t be an ordi^ ^ nary note of thanks.2 You have invented, as far as I know, a new form of verse, the blank-verse Sonnet; and from the beginning you have made it seem a natural and powerful instrument. The steady sure way in which you carry it through, without a hitch or any faltering in force or clearness, shows that it can be made to serve, as the traditional Sonnet did in its day, almost any form of reflective or discursive poetry. In stripping the sonnet of its rhymes you have freed it from its chains and its too conventional music. It will be possible to write modern verse in that form. And where did you get your mastery of the single line in blank verse? You write this —ese single lines, almost without a lapse in tone or quality, like Shakespeare in his early plays. And you avoid obsolete or affected language without falling into contemporary commonplaces or positive colloquialisms, as [illegible ]the “modern” school does. The horror, for instance, of passing in Ezra Pound, who can write good verse, into the most vulgar journalese, and the most insolent irrelevance does not threaten your readers. In one or two places you do use technical expressions, like “to contact”, which surprise a man of the old school like me; but I think the principle of turning nouns into verbs or slang into good usage is good to keep language fresh; only particular instances may not

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be fortunate. On the other hand there is one inexpert quality in Shakespeare’s earlier blank verse which you have retained, and that is, to compose long passages wholly of single lines. This came, I suppose, from having always formerly rhymed; but even in rhymed sonnets it was a great improvement to break the line occasionally in the middle with a full stop, and often to carry on the sentence into the next line; which was done by Racine and other poets in a way that broke somewhat the artificial monotony of their versification. Now you, in your blank-verse sonnets, ought not, I think, to neglect that improvement. You are still free to have a monumental single line stand up by itself, when it sums up a thought or contains a great [illegible ]truth in itself. But then the current should begin to flow again in a meandering flexible way, as the landscape and the lay of the land may require. I indulge in these school-master reflections, because I have said enough in praise to let you feel how much I admire your performance, and what hopes and possibilities I see before you. The first “sonnet” about me is faultless, in form and in substance—much too exalted to represent my whole person, but true to what I should like to survive me of myself. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Cornel Adam Lengyel (b. 1915) is a poet, translator, and historian. Lengyel sent Santayana a sequence of sonnets that included one with the first line, “Of all with whom I shared a common sky […].” This sonnet was later printed as “In Memoriam: Santayana” in The Lookout’s Letter (Georgetown, Calif.: Dragon’s Teeth Press, 1971), 27. The book’s foreword is a transcription of Santayana’s letter to Lengyel. 2

To Stefan Schimanski 8 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Pennsylvania)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 8. 1949 Stefan Schimanski, Esq.,1 Editor of “World Review, London Dear Mr. Schimanski, Ill health has prevented me from thanking you sooner for your letter and for the insertion of my two little chapters from ‘Dominations and Powers” in your Review.2 They are very well presented, and I should be

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glad if other parts of my book, which is a sort of mosaic, might appear later in your pages. Mr. — Rob— ert Peter Russell’s interview,3 on the other hand, is a surprising travesty of what I said to him, especially about Mr. T. S. Eliot and Mr. Ezra Pound, and in various trifling matters said by the way—as that I draw my money all from “Scribner’s”, when I said from America—which are amusing or annoying. He was very affable and gave me a more favourable impression of himself than I get now from his interview, which must have been composed some time later, when his own ideas had been confused with mine. The photograph, too, though he is not to blame for its ugliness, is not pleasing. Curious how the passion for realism in representation defeats itself and abstracts effects that, being instantaneous, are never seen by the living mind, whose units are composed. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Stefan Schimanski was the editor of several journals and books associated with the New Apocalyptic (or New Romantic) movement in British poetry. At this time, Edward Hulton was editor of World Review. 2 “Dominations and Powers: Two Chapters from a Work in Progress.” World Review (London, December 1949 [NS 10]): 7–10. (Includes chapter V, “The Agent in Politics is the Psyche,” and chapter X, “Vital Liberty.”) 3 “An Afternoon with George Santayana,” World Review (London, December 1949 [NS 10]): 45–47.

To John Hall Wheelock 9 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, December 9, 1949 Dear Mr. Wheelock = instant, which I answer at once Many thanks for your letter of the 6th to wish you and Mrs. Wheelock a happy Christmas, and to send you the enclosed card which contains what I think is the best of the snap-shots taken recently of me here; and even the inscription, if not authentic is to the point.1 Wouldn’t this do nicely for the third volume of Persons & Places. I am still playing the invalid, but not worse, and encouraged by the interest that Cory suddenly shows for the work in hand. In this mood, he

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could be trusted to make the book presentable even if I should not give him, or he me, a helping hand Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 The front of the card is a depiction of ancient Rome; the inside is printed “Happy Easter.” The caption under the snapshot reads “G EORGE SANTAYANA IN HIS CONVENT STUDY / ‘I believe I am the despair of the nuns.’ ” The snapshot is attributed to “Wide World” and was apparently part of some publication.

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 13 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 13, 1949. Dear Rosamond Yesterday, four days before the eighty-sixth anniversary of my birthday (as the English Court Calendar expresses it, quite correctly) I received your card of good worldly advice with your good wishes. At this age it is inevitable to go one’s own way, for after making so many choices, no choice remains but to take the last step in the path you have chosen. I think sometimes what a fool I am to live in such a confined way, with “lowermiddle class English furniture”, as Edmund Wilson described my quarters,1 and the hospital fare and hours, when I might live, as when you visited me at the Hotel Bristol, in three good rooms instead of one, with my own bathroom and, on occasion, an open wood fire in my study, and where I could invite people (you and George were not my guests, as you ought to have been, but I actually had various members of the Chetwynde family2 for guests later, and two or three stray friends not to count Cory. Cory is now in Rome, and for the first time in his life is proving really useful, as well as [illegible ]stimulating. For he has had, in England, a rather severe illness—ulcer in the bowels or [illegible ]something of that sort—after which his doctor recommended total abstinence from — drink alcohol and ^ ^ nicotine—and he seems actually to [illegible ]have followed this advice, with the result of making him clear-headed and ready to work. We are reviewing, one after the other—for he is living in a hotel-pension at the other end of Rome, and comes here to afternoon tea three times a week only—the whole of my MS (typed already) of Dominations and Powers; after which I shall have a new set of copies made by the ever-younger Miss Tindall,

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who since The Last Puritan has copied all my work; copies one of which ^ ^ will be sent to Scribner’s in New York for safe keeping, in case we should have another war in these parts. This does not mean that the book is actually finished; if I live on I shall want to add and subtract to it in many places, following the advice of Boileau, which I have taken for my motto: Polissez-le toujours, et le repolissez, Ajoutez quelquefois et souvent effacez.3 Still, the thing is complete enough to be published as it is, with some final pruning, which Cory will do after I am gone. Meantime he is getting stray chapters (they are very short) published in various reviews. Two appeared this month in the (London) “World Review”, and other will appear soon, I believe, in “The Atlantic”.4 You have received, I hope, or will soon do so a Christmas present from me via Scribner’s, as last year. These are not really Christmas presents but, as I explained to you then, a small substitute for the legacy which, as my best friend in the family, you ought to receive; but it is not practicable under the circumstances, just as it is not practicable for me to move from this house. Every alternative would be distraction and total confusion and helplessness. Here at least I am at peace and mentally free from interference. Yours affectionately GSantayana 1

Edmund Wilson’s article is entitled “Santayana at the Convent of the Blue Nuns,” The New Yorker 22 (6 April 1946): 55–62. This article is reproduced in Wilson’s book, Europe without Baedeker: Sketches from Among the Ruins of Italy, Greece and England, together with Notes from a European Diary (New York: The Noonday Press, 1966), 41–55. What Wilson actually writes is that while the nuns were announcing his arrival to Santayana, he waited in “the dark little parlor, very British and middle-class with its sentimental modern Catholic pictures” (42–43). He describes Santayana in his room, reposing “in his shabby chaise longue like a monad in the universal mind.” Edmund Wilson (1895–1972), an American critic and author, graduated from Princeton in 1916. He was the managing editor of Vanity Fair (1920–21) and worked for the New Republic (1926–31) and the New Yorker (1944–48). 2 Mr. and Mrs. Philip Chetwynd and their four children. 3 “Polish it continually, and repolish it, / Add occasionally and delete often.” See letter of 11 July 1949. 4 From Dominations Book First, Part Three, “The Dependence of Morality on Religion” appeared as “Morality and Religion,” Atlantic Monthly (November 1950): 61–63; and “Liberal Arts Liberate Spirit” appeared as “Arts Liberate the Spirit,” Atlantic Monthly (March 1951): 65–66.

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To John P. McKnight 22 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec. 22, 1949 Dear Mr. McKnight1 In the preface to “Interpretations of Poetry and Religion, publish in 1900, in the first paragraph, you may read these words: “Poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life; when it merely supervenes upon life, it is seen to be nothing but poetry.” This is exactly the point of view from which my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels” is written, after fifty more years of reflection on the subject. I quote this so that, if you mention me at all in your book,2 you may not speak of my now coming to a position close to Christianity, or in general treating my career as a transformation of opinions Of course, I have changed in range and in tone, and should qualify differently many of my early expressions, especially in regard to “ideas” and the literary or autobiographical way of conceiving the mind. That is egotism; and interesting enough if sincere; but it is a confession of one’s illusions not a discovery of the truth about oneself. The real agent, in mind as well as in body, is what I k/now call the “psyche”, i.e. the life of the organism. And this organism, though modified by contact with the world, is essentiall hereditary, so that its reactions will express the same bent in all the different reactions it may make. In other words, we do not essentially change, but show on different occasions different sides of the same nature or Will. At least, this has been the case with me. My genuine judgments as well as affections are what they always were. As to the public questions which you will necessarily touch in your account of the Pope3 I have no inside knowledge. As you suggest, the confused and shaken condition of the public mind after these two wars, and this crop of successful dictatorships (they ordinarily they don’t last more ^ ^ than 20 years) puzzles those who believed in “Progress”. I never believed in it, because the criterion of excellence changes with each civilization; and what seems ruin in one direction may be budding in another. Toym / nbee is excellent on this matter, although his general philosophy seems to me feeble. There is a “time of troubles” such as ours, normally followed by a “universal State” or empire—just what we are working for here and dreading as if it meant death there. I don’t dare form an opinion as to what will

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happen. From the Pope’s point of view there is a fair hope of numerous scattered conversions, as old faiths dissolve; but there will not be for ages as any “Catholic countries” or armed religions. But I see no impossibility — in a whole Zoo of religious cages into which, however, each variety of believer may freely enter or which, if born there, he may leave at will. I think of each large city as a collection of ghettoes, each commercially associated with the others, and subject to the same imperial military authority, but within its bounds preserving its own language, costume, religion, marriage-laws and fine arts. That combination would not last for ever, but nothing does. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

John P[roctor] McKnight (1908–87) was a journalist and an author. The Papacy: A New Appraisal (New York: Rinehart, 1952). “In the early chapters on the nature and appeals of religion(s), I wanted to cite Santayana, among others.” [ John P. McKnight, in a 21 May 1986 letter to Rodney Dennis, curator of manuscripts at the Houghton Library.] 3 Pius XII (Eugenio Maria Giuseppi Giovanni Pacelli, 1876–1958) was the pope from 1939 to 1958. 2

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 29–30 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 29, 1949 Dear Lowell No Xmas present could have been more welcome or New Year’s wishes more inspiriting than your letter, because I was unhappy at what seemed your unhappiness and the suspension of all that you had brought in the way of fresh interest in poetry and in religious alternatives, as you had been writing it and undergoing them. Our friend Fitzgerald had told me the chief facts about you in these last months, but the cheerful tone of your letter, and what you say about finding yourself in the condition of my poor Oliver, throw more light upon them. I seem to see how you are now in Oliver’s position; you are held by circumstances to a kind of life which does not correspond to your real possibilities and vocation; but his case was hopeless and yours, as I see it, is not. He was held by his money and by America; but your America, as I feel it in you, is a part of your inspiration: you don’t need to go far outside of it for your images or your

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problems and though you are severe about some sides of it (King’s Chapel) you are heart and soul a part of it in its radical mission or sentiment. So that, for you, is not an inhibition, as for modest Oliver, but a theme to develop. To match Oliver’s money, you have a comparative lack of it; and this again is not a hopeless weight (as for him) but a perhaps temporary and partial necessity of teaching in a college, which is not incompatible with your writing poetry, which I take to be your clearest gift and true desire. This touches a point which neither you nor Fitzgerald say anything about, and that is, What has become of your great Poem?1 Are you going to finish it, or is it finished, or are you discouraged or disgusted with it after these interruptions? The other point that principally disquieted me was the effect of your “mystical experiences.” Now you say they were pathological, which in one sense had to be the case; but the question that troubled me was whether they would leave a religious vocation in addition to firm faith, or only confirmed faith, or (as I understand is the case) a reversion to the more or less radical disillusion about the Church into which you had previously fallen. None of these possibilities would have prevented you from continuing to be a good poet; but as a philosopher I should have felt a little less at home with you, beyond a certain range of subjects, if you had remained a good Catholic, especially having been a convert. With born Catholics I never feel cramped because I can follow all their sentiments as I should those of a pagan or moslem (religions that I like, whereas I don’t like Protestant piety, much as I often like Protestant character.) But converts to the Catholic Church never are quite at home in the language; you never can say anything in fun to them. They want arguments and edifying explanations. If you wear your Catholicism with a smile, or put it off quietly with a smile, I am with you. As you said once that you had liked my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels” I assume that you are not troubled by my attitude on this point. As for me, my health has not been so good during the last year and I have been saved, apparently, from an attack of bronchial pneumonia only by copious injections of penicillin. I am also having trouble with my eyes, the “beginnings” of a cataract in one and the old astigmatism in the other, so that I am not able to trust myself in the crowded streets, or in shops where the light is not strong. The result is that I don’t go out at all, even in a taxi, unless it is necessary. But I can still read and write with pleasure in a strong light, and am busy making a general review of the extant chapters of “Dominations & Powers” assited by my old secretary, Cory, who

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is spending the winter in Rome for that purpose. He is now very useful and seems to take a real interest in this (my last) book, the subject of which is not exactly in his line, but to which now he shows a due respect. I myself (it may be dotage) am much pleased with it and am trying to remove blemishes and platitudes as far as possible. Cory (who is to be my literary executor and heir to my MSS) has already been sending some chapters to various reviews. Two chapters (they are all short) appeared lately in the (London) World Review and others are to appear now, I believe, in The Atlantic. I let him manage all the business for himself as I am not fit for such work and hate it. On the other hand, the completed version of 22 lines from Tibullus (Elegy 3 of Book I) the beginning and ^ ^ the end, with bold variations of my own, is to appear in a new little Review in London called “Nine”, from the Muses and the nine “modern” poets who run it. They said that my translation “although the diction was traditional, was a modern poem.” I will have a copy sent to you to see if you also say so. I have been reading Ezra Pound’s “Pisan Cantos” 2 and have received a letter of his (which I didn’t expect) with a Chinese character in the middle of the page, and below, in “traditional” English the maxim: “Respect the intelligence of a cherry that can make cherries.” I am touched by his remembering me, as I have not answered one or two earlier letters that were wholly unintelligible. But it is a pity that he prints so many mistakes in his foreign languages, even in the Greek alphabet. I thought some passages in these “Cantos” very good; but why so much trash? I must write to him too. VALE3 GSantayana = P.S. December 30 th On rereading this letter this morning, to correct illegible words written in semi-darkness as the afternoon declined, I see that I say nothing about your bride.4 Indeed, after what you say of her, there was nothing I could add, except that I should like to see a novel of hers, the one you like best and that will give me the clearest idea of her character. There has been only one woman novelist of our time that I have known personally and admired also as a writer, “Elizabeth of the German Garden”, who was first Countess von Arnim and then Countess Russell, on marrying my friend, Bertrand’s elder brother.5 We read The Mill on the Floss at school (the Boston Latin, about 1880) and I afterwards read Middlemarch & Romola, not liking the last, and finding the others heavy.6 But “Elizabeth” was light and detached, with trenchant views of character, sometimes overdone, as

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in regard to Germans and to her second husband. Your marriage makes me give up all hope of seeing you; unless I live longer than I expect and you can both come to Rome on a visit to your adopted “uncle”.7 In view of this title, which I adopt with pleasure, I am asking Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s, with whom I carry on my business correspondence and who, as you know, is a “traditional” poet, to send you a wedding present in my name, which I hope may be convenient for you in your proposed migration to the West. GS. 1

“The Mills of the Kavanaughs.” The Pisan Cantos (London: Faber and Faber, 1949) comprises Cantos 74 through 84, which were written during Pound’s confinement in a United States Army stockade in Pisa (May–November 1945) while awaiting indictment for treason. 3 Farewell (Italian). 4 Elizabeth Bruce Hardwick (b. 1916), Lowell’s second wife, is a novelist and literary critic. 5 See letter to Cory of 21 May 1948, footnote 5. 6 These books were written by George Eliot (1819–80), pen name of Mary Ann Evans, a British novelist and poet. (The Mill on the Floss [New York: Harper, 1860]; Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life [New York: International Book Co., 1860]; Romola [Boston: Estes and Lauriat, c. 1890]). 7 In his 22 December 1949 letter to Santayana, Lowell writes, “Write me again from all your wisdom and culture as a wise uncle.” 2

To John Hall Wheelock 30 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Dec. 30, 1949 Dear Mr Wheelock I write today to ask you to repeat the favour you have done me several times and to send a wedding present of $500.= in my name to Mr. Robert Lowell = St. 29 W. 104th New York City. I assume that there is sufficient credit to my account, and also that you know of the curious telepathic friendship that has arisen between Robert Lowell and me in the last two or three years. Lately our correspondence ceased, because he had fallen under a cloud, a compound over-excitement and profound depression. Yesterday I received a very calm letter, in the old manner, telling me of his marriage (I had heard of it from his friend

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Robert Fitzgerald, who had visited me here with his wife, and had afterwards written to me about our friend’s troubles and illness; also, recently, of his recovery. But the direct renewal of communications with Lowell direct has been a real satisfaction to me, and I want to do something to express it. I am writing to him separately, so that he will understand your missive when it arrives. Cory and I continue our work merrily. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Harold Witter Bynner 31 December 1949 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec. 31, 1949 Dear Witter Bynner1 This is the first time I address anybody in this form; but since you adopt it I am convinced that it must be the right thing not only for bohemians but for all free minds. My address is as above, and I shall be glad to see you at any time, preferably after 4.30 p.m. if you decide to pass through Rome. You will find me rather deaf and a little blind and otherwise showing marks of decrepitude, but appropriately retired to a Nursing Home of the “Blue Sisters”, where English is spoken and — and nurses and doctors always at hand Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 [Harold] Witter Bynner (1881–1968) was an American writer, poet, and scholar. Santayana’s earliest correspondence with him is from 17 May 1907. After graduating from Harvard in 1902, Bynner traveled extensively in Japan and China, an experience that heavily influenced his writing. He was the first American to translate a complete book of Chinese poetry (The Jade Mountain, 1929). Other works include Grenstone Poems (1917), A Canticle of Pan (1920), Eden Tree (1931), and Take Away the Darkness (1947).

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To Peter Robert Edwin Viereck [Late 1949 or early 1950] • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Viereck)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, Thursday. Dear Viereck Any day between five and seven I shall be very glad to see you; or if that hour is preempted by official duties, you may come any day at any time, because I am now not working under pressure and could take a holiday, for a good cause like that of renewing our acquaintance, and getting hints about the spirit of the hour. Your reviews are not good, the Times one a scandal.1 But that Paul Elmer Moore was a disciple of Irving Babbit is a “howler” of the first order.2 It seems that all American critical writers or super-cultured intellectuals are classed as a contemporary order of angels no matter what may be their dates or sources; and Moore’s sources were essentially Platonic and Christian. Babbit would have been his disciple if he had been a believer: but he was a vaguely international humanist with an early Buddhistic finish. Moore had a more “standard” conservative learning. I have not read much of him. Those things can be drunk nearer the fountain-head; but I hardly felt that he was a modern American. Might have been one of 100 or 150 years ago. They will not do you justice on your best side, but you may be able to float on your social and academic activities and sympathies, while your Metternich studies are thrown in by the way.—But we can discuss all this viva voce3 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 “Terror Versus Decorum,” a review of Conservatism Revisited, was published in the New York Times by Charles Poore and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. on 23 October 1949. 2 Paul Elmer More (1864–1937), who earned an A.M. from Harvard in 1893, taught Sanskrit and classics at Harvard and at Bryn Mawr College. He was editor of The Nation (1909–14) and a literary critic. His books include studies of Plato and Greek philosophy, as well as works on Jesus Christ and Roman Catholicism. He was associated with Irving Babbitt and the New Humanism. Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) took an A.M. in 1893 from Harvard, where he taught French and comparative literature for nearly forty years. Babbitt criticized expressionist and Romantic philosophies, advocating instead a New Humanism of intellectual discipline and reason based on classical traditions. He wrote Democracy and Leadership (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924). 3 “By word of mouth,” as in an oral examination (literally, “with the living voice”; Latin).

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To George Perrigo Conger [1950–1951?] • Rome, Italy

(MS: Minnesota)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Thursday Dear Mr. Conger1 My old practice of seeing everybody who chose to come has had to be given up by the doctor’s advice and my own confusion of people and faces; but I still see old friends, and am expecting a special one tomorrow or Saturday. If you could come some day next week, as you say, in the late afternoon, you will probably find me alone, and in any case very glad to see you. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

George Perrigo Conger (1884–1960), an American philosopher, was president of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association from 1944 to 1954.

To John Hall Wheelock 3 January 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome. Jan. 3. 1950. Dear Mr. Wheelock. The moment has come to confirm my request that you would do me = the favour of sending a cheque for $500. to my niece Mrs. David M. Little (Rosamond Thomas Little) at The Ledge, Weston, 39, Mass., where they are going to spend Christmas in the old Sturgis house, as Mr Little’s official residence in Cambridge is under repairs. Cory is here, and we have begun the revision of Dominations & Powers: I read the text and make the corrections I decide upon first, and then he will make his, and submit them to me; whereupon the text will be recopied by Miss Tindall, and after revising that again we have agreed that it would be safer, in view of the political and for me dangerous eventualities, to send one copy, in installments, — to for safe keeping to you, while Cory keeps the other, and I the revised text from which Miss Tindall took them. I will ask Cory to address and post the installments to

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you, as they are ready, — in with his own hand, so that the provenance of the book from him will be confirmed.1 Two important but brief chapters have appeared in the “World Review” for December, and others, I believe, in “The Atlantic”. Cory is slow but judicious in finding proper means of advertising the book, and keeping my name before the public. What I like less is the photographs and the interviews that also appear. The latter by Mr. Robert Russell2 is a complete traversty of what I said to him, especially about Ezra Pound, and you will be pleased to learn that I live exclusively on what I receive from Scribner’s! What I said was that my funds came exclusively from America (although since that day my old London Bank account has been returned to me and reopened). I have not been well during this last year, 1949, and my sight is affected as well as my heart and lungs. But I take every precaution, have aid of every kind at hand, and hope to be able to bring this last work to a conclusion. With best wishes for the New Year from GSantayana 1

In case there should be any question of Cory’s ownership of the manuscript or rights to royalties from Dominations. 2 Peter Russell.

To Corliss Lamont 6 January 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 6, 1950 Dear Mr. Lamont It is pleasant news that another professed philosopher has arisen in the younger generations of the “Gashouse,” and that he is, on the whole, a man of my own persuasion. On opening your book and seeing its full title “Humanism as a Philosophy” 1 I feared that this sort of agreement would not exist, as in my mind “Humanism” is a taste rather than a system, and those who make a system of it are obliged to explain away what is not human in the universe as a normal fiction; as Croce when one day he asked himself, “But where can the idea of nature come in?” and replied, “As a postulate of ethics.” And in Europe humanism as a philosophy is

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rather identified with Auguste Comte and the British radicals (as you point out speaking of Bertrand Russell) who are psychological socialists, with the idea of nature absent, except as a social convention. On reading on in your book, however, I was soon relieved of that apprehension, and saw that you are as much a naturalist and materialist as I. I particularly like what you say of F. R. S. Schiller,2 who (like Dewey at first) wanted to annex me to the pragmatic heresy, and gave me some trouble in consequence. You regret the later developments of my philosophy, and I notice that you quote only from my earlier “American” books. Let me assure you that Essence and Spirit in my sincere view are perfectly naturalistic categories. Material things and sensuous ideas have to have some form, which might be qualitatively identical in many instances, and therefore capable of logical and dialectical treatment in logic, grammar, mathematics, & aesthetics. Without bothering you with technical arguments, let me suggest this natural status of immaterial forms and systems of relations in the case of music. Music accompanies savage life as well as that of some birds, being a spontaneous exercise of motions producing aerial but exciting sounds, with the art of making them, which is one of the useless but beloved effusions of vital energy in animals. And from the beginning this liberal accompaniment adds harmony and goodwill to dancing and war; and gradually it becomes in itself an object of attention, as in popular or love songs. In religion it also peeps out, although here it ordinarily remains a subservient element, inducing a mood and a means of unifying a crowd in feeling or action, rather than a separate art. Yet it is precisely as a separate art, not as an accompaniment to anything practical, that music is at its best, purest and most elaborate. And certainly the sensibility and gift of music is a human possession, although not descriptive of any other natural thing. Apply this analogy to mathematics, logic, aesthetics, and religion, and you have the naturalistic status of ideal things in my philosophy. “Humanism” has this moral defect in my opinion that it seems to ^ ^ make all mankind an authority and a compulsory object of affection for every individual. I see no reason for that. The limits of the society that we find congenial and desirable is determined by our own condition, not by the extent of it in the world. This is doubtless the point in which I depart most from your view and from modern feeling generally. Democracy is very well when it is natural, not forced. But the natural virtue of each age, place, and person is what a good democracy would secure—not uniformity. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1

New York: Philosophical Library, 1949. Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller (1864–1937) was a British pragmatist philosopher who was influenced by James, but Schiller focused on the personal aspect of thinking and regarded knowledge as relatively subjective. Schiller felt the British school had forgotten the truth of Protagoras that “man is the measure of all things.” His works include Studies in Humanism (1907), Problems of Beliefs (1924), and Tantalus; or, The future of man (1924). As a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Schiller had invited Santayana to dinner several times at the High Table in the College Hall. Santayana described him as having the “airs of a professed and shameless sophist” and was mortified when Schiller requested that Santayana write a letter recommending him for the chair of logic at Oxford. See Persons, 506–7. 2

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 10 January 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, January 10, 1950. Dear Clemens Your note of Jan. 1st= has relieved a fit of misanthropy which had been started by the disappointment of receiving from you, instead of the first class first volume of a great book about Jefferson, the soiled proof-sheets of a Unitarian tract about Religious Toleration, disguised by the name of Jefferson and a photograph of his Statue in Washington,1 which has a great air, and made me wonder whether the sculptor was inspired by the Charioteer of Delphi.2 Well, that disappointment is past, and I shall await the real gift from you with hope and patience. One of the things that worried me was how the critic in the Times Literary Supplement3 (where I get my notices of what new books might be worth reading) could have mistaken these stale platitudes for a great final presentment of Jefferson. How could he be so taken in? But yesterday, in the last issue of the same Review I found something even more extraordinary. In the long leading article,4 about the dethronement, not to say disclosure, of Browning in our time, I found that the chei —ief benefit we were getting from Browning now was that he had inspired the early poems of Ezra Pound. He, who was as good a dramatist as Shakespeare and a better (because more cheerful!) moral guide than the Sermon on ^ ^ the Mount, survives only as a contributor to the poetry of Ezra Pound …! The only book about me that I know of is Howgate’s published one or two decades ago. It is accurate about the facts and not bad in most places in criticism, but of course does not cover my later books. In

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Schilpp’s volume on me in his Living Philosopher, vol. II, is my [across ] own summary, and other comments about my life; and finally my “Persons & Places” continued in “The Middle Span” Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom, Advocate of Christian Morals, by Henry Wilder Foote (Boston: Beacon Press, 1947). Santayana is referring to the statue created by Rudolph Evans for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., which appears opposite the half-title page in the 1947 edition of Foote’s book. 2 The Charioteer of Delphi is a bronze statue from ancient Greece. It was erected in 474 B.C. in Delphi in honor of a victorious chariot team in the Pythian Games. The sculptor is unknown. 3 Jefferson the Virginian was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement on 8 July 1949 (“Master of Monticello,” 440). The review was written by Jack Eric Morpurgo (b. 1918), a British professor of American literature at Leeds. See the letter to Clemens of 22 November 1949 for Santayana’s first mention of this book. 4 “A Version of Browning,” Times Literary Supplement (30 December 1949): 856. This was actually the “middle article,” a long, center-page piece facing the editorial and letters page, and devoted to broad overviews of a particular author or literary movement. Articles in this space sometimes took a contrarian viewpoint from conventional opinion or even opposed previous TLS reviewers’ positions.

To Corliss Lamont 22 January 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Lamont)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6, Rome, January 22, 1950 Dear Mr Lamont It is always a compliment to be quoted and I see nothing in the passage you cite from a letter of mine of 19351 that I should wish to retract. And I should be glad if, when the new edition of The Illusion of Immortality2 comes out, you would send me a copy, where I might read your own reflections on the subject with which I foresee that I should generally sympathise. The Nicene Creed ends by asserting belief, in “resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi.” 3 Translate saeculum by the word “age” rather than “world”, insist on the temporality of life, and keep in mind that the resurrection of the dead means that of their bodies, without which the shrewd old Jews did not think immortality a gennuine good, and you have the Illusion in question avoided, and the miraculous but naturalistic resurrection of the body in its place. Plato, and the delay in the second coming of Christ were apparently to blame for the mythical notion of the immortal soul to take root in Christian speculation.

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Please present my compliments to Dr. Runes4 and tell him that I would much rather not see the proofs of my book, as Mr. Cardiff with surely read them carefully, and my eyes are scarcely able to do the reading of indispensable stuff. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

See 5 March 1935. The second edition was published by the Philosophical Library in New York in 1950. 3 The Nicene Creed was formed in 325 A.D. by the Council of Nicaea. It was based on a previous creed, and was created in response to Arianus’s heresy. The Latin is usually translated as “the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” 4 Dagobert David Runes (1902–82), a Romanian-born philosopher, earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna. He wrote books on philosophy and religion and was editor of the Philosophical Library, which published Atoms of Thought. 2

To George Rauh 31 January 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, January 31, 1950. Dear Mr. Rauh:1 Your splendid gift of White’s Dante2 arrived some time ago, but I have been kept by a bad turn in my health from reading much in it, and wanted to wait until I had examined at least a few well-known passages before saying anything about it. White’s own short preface gave me the impression that he had not attempted to make more than a readable contemporary version, and that perhaps the use of Gustave Doré’s Illustrations was not entirely the publishers’ doing, but also looked to producing a popular gift book. Those Illustrations are dramatic and catch everyone’s eye; and they add vastness to the perfectly definite dimensions of Dante’s landscapes; but they are not in the spirit of the original, except in some figures in the Inferno—not those of Francesca and Paolo. White is clear in giving up the rhymes which are impossible at any length in English; but the way he jumps at once into blank verse seems to me hasty; especially as he does not free himself from the other terrible fetter of translating line for line, and not profiting by the chance that blank verse gives of breaking lines up and not padding them, as you have to do often in a line for line translation;

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since 73 syllables in English, or even 70 contain more words on the average than 11 Syllables in Italian. Then there is the grave difficulty of passing in English from the sublime to the homely, as is current in Romance languages. English has two vocabularies. It has occurred to me sometimes that a man with a full command of 16th Century English, like that of Shakespeare and the English Bible, might render Dante magnificently in verses, like those of the Psalms, each for a triplet in the original, in terse prose. Dante’s language is simple, but learned, like Church Latin; and his poem is a procession of basses, altos, and sopranos three abreast, holding candles, but so arranged that the voices would link the trios to one another like the Terrarima;3 so if B stands for bass, A for alto, and S for soprano, as follows BAB ASA SBS BAB etc. and the language should be simple and good for any subject, yet a sacred language, not at all like loose common talk in the vernacular. The translation is faithful and often literal, but it does not produce this ritual effect proper to the original, and of course gives no idea of the sweetness and limpidity of the Italian. However, White begins by making that sacrifice, and evidently hopes to attach the reader by assimilating himself to him in language, as far as possible, and no doubt he gains an important point in avoiding “poetical” words, now tabooed by the young poets. I am an old man, and have versified sometimes in the traditional English lingo; for that reason I can’t help missing here, for instance, the distinction of Cary’s blank verse, and even some phrases of Longfellow,4 neither of which White mentions in his preface. But let us be thankful for this devoted effort, without dreaming of any endless procession with candles, basses, altos, and sopranos. With penicillin I have been pulled through my recent relapse and am hopeful of reaching the summer and the end of my new book. Best wishes to you and to Lawrence Butler from GSantayana 1

Unidentified. The Divine Comedy, translated by Lawrence Grant White into English blank verse includes illustrations by Paul Gustave Doré (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948). White 2

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(1887–1956) was the son of the architect Stanford White and was himself an architect and designer. Doré (1832–83) was a French illustrator who worked on commission for several British publishers. Paolo and Francesca are guilty lovers confined to the second circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno. Francesca da Rimini had fallen in love with her husband’s brother, Paolo; their guilt was discovered by Francesca’s husband and he killed them. 3 Santayana is referring to the verse scheme, terza rima, used by Dante in The Divine Comedy. 4 Henry Francis Cary (1772–1844) was an English translator and an assistant librarian at the British Musuem (1826–37). His blank-verse translation of The Divine Comedy (New York: Lovell, Coryell, 1814) is the most accepted version for scholars. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82), an American poet, is best known for his works Hiawatha, Evangeline, The Children’s Hour, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. He graduated from Bowdoin College and began his teaching career there as a professor of modern languages. He later became a professor at Harvard and lived primarily in Cambridge for the remainder of his life.

To Ezra Loomis Pound 7 February 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Indiana)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, February 7, 1950 Dear Pound Two messages from you are awaiting an answer. The first, besides being a compliment to my naturalism, or to the generative order of nature (as I call it in my new book, now nearing completion) exemplified it in ^^ a cherry-stone able to produce cherries, after going a long way round, and facing a good many risks of perishing on the way. And it would be fussy to object to your word “intelligence” to describe that potentiality in the cherry-stone; somehow it possesses a capacity to develop other cherries, under favourable circumstances, without getting anything vital wrong. That is “intelligence” of an unconscious1 sort. I agree in respecting it. The other message comes today with the observation that there has been no philosophy in the West, at least since Pythagoras,2 but only philoepistemologia. That is true of English and even in part of German speculation, but not of traditional philosophy which has never died out, in the Church and in many individuals. My friends Lucretius and Spinoza were not especially epistemologists but had theories of the nature of things, putting human “knowledge” in its place.

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It was very good of you to remember me I have not been very well, but hope to last long enough to finish my book. Cory, who is now in Rome, is helping me EFFICIENTLY! Yours GSantayana 1 Pound wrote to Cory, “How the HELL does he KNOW it’s ‘unconscious’”. Cory replied in his footnote, “Santayana believed that consciousness was an intermittant ‘spiritual’ dimension of highly organised nervous systems, such as human beings possess. He objected to spreading it over nature at large in the manner of the Idealists” (Letters, 393). 2 Pythagoras (c. 582–c. 507 B.C.) a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, emigrated from island of Samos to southern Italy. Known for the belief that the universe is ordered according to mathematical relations and that numbers have mystic power. He was famous for promoting the doctrine of metempsychosis, which holds that after physical death the immortal soul is reborn in both humans and animals. Among his followers, rules were established for purifying the soul. Plato referred to Pythagoras as the founder of a way of life. Pound wrote to Cory: “I think I sd / Ocellus and not Pythagoras.”

To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 11 February 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bidwell)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome Feb. 11, 1950 Dear Raymond I sent a long letter to Dave and Carol yesterday;1 luckily I had their address in a Christmas card that they had sent me. You are very good to be concerned about my ailments; they are almost inevitable when one has the impertinence to outlive the age allowed even to those who “by cause of strength” reach fourscore,2 especially when strength is not at all conspicuous in their appearance or in their exploits. However, I am now much better than when I wrote to Josephine; fever has not returned, and I have needed no more injections of penicillin; but I take that medicine every other day in the form of inhalations, which have had a splendid effect, in that I now have hardly any cough, and spit nothing that does not belong etymologically to “catarrh” which our Greek teacher at the Latin School3 used to define, after the Greek words that compose it, as “copious down-flowings from the upper regions of the head.” Even this is now very slight and occasional; and as the sun has begun to shine, and I have to let the awning down outside my balcony, we may regard my normal health as restored.

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My eyes are not better, but not perceptably worse; and I can still read and write comfortably enough As to sending me eatables or other things, please don’t trouble. I get a box from “/ the “Vendome”, so called, in New York once a month regularly, which Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s pays for out of my account with them; I also now have an account again with Brown Shipley & Co in London, my funds having been restored to me after ten years, during which they were held by “the Custodian of Enemy Property” This, however, is good only within the Sterling Area; but I have several regular charges that I can now pay in England, like books ordered from Blackwell’s in Oxford, without asking to have money sent from America; for my Rome bank issues cheques only good in Italy, and besides I draw a very modest sum from The Old Colony Trust Company, as I have few expenses here other than my monthly bills in this house, which with medicines and all, hardly amount to $4 a day. I could be more comfortable, as to quarters, if I lived as formerly in a hotel; but I should not be so well attended, especially at night, when I can always ring for the Sister who is doing the night watch and get anything I want, often a cup of hot milk. Let me congratulate you and Josephine on being grandparents, and so young!4 Yours affectionately GSantayana 1

Unlocated. This is a reference to Psalm 90:10, which reads, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” 3 Arthur Irving Fiske (1848–1910) was a member of the Boston Latin School faculty (1873–1910) and headmaster from 1902. 4 Carolyn Gale Bidwell (Martin) was born 3 January 1950 to David and Carol Bidwell. 2

To John McKinstry Merriam 11 February 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Merriam)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, February 11, 1950 Dear Merriam It is weeks, I am afraid, since your box with all the ingredients for making buckwheat cakes arrived safely; but I was, and have been this last year, far from well, with complications of my chronic catarrh, and beside

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with a cataract which threatens blindness; but the advantages of a hospital for residence, where my old doctor comes every day, have appeared all the more, and thanks especially to penicillin, first in injections, and now in a new form that is inhaled, and that has almost stopped my cough, which was particularly trying, as it kept me awake and made it hard to do any consecutive work, I have been restored to normal old age. As to the eyes, I can read and write (as you see) almost as usual (I write without eye glasses but for reading, I need a hand magnifying glass, which I prefer to spectacles, and which the fashionable oculist, called Professor Doktor Neuschüler1 (though an Italian) says is not at all bad for me. By ill luck, soon after your present came, Sister Angela, an Irish child brought up in Chicago, who is our housekeeper and a good old-fashioned cook and great friend of mine, went for 2 or 3 weeks to Malta, where this Order has a large establishment and has not yet returned. When she gets back, I hope to renew the feast that Mrs. Burnett, of 60 Brattle Street,2 used to give me (with pork and beans first) on Sunday mornings in 1900–1905. My old secretary, Daniel Cory, is now in Rome and is helping me to put in order for the press the overgrown manuscript of my last book, “Dominations and Powers”, which I have been working on, off and on, since before the war of 1914–18. It is a more mature and less abstract treatment of “Liberty, Society, & Government” than the second volume of “The Life of Reason” 3 which I began to displease me as soon as it was published. I see by your circular letter received today that you are only six active members now of the Class of 1886. In America I have one niece, Mrs. Raymond B. Bidwell, and six grandnephews (one a grand ne/iece)4 one of which —om has just had a first baby. In Spain, I have an old family friend, with whom my sisters5 and I sometimes lived, who is 94 years old. But I feel really more sympathy with the younger generation of today, and they also with me, to judge by the visits and letters that I receive from them. This establishment is being enlarged, renovated and set up to date by a new Superior from Australia. The world is evidently determined not to come to an end. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mrs. Burnett is unidentified. 3 Society. 2

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4

See 20 December 1948 to Rosamond. Santayana’s half sisters were Susan Parkman Sturgis de Sastre (1851–1928) and Josephine Borrás Sturgis (1853–1930). The friend is Mercedes Escalera. 5

To Hamilton Vaughan Bail 20 February 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 20 February, 1950 Dear Mr. Bail1 The first thing that it occurs to me to say about the glimpses of Harvard life that I give in The Last Puritan is that they are probably not exact chronologically. My two heroes’ short residence at Harvard is supposed to fall in the days when you were in college, and you must know exactly ^ ^ what was characteristic and what impossible there then. But my intimate acquaintance with the ways of the place was gathered long before between 1882 and 1886, when I was an undergraduate and from 1889 to 1896 when I again lived in the Yard and had much intimate acquaintance with what went on in the college, especially at the Delta Phi, now the Delphic Club. After 1898, when I returned from a year at King’s College, Cambridge, I lived in rooms in the town and only saw a few collegians who were my pupils. By January, 1912, when I left America, manners and customs at Harvard may have changed a good deal, and my recollections, inevitably colouring my descriptions and characters, must have been often out of date Of other books that profess to picture Harvard life I can only remember two by Flandrau,2 not to be trusted. My own original plan to write a college story proved impossible to carry out for want of a suitable plot, and the eventual Last Puritan was built round the mere theme of a good boy and a bad boy their friendship proving of equal advantage to both. But the centre of gravity of my project had meantime shifted from Harvard to the international society in which I had found myself in later years. Mr. Morrison has informed me that the story of the Dickey initiation involving purloining the College Bible, is not accurate. That it was not the Dickey but an earlier Med Fac that was concerned and that the watchman was not killed.3 That, of course, does not change the dramatic propriety of my inaccurate version to explain the character and subsequent life of

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Peter Alden, in whom I was as much interested, and perhaps more successful, than in the case of my two young heroes. There were in my time several Harvard men living more or less in Europe who could supply models for that sort of helpless character. Neither Oliver nor Mario were “Harvard men,” so that their respective passages through the place should be regarded as intrusions by outsiders. I found, when after long periods I turned to the theme of The Last Puritan that my “bad” man, Mario, was not nearly bad enough to cause a fundamental revolution in the dogmatic Puritanism of my hero, and for that purpose I introduced Jim Darnley,4 from a different country and traditions. To judge by my experience I should say that Harvard yields no good materials for fiction. ^ ^ Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Hamilton Vaughan Bail (1892–1997), a Harvard graduate (1913), authored several works, some of which are about Harvard. 2 An 1895 Harvard graduate, Charles Macomb Flandrau (1871–1938) wrote Harvard Episodes (1897) and The Diary of a Freshman (London: Heinemann; New York: Doubleday, 1901). 3 The first seventy or eighty undergraduates selected for membership in the Institute of 1770, the basic society from which the smaller clubs chose their members, belonged automatically to the D.K.E., Dickey, or Deeks. The secret society of Puritan to which everybody of consequence belonged was the D.K.E. The Med. Fac. was a student society notorious for the perpetration of numerous hoaxes during the 1880s and 1890s and was finally suppressed by Harvard authorities in 1905 (Harvard, 206, 423–24). 4 Jim Darnley, captain of the Black Swan, is based mainly on John Francis Stanley Russell. The novel’s hero, Oliver, is the son of Peter and Harriet Alden.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 26 February 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Monday Feb. 26, 1950 Dear Cory Sorry you are laid up in this cold spell, but the sun ought to shine by Wednesday. I enclose what I hope will cheer you. My portrait was finished on Saturday and, as far as I can judge, it is rather good.1 I showed Wood my only previous portrait by an artist, Andreas Andersen’s carbon of 1896, and he looked at it intently for a long time and seemed to appreciate it. He said it still looked like me, which was a compliment to Andersen as well as to me.

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“Nine” has arrived this afternoon, and contains 70 pages, including other much longer pieces from Tibullus, in blank verse and an article on T. S. Eliot’s “Cocktail Party”, which, as far as I have gone, is not sympathetic. Are the Nine too advanced to respect the Master?2 My own verses don’t make a good impression on me in print. I have found things to correct at the end of the chapter on the roots of Spirit in Matter3 and have no yet straightened it out. But I like this revising, only the dark cold days have rather benumbed my wits, although I have no cough Arivederci— GS— 1

This oil painting by Harry Wood is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The portrait depicts Santayana, dressed in pajamas and dressing gown, seated in a lounge chair in his room at the Blue Sisters’ Nursing Home. Harry Emsley Wood Jr. (1910–94) was an artist known for portrait, western, and abstract landscape painting. 2 The Cocktail Party, a poetic drama, was written in 1949. The review written by Donald Bain appeared in NINE 2, no. 1 ( January 1950): 16. 3 Chapter 4 of the “Preliminaries” section of Dominations.

To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk 10 March 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome, March 10, 1950 Dear Onderdonk It is sad but inevitable that such moments as you have passed through should come, and you have had the satisfaction of keeping your Mother, and being her chief comfort for many years. I remember very clearly the day we dined at the Régence in Paris and went afterwards to the Théâtre Français. It was not a good play, but it was a pleasure to see your mother so cheerful and enjoying the little occasion as if it had been a great one. I have been rather ill, with a complication of my bronchial catarrh, but have recovered entirely—in fact am almost free from cough—thanks to penicillin, first in injections, and later breathing it in; but the doctor is very prudent, and stopped the cure as soon as he saw that it had a good effect—keeping it unimpaired, I understand, in view of future need /). I am in hopes of finishing the revision of Dominations & Powers this summer and then singing, Nunc demittis.1 Best regards from GSantayana

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1 Now dismiss me (Latin). These are the first words of the Canticle of Simeon, taken from Luke 2:29, which reads in English, “Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.” Simeon was a Jew who was promised that he would not die until he saw the Messiah, and he says these words upon seeing the baby Jesus.

To Evelyn Tindall 12 March 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 12, 1950 Dear Miss Tindall I enclose a short chapter, already copied by you, which I hope it will not annoy you to recopy, with the usual two copies, and to return at your convenience. I found it full of intolerable commonplaces h/ and have tried to bring it nearer to its alleged subject, corrected. With what you have already done I shall have enough to occupy me, and may make other changes involving partial recopying during the summer. We hope to send Part First, with the Preface and Preliminaries to New York (for safety) before Mr. Cory leaves Rome, probably soon after Easter. As you have worked so hard for us and there is now likely to be a lull until I have had time for my revision of Parts II and III, you might send me your account,/ up to date. I don’t like the feeling of debts piling up when it would be so simple to discharge them at once Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Alan Denson 23 March 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

6, Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome, 23 March, 1950 Dear Sir,1 Although I never saw A. E. or knew much of his writings, I once came across some verses of his about Mother Nature which pleased me for their 2 philosopher — y, and which I quoted in a book of mine, making some remarks about the last line which I evidently misunderstood;3 because he

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wrote me a short letter in which he explained what he had meant, quite differently from my interpretation. Possibly you came across this yourself, and it led you to enquire if I had any other contact with him. If so, you now know more than I about this point; for I have forgotten what it was, and even in what book I had quoted his poem. You must forgive a very old man for not remembering incidents of this kind, that had not further developments and did not bring even a clear impression of what it was in A. E.’s last line that I had misunderstood. His letter had no special interest other than that, and I am not sure that it still lies among the bundles that have survived my many changes of residence, and the absence of a “home”. I wish I could have been of some service to you in your work, and hope to hear some day of your poetry. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Alan Denson (b. 1930) is an Irish poet and author, best know for selecting and editing a volume of George Russell’s letters, Letters from Æ (London and New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1961). 2 George William Russell (1867–1935, pseudonym “Æ”) was an active member of the Irish nationalist movement and, between 1904 and 1930, editor of two prominent Irish periodicals. A major writer of the Irish literary renaissance, his poems and plays embody a mystical view of life with an emphasis on man’s spiritual nature. “The Virgin Mother” appeared in Collected Poems by A.E. (London: Macmillan, 1913). In the preface to Matter (xii–xiii), Santayana quoted the following stanzas: Who is that goddess to whom men should pray, But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born, Whose mother-nature they have named with scorn, Calling her holy substance common clay. … Ah, when I think this earth on which I tread Hath borne these blossoms of the lovely dead, And makes the living heart I love to beat, I look with sudden awe beneath my feet— As you with erring reverence overhead. 3

See 22 September 1933.

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To Paul Arthur Schilpp 23 March 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 23 March, 1950 Dear Mr Schilpp I am sorry, but I have never read any of Jaspers’ books, only some quotations or extracts, and a book by an Italian candidate for a Ph.D. about him.1 The author was then a pupil of my friend Prof. Guzzo of Turin, and a Catholic, who, however, was well trained in fair exposition of bedevilled philosophies, including my own; for Guzzo and his wife have done a beautiful translation of my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels” which surely is the most insidious heresy possible; but they are wonderfully appreciative of that book in these parts, whereas it seems to baffle Americans. I have been rather ill during this last winter and though better, have no more vitality left than I absolutely need to get my final work, “Dominations and Powers” ready for the press. It is therefore absolutely out of the question for me to undertake any other work. 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? Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

La filosofia dell’esistenza e Carlo Jaspers by Luigi Pareyson (Napoli: L. Loffredo, 1940). Luigi Pareyson (1918–91) was an existentialist philosopher who, like Guzzo, taught at the University of Turin.

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 26 March 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 26, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff I am sorry if I left you anxious about my health in my last letter. We sometimes like to expatiate on our ailments, not to excite pity, at least not

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in my case, but simply to let out the thoughts that preoccupy one at the moment. The little crisis of last winter seems to have been a turning point for the better in my health, due at first evidently to the penicillin; but the injections were not kept up after the second day, and the inhalations that I took afterwards only lasted every other day for a week. But that seems to have made a permanent change in my condition, as I have since had little cough and without the effort that had begun to prove exhausting. My book has profited by this change. 235 pages have already been despatched to Scribner, and we (my old secretary Cory & I) hope to have finished the revision of the rest before the winter. I shall be glad, and curious, to see my Book of Proverbs, and hope it may sound edifying. My book on the Idea of Christ, now beautifully translated into Italian, has been well received here, and very kindly by the Catholics, even when they understand how insidious it is. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Victor Wolfgang von Hagen 26 March 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 26, 1950 Dear Mr. von Hagen1 You are such a constant (invisible) friend that I am truly sorry to have left your interesting book2 so long unacknowledged, but I was not well when it arrived, and only slowly, thanks to penicillin, have got back to my normal reading and writing habits—still under some handicap, as my eyes are beginning to fail somewhat as well as my heart, lungs, etc, etc. It is all, however, painless, and I am hoping this summer to finish the revision of what is to be my last book, Dominations & Powers. After that I have no particular reason for remaining alive, although I shall certainly not be bored if I go on living. Your book reminded me vividly of my father’s books, memories, and adventures, as he was himself a somewhat pictorial observer of tropical life and people, though not in Yucatan but in the Philippines. The architecture so well drawn by Catherwood 3 is more decorative than constructive, and it suffers from apparently not surviving in any complete form. I like to see things at their best, and it is hard to reconstruct in fancy the

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colour and the sounds of an ancient American civilization. But you are an expert, and don’t ask for stage-effects. With best thanks for every thing from GSantayana 1 Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Victor Wolfgang von Hagen (1908–85) was educated in America, England, and Germany, receiving a doctorate at Göttingen. A naturalist, he made expeditions to Africa, Mexico, Central and South America. His many books and articles describe his travels and discoveries. 2 Maya Explorer: John Lloyd Stephens and the Lost Cities of Central America and Yucatan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947). 3 Frederick Catherwood (1799–1854) was an English artist and architect.

To Frances I. Brickman 17 April 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Kansas)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 17, 1950 1 Dear Miss Brickman It was very kind of you to write to me about the recent death of my friend in the spirit Mr. David Page,2 and to mention the interest that I know he felt in my writings, which you and his family, as I am gratified to know, also share. I had been long in doubt as to what could have happened that made Mr. Page no longer write to me, especially when there was a matter of literary interest pending, namely, his project of editing a new magazine, in which he had wished to include an old article of mine on the subject of a possible universal government.3 But the review also had failed to appear; and I was afraid I, or rather Mr. Page’s loyalty to me, might have been the cause of that disappointment to him; and that perhaps for that reason he hesitated to tell me about it. Or it occurred to me that he might have fallen ill, and that when he recovered the explanation of the suspension of that review would come from him. Months past, I made inquiries without learning anything to the purpose, and finally that mystery lost itself in the fog that conceals all the other mysteries without solving them. I am glad to hear at last that Mr. Page has lived on until this year surrounded by his family and friends and apparently in good health, and I feel much obliged to you for the thought of writing to me of the fact. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified.

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2 David Page edited Anathema: An Unorthodox Quarterly (Boston, 1935–36), which later became The Monarchist, a quarterly publication of the Monarchist Party (1936). In 1937–38 it was titled the Nationalist Quarterly. 3 Page intended to publish a review entitled “The New Satyricon,” but there is no evidence of its existence. Santayana and Page corresponded from 1944 through 1946, and Santayana sent him the article “Many Nations in One Empire.”

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 17 April 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 17, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff My health has remained normal (for me) since the little crisis when I seemed to be suddenly cured by penicillin; but I have recovered my normal ailments and consciousness of being not far from ninety. However, I am in good spirits and hope to finish revising and patching the typed sheets of Dominations & Powers before the winter threatens. As to the British request for the rights to Atoms of Thought, it is for you and the publisher to act as you think best. I suppose the publisher who asks for the rights is neither Constable nor Dent, the two previous publishers of books of mine. I am in good relations with both and would be pleased if this book went to them also, but it is only a fancy, of no practical importance. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 29 April 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome. April 29, 1950 Dear Cory Mr. & Mrs. Weeks came punctually on Monday morning, he loaded with my Chapters and she will a thick coat of rouge and white. He was amiable but vague, fingering the MS and referring to this or that phrase, which was good; I remember only the surprise he expressed at the title, “Who Are the People?”.1 He had never thought of asking that before. I got the impression that he was not clear what it was all about, or whether

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it was acceptable or all wrong at bottom. Perhaps his incoherence and her toilette were due a little to the excitement of being bound that morning to a real castle, a real palace, and a real celebrety, also a real Baronet.2 Since you left, I have been having a wonderful spell of industry or inspiration. Eight chapters, several of them all new, are ready in [illegible ]Book III, which I see no way of dividing into parts; I shall be next week in the midst of the well-digested field of the Lincoln series, and soon after that, if all goes well, at the end of the whole work! Unless there is some unforeseen trouble, all will be done and freshly copied when you return. I have heard nothing from Mr. Wheelock. Why is he so slow? Has he felt bound to read and ponder all those 235 pages? The weather has been wintry, wet, and dark until today, with one bright day at Easter. My health as usual. Many visitors. GS. 1

Chapter 27 of Book Third of Dominations. Sir Osbert Sitwell had succeeded to his father’s baronetry in 1943; his brother, Sacheverell, succeeded Osbert in 1969. 2

To Richard Colton Lyon 29 April 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, April 29, 1950 Dear Dick All seems to be going reasonably well with you, and I write only to answer your question about Duron’s book.1 I have known Duron for many years but only seen him at rare interval’s, and have no knowledge of his antecedents. Is he a Jew by descent? He seems to be a Catholic by education, yet is, or has been, a functionary at the French Ministry of public instruction (in charge of correspondence) which precludes any pronounced clericalism on his part and favours the suspicion of his Jewish origin. His interest in my writings, beginning with “The Life of Reason”, has been constant; but he was for years a lecturer at a Lycée2 in Metz, which of course taxed his energies and absorbed his time. That he should have carried out his plan of writing a full length account of my philosophy, and getting a publisher to accept it, has surprised and pleased me; and the first volume, covering my work while I remained in America, is

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well done in the academic manner. I have read only the part on difficulties and objections, which rests on traditional academic views in official France. Whether his Second volume,3 covering my free and maturer work, will have a wider horizon for its criticism I don’t know. So far he ^ ^ shows no signs of seeing the uncritical character of the rationalistic assumptions on which he bases his objections to my earlier writings, in which there was the same naturalism, but no adequate revolt against British and German subjectivism or psychologism; so that my naturalism itself might seem arbitrary to the modern professorial mind. He has read the “Realms of Being”, and I have sent him “Dominations & Powers” to complete the picture, and I hope that he will make an adequate exposition and a fair criticism of my philosophy as a whole. The fact that he is academic rather than independent, while it deadens his style, makes his book useful for freer critics, like Cory and you, for instance, who may not care to review all the unnecessary books I have written, but may use Duron as a sort of “crib” in regard to them. His French is good enough without being distinguished, and it will be easy and helpful for you, where you may want to consult it. It was businesslike for you to send for it. I did not know it was obtainable in America.—What a moment of suspense this is in every direction! G.S. 1

La Pensée de George Santayana: Santayana en Amérique (Paris: Librairie Nizet, 1950). French grammar or high school supported by the state. 3 Subsequent volumes were never published. 2

To Evelyn Tindall 7 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 May 7, 1950 Dear Miss Tindall Here is the whole of Book Third, except Chapter 30 th which you have already copied, and the last chapter, “Conclusion”, which I am still trying to make suitable for a finale. During the first week in July I will bring it to you, with any other scraps that may need copying. There is one Chapter earlier in the book, about “Needs and Demands”, which I have long wished to rewrite, but have not dared to stop and fuss over it when the rest was unfinished. Now I am relieved of all pressure as the season is

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still only becoming favourable (to my cough) and what remains to be done will be only a pleasure. I wish this might be the case with you too, but I fear you will be taxed with so much routine work in the warm weather. Don’t force yourself to finish everything before you leave; we could do our last revision on the chapters as they stand, and you could finish your clean copy after your return Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 10 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Roma, May 10, 1950 Dear Cory, Your twin letters arrived together and I had previously received one of the same tenor from Mr. Wheelock, which I enclose but you needn’t return.1 It is exaggerated praise without mentioning any real merits; “highest-type of music” is nonsense. But I think, to be frank, that the book is good and will make an impression, not always favourable, but strong enough to inspire respect and perhaps some penetential misgivings. As to the time of your coming and the publication, I don’t think there will be any difficulty. In order to give you time to read Book Second before Book III is copied, I have this morning taken the MS to Miss Tindall. It had been finished long ago, and I am in sight of finishing with Book Third, the last chapter being at last written, the necessary inspiration for the last paragraph having come suddenly from reading, Tarn’s Life of Alexander the Great.2 I am confident of having everything ready, as far as my part goes before September, and I think Miss Tindall will have done her part too as she means to go about that time for her holidays in England. I have informed her of the publisher’s haste, and I think in these four months she will easily finish her job. I also took my May remittance from Boston today to the Banco di Roma, driving there myself,3 but asking Pietro to take in my letter to the Ufficio Portafoglio Estero,4 thinking that it was well to train him to do it for future occasions. There will be no difficulty about your usual cheque for as many months as you like in Rome; and I will send you your Xmas

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present, on B. S. & Co (not Scribner this year, as my credit there is dwindling) in time to provide for your journey. My impression is that Mr. Weeks will take months if not years to farsi vivo.5 A very old friend of the Boston 1890’s6 turned up the other day, having come to Rome for the Holy Year; a Catholic with a French mother. She has been married but is now bereft of all relations and lives in a skyscraper in N.Y. where she has a “perfectly lovely” view from the 30 oddth storey. She said she had been many times to hear T. S. Eliot’s “Cocktail Party” and that it is “perfectly lovely”, the language “too beautiful” and the audience “rapt.” I had to suppress my doubts and yours about its transcendent merits; but evidently, somehow, he has touched a responsive nerve in the supersensibility of the moment. What is it exactly? A photograph of my portrait by “Harry” Wood has come, and looks rather coarse, but he says every body—Berenson7 and his secretary—recognized /i at once and said it was a good likeness. Evidently Berenson ^ ^ didn’t consent to sit for a similar document for posterity. I had written to Schroederer,8 who asked for a special portrait for his collection, with a Sonnet, so many by so many inches, to match that perhaps Wood would sell him his oil picture; and he wrote to Wood asking him to [across ] “donate” it to his museum?/! Collectors and founders of “intelligentzian” societies are militant dominations indeed! GS. 1 Cory sent Santayana a letter he had received from Wheelock praising the manuscript of Book First of Dominations and expressing reluctance to publish the three books separately. The letter Wheelock sent Santayana is printed in Years, 300–301, “in order to show that estimation in which Santayana was held by his publishers.” 2 Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn (1869–1957), British scholar and author, wrote Alexander the Great (Cambridge University Press, 1948) and other works on the Hellenistic era. Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.) conquered the Persian Empire, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and most of the eastern Mediterranean countries, and in 331 B.C. he founded Alexandria, Egypt. He extended Greek civilization into Asia, and his reign ushered in the Hellenistic Age. Alexander was admired for his courage and his generous and humane acts, and many of the people he conquered revered him as a god. 3 Pietro, the nursing home’s chauffeur, drove Santayana into town. 4 Office of Foreign Documents (Italian). 5 To come forward (Italian). 6 Unidentified. 7 Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) was a Lithuanian-born art critic and connoisseur of Italian Renaissance art. Like Santayana, he was a graduate of both the Boston Latin School and Harvard College. 8 The letter is unlocated, and the recipient is unidentified. See also “Schroeder” in 12 May 1950 letter to Wood.

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To Evelyn Tindall 10 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 10, 1950 Dear Miss Tindall Here in Book Second of Dom. and P’rs. Book Third is also almost ready for transcription; but as you are very quick as well as accurate in your work, I think you will have time to do this at leisure before I send you Book Third, and last. Mr. Cory talks of coming back early in the autumn, and then we can consult on the omissions and changes that should be made before sending these two parts to the publisher in New York, who as you know already has Book One and the Preliminaries, and is lyrical in his enthusiasm about them, and wants to publish, if possible, in the Spring of 1951. It would therefore please him if we could finish our revision early in the autumn, which would be possible if we have everything copied before you leave for your holiday in England. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To John Hall Wheelock 12 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 12, 194/ 50 Dear Mr. Wheelock Your letters to Cory and to me about Dom. & P’rs. are very encouraging, and making allowance for your partiality, I think they are not unfounded, and that the book will justify itself in the long run, even if it arouses hostility in some quarters for the moment. I didn’t know you were so naturalistic in your views as these poems,1 which you enclose make you, although you do put into nature a more intentional or sympathetic side than I see there. There is analogy in life with life, in automatism with Will; but the degree of animation seems to my apprehension very different in the different parts.

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=, just received, about “Animation” brings me to your letter of May 5th Wood’s portrait of me. He is a young professional and Bohemian, and had only two sittings, though each filled a whole afternoon. It is not, to my eye, a good composition, either of the canvas or of the personage; when I asked him if I put him out by talking all the time, he said on the contrary that animation was what he wished to catch especially in the eyes. And I think he has succeeded in that better than any of the snap-shots taken when one is in an unguarded moment. He did compose the animation of a person thinking while he talked. But it is not like Andreas Andersen’s drawing, a synthesis of character; animation reflected in tranquillity, as a really good portrait must be; it is a snap-shot of animation, without suggestion of its quality or subjects. But Andersen knew me at long range as a friend of his own great friend and protector, eventually brother-in-law, Howard Cushing;2 whereas Wood didn’t know me except for those two afternoons. But I showed him when he had finished, Andersen’s drawing of which I still have one of the copies that you kindly sent me long ago; and he said at once that it was a superior work. It had taken many sittings, as well as the social perspective in the artist’s mind. It is for you to judge whether the thing, as reproducible in advertising, would be attractive or not. My only feeling is that Wood is a real artist that ought to be encouraged for his sake, if possible, but I am thinking of other things that he may do, rather than of this sketch. I think Cory and I can get the MS of the whole of Dom. & P’rs. to you in the autumn. If he should not decide to come to Rome I could send him yours and his copies together to England, from which he could send you yours. As to legalizing the gift,3 it would be easier for me to do it when he comes and can find the right authority. Is it the American [across] consul? I purposely have the minimum of official relations and business here— Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unlocated. Howard Gardiner Cushing (1869–1916) graduated in the Harvard class of 1891. He spent the next five years as a student of painting at the Académie Julien in Paris, returning to Boston to become a professor and painter. In 1904 he moved to New York, where he maintained a studio until his death. Cushing’s sister, Olivia, married Andreas Andersen in the last year of Andersen’s life. 3 Of the publishing rights to Dominations. 2

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To Harry Emsley Wood Jr. 12 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Smithsonian)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 12, 1950 Dear Wood, The photograph of your painting is easier for me to take in than the original, and under a strong light and magnifying glass, I can see the twinkle in its eye. It is unmistakably a living figure. In so short a time and with no previous acquaintance, also with the rather tired and neglected aspect which I had for good reasons of health and of preoccupation with my unfinished book, you could not paint my “animation” indirectly, I mean by the potentiality of it suggested in tranquillity, which I suppose is what a long acquaintance and many sittings might have enabled you to convey. And I also, for that purpose, ought to have been more silent, more decently dressed, and less worn out generally. If you come back to Rome while I am still on deck, you must paint me again more at leisure, more in my normal and more abstracted state of mind. Schroeder is a person with a self-imposed mission to spread culture by collecting bits of MS, portraits, locks of hair, and (why not?) old clothes belonging to all persons whose names are in the newspapers, to enlighten posterity on our present brilliant existence. He recently asked me to compose a poem in praise of his dead wife, as little known to me as himself; and as he seems to be rich, and was demanding a description of myself together with a new photograph, so as to have an oil painting, supposed to be me, produced to order for his gallery, it occurred to me to tell him of your painting and suggesting that he ask you for a photo of it, and perhaps buy the original. And now it seems that he has commanded you to “donate” it to him, in view of our intimate friendship. That is all, in essence, that I know of him. Meantime, Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s writes that he has received a photograph of the same picture from you, and asks me if I wish to have it used for the usual purpose of publicity; and he adds that he thinks it an interesting work, but does not see me in it. He has never seen me at all, so that his standard must be ideal. But he means, I think, that it is not quiet and repectable enough for a professor of philosophy, retired, and ancient Sage. He is right. But all the portraits people care to see are snapshots taken of a man unawares, with his mouth open and his weight not

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visibly balanced because he is caught between possible poses. I have told Mr. Wheelock that I leave the matter of using your work to his expert knowledge, but that I think you are a genuine artist and ought to be encouraged. Your sketch was necessarily impressionistic—all except the ear, which is evidently by Il Greco.1 Yours sincerely GSantayana. 1

El Greco (Domenicos Theotocopoulos, c. 1541–1614) was a Greek-born painter who settled in Toledo, Spain. He painted intense portraits, mystic saints, and religious scenes.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 20 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 20, 1950 Dear Clemens Your last sample of works on Jefferson is certainly an announcement of the same standard work of which, in reply to your request about a present that would please me, I suggested that it might be volume I of that work. But I see by this announcement1 that it is not a work about Jefferson but his Papers in endless volumes and there is no sign of a description of his life and views or of his architecture, which I had especially dreamt of. I ^ ^ think, then, that we had better call this whole matter of Jefferson off: but your repeated remitments have not been wasted. In fact, the little volume of letters and speeches collected by the circumcised and unchristened Saul—Saul K. Padover2 (is it German for Padova?) although the print is small for my weak eyes, has interested and instructed me. It contains what really is important for me to know (although I don’t mention Jeffersen (I think) in my new book); and I have already, having read about half, reached one important Conclusion. That the American Revolution although — alm— ost more than twenty years earlier than the French was ^ ^ not at all the source of the French; but that Jefferson, whose views were very radical and who disliked the British good sense of the American Constitution was a Jacobin with Arcadian notions of democracy in idyllic villages with thatched roofs and Cincinnatus returning from the corrupting influence of even one year of power to sweat virtue at the plough.3 I don’t think “ideologies” particularly worth studying, but it is instructive to contrast the pictures they paint of the ideal with the facts.

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Humanitarians have an intense hatred of mankind as it is. Jefferson says somewhere in this little book—I wish I could quote the passage verbatim, but I can’t find it—that he would like to exterminate all non-democrats [illegible ]from every country, and fill them — with all with Americans after his own heart. This is the principle on which Stalin acts. Let us then drop this matter of Jefferson and stick to the geography and arithmetic of our tender youth. You would be impressed with the pilgrimages that are crowding Rome this year and with the endurance shown by the Pope in undergoing all these feasts and functions. But the Church was certainly never more alive than now. Not being taken for granted has a stimulating effect on ideas. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. Excuse bad eyes and pen out of order. 1 Unlocated. However, on 19 May 1950, Times of London published an announcement of the publication of the first volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1: 1760 to 1776, edited by Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950). This book was not reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement until 6 April 1951, and so it is not the same book Santayana mentions in the letters to Clemens on 22 November 1949 and 10 January 1950. 2 Saul Kussiel Padover (1905–81) was a political scientist, educator, and author. He selected and arranged the contents of Thomas Jefferson on Democracy (New York: New American Library, 1949, 1939). 3 Jacobins were members of a democratic political club that became increasingly radical and was a major influence in the French Revolution. Arcadia was a district of the Greek Peloponnesus. As described by Virgil, it was the center of happiness and pastoral simplicity. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a Roman, was an early, semilegendary hero. He was appointed dictator in 458 B.C. and after only sixteen days, during which he defeated the Volsci and the Aequi, he returned to his farm.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 22 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 22 1950 Dear Cory Only a line to say that I find “Government by the People, III”, “Ethics of Compromise,” which makes Chapter 30 of Book III, very much mixed at the end, from p. 5 to the last, both in arrangement and, in places, in languages. If you have sent this chapter, which is important from the

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American point of view, to Mr. Weeks, I wish you would ask him not to publish it as it stands.1 I gathered that nothing was to appear for the moment, but if he should wish to have this chapter appear soon, I will send you at once the corrected version or rather rearrangement (for nothing new is introduced) so that you may forward it to him. It becomes ^ ^ much clearer and also less open to verbal objection. G.S. P.S. You see that I have got more than half of Book III revised, and the rest is mainly already corrected for the Lincoln series. I shall have time to go back and rewrite the chapter on “Needs and Demands” with which I was never satisfied. 1 This chapter was never published in the Atlantic Monthly, although Santayana continued to revise it. See 26 May 1950 to Evelyn Tindall, 27 May 1950 to Cory, 3 June 1950, and 6 October 1950.

To Dagobert D. Runes 26 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 26, 1950 Dear Mr. Runes “Atoms of Thought” have reached me without exploding, and I have read in it with interest, and will write to Mr. Cardiff about it at length. You and he both belong to a politico-philosophic school that is not mine; and even the binding of this volume has a strange air; those patches of labels in a different colour are not familiar to me. Are they of German origin? Scribner’s also in their anthologies, have employed it, and I dare say it is liked and appeals to the public eye, as do the paper covers, but this, in “Atoms”, is comparatively sober. This book emphasize anticlericalism, which in me is qualified; and my complete disbelief in any revealed religion carries no animosity of a political or racial stamp. This book will not give an unprepared reader a fair view of my philosophy, but only a part of my opinions, chosen in a spirit of propaganda in which they were not written. But this may have a good effect on my American critics who say I have, or had, abandoned my Naturalism, and on gossip about my having become a convert to militant Catholicism. American public opinion is extraordinary at sea in matters

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of this kind. Here in Italy my book on “The Idea of Christ” has been beautifully translated and warmly praised by Catholic authorities, while of course making the necessary reservations. But they understand perfectly that “faith” is entirely separable from understanding or even admiration of religious sentiments. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Evelyn Tindall 26 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

May 26, 1950 Dear Miss Tindall Could you please interrupt your other work for me for a moment, and = chapter of Book III, (you see I am getting on fast in my revicopy this 30 th sion) so that it may be sent as soon as possible to The Atlantic in New York where I am afraid the unrevised version may appear and display sundry defects which I now have discovered in it? It is hard to keep one’s critical sense alive in the routine of rereading one’s own familiar words. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 27 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome May 27, 1950 Dear Cory: Here is my revised version of the peccant chapter. If there is danger that Mr. Weeks may publish the other version, and if you think this an improvement please send it on to him to be substituted for the other. To me, in a somewhat confused state of mind with so many words and phrases repeating themselves in it, it seems at least to avoid exaggerated language. “Atoms of Thought” has reached me. It is a selection of “Left” utterances of mine for propaganda of anticlericalism. But, although I am rather ashamed of being compared, to my honour, with Tom Paine,1 I think it

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shows an essential stage in clearing up one’s mind. Only it is a by-gone stage for those in the van, and Cardiff and Runes are retardataires.2 I am going to write to Cardiff in as friendly and conciliatory a spirit as possible, because he has done the work well in many respects, and his bias is so obvious to anyone who has a fair — mind notion of my philosophy as a whole, that he ought to be passed over with a smile. One thing that surprised and pleased me is that he begins with three of/r four pages from Lucifer,3 of all things, and later quotes other verses. They are not bad of their kind, and do speak for my real feelings when younger. GS. 1 Thomas Paine (1713–1809) was an Anglo-American author and political theorist. The son of an English Quaker, Paine emigrated to America in 1774 with letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. In January of 1776, Paine published an influential pamphlet entitled Common Sense, in which he argued for separation from England and the establishment of a republic. He also wrote The Rights of Man, a response to Edmund Burke concerning the French Revolution, and The Age of Reason, a work that was decried in both England and the United States for its criticism of the use of religion for political ends. 2 Laggards or late-comers (French). 3 Lucifer: A Theological Tragedy was first published in 1899 (New York: Herbert S. Stone). In 1924, Dunster House (Cambridge, Mass.) published a second revised limited edition entitled Lucifer, or the Heavenly Truce: A Theological Tragedy.

To Mary Ambrose O’Donnell 27 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Calvary Hospital N 6, Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo Rome, May 27, 1950 o

To the Reverend Mother General In case of my death or serious illness the persons to consult about my affairs are: 1st= Mr. Francis A. Appleton, Jr. 307 Warren Street, Brookline, Mass. U.S.A. who is the Trustee for most of my property. = The Old Colony Trust Company 2nd 1 Congress Street, Boston, Mass. who are in charge of the same

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= Mrs. R. B. Bidwell, Weston, 93. Massachusetts 3rd who is my niece and nearest relation = 4th Mr. Robert S. Sturgis and his brothers Neville and Nathaniel, at the same address as Mrs. Bidwell, who are my grandnephews and the elder/st of whom was here during the war. = Mr. Daniel M. Cory, C/o Brown Shipley & Co 5th 123, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1, who is appointed my literary executor and to whom I leave all my manuscripts, books, and other personal effects, and whom you have seen here frequently. GSantayana

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 28 May 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 28, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff, The first impression I received on opening “Atoms of Thought” was surprise at seeing verses under the heading “Luc”. I had to turn to the Index; and had my second surprise. “Luc” meant “Lucifer”, and you were quoting dead and forgotten oracles among “Atoms”! It prepared me for finding your treatment original and your taste independent of all dates, fashions, and orthodoxes. Also original in your interpretation of me and independent of my hints and suggestions, and even inventive After several days’ brow s ing—I must now have read almost all the text as well as ^^ your Introduction and Foreword—I have come to the conclusion that your patience in gathering “texts” must be a sub-conscious heritage from some Puritan ancestor of yours who picked “texts” from the Bible in order to quote them against the minister’s sermons. Your interest was not at all to choose beautiful passages or passages that contained the key to my philosophy or to my idiosyncrasies. I was out of the picture, just as the real history and doctrines of the Jews and the Christians was out of the picture for your text-collecting ancestor. You both already had your complete philosophy apart from anyone else’s books: but texts might be pungent; and when they tallied with your views, they might be employed to assert them boldly under another’s masque, for greater apparent modesty. So you have collected all the anticlerical texts in my books, no matter in

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what context, satirical or historical or even dramatic, whether it be Zeus or Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Hermes or Aphrodite1 that says them: my cynical father’s saying, or my own, if cynical in the right direction, will do for texts as well as the soft sentiments of a rich Polish-Jewish jeweller;2 and what I have said expressly to you and in print about myself that I am not and never wished or meant to be an American, is flatly contradicted. And when you say that I suggested the danger of spoiling a dictum if shorn too closely of its context, you forget to say or remember the danger I felt of being quoted only on the Left side; and you do not seem to feel that what you do quote about the pity that Bertrand Russell should waste his powers in repeating anticlerical commonplaces (although he did it only for pot-boilers) you do not feel that it is a pity that you should make me do the same thing in this book gratuitously. When I wrote The Life of Reason criticism of all non-naturalistic philosophy and religion was inevitable; and I did it and do it to bring out, if I can, the beauty of naturalism, not to insult the beliefs of other people. The cream of those beliefs, pagan, Indian, and Catholic especially, are just the baroque ornaments with which I like to adorn, and to vivify, my opinions; because Positivism without “post-rational” detachment is deadly and hypocritical. My antireligious side is only a part of my pessimism; those myths are materially false, and a philosopher should not flirt with them; but they are the tragedy—Hebraic and Christian as well as Greek—of human illusions and vanity. Tragedy, the tragedy of existence, should be transcended, but it cannot be decently mocked. I wanted to tell you frankly what I feel on this subject: but I do not regret that you should have taken the pains to make this collection. It is not a fair representation of my philosophy; but it is a fair record of one strain in it, and if it stimulates or entertains the public, so much [across ] the better. It would be unreasonable to expect the public to read us if we wrote only long books that bore them. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 In Greek mythology Zeus is king of the gods and ruler of Olympus. He is the god of thunder, the weather, and the sky; his symbol is the thunderbolt. “Lucifer” (literally, “light bringer”) was the angelic name of Satan before he was cast out of heaven. Mephistopheles is the demonic tempter in the Faust legend. He inherits his varying form and personality from both the Christian system of demonology, in which he is one of the seven chief devils, and from the pagan Germanic tradition of the kobold, or mischievous familiar spirit. Thus he is never identified with the Devil, the fallen angel Satan, although he resembles him. Mephistopheles is more the pure fiend of pagan superstition in earlier stories and later the fiendish sneerer at all values, with an air of urbane sophistication. Hermes, an ancient Greek god, served as messenger of

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Olympus, the conductor of the dead to Hades, and as protector of cattle and sheep. The son of Zeus and Maia, in Roman mythology he is known as Mercury. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty, daughter of Zeus and Dione, wife of Hephaestus, and lover of Ares. 2 Boscovitz, a character in Puritan (378).

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 3 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, June 3, 1950 Dear Cory Page 3 of “Ethics of Compromise” was not one in which I thought I had made any changes; but I see, as you point out, that there is something wrong with that long sentence, besides its length. Some verb has evidently dropped out. I have recast the sentence in my copy as follows. “When the two disputants meet in some committee, or private ^ ^ conversation with the agents of a rival interest, the flat contradictions at first shouted across the table may eventually be shown, with goodwill, not to involve unsurmountable difficulties. —[ omit four words here —] — Wh— en Each may consent etc.1 This description isn’t very good. If you can enliven it or make it witty, do so. It was the ethical doctrine in the last pages that had preoccupied me, as I am anxious to get my criticism of politics into a rational order. Yesterday I finished reading Tarn’s Life of Alexander, and am trying to compose, in my mind, a lively page, based on his plan of government, for the last chapter of Book III, “Conclusion”, which is otherwise ready. G.S. 1

These changes were made by the first printing of Dominations.

To Corliss Lamont 8 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome. June 8, 1950 Dear Mr. Lamont Your book on Immortality has made me think of what I thought of William James’s Religious Experiences,1 that he had been on a slumming

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tour in the New Jerusalem. His New Jerusalem, and yours also, seem to me so very new! You dwell on ideas and sentiments that I never heard of and that hardly seem worth considering. It comes, perhaps, from the fact that among Protestants there is more theological independence than I am accustomed to, and they find arguments or proofs of their own, and what is more significant proofs or arguments for something different under the old name of “immortality.” What you say about Resurrection is to the point: if Christians had reflected that this is the Christian doctrine—vitam venturi saeculi2—and not immortality of the soul, except in theology to reconcile the Platonists. But immortality, logically, suggests pre-existence, and the Church could never accept that (pace3 Leibniz). I wish you would write another book on the Confusions about Immortality. Besides Resurrection, which implies that the soul and body can live only together, and temporally, so that when recalled to life they ought not only to remain married, but after a long life, ought to die again, and so for ever. This would be like the Indian immortality, without a final Nirvana. The argument from the simplicity of the transcendental ego is good, I think, but does not touch the “soul,” the psyche, or the person— and the crowning argument in the Phaedo4 about the number 3 being immortally odd (which you don’t dwell on in your summary of the arguments there) is also good but tautological: Socrates conceived as existing can never be (conceived as) dead; but it has nothing to do with time. This play between time and eternity in the more intelligent discussions of the subject has always interested and exasperated me. You have noticed, I see, what I think about Dante’s people in Purgatory and Paradise (in Hell they are more repetitions or continuations of their life on earth) that they are only the truth or the lesson of their existence in time, and evidently will never do anything or learn anything new. They are living monuments to themselves. But Dante could never have acknowledged that this is all that salvation can be, or union with God, who is non-temporal, because a material “other life” is required by the Jewish-Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh. Has the belief in heaven been more often a longing not to live, than to live forever? I almost think so. And you know the verses of St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross:5 “Muero porque no muero.” 6 With best thanks for your book Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature; Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902 (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902). 2 The life of the world to come (Latin). See 22 January 1950. 3 With all due respect to (Latin). 4 Phaedo is a Platonic dialogue in which the possibility of an immortal soul is discussed. 5 Saint Theresa (Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, 1515–82) was a Spanish Carmelite nun and mystic who was born near Ávila. She became Mother Superior and founded seventeen convents. Saint John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz) is the religious name of Juan de Yepes y Alvarez (1542–91), a Spanish mystic and poet. He took an active part in Saint Theresa’s efforts to reform the Carmelite order. 6 I die in order not to die (Spanish).

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 10 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome June 10, 1950 Dear Rosamond At last I put pen to paper to answer your various kind letters. I have been well enough to write, except for two or three days in midwinter when I was snatched from the abyss by penicillin; but instead of being busy with a new life like you, I have been driven by the fixed idea of getting my big final book, Dominations and Powers into shape. The last part, all but the last chapter, is now being typed by the tireless Miss Evelyn Tindall, secretary to the British Minister to the Holy See, who has copied all my books since, and including, The Last Puritan. She has white ringlets and youthful flesh-coloured stockings, and produces the most beautiful faultless pages to the eye; but there are little matters wrong here and there so that everything has to be reread as if it was printer’s copy. This, however, I shall not have to do, as Scribner’s assistants are very good at standard proof-reading —ers. It is only some philosophical terms that sometimes floor them. I am now doing this proof-reading on Part II, which Cory will read afterwards, and we hope to get these parts—the first is already in Scribner’s hands—to New York in the Autumn. This is an immense relief. You mustn’t trouble about sending me anything; but new kind of Benzedrex Inhaler is excellent when I am troubled at night, immediately on going to bed with the usual cough, which it helps to stop better than

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the old form of it did; and the Vapex which came with it is so strong that I have to be quick with it: but I very seldom have any cold in the head, which is what it relieves best. Both these inhalers are still very efficient, as I seldom need to use them. My worst catarrh is in the throat and lungs, from which it is sometimes hard to shake up the mucous —us stuff sticking there. I am sorry about the camphor, because my mind is reassured by it, although I am not sure that the clothes really need it. I have never found anything moth-eaten even during the war, when nothing could be procured that resembled naphtha—needed for ammunition. What I had written to Mr. Murphy1 was a request to send Arthur Eldredge a wedding present; and I had written to Arthur, at the same time, what I thought a very nice letter; and he acknowledged the present to Mr. Murphy, but I have had no answer to my letter.2 No doubt he sent it without an air-mail stamp, and it will reach me soon. He is coming, I understand, to see me here as did his brother David.3 The portrait of your David, by the way, are excellent. So is the snapshot of me that you enclose—and very flattering! Yours affectionately GSantayana [across ] P.S. I liked the idea of “Atoms of Thought”; but the Execution has given me a shock. It reads like an anti-religious tract of the Rationalist Society:4 and Cardiff has the impudence to compare me to Thomas Paine, and not to Thomas Aquinas!5 1

Mr. Murphy is unidentified. See also 1 July 1952. The letters to Murphy and Eldredge are unlocated. 3 David Bidwell. 4 Rationalism is a branch of philosophy that puts primary emphasis on using reason to attain knowledge. They believe that applying reason to “self-evident” premises will lead to truth. Faith and revelation are not accepted as sources for philosophical claims. 5 Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74) was an Italian scholastic theologian and philosopher whose Summa Theologiae (1265–73) defends “the truth of the Catholic faith against the pagans” by making clear the distinction between the realms of reason and of faith. His synthesis of theology and philosophy has been recognized officially as a cornerstone in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. 2

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To Ira Detrich Cardiff 17 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 17, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff: I too am sorry if my letter seemed to ignore the patient work and excellent presentation of all these months that you have spent on this anthology; and it was doubtless egotistical of me to complain of the shock that I felt at being coupled with Tom Paine instead of with Thomas Aquinas, not only explicitly in your introduction but implicit ly by the prevalent ^ ^ antitraditional tone of the quotations about religion, drawn from all places, without any counterpoise. It is true that you mentioned Paine and my Americanism in the first draft of your introduction, and I ought to have expressed myself more sharply in my comments at that time: but I had two reasons—besides a dislike of meddling—for not giving more than a general hint of the feeling that your choice of opinions (rather than thoughts) rubbed me the wrong way. They were, and are, my opinions; but they give a false impression of my sentiments and total philosophy. One reason for not speaking out was that, just because I felt that your ^ ^ aim in gathering this anthology was not what mine would have been, I did not wish to be in any measure responsible for it; and the other reason was that I rather expected that you would tone down your introduction and make my views seem , as they are and were, historical but not mil^ ^ itant. I love a great deal of what is Greek, Catholic, English, and American, but without fighting for or against it. From your letter (of today, dated June 12, ) and the notices you have ^ ^ taken the trouble to copy, I feel that you have no reason to mind my grumbling (which was, I am afraid, too self-indulgent and ungrateful) because you have succeeded in accomplishing what you had in mind; to attract attention to my emancipated opinions, and to make a popular book. On this second point, we must wait for time to justify our ambition. Personally, I don’t feel at all neglected as an author, never having expected popularity nor permanent fame. In American academic circles I am now well known, and have some influence over the younger students of philosophy, also in South America: but in England and the Continent I have only a limited number of [illegible ]readers. I never

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wished to be a professional or public man. Nor do I want disciples: I want only a few sympathetic friends, and I have them. “Dominations and Powers” which we hope will appear next Spring, may make some difference in all this. It is closer to reality than any of my other books. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Richard Colton Lyon 18 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 18, 1950 Dear Dick: It was a great pleasure to see your two thick envelopes even before opening them, as they proved that the wire between us was again, after I don’t know how long, open to communications. I have been, first, not very well during the winter, and, second, very busy getting Dominations and Powers ready for the press. A part of the MS is already in Scribner’s hands, and the rest we (Cory and I) expect to have ready early in the autumn, so that the book may be expected to appear (and to reach you) in the Spring of 1951. This is a great relief for me, as I have no “duty” hanging over me after this is despatched, but can sing Nunc di/emittis with a cheerful voice. I am surprised (by the way) that you, who expected to be a clergyman;1 should speak as you do about this grave subject of “duty” and also of “sacrifice” as intrinsically evil; and I hope it was not I that put these dangerous notions into your head. In a dago2 and a materialist they would not surprise but only grieve: but in you! However, let us approach this subject in the respectable company of Milton;3 and although, as you suggest, speculation, even about “the good” is not his strong point, yet “moralism” oozes from his every syllable or organ-groan. I have never been a great reader of Milton and I may misjudge him: but I suspect that if I had read him more I should like him less, so that it is as well to give you only my superficial impressions. I don’t at all agree with Ezra Pound in hating him. I used to know Lycidas4 by heart and to delight in saying it over—E. P. might say that this explains how bad my verses were, for that was just the misguided period of my life when I wrote them. But in Paradise Lost5 it is not the absence of a philosophy but

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the evident sub-presence of a sort of mummified Old Testament philosophy that fills his sails. I admit that he is sublime in his poses: but it is the sublimity of terror not of joy. And he doesn’t understand at all the position of a real angel rebelling against a monarchical God. It would be the position of Berkeley rebelling against matter. He would not choose evil rather than good. That is only the nursery-maids “naughty” and “nice”. He would be choosing the immediate, the obvious, the inescapable, the Schopenhauerian “the world is my idea”, for faith of any sort which is only an impulse to bet, to jump in the dark. I am very glad to see that at the end of your essay you suggest the question what Milton understood by “the good”. He understood by it what the Calvinistic catechism calls good: the nursery-maid’s “nice” translated into the cry of superstitious escape from terror. “Duty” also needs to be analysed etymologically. It means what is owed, what you are bound by contract to perform. Yours GSantayana 1

Lyon was never a clergyman. He received a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Texas (1951) and from the University of Cambridge (1953), an M.A. in English from the University of Connecticut (1958), and his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota (1964). 2 An American slang term for someone of Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese descent or birth; it is generally considered to be disparaging. 3 John Milton (1608–74) was an English poet who was Latin secretary in Cromwell’s government and its chief defender. His arduous duties brought on complete blindness: his best known sonnet is “On His Blindness.” He dictated his epics Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. 4 Lycidas (1637) is an elegaic poem by Milton that commemorates the death of Edward King, a Cambridge schoolmate who drowned. The title comes from the name of a shepherd in Vergil’s third Bucolic. This poem attempts to deal with a world in which the good die young and false priests and poets prevail. 5 Paradise Lost (1667) is Milton’s epic poem in twelve books. It tells the story “Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste / Brought death into the World, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden.”

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 27 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, June 27, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff, The matter of copyrights for my books is very complicated. For instance, not only Lucifer but the first two editions of my “Poems”, entitled “Sonnets & Other Poems” were not published by Scribner, and the

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much later “Poems: Revised & Selected by the Authur,” was first published (with a special number in an édition de luxe, by Constable; and ^ ^ I dare say Scribner got the American rights from Constable for that, as well as for some others /i of those which come out with Scribner’s title-page prefixed to the British sheets or else, as in the case of “The Last Puritan” reprinted in America a year after it had appeared in England. Constable also published all my books later than “Three Philosophical Poets (which was copyrighted and published by Harvard University) until “Persons and Places (“The Middle Span” was copyrighted by Daniel M. Cory) and “The Idea of Christ in the Gospels.” As to “OBITER SCRIPTA” I am not sure whether the copyright is not the Editors who made the selection with some hints from me; but Scribner published it first, and Constable’s edition was later. Of the booklets, “The Genteel Tradition at Bay,” was wholly Scribner’s but “Some Turns of Thought,” was Constable’s. “Winds of Doctrine” and “Egotism in German Philosophy” were Dent’s. The whole series of “Realms”, including Scepticism and Animal Faith” were Constable’s. The complexity of these cross publications, especially where parts had appeared first as articles, is beyond my business capacity to clear up. But I think only my earlier prose books, ending with “The Life of Reason” and then lately (on account of troubles in England and war) “Persons and Places” and “The Idea of Christ in the Gospels” are clearly and wholly Scribner’s for the purpose in question. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 29 June 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, June 29, 1950 Dear Cory Today Miss Tindall has returned Book III entirely copied, except the last chapter. The last chapter of Book II, (to which I have added several pages, because it was evidently unfinished) as well as the last chapter of all, I will take to her next week when I go to leave the remittance, which I expect then, at the Banco di Roma I will ask her to let me have the chapter of Book II at once, and the other when she chooses; but as she

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may not mind doing both, the whole will probably be in my hands next week. Of course, I have still the 43 chapters of Book III to read for proofcorrections; but if you like I can send you one or both of the Parts of Book II as soon as your reply to this reaches me. Do you want the carbon copy of Part I or of both Parts of Book II to distract your thoughts from Corea1 at Bexhill-on-Sea?2 Will that be more or less bomb proof than Rome in case the liveliness reaching us? Without much reason, I feel that it won’t. This pen is a present from Sister Angela in exchange for the one she had got for me.3 G.S. 1 North Korean troops invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. Seoul, capital of South Korea, fell on 28 June. On 30 June President Truman ordered American infantry stationed in Japan into Korea. The first United States troops reached the battlefield on 4 July 1950. 2 Where Cory lived in England. 3 Santayana had difficulty writing with his first fountain pen, as described in 14 August 1949 letters to Wheelock and Cory, as well as 15 September and 25 October 1949.

To Corliss Lamont 4 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome. July 4th, 1950 Dear Mr. Lamont I am very glad to hear that you are coming to Rome, and you will find me here every day at all hours as I go out only when there is some business to do, and that in the morning. August is a month in which the natives and I too, until I came to this home, fly from Rome; yet the latter half of that month is often autumnal and quite bearable if you are not too pressed for time. Since the American Army first came to Rome, I have received more callers than ever before in my life, and they still straggle in, newspaper correspondents especially, with photo graphic intentions and instruments but a treacherous memory in reporting one’s words. And they do not come to discuss immortality but only to observe that I am dressed only in pyjamas and live in a shabby room in a lower-middle-class English establishment

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(according to Mr. Edmund Wilson) where the Sisters have painted veils.1 So you will find me uncommonly glad to see you any afternoon. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Edmund Wilson said: “The Blue Nuns were decorative and fantastic, for they actually wore great starched head-dresses that had been dyed with some deep bluing.”

To Rimsa Michel 8 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 8, 1950 Dear Mr. Michel Your well typed Essay, in its flexible black leather binding, added to certain melancholy notes in your letter, made me feel at once that you were a young man of feeling, who liked to work like an artist: and I began to read with a little apprehension that you might be only that—or perhaps a sentimental lady: (your name not being decisive (for me) on that point) and that you might really be impossibly mystical or poetical, like the theosophists.1 I have now finished reading the whole and find nothing of the sort, even at the end. You detach the meaning I give to “essence” clearly and soberly. In reading, for some thirty pages, I found only a faithful enough echo of The Life of Reason, as conceived in New York, and was uneasy only at what seemed an exclusive acquaintance with that and with my works in general, as if I were not a man but a text-book. This misgiving was corrected afterwards, as far as sympathy with my later writings is concerned. You not only know them all well but you are the only critic I have come upon who understands the character of the change that came over my manner. I have explained this, with a reference to my circumstances and uncongenial philosophic teachers, until I went to Germany, in the Preface or Introduction written for the one volume edition of Realms of Being This leads me to the first jolt which I felt while so pleasantly conveyed in your carriage: your sharp objection to the word “Realm”—because it is not republican. Have you never heard that natural history, until the other day, divided nature into the Mineral, Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms? I didn’t know that this word, like the word “essence” was taboo in America.

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I braved the inevitable prejudice in the case of “essence” because it is the only proper word for what I had in mind, and traditionally opposed to “existence”, like “form” to “matter”. But the reading that is now done, beyond “majors” in colleges, or at home, is very limited in proportion to what everybody was expected to know a hundred or even fifty years ago. “Culture” is collapsing into compendia and school-books, as at the beginning of the “dark ages”. (You must consider that I am very old.) It has been only in the middle of your essay, especially at p. 44, that I have come on what approaches a serious misunderstanding of my position. You speak of matter needing the assistance of spirit, as if it had to see where it was going before it started. My view, as you must be tired of reading in my pages, is that spirit is a result, not a cause, of material events. The chief point that has arrested my attention in your interpretation is the relation, discussed at the end, of the good to the rational or moral. You understand perfectly how I get “beyond good and evil” not by abolishing or even modifying their commonsense reality, but by transcending them in view of their relativity. The last words of Dominations & Powers, the book—my last book—just finished, are these; “Comparison (of values) presupposes a chosen good, chosen by chance. The function of spirit is not to pronounce which good is the best but to understand each good as it is in itself, in its physical complexion and its moral essence.” 2 The quality of your essay is so unusually good, and good in the higher insights, that I should like to know more of your “other failures” 3 and of the circumstances that can have occasioned them. Why should you be unhappy with so much capacity for discernment? And I should judge that it has not been material difficulties that have stood in your way. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Theosophists hold a mystical belief in infinite divinity. They believe that evil results from peoples’ dedication to finite goals. 2 Dominations ends with: “Comparison can only be made with reference to a chosen good, chosen by chance; and wisdom lies not in pronouncing what sort of good is best but in understanding each good within the lives that enjoy it as it actually is in its physical complexion and in its moral essence.” 3 Miss Michel’s essay had been rejected when submitted for a master’s degree.

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To Daniel MacGhie Cory 13 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Columbia)

Rome, July 13, 1950 Dear Cory This morning I sent off Book Third, the two parts, in the carbon copy. There was a little delay because I left the MS that had to be copied by Miss Tindall only on Saturday morning (my remittance from Boston not having arrived until the Friday, six days, because of week-end summer laziness in Trust Companies and banks. Then I mislaid the first three ^ ^ pages of the last chapter of Part II, and have sent you the other copy instead; but I first took a morning to copy those three pages (making a few changes in the words) for my standard copy, which is the one I had intended you should send later to Scribner. But my handwriting has become legible again, with this new pen which makes a dark and broad enough script for me to see what I am writing, so that even as the text stands it would serve well enough I see no reason why you should come earlier than you would like on account of sending off the MS of Books II & III to New York. I shall have done my part of revising Book III early in August, as it is in good shape, and I have nothing else to do: and I could send you the carbon copy, with my corrections, as in Book II, sent off today. I should not expect to reread either Book when you were here, except the passages where you have marked the text as needing correction. And I could even send you both the standard and the carbon copies to England if, for instance, there was war in Europe and it was not easy for you to come to Italy. You could then add your corrections, and send the standard copy (or the other, as you chose) to New York. Your coming to Rome may therefore be dictated by your “vital liberty” and not by the “domination” of militant politicians. I feel a great relief at having finished the book, the re-reading of Book III being good fun, when I have forgotten what exactly I had said in it: and the last chapter I think is original but safe; somewhat like “On my Host, the World”,1 mutatis mutandis.2 The last paragraph is not now about Alexander the Great: that was not in place there, and I have stuck to philosophy. But there is a satirical fable, before the end about how people would hate it if a/ruled by a universal government in economics and ^ ^ by local or party governments in education and “culture”. You will see ^ ^

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and I may not approve myself when I return to the “Conclusion” in cold blood. GS 1

The third and final book of Santayana’s autobiography is My Host the World. With the necessary changes having been made (Latin).

2

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 13 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, July 14/3, 1950 Dear Rosamond Your letter has come, I hope, to stop a series of nightmares that I have been having about Arthur Eldredge and my wedding present. Not a word from him or the family. My first theory (I think that was not a dream) was that my letter to him had been lost, and that they were offended at my dropping a silent penny in the box without any good wishes or hopes of seeing them in Rome or message to Roselle1 (whose name I hadn’t been told. But I have never lost a letter to Weston,2 and this one had no enclosures and a full address copied from one of Josephine’s letters. Then came the first nightmare. Not satisfied with that full address, I had put in the number of the family P.O. Box as well, but had written 39 instead of 93 (fearing that this was what I feared [illegible ]my age might [illegible ]be soon, and that what I felt it was, spiritually now. And the postmaster said that only this morning they had opened Box 39 and found this old letter to Mr. Arthur Eldredge alone in it, for that box had not been taken for a long time until today, when it was assigned to a fresh resident. You see this was a real dream, with characters and plausible events such as I could never invent, if I were trying to write a novel. But it was a false oracle, because if the letter had been found in box 39, it would have been forwarded to Arthur and he would have written to explain his silence. Second nightmare: Arthur is offended because I said I supposed he had a motor (to carry him from Cambridge to Wellesley, where they were to go on studying separately); but no. They were — now all poor now, and I ^ ^ was thinking of old times before they were born. Perhaps my little joke was not in good taste, but old men’s jokes are not expected to be good or novel, so why be angry at that? Third nightmare: Some one came and informed me that Mrs. Bidwell was furious, because my letter was so false and showed that I preferred the Sturgis boys to hers, and that my present

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was only half of what she knew I had sent years ago to Bob. But how unreasonable, I tried to explain to my visitor. I had never seen Dav Bidwell or Arthur Eldredge, and had sent them both the same sum; as to Bob, he had made me three long visits, I had liked him very much, and it was a case not of a family formality but of a token of affection. Besides, I had liked Dav Bidwell very much—except for his soap business! But my visitor had vanished and there was no answer. Now it is you that give me a partial explanation, that Arthur has been laid up with trouble in his back which requires treatment, and that he seems to have given up the trip they were to make to Europe. –This [ point, however, had been already conveyed to me telepathically in nightmare 1. apropos of poverty. They had heard that airlines were very dear and had given up Europe.–] But does this mean that the marriage has been post= as announced? I got no formal poned, or did it take place on June 18th invitation, or any other missive, which is curious, since Raymond is usually very full of family news. This silence must be due to something seriously wrong on my side. But what? Isn’t Neville a great friend of Arthur’s and hasn’t he heard anything about my misconduct? My book is now finished and all typed, and only the third part to be revised for copyist’s errors, punctuation etc. Part II is being revised by Cory; and he will revise Part III also after I have finished with it, either here if he comes to Rome, or in England if travelling should be discouraged. Not having any “duties” as a faithful workingman any longer I read all that my two papers, Il Tempo and the Osservatore Romano3 say about Corea and the mess elsewhere. It is really shocking to see how dispersion of power makes action impossible. Better one people in hand than fiftysix nations4 in a parliament. The U.S. is playing up well; but the more you do in Corea the less you will be able to do when Germany’s turn comes— for exactly the same aggression by German communists, armed and trained by the Russians, may be expected at any moment in West Berlin and Western Germany. Isn’t this obvious to everybody? Yes, but action is impossible in view of minor political entanglements and lack of leadership. What a lovely chance for a strong man if one could be discovered and trusted! Next year is a date for which I can make no engagements, but it is pleasant to think of your turning up here. Speriamo!5 Yours affectionately GSantayana

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1 Roselle Marie “RM” Rice Eldredge (1930–94), an archivist, artist, and musician, married Arthur Eldredge in 1950. They had five children: Arthur S. Eldredge Jr., Edward R. Eldredge, Thomas M. Eldredge, Joanna Eldredge Morrissey, and Sarah Eldredge Trautwein. 2 Weston, Massachusetts. 3 Il Tempo is a Roman daily newspaper founded in 1945 with a conservative, anti-communist bias. It is widely respected today for its balanced news coverage. L’Osservatore Romano, owned by the Roman Catholic Church and first published in 1891, is the official voice of the Holy See. It contains papal writing and activities. 4 United Nations. 5 Let us hope! (Italian)

To Evelyn Tindall 18 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome. July 18, 1950 Dear Miss Tindall I have not hurried in answering you note and thanking you for the final parcel of manuscript, because it will be more than a month still before you can cash the cheque on B. S. & Co which I send with my best wishes for your holidays Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov 21 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Lipinsky)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, July 21, 1950 Dear Mr. Lipinsky I am glad to hear that you are in Rome and am at your service really at any hour of any day, since I seldom leave my cell here. But it is rather a hole, and you will find it a little more quiet in the afternoon than in the morning It has large windows to the South and west, more sun than is welcome in this weather but you will judge at a glance what will be the best hour and position for your drawing.1

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I live in pyjamas: but if that is beneath the dignity of your art, I can dress in a moment to look decent. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Lipinsky’s 2 August 1950 sketch serves as the dust jacket for Scribner’s My Host the World (1953).

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 28 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, July 28, 1950 Dear Cory Dominations and Powers are now finished, as far as my workshop is concerned and I can send you immediately the carbon copy of the 43 chapters of Book Third, including the Conclusion, on which I have been at work for change of words here and there and some obscure passages that either Miss Tindall or I; in a trance, had made nonsense of. There may still be things to expunge or correct, but my feeling is too raw as yet for me to be able to get a clear fresh impression by reading it. As you have said always there will still be time for the last touches in the proofs, even after you have passed these chapters in your revision, in which I expect you to remove anything that is troublesome, but not to substitute anything else without consulting me The carbon copy here too is clearer than the standard copy on heavier paper, so that if you think Book II can pass as it stands you might send the carbon copy to Mr. Wheelock at once; and if you like, I/you could send Book III also in that form, after you have revised it. You could take the standard copy of both Books, with you when you return from Rome. As to the date of your coming, arrange that as circumstances dictate. October 15 would be a good time in regard to the weather, which here has been oppressively hot without respite since July 1st= I see in this morning’s Tempo that the Russians are returning to the ONU;1 this will prevent anything further being done in its name, but I suppose the other Powers will go on as they now see they must. War need not necessarily follow. Perhaps Russia is merely correcting the false step of retiring in order to let Communist China in, and thereby allowing the Powers to act freely in regard to Corea. Having shown her teeth there, Russia may be

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satisfied with the prestige of victory for the moment, and return to the cold war. Shall I send you Book III? It will make a parcel little heavier than Book II. I am now going to reread and probably rewrite chapter IV of “Growth in the Jungle”, on “Needs and Demands” 2 which is an important subject for my general position, but not done well enough: only I have felt for some time hurried and afraid of making things worse by trying to improve them. Now I can take my time, having nothing obligatory to do. G.S. [across ]P.S. Miss Tindall returns to Rome on Sept. 1st= so that if there is something for her to recopy she will be at hand here after that date. 1

Organizzazione Nazione Uniti (United Nations Organization). Chapter 4, “Needs and Demands,” of Part One, Book First of Dominations.

2

To Fraser Bragg Drew 28 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Vermont)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 28, 1950 Dear Professor Drew1 Your letter reached me when I was at fever heat finishing the last chapter of what will be my last book, under the pressure also of unusual heat even for Rome in midsummer. But all is finished now, and I turn with pleasure to your request for autographs on slips of paper, so much simpler than receiving and returning heavy books. The motto from the Bacchae that I am putting on the slip for your copy of my “Poems” is one I have often used for that purpose because it was the real source of Sonnet III built round the rather prosaic translation of that maxim in the second line.2 That was in my Sophomore year at Harvard when I was studying the Greek tragedians under Louis Dyer.3 You see that my appeal to faith in those days included pagan faith, if not yet reduced to its origin in “animal faith.” The rest needs no explanation—Your interest in the awakened imagination of your young men appeals to me, as it has always been a lively stimulus to me also. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 Santayana wrote to Fraser Bragg Drew in Buffalo, New York. Drew (b. 1913) wrote John Masefield’s England: A Study of the National Themes in his Work (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh, Dickinson, University Press, 1973). 2 See letter to Munson, 12 March 1948, and Complete Poems, 92. 3 Louis Dyer (1851–1908) graduated from Harvard in 1874 and took a B.A. at Oxford in 1878. A translator, editor, and writer in classical and Renaissance literature, he was appointed lecturer in German and French at Balliol College, Oxford (1893–95). Santayana studied under Dyer in 1883 and 1884. See Persons, 231 and 487.

To Richard Colton Lyon 28 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 28, 1950 Dear Dick You end your long letter, just received, with a pleasing suggestion (as ladies used to do in postscripts) which I mustn’t leave unnoticed. I didn’t send you Cardiff’s book because I was disgusted with it and have not sent it to anybody, not even to Cory.x When he sent me half a dozen pages, I smelt a rat at once, but didn’t wish to discourage him, because the project of a selection of maxims or thoughts or epigrams had always tempted my vanity, to show the water-lilies that might be picked in the stagnant pools of philosophy. But I told him that I felt that his selections, though good, were not diversified enough: too much commonplace rationalism (when I am not a rationalist) and not enough cynicism or scepticism or psychological malice: and I gave him a sample of what I wished he would include, what Mario says about our “having to change the truth a little in order to remember it.”1 When the book arrived I saw that the old rascal had left that out! He also represented me as merely renovating Tom Paine, instead of Thomas Aquinas! Cheap and witless criticism of religion, without all the pages of sympathetic treatment of it, for instance in “The Idea of Christ in the Gospels.” I was furious; but in time, and on looking at other parts of the book, I have reconciled myself to it somewhat. But I am delighted to hear that you have had that project in mind,2 for some distant future entertainment. And you, who before you had seen me, chose that passage at the end of the Dialogue on Normal Madness, may be relied on not to miss the strong and really radical things. And that egregious Cardiff actually quotes the last few words, which seem, alone, a melodramatic piece of verbiage, when it is all the profound philosophy

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(not mere physics) of Democritus when it comes after the picture of Alcibiades winning the chariot-race at Olympia and his dismay at thinking it all dissolved into atoms. If — Weep, my son, y/ if you are human, but ^ ^ laugh also, if you are a man.3 This might lead me back to the body of your letter and the question of the moral sense. But I don’t feel like going into it. I read lately in the Times Literary Supplement a review of a Scottish philosopher4 who maintains the mysterious absoluteness of what is “right” as distinguished from what is naturally good. I have always wonder ed at the aura that hangs ^ ^ about the word “duty”. It means only owed. If you have pledged yourself to pay something you are bound in honour to pay it—if you can. The propriety of this conduct is obvious; but the mystic awe that hangs about “you ought” is superstitious.—Very glad you are deep in French. Tell me what you are reading. Yours GSantayana [across page one ] xCory understands most of my philosophy very well; but he doesn’t want to pledge himself to it, where English academic opinion disapproves; so that sometimes he allows himself unbecoming language. 1

Puritan, 416. The only similar publication by Lyon is Santayana on America: Essays, Notes, and Letters on American Life, Literature, and Philosophy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968). 3 “The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool” (Dialogues, 57). 4 Unidentified. 2

To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk 31 July 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 31, 1950 Dear Onderdonk Let me congratulate you on being at Bad Ischl;1 here we are bathed only in sweat. I am well, however, and in spite of feeling that perhaps the world is on the point of going to pieces, I am more than usually content, because at last Dominations and Powers is finished and ready for the press. If you give me your address, wherever it may be, during next Spring, I will ask Scribner to send you a copy. It is a much more wellstocked, stuffed or rag-bag book than my others and although long it ^ ^

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need not oppress you It is composed of little chapters, many of them written long ago with no thought of such a systematic book—for it is a complete view of human life and politics—a little, in that respect, like Nietzsche’s Gaia Scienza.2 You can read a chapter, a paragraph, or a sentence, and rest until the next Sunday. The review of the book on Pearsall Smith3 (which I have, but have not done more than look into) is very just, as far as I can judge. Smith was a pleasant friend to me, and I never noticed any cruel or malicious behaviour in him; but his house and conversation was —ere a fountain of gossip and of false assertions even on purely literary matters. But I was never on intimate terms with him or with his other friends, and perhaps he treated me — very exceptionally well. Think of the “Little Essays” that he selected ^ ^ from my books4 when, especially in England I was entirely unknown. Of course, I don’t know what he said of me behind my back; but I don’t care. A writer, even a professor, is public property. It was at his house that I saw Henry James5 on the only occasion I ever had of doing so. You know that one of his (Smith’s) sisters was married to Bertrand Russell and the ^ ^ other, the elder, to Bernard Berenson.6 Here is a long letter of gossip that proves that I am having a holiday for the rest of my life. Dotage is appropriate at the age of your old friend GSantayana 1

Bad Ischl, Austria. “Bad” literally means “bath” in German. In place names, it indicates the presence of mineral hot springs, or natural spas. 2 The aphoristic Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science) was published in 1882. 3 Recollections of Logan Pearsall Smith, the Story of a Friendship (London: Constable, 1949), by Robert Gathorne-Hardy (b. 1902). The review is “Story of a Friendship,” Times Literary Supplement (6 January 1950): 6, written by Smith’s friend, Cyril Connolly (1903–1974). Born into a wealthy Quaker family, Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) was educated at Haverford College and Harvard University. After working in the family glass manufacturing business, he went to England and entered Balliol College, Oxford University (B.A., 1893; M.A., 1906). He remained in England, where he took up a literary career. 4 Little Essays Drawn from the Writings of George Santayana (London: Constable, 1920). 5 The novelist Henry James (1843–1916), brother of philosopher William James, graduated from Harvard Law School and lived the remainder of his life in Europe. His notable works include The Portrait of a Lady (1881) and The Bostonians (1886). 6 Logan Pearsall Smith’s sister Alys Pearsall Smith (1867–1951) was Bertrand Russell’s first wife (m. 1894), with whom he had no children. They were divorced in 1921. Mary Whitall Smith Berenson (1865–1945), also sister to Logan Pearsall Smith, lived with Bernard Berenson for ten years before their marriage in 1900.

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To John Hall Wheelock 4 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, August 4, 1950 Dear Mr. Wheelock It is a long time since I have written to you, knowing that you had news from Cory on the most interesting points that I could have touched upon; that I am still alive, that Dom. & P’rs was making progress, and that he himself had been getting some scattered chapters published in various Reviews. I am not very enthusiastic about the result: the only unexpected satisfaction I have had from those publications is that one young man had cried over the first chapter of the third unpublished part of Persons and Places, about “A c/Change of Heart”, in which I had supposed there was very little heart and very little change in it.1 But perhaps I am hardened to disillusions of that remote period, and find life so much pleasanter without them that I have forgotten how important such discoveries seem when they are going on. That which makes me write to you today is that I have just sent off to Cory the carbon copy of Book Third of Dom. & P.’rs, which completes the whole work, so that I have no further responsibility or need to keep alive on its account. I have been working hard this summer, in spite of the unusually oppressive heat, but I am not tired or desirous of going to any sea-beach or mountain-top. I live in pyjamas and keep my little room as well aired as possible in spite of its southern and western outlook, which gets all the sun. But my south (French) window, by which I always write is protected by an awnings, let down over the balcony railing; and I shut the Venetian blinds of the west window, but keep the glass shutters entirely open, so that a draught blows through the room, which except in scirocco weather is refreshing (like tea) even if luke-warm. I may still have some passages to rewrite; perhaps in the last chapter where I have indulged in a fanciful episode which may not be in place. I rely on your judgment and Cory’s, and am ready to have it cut out. I am now trying to rewrite the early chapter on “Needs & Demands” which never satisfied me, as the subject is important in my general view. As to war and Dr. Cardiff, non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa.2 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

See Persons, 417–29.

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2 Dante, Inferno, Canto III, line 51: Let us not talk of them, but look and pass. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum (Bantam Books, 1982), 22.

To Alan Denson 11 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome August 11, 1950. Dear Mr. Denson The enclosed letter1 from A. E. turned up by chance some time ago and I should have sent it to you at once, but that at the moment I could n’t find your address. Now that you have written again, I am glad ^ ^ to be able to let you have (and keep) it, as it probably falls in well with what must be your meditations in composing the poet’s biography.2 I am also glad to see these bits of your own.3 A part is clearly Fallstaff,4 and your last line about “the love of mankind” being his “majesty” has made me reflect, and on reflection I agree that perhaps that was at the bottom of his adaptability and willingness to be no better than he was. But was it hatred of the “flux of fashion” that made him cultivate Bohemia? Wasn’t it sack,5 and the possibility of playing the superior (which he was) before people who could not turn him down? There was something humble and sad about his witty acceptance of his degradation. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unlocated. Probably refers to Æ’s letter to Santayana of 19 September 1933. Denson wrote G. W. Russell (Æ) 1867–1935: A Centennial Assessment (Kendal: [privately printed], 1968) and Letters from Æ (London and New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1961). 3 Denson noted that Santayana was “citing [Denson’s] ‘Jesus said’ and ‘To an Old Man’.” According to Denson’s Collected Poems 1945–1995 (Aberdeenshire, Scotland: Oliver Alden, 1996): “The verses of mine [Denson] which GS mentions I destroyed decades ago.” 4 Sir John Falstaff is a character in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor. He is an unapologetic braggart who revels in his lechery and chicanery. His knavery is so engaging and his lust for life so keen that he is a favorite character of dramatic literature. 5 Sack was a dry white wine imported to England from southern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 2

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To Daniel MacGhie Cory 13 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome. Aug. 13, 1950 Dear Cory I have looked up all the passages that you comment on in your notes,1 and if my solution is not clear in some cases, there is always a good way of avoiding making a mess, which is to follow the Spanish proverb: Cortar por lo sano, Cut through the healthy part, in this case, leave out the whole thing. The reduplication of versions has given me a lot of trouble, and I haven’t always the right version at hand. Then I have made a good many corrections even on the last copies, intended to be ready for the press; and I am sending you two or three revisions to make in your copy, if you are sending it to Wheelock, as I think would be best. We must ask him to send us proofs before the pages are blocked, galley proofs, so that we may be free to cut out or add a line here and there. I shall not mind the labour, as there is fun in it; you get a fresh impression of your intellectual sed^ ^ iment, and can always spot errors incomprehensibly overlooked before. I hope Book Third has reached you safely In spite of the heat, I am very well GS. 1

In response to the letter of 28 July 1950, Cory had ventured to suggest some rewording in Book III of Dominations because he was starting to doubt Santayana’s ability to concentrate on the task of writing (Years, 302–3).

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 17 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. August 17, 1950 Dear Lowell Your letter has been a great event, and not alone, because by the same post I have received the Times Literary Supplement of August 11, with the excellent review of your “Poems” 1938–49,1 of which I had not heard, but which shows that your old self remains the same, subject to changes of wind and weather, but not wrecked nor turned into an academic tug-boat: as in my dreams I have feared sometimes that it might be. I infer from

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your coming to Europe in October that you are not going to join any English Department in the West this year, even if your experiment this summer has been a success. I am very glad on your own account that you are to be—probably for the winter?—in these parts, and for myself that at last I shall see you. But I have other grounds for satisfaction of my own also, that key me up to a real happiness. “Dominations and Powers” is finished, and probably will appear in New York in the Spring. This is a great relief, as I have long feared that I should never be able to bring that big undertaking to an end Laus Deo2—from your old friend GSantayana 1

Poems, 1938–1949 (London: Faber and Faber, 1950). The review is “A Scrupulous Muse,” in the Times Literary Supplement (11 August 1950): 496. 2 Praise God (Latin).

To Richard Colton Lyon 18 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, August 18, 1950 Dear Dick Only a few words to ask you to send me a sort of form or blank suggesting the things that I ought to say you shine in in recommending you for your scholarship,1 as well as the way in which I should address it. In view of what are the scholarships given: Past diplomas or natural talents or future public usefulness or capacity to be ornamental? I will try to express decently whatever is required, as I am quite sure that you would make a better use of you opportunities than almost any probable candidate. Your French master is worse than Farmer Cudjo was in my day at the Boston Latin School2—When you are in France, French ladies will be the best and most agreeable teachers. G.S. 1 Perhaps the same scholarship mentioned in 29 September 1948, but not the Rhodes Scholarship mentioned in 5 September 1950, which Santayana calls a “change of direction” for Lyon. 2 Charles J. Capen, A.M., was a French teacher at the Boston Latin School. Santayana’s humorous account of his physiological method of teaching French pronunciation is found in Persons, 149.

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To John Hall Wheelock 22 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome August 22, 1950 Dear Mr. Wheelock I write to acknowledge two recent letters of yours, one including my royalty account for six months and the other including an introduction to Dr. Chen.1 As to the latter I think I have told you that I receive everyone who cares to come to see me with pleasure, especially if an intreview and a cannonade of snap-shots are not in view, as they will not be, I am sure, with Dr. Chen. I had last year a visit or two from another distinguished Chinaman, who was ambassador from his (Nationalist) government to the Pope, Dr. Wu,2 a most mild and inoffensive person seeming a young man, although he has a large family of children, some married, and he left with me some very mild pamphlets describing his conversion (with all his family) to the Catholic Church, and some pious thoughts of his own about Sainte Térèse de Lisieux3 for whom he had a special admiration. This always makes me stand up for Saint Theresa of Avila, so much more sensible; but pure “abandon”, which was the French Sainte Térèse’s motto, seems to appeal to Oriental minds. The same took a more masculine form in Hamlet when he speaks of taking good and evil fortune with “equal thanks”.4 [across ] I notice that there is no mention of Dialogues in Limbo in my account. Have there been no sales of the new edition? Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. Wu Jingxiong (aka John C. H. Wu, b. 1899) was the Chinese ambassador (or Minister Plenipotentiary) to the Holy See in 1946 and 1949. 3 Térèse de Lisieux (1873–97) is also known as the “Little Flower of Jesus.” She was the ninth child of Louis and Zélie Martin. She entered the convent of Lisieux at the unusual age of fifteen. Her “motto” is perhaps from her “Act of Oblation to Merciful Love” in which she writes: “Finally, I offer You, O Blessed Trinity! the Love and merits of the Blessed Virgin, my Dear Mother. It is to her I abandon my offering, begging her to present it to You.” Or perhaps is from her poem “My Heaven on Earth” in which she writes: “Safe shielded in His arms, no storm my soul can fear; / Complete abandonment my only law shall be.” 4 Hamlet speaks these lines in Act III, Scene II, in reference to Horatio: “A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards / Hast ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those / Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled, / That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger / To sound what stop she please.” 2

1948–1952

To John Hall Wheelock 30 August 1950 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome. Aug. 30, 1950 Dear Mr. Wheelock Many thanks for your letter about the sales of “Dialogues in Limbo”. It clears up pleasantly the only point that interested me, which is that the new edition sold well for an old book of its kind. I receive occasional evidence that here and there someone is really impressed by it as not merely a jeu d’esprit.1 I am enjoying, in spite of the great heat of this whole summer, the sense of relief from responsibility at having finished my last book; and I am reading (besides the papers, for instruction) Droysen’s old romantic standard book on Alexander the Great.2 He is one of my favourite heroes, a good one, to balance a bad one like Alcibiades, and if I am fit a while longer I may write something about Alexander’s attempt (and moral failure) to fuse East and West. Then there has been Christianity, Byzantium, and the Moors in Spain trying the same trick with no greater success. This being an unnecessary letter with which to trouble you, I will add something else of no consequence that I always forget to tell you: That in a snap-shot of myself sitting by this window, one that we both liked, you took the white streak that crosses the background diagonally for Father Tiber,3 a sometimes formidable stream, while it is a new street opened up by Mussolini called Via Druso which runs from the Porta Metrona, at the foot of our hill,4 towards the Baths of Caracalla,5 where now in summer they have open-air operas. And the grand horizon in my landscape is made by the inside of the City Walls, going in a semicircle round the higher ground that forms the south west extension of old Rome and is now not thickly built, but prevalently green as if it were the open country. It is truly classical in being on the human scale, but all inside one corner of the city. Cory is now revising Book Third the Rational Order of Society (imaginary) and I believe will send it to you before he comes to Rome in the middle of October, as well as Book Second, the Militant Order, divided into “Faction” and “Enterprise”. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1

A casual effusion not to be taken seriously (French). Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–84), a German historian, was born at Treptow in Pomerania. His understanding of history was greatly influenced by his interpretation of Hegel, which regarded politics as a predictable process moving toward a fixed end. The particular end Droysen envisioned was the unification of the German nation. He became a professor at Kiel in 1840; in 1848 he was elected to the Frankfurt Parliament; and in 1851 he took up a professorship at Jena. In 1859 he moved to Berlin where he remained until his death. His most well-known work is Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen (History of Alexander the Great, Berlin, 1833). 3 Related to the River Tiber in Rome, Father Tiber was a deity to the early Romans. 4 The Caelius is one of the seven hills of Rome. 5 Caracalla was a name given to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, a Roman emperor, from the Gallic tunic he wore. The Baths of Caracalla (c. A.D. 215) were erected during his reign. 2

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 1 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome, September 1, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff Mr. Lamont came twice to see me when he was in Rome and we had long conversations on various subjects including religion. I had read his book against immortality which he was good enough to send me. I told him that he ought to write another on the Ambiguities of the idea of immortality and of “another” life or “another” world. He knows that I don’t believe that people remain alive after they die: but I am interested in the insights that see eternity in time, and another kind of life hovering over our animal and business worries. But I am afraid he didn’t understand what I meant. Americans are highly moral, but their moral horizon encircles a very narrow moral world. So with these comments on “Atoms” and on your selection of my sayings about religion. They/ selections do ^ ^ not, as you that—— you — ^Lamont^ says in his letter ^to you^ of June —uly. 30, — emphasize my view that religion is poetry. If they had done that it would have explained instead of seeming to contradict my attachment to religion. But you chose phrases describing the shady side of ecclesiastical thought or practice. I like to be quite frank about that. But that is the irreligious side of religion, which has its roots in the real conflict of powers and insights in the mind. What I resent is to be made “militant” against religion when I am politically on its side It is not, as your correspondent

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says, that I have [across ] given it up. I have not given up anything that I ever loved in it, or in anything else. But it is useless to quarrel about inevitable misunderstandings. Yours sincerely Santayana

To Paul Arthur Schilpp 4 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Sept. 4, 1950 Dear Professor Schilpp My new book is finished, but I am afraid I am finished too, as far as shedding light is concerned on old problems or on my own darkness. But if you reprint your book about my philosophy,1 I hope you will correct the many printer’s errors in my part of it. I have them all marked in my copy, so that if you have no list of them I can easily send you one, and not lay on anyone the horrid task of rereading all the text. I have had, however, some correspondence with the President of the University of Hawaii,2 in which I made some observation about the problem of “East and West” in philosophy, which he wished me to expand. If I find it possible to do so—for it may be a wind-egg—my short paper might do as a word in my philosophy on an entirely fresh matter that has become of public interest since your book was issued. But I should have to let the Honolulu people have that paper too; a Prof. Moore, I think, is to edit a Review to be called East and West, and they would want my article.3 With these two conditions that I can write it and that you would be willing to take it even if previously published, I would make that (your ^ printing it too) a condition for giving it to Hawaii first, if they are first ^ ready for it. Yours sincerely G Santayana 1

A revised edition of The Philosophy of George Santayana was published in New York in 1951 by the Tudor Press. 2 Gregg M. Sinclair (1890–1976) was president of the University of Hawai‘i from 1942 until 1955). 3 Charles A. Moore (c. 1901–67) was a professor of philosophy at Yale University and the University of Hawai‘i. He was the editor of Philosophy East and West, published by the University of Hawai‘i. “On Philosophical Synthesis” (vol. 1, no. 1; April, 1951) includes statements from John Dewey, S. Radhakrishnan, and Santayana.

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To Richard Colton Lyon 5 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome September 5, 1950 Dear Dick Your change of direction towards a Rhodes Scholarship1 and a study of Bergson, Proust & Co naturally increases very much my nearness to your projects; yet I am glad that I had nothing to do with suggesting that change; for if I had, and you found it afterwards to have been a mistake, I should have been to blame for it, on account of my weakness towards Oxford & Proust & Co, if not towards Bergson or towards Prof. Green, whose book I am now going to read, so as to have a map in my head of the undiscovered regions you are to explore I saw a review of Green’s book some time ago in the Times Literary Supplement, but didnt read it, because it was apparently not an elaborate review, and I felt I should not learn anything from it.2 Bergson is the prophet of duration creative, and Proust the poet of duration lost, but recoverable under the form of eternity. And there is a curious substitute for the latter in Bergson’s Mémoire. Matière et Mémoire3 I think is the best of his books, original and explorative, not sophisticol like the others: and I suppose you know that there he propounds the theory, repeated in L’Évolution Créatrice,4 that all the images formed during life remain unmodified for ever as if in coloured photographs not in the nasty brain, of course, which is only an impediment to intuition, but in MEMORY: not in the recoveries of weak and confused images of the original image, but in that image itself still bright under the layers of other images that bury it for living people as they pass to creating other different images. Now this notion of frozen actuality of phenomena, is a sort of bungling phenomenalistic substitute for the truth, which contrains the essences of all past and future existences and of their historic relations, as Proust and I conceive the truth to be. Bergson hated this truth, because it is an ideal panorama of the future as well as of the past; and he had a superstitious fear of the truth about the future compelling creative evolution to become what it wasn’t naturally becoming. When I have obtained Green’s book I shall be ready to tell you what I think of his identification of Proust’s time lost with Bergson’s durée or budding time. Although I think Proust, in his last volume has exactly my notion of essence, he could not have got it from me of whom he probably

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never heard! The dates of our respective books might prove this. What are they?5 I am sending my gentle push to the Committee on the Rhodes Scholarships today under a separate envelope. Yours GSantayana 1 Rhodes Scholarships were initiated in 1903 as a result of stipulations made in Cecil John Rhodes’s will. Recipients are chosen based on their intellectual and physical abilities, as well as their character traits. Recipients spend two years studying at Oxford University. Lyon was a Fulbright Scholar at Cambridge University in 1951–52 and 1952–53; there is no record of him receiving a Rhodes Scholarship. 2 Frederick Charles Green (1891–1954), The Mind of Proust: A Detailed Interpretation of À la recherche du temps perdu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949). The review was “In Search of Proust,” Times Literary Supplement (24 February 1950): 122. 3 Matière et mémoire (Paris, 1896), translated by Nancy M. Paul and William S. Palmer as Matter and Memory (New York, 1911). 4 L’Évolution créatrice (Paris, 1907), translated by Arthur Mitchell as Creative Evolution (New York, 1911). 5 Essence was published in 1927, but Santayana’s theory of essence appears in Scepticism in 1923. Proust’s multivolume À la recherche du temps perdu was published between 1913 and 1927, although Proust published other narratives in the same style in French magazines as early as 1896.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory [13 September 1950] • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Much pleased to have your final comments […] which I have now gone over, correcting my copy to match what I expect may be the ultimate text. I was especially relieved at your being satisfied with the Conclusion. My conscience accused me at times of frivolity […]; but it was a fable that occurred to me and seemed to give a chance of lightening a dull conclusion. I have been compelled by Sir James Marchant in three increasingly urgent letters to try to write for a book by Old Fogeys that he is to publish entitled “What I Think.” I have already written three pages, and see green lights ahead […].1 1

“The Wind and the Spirit” in What I Believe (London: Odhams, 1953), 30–36, edited by Sir James Marchant (1867–1956).

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To Daniel MacGhie Cory 14 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, Sept. 14, 1950 Dear Cory In putting the various elements of the registered letter that I meant to send you yesterday, I suddenly saw that the carbon copy of the chapter in which there was a blank patch was missing. I had filled that patch up carefully from my copy which was complete; but now I could not find that corrected carbon copy anywhere this morning. In the clear sunlight I have searched up in every possible corner, but cannot find your copy. I should send you mine (from which I had been filling out the blank) if I could only remember what chapter that was. But, alas! my memory is a blank too. Please write at once and tell what chapter that is, and I will send you the “standard” copy (not much heavier in Miss Tindall new thin paper). I still have the MS copy for reference in case of need The Old Woman who Lived in A Shoe,1 G.S P.S. Meantime I will send you the other papers in a registered letter which will reach you later. 1 There was an old woman who lived in a shoe She had so many children she didn’t know what to do. She gave them some broth, without any bread, Then whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.

To Paul Arthur Schilpp 21 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Sept. 21, 1950 Dear Professor Schilpp I am sorry, but your mind goes much to fast and too far for my literary pace. I cannot possibly have an article on East and West ready for you or for Prof. Moore’s Review by November 1st=. I have a plan that may never be realized for four articles on one side of that subject;1 but have to do much reading of modern authorities to control my impressions on the four themes, which are the attempts to FUSE the civilizations of East and

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West into one. I don’t believe in that, and I want to illustrate the failure of such fusion, even when not positively aimed at, in the cases of Alexander, Christianity, the Byzantine Empire, and the Moors in Spain. It was only the Alexander adventure that the first article was to treat; but I have interrupted my reading of old Droysen’s history of Alexander, which is Hegelian, but which swallows a great part of the legends about him, which I want to read because they will show what Alexander was supposed to have accomplished I mean to take this up again soon; but I had to do a bit of unforseen work for an English collection of Essays, and I shall have a lot of revising of the text of Dominations and Powers to do when my “secretary” Cory comes to Rome next month. You must give up, then, all idea of a fresh effusion for your reissue of vol. II of your series; but I enclose a list2 of the misprints in my part of it. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

These articles were never published. Unlocated.

2

To Evelyn Tindall 27 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Rome, September 27 1950 Dear Miss Tindall I hope you are safely returned and willing to copy this unforeseen essay of mine as soon as possible. It has been almost forced upon me by the repeated requests of Sir James Marchant, if you know who he is. He is preparing a Symposium of Old Fogeys to be entitle: What I believe, or something of that sort No longer having the excuse of being busy, I have been obliged to work like a nigger. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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To Paul Arthur Schilpp 30 September 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Southern)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. Sept. 30, 1950 Dear Professor Schilpp, I thought I had made it clear in my last letter that the project of four essays on four failures (which might be the title of the imaginary book, guarranteed last and posthumous) was a dream which I don’t expect to live to realize, and that even the first essay on Alexander may never be written, as I must look up the latest authorities as to the credible and the apocryphal parts of Alexander’s legend. It is true that for my philosophical purpose a fable will do as well as a fact; but I must not seem to confuse the two in my own historical views . So that at least a year (which I ^ ^ may not live through, has to be allowed for that beginning. And I should have to offer it to Prof. Moore’s Review as well as to you. The objection to double publications; when the two are contemporary is obvious, and it excludes the only other offer I could make to you for your vol. II, second edition. Were it not for this matter of rival publications not being wanted on either side, I might have recommended a somewhat playful paper that is to be published in England in a Symposium of Old Fogeysx edited by Sir James Marchant. But they could not be asked to allow it to reappear for the present, and you would not find it serious enough for your weighty publications. Yours sincerely GSantayana [in margin ] x(not the title of the book)

To Anne Ford 2 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Oct. 2, 1950 Dear Miss Ford:1 You overwhelm me with superior chocolates from Sherry’s2 in New York. The last night I spent in America was luxuriously spent in an apartment at Sherry’s; not of my own choosing, but suggested by a fashionable

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friend who also took me that evening to a small dinner party, a theatre party, a private concert, and a reception at her Ambassador’s to meet (the backs of) the Duke of Connaught, the Duchess, and Princess Patricia, after which spree ( Jan. 1912) I never went to any other party in my life.3 It may well be, after your chocolates, that I shall never wish to descend to any but Sherry’s in the short rest of my life. You are too kind and I rely on your not forgetting to come to see me (if still visible) when you return to Rome. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Anne McDonnell Ford (1919–96) was married to Henry Ford II (1917–87). Louis Sherry (1856–1926) was a New York City restaurateur, confectioner, and host who catered to the wealthy. 3 Santayana wrote (29 January 1912 to Susan Sastre): “In New York, the one day I was there, I went out to lunch, tea, dinner, a play, a musicale in a private house, and the ^ ^ ball given by the Whitelaw Reids to the Duke of Connaught and his family. I was in bed, however, by half past twelve, as we stayed only a short time at each place. I saw some agreeable people, and some striking costumes and jewels.” Arthur William Patrick Albert, duke of Connaught (1850–1942), was an English prince, the son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. From 1911 to 1916 he was governor general of Canada. Princess Louise Marguerite (1860–1917) of Prussia married the duke in 1879. They had three children: Margaret, Arthur, and Patricia. Patricia Ramsay (1886–1974) renounced her title in 1919 at her wedding to Alexander Ramsay, a Commander in the Royal Navy. The couple had one child, Alexander, who was a Captain in the Grenadier Guards. 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 6 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, Oct. 6, 1950 Dear Cory, Will you please attend to the renewal of this subscription1 for me and, I suppose, for you also? I would send you a cheque for the three years subscription for both of us, except that you may have subscribed already and that it would be tempting Providence to assume that I shall live to be 90.2 However, I feel rather gay at this moment, having finished and sent off an essay on The Wind and The Spirit to Sir James Marchant, which has some life in it. But I have got stranded in the attempt to rewrite the chapter on Needs and Demands. The first page or two of the one I sent you the other day on The Ethics of Compromise also seemed to me dull. We can consider both cases when the galley-proofs come. G. S.

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[across ] P.S. Robert Lowell was to sail on Sept. 28 and to arrive at Genoa about Oct. 10, and reach Rome a few days later. He will be arriving at about the same time as you. 1

Unlocated. Santayana died on 26 September 1952 at the age of eighty-eight.

2

To George Rauh 12 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome. October 12, 1950 Dear Mr Rauh, I find to my cost and amusement that no reporter ever reports my own words but substitutes his own lingo for my scrupulously chosen phrases. I don’t know what your particular interviewer attributed to me,1 but I certainly never said that the U.S. were “trying” to “impose” their form of government on anybody; and what the Russians are trying to impose is not only their form of government (communism, as for instance it exists ^ ^ under Tito’s dictatorship) but their own government as it exists in Moscow and is exercised over the Satellites by the Commintern,2 that plans insurrections and police governments for other nations. The American system cannot be imposed in this way because it conceives “democracy” to mean government by the majority, and respects elections fairly carried on. I think this trust in majorities is a dangerous and unjust method where there are profoundly rooted and numerous minorities (such as the Irish were under the British); but my chief divergence from American views lies in that I am not a dogmatist in morals or politics and do not think that the same form of government can be good for everybody; except in those matters where everybody is subject to the same influence and has identical interests, as in the discipline of a ship in danger, or of a town when there is a contagious disease. But where the interests of people are moral and imaginative they ought to be free to govern themselves, as a poet should be free to write his own verses, however trashy they may seem to the pundits of his native back yard. I think the universal authority ought to manage only economic, hygienic, and maritime affairs, in which the benefit of each is a benefit for all; but never the affairs of the heart in anybody. Now the Americans and OUN’s3 way of

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talking is doctrinaire, as if they were out to save souls and not to rationalize commerce. And the respect for majorities instead of for wisdom is out of place in any matter of ultimate importance. It is reasonable only for settling matters of procedure in a way that causes as little friction as possible: but it is not right essentially because it condemns an ideal to defeat because a majority of one does not understand its excellence. It cuts off all possibility of a liberal civilization. And it is contrary to what American principles have been in the past, except in a few fanatics like Jefferson who had been caught by the wind of the French Revolution. Americans ^ ^ at home are now liberal about religion and art: why not about the forms of government? I mean to send you or Lawrence Butler my new book on “Dominations and Powers”, when it appears, where all this is threshed out naturalistically. Glad to know that Lawrence is well. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

“Santayana is not opposed to any political form per se, but being strongly Catholic, he is naturally opposed to communism, and his book will contain a critique of Marxist materialism. He does not, however, see by what right the democracies try to impose their type of government on others—on Germany, for instance.” The article “Talk With Mr. Santayana,” written by Herbert L. Matthews, appeared the the New York Times, (14 August 1949), BR17. 2 The Comintern (from Communist International) was established in 1919 at Moscow to spread Marxist socialism in the world. In 1943 the USSR dissolved it to reassure its allies in World War II. 3 Organization of United Nations.

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 16 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, October 16, 1950 Dear Rosamond “Flair”,1 which has come today, reminds me that I have not written to you for a long time. The fact is that, without being particularly ill, I have been having a spell of absolute inactivity, as if convalescent from some operation; but this operation was nothing but the effort, unusual for me, of finishing “Dominations and Powers”, which was really more than I was fit to undertake at my age. Cory is coming this week and when the galleyproofs which we have asked for arrive, we are to go over them not merely looking for printer’s errors but for author’s mistakes, repetitions, inelegancies and false effects. So that the work is not really finished: but I have put

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it aside, and Scribner’s has the whole text in his possession, so that even if I vanished the book could appear more or less as it was meant to be. You said in your last letter that you would like to know Cory: but you might not like him at all. However, he is by instinct a lady-killer and ingrag/ ciates himself into some women’s good graces in a surprising way; but has become less attractive (and deceptive) with middle age2 and cannot do the elderly gentleman as well as he did the young intellectual. He is intellectual, but strangely ignorant of literature and history, except in spots, where he has taken an intense interest in certain authors, especially Walter Pater3 in his youth and Proust (read in translation) in recent years. He took in this way to the most technical of my books, “Scepticism and Animal Faith”, and at 22 wrote a remarkable paper on it, which was the source of our acquaintance. He now understands my whole philosophy, but does not inwardly accept it, and really does not help me very much, ^ ^ except by finding fault (he is very “cheeky”) with my style when I make a slip, which after all proves that he appreciates it when it goes properly. But his chief virtue for me is that he is extremely entertaining; and also, now, that he understands the new school of poetry and English philosophy He also understands Catholic philosophy in places (where it is wrong) because it contradicts modern philosophy (which is wrong at that point also). He would have made a capital actor, is a most amusing mimic, and has a bohemian temperament, spends money when he gets it, and never thinks of the future. In “Flair” I have noticed the Harvard part but it does not remind me of my old days. What a prosperous surface American life presents in these magazines: everybody well, rich, newly dressed and washed, and smiling broadly.4 It can’t be all like that always. Yours affectionately GSantayana [across ] P.S. If you could send me another tube of “Benzedrex Inhaler” I should be much obliged. The similar things to be had here are not nearly so convenient. 1 Flair was a chic but unprofitable New York magazine that published only thirteen monthly issues (1950–51) and one hardbound edition (1953). It was edited by Fleur Fenton Cowles (b. 1910), wife of Gardner A. Cowles Jr. (1903–85), a 1925 Harvard graduate and the publisher of Look magazine. 2 Cory was forty-six. 3 Walter Horatio Pater (1839–94), an English essayist and critic, was the leader of a movement stressing the moral importance of artistic perfection. Daniel Cory had told Santayana that he was captivated by Pater’s Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and Ideas (1885).

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4 Flair was noted for its innovative design aimed at upper-middle-class readers who were “deliberately conditioned to, and eager for, the best things, the first things, the smart things” (from an ad in the New York Times, 8 March 1950). Its design and editorial control were credited entirely to Fleur Cowles, a former advertising agent.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 22 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, October 22, 1950 Dear Mr. Lind1 You have written an astonishingly penetrating sketch of me and my philosopher, the most sympathetic I have yet seen You seem to know all my books and a good deal about my life, and your proposed final volume with me for a nucleus will be excellent.2 Naturally where you have no firsthand account to go on you let your sympathetic imagination fill in the picture, as people must writing biographies, even autobiographies. But you may get further facts and hints from other studies of my works which have appeared. Howgate is accurate about facts up to the date of his book, which I had read in proof but he has not, to my knowledge, kept up with the rest; and he is fair about style, etc., but not very intelligent in excelsis.3 I notice in your article one or two small slips in details.4 I was born ^ ^ on Dec. 16 1863, not 4; and my friend’s title was Earl Russell, not of, since this is also his family surname; and he did not remain always as expansive and trustful a friend as he was in the first years. This is described in the third part of “Persons & Places”, not yet published. You also overemphasize a little my attachment to Spain. It is largely theoretical. It was Greece and England—one also theoretical and the other fragmentary—that were in my mind when I wrote the “Life of Reason”. I have just received a thick volume entitle “La Pensée de George Santayana en Amérique” by Jacques Duron: Librairie Nizet, Paris. A second volume seems to be intended, I suppose on my “Pensée en Europe”.5 This would be a very good pace-maker for you, when you come to your final volume. Duron is a trained philosopher, employed in the ministry of Instruction, not now a teacher; and he has tact and discretion on personal matters. It is all arranged systematically in chronological order, and would be easy to consult on particular points.

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Now as to Bohemia, I think we should distinguish accidental bohemians, such because they are loose in Paris with little money and no roots or family friends, and bohemians in the scense of free souls, taking life at first hand and defying conventions of every kind. I don’t think it is so much intelligence as art that moves them, and they need not be poor For instance, there is Sir Osbert Sitwell, with his brother and Dr. Sister.6 If you look at the second paragraph of the introductory part of his “Noble Essences” 7 you will find a description of the social-political world, not all bourgeois in an economic sense (it includes Eton, for instance) but inveighs chiefly against dullness. It represents the intellectuals (he says rather “artists”) as the only possible saviours of the world. Now my bohemianism, if any, is more like that of the ancient Cynics or Sceptics,8 with a little Epicureanism to soften it; for I do not despise convention, even in painting or poetry: I like it when, as in Racine for I love perfection, which has to be definite and exclusive of everything else. But as you say perfection of one sort is to be transcenden not by lapsing into imperfection in that art, but by seeing the equal perfection possible in an entirely different art, when it is the natural realization of an automous impulse in a man, or a class, or a nation. Heresies within a system are simply wrong-headed, but sects, like those in ancient philosophy, are alternative forms of virtue. I am not at all a bohemian, then, in being a rebel to academic philosophy or art or to polite society—there is where my friends the Russells have come to grief—but in keeping my spirit free to accept, if circumstances permit or impose it, some other type of polite society or academic art. The mind is gregarious, more than the body, but it must flock with its own kind of its own accord, to the immense enhancement of its wealth and glory. So I should say to your two nationalities or languages at San Antonio:9 Don’t fuse them; keep them pure each for its own occasions. Didn’t the Athenian tragedians write their dialogue in Attic and their choruses in Doric?10 And didn’t Charles V11 say Latin was best for addressing God, Spanish for men, Italian for diplomats, French for women and German—for his horse: but I should have preferred to say for Protestant Hymns and the pastorals of Walter von der Vogelweide.12 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Bruno Lind (b. 1909) is the pen name of Robert C. Hahnel. A native of Iowa and a Harvard educated author, he describes his conversations with Santayana in Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962).

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2 Lind wrote to Santayana outlining a volume that he proposed to write about him. This volume was to be the last in a series “on writers who had led Bohemian lives” (Vagabond, 22). 3 In the highest [things] (Latin). 4 Lind states that this information was in an article published in the English-Spanish Review. He sent a copy of the article with his initial letter to Santayana (Vagabond, 22–23). The article is unlocated. 5 The second volume was not published. 6 Sitwell’s sister, Edith, had received two honorary doctoral degrees in 1948. 7 The fifth and final volume of Osbert Sitwell’s autobiography was published in Boston by Little, Brown (1950) and in London by Macmillan (1950). 8 The Cynics believed that the only good was virtue. All else, including people, riches, and freedom, should be treated with contempt. The Skeptic philosophy was based on suspended judgment and careful examination. 9 In the article published in the English-Spanish Review, Lind had written of “a fusion and confusion of tongues in Texas, a blend of Spanish and English known as Pachuco” (Vagabond, 22). 10 Attic, the language of Athens, and Doric were important dialects of ancient Greek. 11 Charles V (1500–1558) was Holy Roman Emperor (1519–58) and, as Charles I, king of Spain (1516–56). The greatest of all Hapsburg emperors, he inherited the Spanish kingdoms, Spanish America, Naples, Sicily, the low countries, and the Austrian hereditary lands. The people within his domain spoke dialects of at least seven major language groups, and he was said to have spent one fourth of his reign traveling among them. The statement usually attributed to him is, “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse.” However, a variant is usually attributed to Frederick II, king of Prussia: “I speak French to my ambassadors, English to my accountant, Italian to my mistress, Latin to my God and German to my horse.” 12 Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170–c. 1230) was a German minnesinger, the most famous of the medieval lyric poets. He is noted for breaking with the conventions of traditional love poetry and for making his poems a vehicle for his religious and political opinions.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 23 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, No 6, Monday, October 23, 1950 Dear Lowell It had occurred to me that you would go first to Florence, but you will find the town chilly and dark in winter, and perhaps will return to Rome later. Two weeks is nothing here. And I am sorry that I am too much crippled by cough, blindness and deafness to be able to join you as I should have wished in your explorations. But come to see me when you have nothing better to do, preferably in the late afternoon This chance of seeing you realizes a wish that I have now had for years.

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This establishment is a bit hard to discover at first. The entrance is through a round open doorway in the ruins of an acqueduct, close under the walls of Santo Stefano Rotondo, which is a conical red block building at the top of Via Claudio, a broad street with trees that leads from the back of the Colosseum. The place can also be approached from the square of the Luteran by the lane called Via Santo Stefano Rotondo at the end of which we stand. I will make a sketch of the approaches on the back of this sheet.1 I have been reading the new edition of your Poems, 1938–1949,2 and have much to say and to ask about it Come as soon as you can. GSantayana 1 Santayana sketched a thorough map. A facsimile of this letter, including the map, has been reproduced on the endboards. 2 London: Faber and Faber, 1950.

To Henrietta Cholmeley-Jones 28 October 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bowdoin)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, October 28, 1950 My dear though distant Cousin Rita1 It is always a great pleasure for me to be carried back to the intricacies of the old Sturgis family, so handsome, genial, and kind as — they all were in adopting me; and your grandfather’s house at Nahant,2 about 1873, was I think the first where I ever “stayed” for a few days’ visit. I don’t remember your father on that occasion but only his mother “aunt Susie” heaping a great lump of butter on each mouthful of bread, something that surprised me in a fashionably dressed lady, being myself fresh from Spain where in those days there was no such thing as butter. Later I saw your father only rarely. He had left College a year before I became a Freshman; but I remember going to his c/Class Day “spread” in Professor Norton’s3 grounds, with my sister Susana (Spanish Susie) where I shook hands with Longfellow, a short thickset old gentleman with a red face fringed with copious snow-white hair and beard. He looked to me like a sea-captain and not like a romantic poet: —[ I think now that I described this in “Persons and Places” so that I needn’t have repeated it here.4 But as a

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French critic once said to me after a polite compliment to my style—“Mais les redites!”]—5 Your book is a clear and valuable document recording the ruling American sentiment during the years which it covers,6 and shows how a Biblical confidence in righteousness and in the special protection of God for the American, as once for the Jewish, people must ultimately bring both this people and righteousness to victory. Everyone must respect that feeling in its place But when it comes to general political judgements or prophecies, we are on less defensible ground. Are you sure that it was only selfishness that kept Congress and the people from following the President into the League of Nations?7 I suspect that besides distrust of “entangling alliances” there may have been insight, or at least instinctive distrust of expecting Executive competence in an assembly of independent sovereign governments? I am afraid it is impossible. “Evil,” said Homer thousands of years ago, “is the government of several: one must command.” You see how this is working out now. Resolute powerful governments can attract many other governments to follow them; but a majority of impotents can achieve nothing. Please accept the best thanks and congratulations from your old adopted kinsman. GSantayana 1 Henrietta Howard Boit Cholmeley-Jones (Mrs. Nigel Cholmeley-Jones) was an author and artist (b. 1896) Her father was probably Robert Sturgis (1859–1900), Harvard class of 1881, one of the three sons of Robert Shaw Sturgis (1824–76) and Susan Brimmer Inches (d. 1900). 2 An old resort town in eastern Massachusetts, set on a rocky peninsula jutting into Massachusetts Bay. 3 Santayana had been an undergraduate pupil of Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908), a member of the Harvard class of 1846. Norton was professor of art history there and a Dante scholar. He was cousin to Charles William Eliot, Harvard's president from 1869 to 1909. 4 See Persons, 46. 5 But the repetitions! (French critic is unidentified.) 6 Henrietta, Edward, and Richard Cholmeley-Jones, Slow Advance (1914–1944) (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co., 1944). 7 Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) served as the twenty-eighth president of the United States (1913–21). Founded in 1919, following World War I, and headquartered in Geneva, the League of Nations was an assembly composed of England, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It provided for treaties, a system of colonial administration, international cooperation in labor, and humanitarian enterprises. It failed because powerful nations could not be coerced into mutual compromise or acceptance of its decisions. The League dissolved itself in 1946 and transferred its services and real estate to the United Nations.

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To Luciano Sibille 4 November 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, November 4, 1950 Dear Sibille1 This (beside thanking you for your unanswered letter) is to introduce Mr. Robert Lowell, who I am sure will interest and be interested in you and your circle. I daresay you have heard of him and he need not be announced, as a poet, but I should like you to know also that he is a particular friend of mine and sensitive in religious matters. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Sibille had written a Ph.D. thesis on Realms and a translation of Beauty (see 24 January 1947 to Wheelock); he later wrote a pamphlet on philosophy and business management, La filosofia e il mestiere di dirigente d’azienda (Turin: Edizioni di Filosofia, 1962).

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 5 November 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, November 5, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff The several samples of notices1 of our Atoms of Thought which you have been kind enough to send me show me how much better you know the present receptivity of the American public than I ever did, and that your labours in choosing and arranging and indexing your selection of “Thoughts” were admirably directed and successful in so far as recommending my works to the part of that public which you had in mind. Many of these notices are only announcements: such a book exists, at such a price, with so many pages and an index. Others contain a few samples of the contents, and yet others laudatory comments precisely on that side of my “Thoughts” which you had meant to bring forward so as to shield me from passing for a theosophist. But do these rationalist and positivistic passages give glimpses of those “prehistoric blocks” which I said in my preface formed the substructure of my bora/oque philosophy?2 No: they are samples rather of that superficial,

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if not baroque, play of contemporary party cries which filled the air in my time. The part that I admit and retain in repeating those commonplaces is the appeal to historic or psychological fact which they contain. Without the recognition of those facts the play of imagination and sentiment in other directions would become delusion. Now the part of my philosophy which you pass over is not favourable to illusion, but highly critical; and so my borrowings from the slogans of the Left were always, in their context, protected from being deceptive by a scepticism which showed them too, no less than the fabulations of the Right, to be products of human fancy. My “prehistoric blocks” were what I call the inevitable assumptions of common sense, or “animal faith”, which do not include, but precede, the ^ ^ dogmatic assumptions of common sense. In a letter, I cannot explain ^ ^ what these are in my opinion; but I have lately written a paper on “The Wind and the Spirit” which is to appear in England in a symposium entitled “What I believe”, and of which I will have a copy sent to you in time. I have no notion of what the other contributors to this symposium will say; but my impression is the they are old fogeys and will not say anything shocking or new. I consented to write something after three letters begging me to do so; and having finished writing “Dominations and Powers”, found a moment of inspiration in which to indulge my boroque manner in describing my prehistoric principles. This is meant as a letter of thanks for your patience with my grumblings Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The notices sent to Santayana are unlocated. In Santayana’s preface he writes “I have seen only a few pages of his selections, which suffice to assure me that he would not peel off the baroque facade of my philosophy without also displaying in patches the prehistoric blocks of the substructure. The merits of a baroque philosophy are clearly distinguished by Spinoza, himself an austere writer” (Atoms, “Author’s Preface,” vii). 2

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To Evelyn Tindall 9 November 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Nov. 9. 1950 Dear Miss Tindall Here is an unexpected bit of work for you and me, in that Professor Castelli of the u/University of Rome has asked me for a brief notice of my new book, for a list of publications which he is editing Mr. Cory is in Rome, but we are still waiting for the proofs of Dom. & P’rs. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To John Hall Wheelock 16 November 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Nov. 16, 1950 Dear Mr. Wheelock During the two last days Cory and I, separately, have been reading the ten first galleys of Dominations & Powers, which we find almost entirely free from printer’s errors, and our only problem is to decide whether my own judgment did not go astray on some point of style or capitals or punctuation. As to capitals in the words Dominations, Powers, Order, Generative, Militant, or Rational, we agree that when these words designate forces or categories distinguished in this book, or parts of the book itself, they should be written with a capital but with a small letter when they designate facts referred to in current conversation, with no theoretical or moral implication. But except in one place I have not felt my head clear enough to apply these rules; and have asked Cory to do so if he can. In general I think that the typed copy represents what to my mind was the natural choice; but there may be cases where it was simply Miss Tindall’s usage. In regard to the text I have marked one whole paragraph in the chapter, on the Roots of Spirit in Matter; a few lines in the last chapter of Preliminaries,1 where I speak of my uncertainty about living to finish this

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book, lines that would now seem an unnecessary bid for tears of sympathy; finally a useless phrase at the end of a paragraph. Cory was in doubt about the paragraph on Spirit and convinced me (easily!) that it was excellent in itself for the initiated; but we agreed that it was horribly technical and obscure, not necessary for the main point, dealt with directly in the next paragraph, and might put many a reader to flight. I am myself preoccupied with removing or correcting repetitions and platitudes when possible. The book is too long and would be improved by a little pruning. These were the only occasions for doing so that I could see in the Preliminaries. There is a point that has occurred to me concerning the printing. Isn’t there too much of a gap between the titles of the Chapters and the first line? It seems to me like what Wm James found in Josiah Royce: “an indecent exposure of forehead,” or here, waste of white paper. Broad margins are luxurious, as there is elegance in a large background to a portrait, but the portrait must first absorb attention. And I dislike a sprawling page. I should even have accepted, with such short chapters as most of those in this book, the beginning of a new chapter on the same page as the end of the previous one. But I suppose that is not grand enough for Dominations and Powers! Thank-you for your generous interest in all these details, and I hope ^^ we shall not delay the issue too much. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

“Preliminaries” is the initial section of Dominations; “The Roots of Spirit in Matter” is chapter 4 of this section.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 25 November 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Nov. 25, 1950 Dear Mr. Lind Your letter is too long and miscellaneous to be answered in the time I have at my disposal at present; and I will warn you that I have nothing to say on the guesses that might be made as to crises or conflicts in my inner life. The matter of religion, and of relations to persons and places, especially nationalities, has been treated in Persons and Places as fully as I am able or care to discuss it. As to the third part (it is all one book) the first

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and last chapters have appeared in The Atlantic under the titles A Change of Heart and Mine Host, the World, and are those that most concern your questions, together with a third chapter of Part III, Farewell to England (after the first War). This was more of a conflict and a wrench than my farewell to America, which only fulfilled a life-long intention. But if you come to Rome and find me alive, you may read Part Third if you like while you are here in a typed copy. Beside those chapters just mentioned the others are: King’s College, Cambridge, Travels, On the South Downs Frie (regarding Russell’s life with his 2nd & 3rd wives) Oxford Friends, & — Old Age in Italy.1 One point you raise that is impersonal—and I shall never lend myself to manufacturing mementoes, by reading Sonnets to a machine, or anything of that kind,2—regards Harvard College, memories of which in such matters always interest me. The social distinctions there were not official: they touched only the gay part of the undergraduate world and the clubs. If you belonged to a club you know what I mean. From the Porcellian3 down there was a marked, though variable, hei —ierarchy and I learned how much such divisions could add to the pleasure of life, internal to each, without any ill-feeling between the various groups. I understand that this social arrangement has outlived and now over shadows the institution of Houses which was well meant by President Lowell but artificial.4 Things should grow by what in my new book I call the Generative Order of Nature.5 Duron will give you a good technical synopsis of my books. I am glad you have ordered the book. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

In Persons these are chapters XXVI–XXIX and XXXI, respectively. Lind had suggested that he bring to Rome a wire recorder (Vagabond, 26). 3 Harvard’s most prestigious undergraduate club. 4 Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943) served as president of Harvard from 1909 to 1933. In 1914 he opened freshman dormitories; fifteen years later he afforded the same opportunity to upperclassmen when his house plan was instituted. 5 As described in Dominations, Book First, “The Generative Order of Society.” 2

1948–1952

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 1 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 1st, 1950 Dear Rosamond I am sending your Christmas letter this year somewhat in advance through the kindness of Mr. Wheelock, whom I am asking to insert in it the substantial part, as he has kindly done more than once before. If I have not answered your two or three letters it was partly because I have been preoccupied materially and morally by various things: the revision and now the proof-reading of my new book; the visit of Robert Lowell and his wife, after the long aerial correspondence that I had had with him, and the deciphering at the same time of his latest, yet unpublished, poem of 600 lines of mysterious tragic adventures in the lumber region of ^ Maine , apparently full of rivers and ponds, and opportunities for crossed ^ loves and suicides;1 and finally by the idea of waiting till I could acknowledge the box that you were sending, but which hasn’t yet arrived. Now we are being plunged into greater preoccupations by the strained political relations everywhere, even in Italy, France, and Germany, and especially for you. Yours affectionately GSantayana 1

“The Mills of the Kavanaughs.”

To John Hall Wheelock 1 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome, December lst 1950 Dear Mr. Wheelock May I ask you once again to send to my niece, Mrs. David M. Little, Weston, 93, Mass. a cheque for $500, to be charged to my account? I have written my rather meagre Christmas letter to her directly, as enclosed, so that you need not trouble to send any note of explanation or courtesy with the cheque, which I suppose should be made out to her legal name of Mrs. Rosamond T. Little

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Cory and I have now read about one half of the galleys, and found very little to correct in them. I have condemned another passage of some four lines for “vain repetition”; and changed one or two words to avoid a highflown style or what might offend some people’s feelings. And I am very glad that you concur with my feeling about the spacing of the chapter-titles. Especially if they are to appear (as I myself had imagined them, and as they stand in the galleys) on a page between two chapters, they ought not to look like an appendage to the one above rather than a title of the one below. I hope that no public calamities may destroy the happiness of the Christmas season for you and Mrs. Wheelock Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 8 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, December 8, 1950 Dear Clemens, If sometimes I do not answer your letters, you must understand that I have nothing more to say about the points that you raise, as now as to whether I should like some other book about Jefferson, or sweets etc. I wrote long ago that the little book of selections from his letters or inaugural addresses, etc., had completely satisfied my curiosity about him. And you may assume that the people whom you ask my opinion about are unknown to me (except perhaps by name only), and that the stories you have heard about me have no foundation in fact. As to writing a “Foreword” to a book by or about Mark Twain,1 you must remember that my membership in the Mark Twain Society was entirely your doing when you and your mother were here in Rome, perhaps 25 years ago. I have never read a word of Mark Twains books, but remember The Jumping Frog that my half-brother, Robert Sturgis, had learned by heart at the English High School in Boston, about the year 1870. In the Times Literary Supplement (which is my chief means of information about contemporary literature) I read the other day the clearest brief comment on his “message” (if we may call it so) which I had ever come upon.2 His two principal personages represent slightly different

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phases of the American independent mind, questioning the value and truth of every conventional opinion with a sort of manly or boyish goodhumor/ured defiance and (as far as I can see, though the Times Supplement didn’t say this) no positive result of his own. You see, then, how impossible it is for me to write anything about him for publication I have now finished, and am reading the proofs of) my last book, Dominations and Powers, which we hope may appear in the coming spring in New York. It is my funeral oration, after which it would not be expected that I should say anything. I enclose a cheque for $1 received from you, I don’t know why. I thought I had recently received two of them, but I can’t find the other. My papers are in great confusion in the crampt space of my cell; also my books; but I manage to read with pleasure many old and new things. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Samuel Langhorne Clemens (pseud. Mark Twain, 1835–1910) was an American humorist and novelist who wrote masterly recreations of his boyhood: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). His works also include the story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (New York: Saturday Press, 1865). Santayana quotes him as an example of an American humorist in “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy” (Doctrine, 201–2). 2 “The Boy and the River,” Times Literary Supplement (10 November 1950): 708.

To Corliss Lamont 8 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome. December 8, 1950 Dear Mr. Lamont Besides your letter of Nov. 21st, I have one from Mr. Runes regarding a new preface or note to the coming edition of your “Humanism as a Philosophy” in which you quote and comment upon a letter of mine about the difference quality of your naturalism and mine, and end by placing that difference, just as I should, in the difference between your militancy in ethics and politics and my lack of it. That this is what distinguishes (very naturally, if you consider our respective backgrounds and interests) will become even more evident to you if you read my forthcoming book on “Dominations and Powers” where I make “The Militant Order of Society” a special section of the whole work, in contrast to the

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“Generative” and the “Rational” order of it. And it is precisely this distinction that determines the nature of my “Fascism” (as it existed or exists, so far as it does so at all) and the “Fascism” which seems to you and to Joel Bradford1 positively immoral. Because you really agree with him and not with me about this; only that as you are not willing to think me a criminal you try to deny that I am a Fascist, even in the somewhat hesitating way in which Bradford seems to call me one. And I think that your defence of me is unconvincing, because you say I am a good fellow instead of proving, as you wish, that I can’t be a Fascist. Of course I was never a Fascist in the sense of belonging to that Italian party, or to any nationalistic or religious party. But considered, as it is for a naturalist, a product of the generative order of society, a nationalist or religious institution will probably have its good sides, and be better perhaps than the alternative that presents itself at some moment in some place. That is what I thought, and still think, Mussolini’s dictatorship was for Italy in its home government. Compare with the disorderly socialism that preceded or the impotent party chaos that has followed it. If you had lived through it from beginning to end, as I have, you would admit this. But Mussolini personally was a bad man and Italy a half-baked political unit; and the militant foreign policy adopted by Fascism was ruinous in its artificiality and folly. But internally, Italy was until the foreign militancy and mad alliances were adopted, a stronger, happier, and more united country than it is or had ever been. Dictatorships are surgical operations, but some diseases require them, only the surgeon must be an expert, not an adventurer. Let me in turn put this question to you: Can a Humanism that is a complete philosophy be naturalistic? Can human nature be the ruling force or universal moral criterion for the universe? Can the universe have any moral bias? Isn’t morality the proper hygiene for a reasoning animal? This brings me back to a point you raise at the end of your letter to me about the “eulogistic” use of the word “eternal” for certain special temporal states of reasoning creatures. But to attribute an everlasting existence to any state of mind would not be eulogistic: it would be nonsense, because a state of mind is a process of thought, a perception or a conception that has to be called up, rearticulated, and propounded. Now, the eternity of a truth, say of the perfection of some action, or the reality of some affection, is a quality of its form, not the length of its duration; and it is not the state of mind that is eternal but the truth which it discovers. There is no doubt a regrettable play of words in this matter when “eternal” is understood to

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mean everlasting or self-repeating for ever. That would be tedium in excelsis. But sympathy with ideal qualities rather than with variations in one’s own condition, is the “life of reason;” the human side of animal life. I had not meant to write such a long letter, but the subject is an old favourite of mine. Spinoza is the clearest philosopher on the “eternal”: but Aristotle is quietly sound about it. Plato too often shows that his heart is in the right place but his political preoccupations make him lean more and more, as he grows old, to popularise his myths into dogmas. Your zeal for converting people to your views is natural in America, where democracy perhaps meant at first to give unpopular interests their chance, such as the minor religious sects, for instance, slips easily into thirst for unanimity. I hope at least it will not lead America to attempt to impose one political system over the whole world. The same methods are needed where both the ends and the means at hand are similar, but not when both are not abroad what they are at home. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified.

To John Hall Wheelock 24 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, December 24, 1950 Dear Mr. Wheelock Cory and I were much relieved by your message by cable saying that all the galleys of Dominations & Powers had finally reached you. We were anxious not to delay the publication of the book by too much fussing over details; and at the end I had been rather confused by so many phrases and theories crowding in my head together; so much so that I positively forgot some of the corrections that I had meant to make in the last chapters. I left it to Cory to see that some of them were made properly and judiciously; but he has off and on moments, as much as I have, and he may have let some minor points pass that might be corrected. I hope that if anything of the kind strikes you in looking over the page-proofs, you will not hesitate to straighten it out according to your expert judgment. There is one thing that I now particularly remember in the very last page

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or two of the book. In the galleys, following a mistake of Miss Tindall’s, a space had been left between the last two paragraphs which ought to have been left, if at all, just above, at the end of the vision or allegory about the secession of the romantic party from the international Authority; but if there is a space at the end of that episode there ought to be one also before the beginning of it. You will say that I am obsessed by spacings and titles; and I confess that I have an architectural preconception in such matters, and must see a page as if it were a renaissance monumental tomb. Title pages in particularly are really tombstones to the Author’s life as author of that book; but he likes to inscribe on it, in his own mind, RESVRGAM.1 We have had all through this month of December extraordinary dark, rainy, and cold weather, and this has perhaps contributed to fatigue me, as it made my cough more persistent. But today, at least, the sun is shining, and even the political storms seem to be less threating for the moment. There may be less violence coming than we fear, but what may be left after the clearing may not please us. America in particular is passing through an unexpected trial. Valeat, valebit!2 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

I shall rise again (Latin). May she fare well (Latin).

2

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 25 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, Christmas Day, 1950 Dear Lowell Your good letter from Florence has been waiting for a reply with many others until the pressure was over of proof-reading in time with Cory, ^ ^ who had another copy of the galleys of Dominations & Powers, and was concerned about pleasing Scribner by expediting the business. There are 159 galleys, which counting three pages to each, makes 477 pages; but I hope it may turn out to be rather less. It is the first of my books to be timely; although perhaps the excitement of war may render the public impatient at my speculative detachment.

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What you say about your way of composing throws much light for me on the difficulty I find in understanding your verses. When you sit ^ ^ down to write (for you don’t compose in your dreams) you are crammed full of dramatic impressions but have no clear plan of what the order will be in which those materials will fall. And, then, when you begin to write you suddenly see details taking shape and growing into something important. As you say, that is the opposite of my sort of composition, in verse or prose; although I should never go so far as Racine does when he says: “My tragedy is finished: nothing remains now but to turn it into verse.” 1 Yet I think that what I most care for in Racine is precisely what must have come to him in that process of versifying his completed plays; the delicacy of the sentiments and the music of the verse: for instance: Phèdre says to Hippolyte: “Par vous aureit péri le monstre de la Crète Malgré tous les détours de sa vaste retraite.” 2 So that his excellence as a poet comes like yours or like Ezra Pound’s according to Eliot, in being an “ottimo fabbro.” 3 But there remains this difference: that behind Racine’s goldsmith’s work, there lies a clear plot and distinct characters, as well as the neglected Greek landscape and manners which we add now in reading him; whereas you furnish this landscape splendidly, but leave us confused about your plot and characters. I shall be interested in seeing your revised and completed Kavanaughs. I seem to be weathering this winter pretty well in spite of its being so cold dark and rainy, and I hope to be fit and not too much troubled by political crises when you come to Rome later in the season. And in any case you should feel at home with me even if either of us is sometimes silent. You became an inmate for me from the beginning. G.S. 1 “Ma tragédie est faite, comptant pour rien le reste.” Probably attributed to Racine by his son Louis in his Memoires sur la vie de Jean Racine (Lausanne, Geneve: Chez MarcMichel Bousquet, 1747). 2 “On board the ship that brought thy sire to Crete? / At your hands would the monster then have perish’d, / Despite the windings of his vast retreat.” (The Harvard Classics, 1909–14, Act II, scene 5, lines 75–77.) Phèdre is a tragedy written by Jean Racine in 1677. Phèdre is in love with her stepson, Hippolyte, and when her husband, Theseus, is falsely presumed dead, she declares her love to Hippolyte. Upon Theseus’ return, Phèdre’s nurse convinces him that Hippolyte made the advances. Phèdre kills herself and Hippolyte is killed by Neptune, who was summoned by Theseus. 3 An excellent craftsman (Italian). This is an allusion to Eliot’s dedication in The Wasteland: “For Ezra Pound / il miglior fabbro” (the better craftsman); that, in turn, is an allusion to Dante’s description of Arnault Daniel, a Provençal poet, in The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto XXVI, verse 39.

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To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 26 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Dec. 26, 1950 Dear Rosamond The flowers, an armful of them, were brought punctually on Christmas morning, and the box with its welcome contents had come a week earlier. I have been rather worn out with reading 154 galley proofs of my new book on “onion-skin” paper, very glossy and slippery which troubled my weak eyes and clumsy fingers, interrupted by many callers—two young women from the West yesterday staid three and a half hours—besides a spell of dark cold, and rainy weather which is bad for my cough. Your two boxes of the inhaler have been a great help and will be so all winter, as they stop the flow of mucus effectively when it is most annoying. For more permanent relief I have a syrup recommended by the doctor which is good for the whole night, but the dose can’t be taken with full effect until three hours after meals and then takes half an hour more to work and to put me to sleep. It is during that interval that your inhaler comes in and keeps me comfortable. I have not yet tried your Auburndale Cough Mixture, but it will stay by my bedside for the first occasion when by accident my syrup is not at hand. Here is a whole page of egotistic sickroom twaddle, not appropriate for the occasion of family reunion and rejoicings; but I am not really very ill but at heart happy in having my book finished and being on good terms with everybody in my environment. Philosophy is needed to keep one’s equanimity in the present state of the political world; but we do not really know what social forces or accidents may decide our fate. I shall stay where I am so long as it is physically possible. Personally I should rather like to see what the Communists, if in power, did with me, provided I didn’t have to move from this room; but if they said that being a quasi-American and otherwise an adherent of Franco,1 I must leave the country within 48 hours, where should I go? I tried Switzerland, when the last war broke out, and was rejected;2 and the doctor said I mustn’t go to Spain by air, the only means then open or desirable for the journey. But that would hardly be possible now, and I might have to take the last aeroplane for Egypt at the risk of arriving a mummy at the Pyramids. It would be a chance at least of dying in a heavenly flight. Meantime let us live while we live. Yours affectionately G.S.

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1 Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892–1975) was a Spanish general, commander in chief, and dictator. He played a large role in the Spanish civil war (1936), and became head of state in 1939. 2 Visas generally were not required for crossing the Swiss frontier; however, a considerable number of destitute Spaniards had been entering the country after the end of the Spanish civil war and new regulations had been passed. At Chiasso Santayana was refused permission to enter Switzerland. He traveled back to Milan and went to the Swiss consulate, where he was told that he would be granted a temporary (two-week) visa. Santayana was offended by the attitude of the Swiss consular officials and refused to answer questions regarding his recent movements or his political affiliations (Years, 216–17).

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 30 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec. 30, 1950 Dear Mr. Cardiff, You are very constant in sending me notices or letters about our “Atoms of Thought” and this last from your “literary” friend Mr. Saner1 is in fact saner in at once taking refuge in my style and evading the problem of my thoughts. Even — in my verse, which I agree with the fashionable critics in thinking my weak point, doesn’t retain him long. This confirms my general feeling about these judgments of the press or of casual individuals, that they are simply dazed and left blank by speculation of any sort; and seeing only a play of surfaces, of phrases, as if they were turning over a kaleidoscope, they sanely drop the game as unmeaning. Has no competent critic, at least a college professor of philosophy, expressed his opinion about our book? You yourself drop my thoughts at once as nonsense when their sense lies beneath the surface. For instance, you dismiss at once what I said casually (though it is a pervasive principle in my speculation) that eternity was to be found not by prolonging time but by concentrating attention on anything now present: in other words eternity is in the object of intuition, not in the duration of the vision. If you revert to any idea or event what you recover is not the past event in its concrete and transitive existence, but the form or essence or character of it as you now imagine it. This reminds me of the single “Atom” which once in jest I asked you to include in the book, about the necessity of changing the truth a little in order to remember it.2 You forgot to include it, which I do not regret;

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because this is something that sounds frivolous but is rich in suggestion. You do not change the past itself; but in meaning to recall it you inevitably change or even add to the truth of it, because your mind is now coloured by other impressions: yet you do refer to something real and place it more or less accurately in its past place with something (perhaps a caricature) of its past character in its fullness. If I gave you, which I should not know how to do, a list of my sentiments belonging to the Right, I might confuse your presentation of my philosophy without presenting anything to take its place. It ought not to take the Left’s place; ^ ^ but to keep its own, and ought to be felt to be there. There is a young man in Texas who wants to make another anthology of my thoughts, 20 or 30 years hence; and I have given him my consent, because the first thing he wrote to me was that of all my writings he preferred the Dialogue in Limbo on “Normal Madness.” That shows health all round. Yours sincerely GSantayana [across ] P.S. The Xmas book in which my skit on “The Wind & the Spirit” was to appear has not reached me, but I have order ed a copy to be sent to ^ ^ you if it has come out. Of course, I will send you my new book in its time. 1 Reg[inald] [Anthony] Saner (b. 1931) is an American poet, photographer, and professor. 2 See 12 April 1948.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 31 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec. 31, 1950 Dear Clemens There is nothing accurate or in the right key in this review,1 parts of which I had seen before, and I am sorry that you don’t allow it to die a natural death. But I have marked in red pencil2 the lines where there are positive falsehoods, in case you wish at least to avoid these: 1. The nuns never “wheedle” me to do anything.3 2. There is only one volume in this work.4

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3–4 The date of the episodes5 (fully related in the American edition) was 1888. The danger of suits for libel concerned only the English edition, which alone has been expurgated, I think to advantage. 4/5. Bertrand Russell (unless a catastrophe has occurred very recently) has had only three wives. 6. This paragraph is a pure reversal of the truth. I was not free enough at Harvard, and teaching, as suggested above, was never my vocation.6 I wanted freedom from engagements, varied scenes, and the European way of living. I will read chapters 17–21 of Hukleberry Finn7 when it arrives, and at least shall have first hand impressions of Mark Twain. But I have no ^ ^ “library”. I order books only to read them, keep a few to reread, and all the rest drift into garrets in Harvard College, Avila, Strong’s daughter’s closed houses at Saint Germain and Fiesole,8 etc. etc. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 George Weller, “Philosopher at 87 Still Impish, Busy” (Chicago Daily News PostDispatch Special Radio, 7 October 1950). Clemens intended to publish this review in his Mark Twain Quarterly. George [Anthony] Weller (1907–2002), a Harvard graduate (1929), was an author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. 2 The marked-up copy is unlocated. 3 Weller wrote: “The nuns occasionally wheedle him into walking in the garden of a nearby villa.” 4 Dominations. 5 The circumstances are described in Persons, 314–20. See also a discussion of expurgated text on page 624. 6 Weller wrote that Santayana “left Harvard and America mostly out of loneliness.” In the final paragraph, Santayana refers to a previous section of the article, where Weller quotes him as saying, “I was bored with teaching … I was never really a professor, always a student.” 7 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). 8 Margaret Strong de Cuevas had a house at Saint Germain, near Paris, and inherited her father’s Villa Le Balze at Fiesole, near Florence. Le Balze is now owned by Georgetown University, gifted by Margaret, and the University holds Santayana’s library from there.

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To Mercedes de la Escalera 31 December 1950 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6.–Roma. 31 de diciembre de 1950. Querida Mercedes:1 No quiero dejar pasar este último día del año sin contestar a tus cartas y darte las gracias por el obsequio que me haces de este dulce que me ha traído Alberto2 de tu parte. Yo he estado muy ocupado con repasar las 400 páginas de un nuevo libro (que será el último de los míos) primero en la copia dactilográfica y luego en las pruebas de imprenta, que llegaron últimamente de Nueva York. Con esto, con los años—ya 87 cumplidos—y el mal tiempo y las malas noticias de todas partes, y las visitas de tres horas y media que me hacen algunos niños de colegios americanos, necesito por lo menos otro año Santo3 para descansar y recordar la filosofía estoica de los sabios antiguos. En esta casa hemos estado aturdidos con obras de todos géneros para ponernos, según dice la nueva Superiora, que es australiana, “a la altura de los tiempos”. Quedará en efecto todo reluciente, con muchas mejoras y muchos huéspedes peregrinos de Australia y de Irlanda, que han tenido tertulias con música y canciones de sus países. Hasta hemos tenido a Obispos y Cardenales alojados en las habitaciones de este pasillo que es el mejor de la casa, que por ser el del piso bajo de la fachada, por esta parte de los jardines resulta el principal, y más alto de techo que los demás. En fin, si no hay guerra ni invasión de quinientos millones de Chinos, lo pasaremos aquí bastante bien, o por lo menos moriremos con sábanas de hilo. De salud no se puede decir que esté yo bien ni mal considerando la edad que tengo; pero paso tranquilamente muchos ratos y hasta días y noches enteros; pero luego se presenta una tos tenaz con achaques que a veces me sacuden de un modo terrible; veo poco, oigo mal, y voy perdiendo los dientes. Todo esto tiene escasa importancia para mí en vista del espectáculo que ofrece ahora el mundo intelectual y político. Parece un manicomio. Se habla sin saber lo que significan las palabras, y se lucha sin querer. Tú y yo no veremos en qué parará esta confusión general, pero yo creo que será en algún equilibrio material imprevisto.

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Muchos recuerdos a esas simpáticas familias y un abrazo de tu antiguo amigo Jorge. 1 Translation: Dear Mercedes: I don’t want this last day of the year to pass without answering your letters and thanking you for the gift of this sweet which Albert has brought me from you. I have been very busy going over the 400 pages of a new book (which will be my last), first in the typewritten copy and then in the printed proofs, which have just now arrived from New York. With this, with the years—I had celebrated my 87th birthday— and the bad weather and the bad news from everywhere, and the three-and-a-half-hour visits which some children from American schools pay me, I need at least another Holy Year to rest and recall the stoic philosophy of the ancient sages. In this house we have been at our wit’s end with construction of all kinds in order “to keep up with the times,” according to the new Mother Superior, who is Australian. In fact, everything is coming out shiningly, with many improvements and with many pilgrim guests from Australia and Ireland, who have held parties with music and songs from their countries. We have even had bishops and cardinals lodged in the rooms in this corridor, the best in the house, which, since it is on the ground floor on the front, turns out to be the second here on the garden side and has a higher ceiling than the others. So, if there is no war or invasion of five hundred million Chinese, we shall be all right here, or at least we shall die in fine sheets. Insofar as health is concerned, it can’t be said that I am good or bad, considering how old I am; but I spend many moments peacefully and even entire days and nights; but then there comes a persistent cough with spells which at times shake me in a terrible way; I see little, hear badly, and am losing my teeth. All this has little importance for me in view of the spectacle which the intellectual and political world is now offering. It looks like a madhouse. People speak without knowing what words mean, and they quarrel with one another without meaning to. You and I shall not see where this general confusion will finally end, but I believe that it will be in some unforeseen material balance. Many regards to your congenial families and an embrace from your old friend 2 Albert is unidentified. 3 A jubilee year.

To Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov 10 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Lipinsky)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 10, 1951 Dear Mr. Lipinsky At first sight the photograph of your drawing of me surprised me, but after a moment it began to please. It boldly illustrates the difference between reproduction and characterisation, by its economy of means and its penetrating suggestion of character. The emphasis on the eyes would

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almost suffice to betray a disinterested philosopher. The mouth might be a better symbol for some; but you treated mine (which was said to laugh too much) very discreetly, giving it a faint trace of amiability. The limits of a ^^ sketch hardly allow for more elaboration. If you exaggerate, it becomes caricature. The wide-open eyes in your drawing might become ridiculous if taken to show me anxious or scared, rather than calmly observant; but I believe they are true to life, and admirably rendered. I should be much obliged if you would send me two or three more copies, and hope that Scribners will use it to balance the very fleshly and bloated photos of me that they have sometimes republished, faute de mieux.1 With many thanks Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

For want of better ones (French).

To Max Harold Fisch 12 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Illinois)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. January 12, 1951 Dear Mr. Fisch1 I have only a vague recollection of your communications, three or four years ago, about a proposed book about my philosophy, and am interested in knowing that a plan of that kind has been carried out. By chance I happen to have seen and heard all the five philosophers with whom you do me the honour to associate me. But who is the author of the — book part about me? Is it you, by chance? In any case I shall be very glad to see you and Mrs. Fishe any day, preferrably in the late afternoon, between 5 & 7 o’clock, and to receive a copy of the mirror in which I may discover something unsuspected about myself and my partners. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Max Harold Fisch (1901–95), a noted scholar of philosophy and scholarly editing, received his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1928. Fisch taught at the University of Illinois for twenty-three years, and from 1975 to 1994 he served as president of the Charles S. Peirce Foundation. Fisch was general editor of Classic American Philosophers: Peirce, James, Royce, Santayana, Dewey, Whitehead (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951), which includes three excerpts from Santayana’s works and an introduction to them by Philip Blair Rice.

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To John Berryman 18 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Minnesota)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, January 18, 1951. Dear Mr. Berryman1 It is seldom now that I read a book from cover to cover, as I have done yours;2 but your note mentioning Stickney3 as representing the opposite horn in the division of American letters from the one represented by Stephen Crane, interested me from the beginning, and still more the fact that you are a friend of Robert Lowell whose enigmatic person and career have preoccupied me strangely during the last few years. Might not your analysis of Crane (of whom I knew nothing) throw light on the problem of Lowell? As to Crane, you have given me a clear impression, with which I am content for the purpose. He was a sensitive, half educated moral waif with a burdened imagination, proper to a Puritan in rebellion. Had he been well educated, like Stickney and like Oliver in my “Last Puritan,” he might not have drawn inspiration, as you show that Crane did, from primitive savage feelings, and his verses (which please me more than what — seem — to be his prose works seem to be ) might have lost their power, as Stickney’s — ^ ^ did. For Stickney was not at heart on the classic side. Classicism, and his French accomplishments and insights took the place for him of Puritanism in Crane. They disturbed and annoyed him, and incidentally, I suspect, made him afraid of me in his last period as a dangerous influence. He wanted to be a pure unpolluted whole-hearted American, tied to the mast like Ulysses; Europe and classicism were his Scylla and Carybdis.4 Now Lowell is well educated, self-educated in a great measure, and rebellious, but rebellious at the modern conventional America, yet getting his inspiration and his images, so far, exclusively from the American landscape and, as it were, from its margins, like French Cad/nada and the = Street. That he should have taken to Catholis Catholicism of W. 32nd /cism at all, a Boston Lowell, astonished me, and I was not surprised that he should have weakened in that direction. What Europe and native Catholicism will mean to him, I don’t know. I am myself an unbeliever and ready to resign everything that I care about, and clear the field for the next civilisation; but I was never passionate or angry with anything, so that the storms of the Crane and Lowell characters do not seem to me normal

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or likely to inspire important works. It is the ensuing calm, if we survive, that yields the true vision. I am greatly obliged to you for your book and should like to learn more Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

John Berryman (1914–72) was an American poet and short-story writer. Stephen Crane (New York and London, 1950). Stephen Townley Crane (1871–1900) was an American novelist, short-story writer, poet, and war correspondent best known for The Red Badge of Courage (1895). 3 Joseph Trumbull Stickney (1874–1904) graduated from Harvard in 1895, then studied for seven years at the Sorbonne and was the first American to receive its degree of Docteur ès lettres. He was appointed instructor in Greek at Harvard (1903–4). A poet, he is best known for his Dramatic Verses (1902). See Persons, 386–88. 4 Ulysses, also called Odysseus, is the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. During his voyage home, his ship encountered female sea creatures called Sirens, whose beautiful singing lured sailors to their deaths. Forewarned of the danger, Ulysses had his men plug their ears; however, he was determined to hear the Sirens’ song, so he ordered his men to tie him to the mast of the ship to keep him from jumping into the sea. Scylla was a sixheaded monster that lived on a rock on one side of a narrow channel, and under a rock on the other side of the channel lived Charybdis, a monster that would suck ships into a whirlpool. 2

To George Rauh 19 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 19, 1951 Dear Rauh It was very kind of you to send me a substantial and useful Christmas present, and I think I know what suggested the choice of it to you. Years ago in a postscript to a letter in reply to one of Lawrence Butler’s, in which he asked if there was anything I wanted, I asked for a black four-in-hand tie, which he sent me, and which I am still wearing when I dress for public occasions, like going to the bank or to the Consulate. Yours will now take its place as No 1 for gala days. Of course, black ties are to be found here, but there is apt to be a flimsiness about them that is not suitable for an aged philosopher with architectural prejudice in favour of symmetry and solidity in front elevations. I regarded your gift as indirectly also a greeting from Lawrence, but now I have received a magnificent tin chest full of pastry and biscuits, my daily solace at tea, so that I will write him a separate note of thanks, which

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I will enclose in this, because I believe this is your joint address, although his parcel says only St. James. With best thanks from your sincere friend GSantayana

To Lawrence Smith Butler 19 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, January 19, 1951. Dear Lawrence If our friend George Rauh shows you the letter in which this is enclosed, you will understand why I do so, but I ought also to have apologized to him for not thanking him before. The reason is that I have been, and am rather tired with the effort I made all last summer to get my new (and last) book, Dominations & Powers ready for the press; and also with the interruptions that kept me distracted and afraid I should never finished. Too very silent college girls from the West, who presented themselves unannounced staid —yed for three hours and a half, preventing me from having my afternoon tea (dearest of meals to my heart and stomach) and beating the record of pilgrims regarding me as a relic to be visited during the Holy Year. Afternoon tea brings me back to the object of this letter, which is to thank you for the unexpected and novel basket or chest of sweets, the freshest and best of all that have been sent to me by my over-generous American friends. This special box, and its contents, have excited the unanimous admiration of Cory, Sister Angela, Maria the housemaid and myself. I shall get most of the material advantage, pleasure, and nutriment involved, for Cory this year only comes twice a weak to see me, our proof-reading of “Dominations and Powers” being completed, at least Sister Angela will inherit the beautiful red and white tin box, when empty, hardly for her cell, as she probably has no ribbons and laces to keep in it, but for her pantry, where tin, tight closing recepticals are at a premium. This winter, so far, has been unusually dark and rainy, but now we have begun to see the sun again, and the extreme cold prevailing north of the Apennines has not reached us.1 This combination of rain, darkness and mildness is essentially a marine phenomenon, and the wonder is that we do not undergo it more regularly in winter, for Italy south of the Po

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valley is a tongue of land stretched out into the very middle of the Mediterranean and ought to have the climate of the open sea. But some winters, even here, are almost rainless. I suppose the winds blow the clouds too fast over us. Lawrence, you are a treasure. You alone prevent me from feeling that I have lost all my best friends. I wish I could have proved an equal comfort to you. GSantayana 1

Mountain range that runs the length of Italy.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 21 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, Jan. 21, 1951 Dear Lowell I have been reading a book about Stephen Crane by John Berryman, neither of whom I had ever heard of: but the author in a little dedication, had excited my curiosity by saying that Crane, at the turn of the century, had taken the opposite horn from my friend Stickney, and marked the break of American letters into two schools. And a footnote added that I was to give his regards to “Cal and Elizabeth Lowell”, if I saw them. I hasten to do so by letter, because by the time you come to Rome the freshness of the impressions I have got from this book may have faded. As to Crane himself and his difference from Stickney I have already written to Berryman, but since he seems to be an intimate friend of yours, I was particularly interested in seeing if he or his account and quotations from Crane would throw light on your work and position. In one sense you evidently belong, like them, to the modern, hard, native, and contemptuous of convention and genteel hypocrisy. But while also thoroughly American in your mise-en-scène1 and images, you do not fall back, as Berryman says that Crane did, on savage lusts and adventures, but on the contrary show a civilized sensibility and even learning, for instance, about the Catholic Church. The wonder is how you can do so while preserving the atmosphere of early American independence and sense of the virgin woods and the sea. Only your women, although not drawn like Crane’s from the slums, have a sort of despairing passion that is somewhat like his. Classic heroines can also have reversions into savagery, like Medea;2 and in reading Racine, I have sometimes had a vision

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of what Phaedra might have been if allowed to become furious, as some of Racine’s lines suggest, although the French actresses I have seen in that rôle, including Sarah Bernhard,3 always stood like statues reciting by rote. A pre-historic Phaedra and a truly Greek priestly Hippolytus would make a magnificent pair, if anyone could lend them the right words. Cory and I have finished reading the proofs of Dominations & Powers and the book is promised to appear in March or April. Yours as ever G.S. 1

Setting (French). In Greek mythology Medea is a sorceress, a priestess of Hecate, and the wife of Jason, leader of the Argonauts. She helped Jason steal the golden fleece and murder her half brother to delay her father, who was in pursuit. When Jason wished to marry Cruesa, Medea sent her a wedding gown that burned her to death. Medea also murdered her two children by Jason. 3 In Greek legend Phaedra brought about the death of her stepson, Hippolytus, after he rejected her advances. Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923), born Henriette-Rosine Bernard, was a French actress who portrayed Phaedra in 1874, in Racine’s Phèdre. 2

To John Hall Wheelock 23 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, January 23, 1951. Dear Mr. Wheelock I believe Cory cabled to you last night answering “Yes” to your question whether we agreed to correct inaccuracies in my text about matters of fact, such as that “all” colonists in America were British and “all” Protestants. I wish you had noted other phrases which might irritate my readers uselessly; because, as you know, I am not writing with statistics and books of reference before my eyes, but only evoking the dramatic and moral aspects that things seem to have or to have had. Of course, I knew that even within the United States there had been French Catholics (Acadians & Evangeline,1 and also in Louisiana) and British Catholics in Maryland; but I was thinking of New England in my boyhood where, in spite of crowds of Irish, it seemed to the stranger that the whole life of the country was Protestant and Anglosaxon. In any case, it led the new comers to drop or hide their peculiarities and plunge into the inescapable current. The Jews do the same, and even sometimes take the reins into their

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own hands, as if they were purer or more absolute Americans than anybody else. I should have preferred the Puritan purity, if it made room, in other circles, for manners and feelings of other kinds I hope, therefore, that you may have straightened out those loose phrases or that you will do so now if it is not too late A propos of the melting-pot, and the confusion before the mixture becomes perfect, I have had a letter from San Antonio, Texas, describing what happens there in Mexican families. People simply sprinkle English words on their Spanish conversation as I remember we used to do in my family in my boyhood. But my sister and I were never tempted to do so in Avila, where no one else spoke English. The solution would be to keep each language for the milieu where it prevailed and was pure. And this is not impossible if the two spheres are both well dominated, as Latin and the national language were in the late middle ages. Of course one could mix them on purpose for fun, as people did in comic verses—I think now that if I had been free from engagements at 30, as I was at 50, I might have written Spanish verses as easily as English prose without spoiling either medium. I was glad to hear that Dom. & P’rs. may be published as soon as March or April. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The Acadians, French Catholics of what became Nova Scotia, were persecuted by British colonial authorities during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Cajuns of Louisiana are descendants of Acadian emigrants. Evangeline, heroine of Longfellow’s poem of the same name (1847), is the tragic victim of that persecution.

To John Hall Wheelock 30 January 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, January 30, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock Cory and I, who habitually read the Times Literary Supplement, have been much interested of late in its articles on contemporary American poetry, especially in the leader in the number for January 19 on “American Poetry Today”, which reviews John Ciardi’s “Mid-century American Poets.” 1

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Would you do us the favour of asking your book-selling department to send me this book, and charge it to my account? I am, and have been for some years, particularly interested in Robert Lowell’s mind and work. He is now in Italy, and spent a week or more in Rome in the autumn, when I saw him almost every day. I think that he is a good deal like Rimbaud, or like what Rimbaud might have become if he had remained devoted to his poetic genius.2 There are dark and troubled depths in them both, with the same gift for lurid and mysterious images: but Lowell has had more tragic experiences and a more realistic background, strongly characterised. In these London articles he is highly spoken of, and although he is not a person about whose future we can be entirely confident, it may well turn out to be brilliant. While writing this letter I receive yours of the 26th instant, for which many thanks. I was glad to see Dr. Chen, and had some good talks with him, but my cell at times became rather crowded, and oriental peace of mind was not easy to maintain. As to the corrections in my text, I am happy to believe that there will be nothing overlooked that could give offence. Of course the academic specialists, whether historians or political philosophers—not to speak of philosophers pure and simple, will find much to criticise; but I am not troubled about that. It could not be otherwise Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. The exact title of the book desired is: John Ciardi; Editor: Midcentury American Poets, New York: Twayne. $4. 1 “American Poetry To-Day,” Times Literary Supplement (19 January 1951): 1–3. John Ciardi (1916–86) was an American poet, critic, teacher, and editor. At this time he was Assistant Professor of English at Harvard. Mid-Century American Poets (1950) included introductory essays and poems by Ciardi, Lowell, Peter Viereck, Elizabeth Bishop, and eleven other contemporary poets, intending to illustrate the creative process for a general audience. 2 Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) was a French poet whose poems are noted for a hallucinatory, dreamworld quality.

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To Warren Allen Smith 9 February 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, February 9, 1951 Dear Mr. Smith1 My philosophy would have had to be prophetic if it had contained views on what you call “Naturalistic Humanism”,2 which seems to be a product of strictly contemporary opinion. You tell me that it is “described in Ferm’s Religion in the Twentieth Century3 and supported by John Dewey, Julian Huxley, Thomas Mann, Erich Fromm and numerous liberal religionists.” 4 And you add that you have “already received comments on it by Thomas Mann, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos, Henry Hazlitt, Lewis Mumford, Joseph Wood Krutch and others in the literary world.” 5 If any one of these persons has given a clear definition of “Naturalistic Humanism,” I wish you had quoted it for my benefit, but I am sure it cannot be the same in them all. In my old-fashioned terminology, a Humanist means a person saturated by the humanities: Humanism is something cultural: an accomplishment, not a doctrine. This might be something like what you call “classical humanism.” But unfortunately there is also a metaphysical or cosmological humanism or moralism which maintains that the world is governed by human interests and an alleged universal moral sense. This cosmic humanism for realists, who believe that knowledge has a prior and independent object which sense or thought signify, might be some religious orthodoxy, for idealists and phenomenalists an oracular destiny or dialectical evolution dominating the dream of life. This “humanism” is what I call egotism or moralism, and reject altogether. Naturalism, on the contrary, is something to which I am so thoroughly wedded that I like to call it materialism, so as to prevent all confusion with romantic naturalism like Goethe’s, for instance, or that of Bergson.6 Mine is the hard, non-humanistic naturalism of the Ionian philosophers,7 of Democritus, Lucretius, and Spinoza. Those professors at Columbia who tell you that in my Idea of Christ in the Gospels I incline to theism have not read that book sympathetically. They forget that my naturalism is fundamental and includes man, his mind, and all his works, products of the generative order of Nature. Christ

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in the Gospels is a legendary figure. Spirit in him recognizes its dependence on the Father, and not monarchical government; i.e., the order of nature; and the animal will in man being thus devised, the spirit in man is freed and identified with that of the Father. My early Lucifer, which you mention, has the same doctrine. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Warren Allen Smith (b. 1921), an author and editor, received his B.A. from Iowa State Teachers College in 1948 and his M.A. from Columbia University in 1949 with his thesis titled “The Seven Humanisms.” Smith started the first Humanist Club on a college campus in 1948. 2 Smith wrote Santayana on 4 February 1951: “I am at a loss to know what your views on naturalistic humanism might be. Neither can the faculty at Columbia University help me. All agree that The Genteel Tradition at Bay discussed the moral adequacy of naturalistic humanism and attacked neo-humanism; also that in the tradition of naturalistic humanism were Lucifer; Three Philosophical Poets; and The Unknowable. However, all also agree that The Idea of Christ in the Gospels is along the lines of theistic humanism” (Letters, 401). 3 Vergilius (Ture Anselm) Ferm (1896–1974), an ordained Lutheran minister, was a philosophy professor, author, and editor. Religion in the Twentieth Century (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948). 4 Julian [Sorell] Huxley (1887–1975), brother of Aldous Huxley, was an English biologist and author. [Paul] Thomas Mann (1875–1955), a German philosophical novelist, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was a Germanborn American psychoanalyst and philosopher. His Psychoanalysis and Religion was published in 1950. 5 [Harry] Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951), an American novelist, graduated from Yale in 1908. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for distinction in world literature (1930). It Can’t Happen Here (1935), a warning about the possibility of fascism in the United States, was his most vigorous work of the 1930s. John Roderigo Dos Passos (1896–1970), an American novelist, was a member of the Harvard class of 1916. In 1930 he published The 42nd Parallel (New York, London: Harper and Brothers), the first novel of his U.S.A. trilogy. Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993) was a journalist, philosopher, literary critic, and economist, whose Economics in One Lesson (New York, London: Harper and Brothers, 1946) is considered one of the most significant contributions to modern economic study. Lewis Mumford (1895–1992) was educated at Columbia, New York University, and The New School for Social Research. He became editor of The Dial in 1919 and in 1920 edited The Sociological Review in London. Author of numerous books and articles on politics, religion, architecture, and literature, Mumford described himself as a social philosopher. Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) was an American critic, essayist, and professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University. His works include Human Nature and the Human Condition (1959), in which he discussed the need for humanistic values in a mechanized society. 6 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist. Sources for his work included Greek mythology and German legends. Goethe was, for Santayana, one of the great philosophical poets, that is, poets who effectively express the dominant world view of their era. See Poets, 139–99, and Egotism, 43–53.

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7 Ionian philosophers were the pre-Socratic philosophers, a term that covers Greek thinkers from 600 to 400 B.C. who attempted to find universal principles which would explain the whole of nature, from the origin and ultimate constituents of the universe to the place of man within it.

To Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov 15 February 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Lipinsky)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, February 15, 1951. Dear Mr. Lipinsky. The photograph, dedicated and signed for you,1 went by ordinary post, registered, some days ago and should reach you soon after you receive this letter, which carries my warm thanks for your generous present, not only of a batch of my portraits but of your drawing of Arthur Rodzinski2 and etching of a bird’s eye view of Capri.3 They both seem to me remarkable, and in quite different ways. Your musician leading his orchestra (or studying the score) is hard at work, as if he felt the difficulty of transforming the written music into living sound, without missing or misrepresenting the composer’s intentions. He is all anxiety and faithful attention. He is not, like Shelley’s skylark pouring profuse strains of unpremeditated art.4 Your Capri, on the contrary, is all magic; it took me some time to realize that it might really be the soft and meretricious Capri I have seen only in scraps and at close quarters, or else from the sea at a great distance. This is a rugged set of mountain tops too austere for human habitation. I admit that the details show that it is thickly inhabited, but the general skeleton remains wild. It might be what skylarks saw of Capri if there could be any ^ there. It is a product of imagination You are very fortunate to be able to ^ express so well such different phases of an artist’s experience. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

On a photograph of the sketch of himself done by Lipinsky (on 2 August 1950), Santayana wrote: “For Lino Lipinsky with much appreciation of his skill in catching a waking soul in the old body of G. Santayana Rome. Feb. 1951.” 2 Artur Rodzinski (1892–1958) was a conductor noted for his Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms interpretations. 3 Italian island south of the Bay of Naples. 4 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), an English romantic poet, was much admired by Santayana. As a Harvard professor, Santayana held regular meetings of undergraduates in his rooms for the purpose of reading poetry aloud. During 1910–11 the group

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read “only Shelley, from beginning to end, except The Cenci” (Persons, 345). Santayana wrote “Shelley: or the Poetic Value of Revolutionary Prinicples,” which became chapter V of Doctrine. “To a Skylark” was published in Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound: A Lyric Drama in Four Acts with Other Poems (London: C. and J. Ollier, 1820); Santayana wrote a soliloquy entitled “Skylarks,” number 26 of Soliloquies, 107–13.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 17 February 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 17, 1951 Dear Mr. Lind Your endurance in devouring all my works and desire to digest them make a great bond. I am sorry that living in a hospital I cannot ask you to come and stay with me or even invite you to any meal, as I have mine on a tray in my cell. Moreover, there are no hotels in this part of the town, the extreme South; but busses and a “cicular” line of trams, running both ways, can bring you from town to the Colosseo, from which a broad shady street leads gently up hill to the Navicella,1 a marble Roman fountain (reproduced) on reaching which, by turning sharply to your left you will see a paved lane, with the sign “Via di Santo Stefano” on the left wall; and opposite the round brick church of that name, next beyond which, through an open archway in the ruins of an aqueduct, you will find the respectable entrance to the grounds of this establishment with the chief entrance in a porch at the end of the avenue. My leisure hours are the whole afternoon from 2 to 7. Visitors sometimes come but you could regard them as intruders and stay them out. As to lodgings, if you want to profit by your short stay and see as much local colour as possible, I should sugges the old Hôtel d’Angleterre or d’Inghilterra in the very middle of the town (Via Bocca di Leone) where you can get a room and breakfast without other meals. The numerous restaurants are crowded and good; you can easily pick up the necessary Italian, and learn what category and what dishes suit you best. My favourites for every day, when I lived in the town, were the Roma, the San Carlo, and the Fagiano. You should have a guide book and a map to consult until you learn the ropes.

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It is all right about the quotation from my letter. The “German—to my horse” is a bit rough, but it was probably Flemish that he meant and in any case I have softened the insult to German language.2 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Colosseo, or the Colosseum, was built in Rome between c. A.D. 75 and 80 A.D., beginning under Vespasian and finishing under his son Titus. The Colosseum’s official name is the Flavian Amphitheater. The Navicella, a reproduction of an ancient boat, is located in front of the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Dominica. It was created under Pope Leon X around 1520, and was turned into a fountain in 1931. 2 See 22 October 1950.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 20 February 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 20, 1951. Dear Clemens Today I have sent back your copy of my “Middle Span”, with an inscription, but not with any compliments to Mark Twain, because having finished reading Huckleberry Finn, I have an idea of a greater adventure, which is to compose an essay, which you may print in your magazine if you like, on the relation of Tom Sawyer to Don Quixote.1 But for this I must first read the preceding book on Tom Sawyer especially. Robert Lowell, who has been here again during the past week, tells me that it is not so good a book as Huckleberry Finn; but I am not interested in giving marks to works of art or to their authors as if they were being examined for recommendation to office. What I want is to understand whether the love of adventure in Tom Sawyer is a romantic passion, with a corresponding idealistic faith (as in Don Quixote, who was mad) or only a love of mischief, of risk, and of swagger as in every schoolboy. My superficial impression, so far, is the Mark Twain is a thorough sceptic, and not a real prophet of personal independence vs. social convention of every sort. Huck.Finn is a string of episodes, like Don Quixote, and a thriller and a farce by turns, with tender emotion thrown in, which Cervantes lacks altogether.2

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Would you send me the “Tom Sawyer” matching [across ] this “Huckleberry Finn”, and then I will send you back both volumes together, and my essay if it takes shape? Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 “Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote,” Mark Twain Quarterly (Winter 1952): 1–3; reprinted in The Birth of Reason (1968), 116–22. Tom Sawyer, a clever and adventurous boy, is a character in four of Twain’s novels, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Co., 1876). 2 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) was a Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet. His reputation as a great writer rests almost entirely on Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605) and the twelve short stories known as the Novelas Ejemplares (1613). Don Quixote is a satire on the exaggerated chivalry of the seventeenth century. Some critics have perceived the main character as an idealist who is continually mocked and defeated in a materialistic world.

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 23 February 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, February 23, 1951. Dear Lowell Is it at the beginning or at the end of March that you are leaving Florence? And in any case what will be you r safe address afterwards? I ^^ ask because I am going to send to Scribner a list of the persons to whom I wish them to send in my name a copy of Dominations and Powers which is to appear about April 1st= and in which list of course you are ^ ^ included. You will find the book no less bulky and troublesome for packing than The Realms of Being with which you are already loaded; but it will prove less heavy to read, and also easier to pass on to some friend— not Ezra Pound, because I am going to send him a copy myself. There is a short chapter in it on Middlemen in Trade which may appeal to him.1 It mentions bankers. I have read Huckleberry Finn from cover to cover, and sent for Tom Sawyer because I see a curious shadow of Don Quixote in him and may write an article about it. Otherwise the book seemed less comic than I expected. The farmer’/s’ wives’ talk was what made me laugh most. I continue to see praise of your poems in the papers, this time from “Dr.” Edith Sitwell. GS. 1

“The Middleman in Trade” is chapter 3 of part 2 (“Enterprise”) in Dominations, 249–54.

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To John Hall Wheelock 27 February 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, February 27, 1951. Dear Mr. Wheelock The news that came to me through your “faithful” secretary, in spite of the alarming name of “virus pneumonia”, suggested only a short indisposition, such as newly discovered medicines seem to secure for suffering man. But now I see with regret that you have had a long siege, and I am touched that in your convalescence you should have wished to go over the text of my long book once more. I have now received the imposing proofs of the title-page and preface, with which I am much pleased. Cory and I had had repeated discussions about this preface. We feared that it was out of date and made needless by the chapters that follow about the history of the book and its late rearrangement and unification. Yet we, or at least I, had a weak spot for that preface, and felt it to be a good bridge from the Life of Reason to Dominations and Powers. On re-reading it, now that the recent parts have fallen in turn into the background, I was glad that this preface had been retained. It is radical with a gentle air that seem to lead the naive reader by the hand out of his childhood. In clearing away an accumulation of papers in my desk, I have come upon a letter of your about the painter Wood’s portrait of me. I had forgotten this letter, and hope I did not leave it unanswered in my preoccupied state of mind. I agree with you entirely about that portrait. It represents me as you might come upon me on a sultry day, and is painted in a realistic way, but coarsely. I much prefer the drawing by Lipinsky, which I believe has been submitted to you with the same commercial hopes. I won’t say that it looks like (although Cory says it does) but it gives an intellectual version of me that perhaps comes nearer to the reality than to the appearance. Only it makes the escape from the flesh more difficult and painful than my philosophy absolutely finds it. I am more Epicurean than that, although not piggish, perhaps, as Epicureans are supposed to be. Besides, spiritual things entertain me, and the quarrels men have about them seem to me needless.

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I enclose a long list of persons to whom I should like to send copies of our new book. Let me pay for them fully, out of the unexpectedly large credit that I see remains in your last reports. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. I cannot find Kallen’s, (Horace M.’s) address.1 Could you ask your secretary to look it up for me? D OMINATIONS AND P OWERS by George Santayana Please send a copy with the Author’s Compliments, to each of the following addresses, and charge them to the author’s general account, not to Mr. Cory’s special account for this book. Prof. Irwin Edman, Dr. Corliss Lamont, Dr. H. M. Kallen,

Columbia University New York City.

}

Mr. Joseph Tuccio,2 Riverhead, L.I. N. York. Mr. L. S. Butler, 111–A-l–15th St. Garden City. L.I. New York. Mrs. R. B. Potter,3 112 Landing Ave. Smithtown Branch, L.I. N. York Mrs. William R. Mercer,4 Doylestown, Penn. Mr. John S. Codman,5 222 Sumner St. Boston, Mass. Mr. John M. Merriam, 50 Congress St. " ". The Widener Library Harvard Univ. Cambridge The Delphic Club, Mass. 9 Linden St. Mr. A. J. Onderdonk 993 Memorial Drive

}

}

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Mrs. D. M. Little, 99 South Ave. Mr. & Mrs. R. B. Bidwell Orchard Ave.

}

Weston, Mass.

Prof. A. A. Roback6 3 Prescott St. Cambridge, Mass. Mr. R. C. Lyon 2516 Wooldridge Drive, Austin, Mr. Bruno Lind, 325 University Ave. San Antonio, Dr. I. D. Cardiff 704 First Ave. No. Yakima,

} }

Texas

Wash.

Raymond Mortimer, Esq. Reform Club. Pall Mall, London S.W.1. Sir James Marchant, Lenthay Lodge Sherborne, Dorset, Philip Lane, Esq. Townsend Cottage Litton Cheney, Dorchester, Dorset M. Jacques Robert Duron 53 Rue S. Dominique, Paris, VIII, Prof. Michele Petrone, Hotel Schnellmann, Hueffer Strasse, 75. Muenster, Westf. Germany. Herrn Horst Wiemer, 24 Markgrafen Strasse, Baden-Baden Germany.

}

}

England.

7

France

Sr. D. Eugenio D’Ors,8 Sacramento, 1, Madrid, Spain Prof. Enrico Castelli, Via J. Montanelli, 4, Roma Sr. Emilio Cecchi,9 Corso d’Italia, 11, Roma. Rev. D. Carlo Falconi,10 Via C. Mirabelli, 17, Roma Dr. Luciano Sibille Piazza d’Azeglio, Firenze, 37 Prof. Cesare Valenti11 Via Filippini, 33, Reggio Calabria

}

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Italy

1948–1952

Mr. Hugh Gray,12 7467 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, California Mr. Elie Seaux,13 502 Dodson St. New Liberia Lousiana 1

Born in Germany, Horace Meyer Kallen (1882–1974) attended Harvard (A.B., 1903; Ph.D., 1908) and taught English at Princeton (1903–5). From 1908 to 1911 he taught philosophy at Harvard and worked closely with both William James and Santayana. Later he taught at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia. Kallen was one of the founders of the New School for Social Research in New York City. A leading Zionist, he wrote books on philosophy, politics, and education. 2 Probably Joseph Tuccio (b. 1917), an author and poet, who received his B.A. from Bowdoin College in 1940. His first book, My Own People, was published in 1943 by the Free World Press (Bedford Hills, N.Y.). 3 Elizabeth “Lily” Stephens Clare Fish married Robert Burnside Potter in 1894. The daughter of Nicholas Fish (for years American minister at Brussels), she had been educated abroad, spoke French and German, and learned Italian in preparation for the spring 1897 trip through Italy with Santayana. See Persons, 379–81. 4 Martha Mercer (d. 1960) and her husband William (d. 1939) built Aldie Mansion in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 1927.

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5

Probably John Sturgis Codman, a member of Harvard’s class of 1890. Abraham Aaron Roback (A.M., Harvard, 1913) taught psychology at Harvard from 1920 to 1923. 7 Charles Raymond Bell Mortimer (1895–1980) was an English journalist and author. See Persons, 498–99. 8 Eugenio D’Ors (1882–1954) was a Spanish writer whose topics included art and philosophy. 9 Emilio Cecchi (1884–1966) was an Italian critic and essayist. 10 Carlo Falconi (1915–98), an ordained clergyman, was an author and student of Catholicism. He left the church in 1949. 11 Cesare Valenti is an author and mathematics professor at the University of Palermo, Italy. 12 Hugh Barr Gray was a member of Harvard’s class of 1902. 13 Unidentified. 6

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 1 March 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Rome, March 1st= 1951. Dear Lowell Your two letters—especially the long one written “the morning after”— with Yarrell’s1 analysis of your poetic inspiration and some things dropped by Cory about the pleasant evening that you had spent together have stirred up my lively interest (not quite intelligible to myself) in you and the peri pecias2 of your career. Tradition offers a simple key to everything: you illustrate Descartes’ analysis of the Passions de l’âme.3 L’âme (what I called — spirit) suffers without controlling the impulses and explosions of the bête-machine (what I call the psyche) except when by miracle the spirit exercises its freedom-of-indifference and pulls the check-rein hard. (This was introduced to make Cartesianism possible as a reform of Catholic philosophy.) This seems to be exactly what you describe in your letter as the conflict in you between passion and reason. But I think reason, as applied to action, is a passion like any other, the desire to achieve harmony among all the impulses of the psyche, which desire is itself one of those impulses, like that of steadying yourself when you are walking along a narrow plank. Pure reason, if an intellectual and not a vital power, might just as well be pleased by toppling over as by walking straight. Yarrell also has a simple dualism in his explanation of your “single” theme, as he thinks it. He adopts Bergson’s phraseology in the Deux Sources. You detest what is closed, and break at all costs into the open. Of course when one is stifled or gagged one struggles to get loose. But it does

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not follow that you want to ties: you may be longing to fall into the arms of your lady-love or of your Redeemer, not to be wholly unattached. Bergson, as usual, never looks round his shoulder. He argues like a lawyer or a woman, with his conclusion prefixed. That is a kind of closed issue, not an open one. You certainly wished, in the heroes of your poems, to escape the restrictions of Puritanism and convention; you might, like Ezra Pound, have wished to endure no restrictions whatever, to be all things at once, if you chose. But evidently you were not of that mind, or you would not have turned towards the Catholic Church or to rhyme and metre —er. If we reject order we reject health, distinction, and beauty, as well as peace of mind. But it must be natural order not contrary to the vital liberty of our innate powers. It was in the train of something I had said about your willingness to view Catholic matters and ways from the inside, although this cannot be easy and involuntary for you, as it is for me, that Cory said he thought your feelings were more Protestant than Catholic, and that you were a good deal in sympathy with Kierkegaard, and thought Pound a great man. I recognize that your centre, as in Protestant religion, is in yourself, not in the cosmos or history or even society. If it had been in natural science or history you would never have thought of taking refuge in Catholicism. No doubt, it was not a refuge for you but an adventure—a voyage and a love-affair in a new dimension. I say to myself after all these considerations that you are at heart romantic, but that you have some taste and some knowledge of the classics, of Latin and French; and it has been your misfortune to see the seamy side of the best things—Boston, Latin, & Catholic ways, for instance—before being absorbed in what is best in them, and in great things generally rather than in shabby things. You therefore are bitter even in your loves, and your verses, for all their strength and truth, never come into the sunshine, never seem to flower of themselves. I have never read any poetry with so much attention and persistence as I have yours; yet I do not seem to know anything by heart: ^ ^ only short phrases, at best, remain in the memory. Why is this? You are too far from Hickery, dickery, dock? Perhaps but now that you have been so generally accepted, you will find writing less laborious, without thinning at all the substance of your verse. I had sent the list of books to be distributed with the author’s compliments before your letter arrived; but I shall probably receive some copies from the publishers, and I will send one of them to you wherever you are

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then. I am glad you are coming here again before going north. Possibly the books may have arrived while you are in Rome GS. 1

Unidentified. Vicissitudes (Latin). 3 Les Passions de l’âme (The passions of the soul, 1649). 2

To Evelyn Tindall 12 March 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

March 12, 1951 Dear Miss Tindall, I am ashamed to submit such messy and scratched and patched pages to you to be copied, but my semi-blindness makes it impossible for me to see where and what I am writing; and to recopy would only introduce new blunders. These are points of interest to the American public;1 and in view of the imminent publication of Dom. & P’rs, my — they publishers want to ^ ^ ^ ^ spread abroad the surprising fact that I have something to say about them—and that my book treats that very subject; and all must buy it! Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Santayana responded to a questionnaire from the Scribner’s publicity department. His answers were included in a press release and partly reported in an article in the New York Times (“Halt Europe Aid, Says Santayana,” 25 April 1951, p. 10). See also 15 March 1951 and 18 July 1951.

To Evelyn Tindall 14 March 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

March 14, 1951 Dear Miss Tindall Thank you for your prompt return of my advertisements for my publisher. Without apologies I send you three more pages of a speech of thanks1 that I am to make vicariously at Münster, in Westphalia, through the mouth of a friend, Prof. Petrone, who is lecturing there normally on

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Italian literature, but is now branching off into a course of lectures and a “Seminar” on myself! Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. If it is worth while—I don’t remember when you sent me an account last—you might send me one now, before Easter, as I don’t see any immediate prospect of more work. 1

Unlocated.

To John Hall Wheelock 15 March 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 15, 1951. Dear Mr. Wheelock Here are long and perhaps too philosophical replies to two of the questions submitted by your “Promotion Department.” I could not bring myself to answer the others, especially about who is the greatest of our governors, but perhaps have answered some of them by implication. Of course, you are free to cut my replies down as much as is expedient. Thank you for supplying Kallen’s address. There is perhaps a problem in the case of Onderdonk, to whom I promised a copy of my new book; and he replied characteristically that he had written to you personally, demanding anything of mine that you might be publishing. I don’t know whether this was a proud refusal of my proposed offering or only an incidental hint of his own opulence. I used to send him all my books long ago; but afterwards have neglected to do so, as I knew that he didn’t read them but, in memory of our friendship, collected the notices of them in the newspapers As to my free copies, three would be all I can dispose of at present; but Cory would like two or three for himself, and you [across ] might send him those remaining of my six, unless you have made other arrangement Yours sincerely GSantayana

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To John Hall Wheelock 25 March 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 25, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock I am glad your are pleased with my “Promotion” efforts, and hope they may be useful. On this subject I have received a comparatively clear letter from Ezra Pound in which he writes: “What is this about that book of yours? Are your publishers trying to suppress your indecorous opinions? Or is it merely the usual American tempo—molasses flowing up hill below zero?” To disperse these morbid fears, will you please add his name, and send inwith my compliments, to Saint Elizabeth’s him a copy of Dominations — Hospital, Washington, D.C.? Mrs. Cory has turned up in Rome and they were both here to tea yesterday. She looked very well, but I could catch little of he rapid speech— usually only the last word of each speech, yet that was at least a good cue to suggest an answer. They are leaving Rome for Florence and England in a fortnight. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 28 March 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 28, 1951 Dear Rosamond, Your previous letter, offering to go with me to Egypt, left me amazed, = instant, just received, leaves me completely at a loss and yours of the 23rd for my bearings. No: we are both sane; only we are living in different worlds. Of course I never thought of going to Egypt. The doctor long ago forebade me to travel by air, as everybody does now; and I am anchored here, as my father used to say, with four anchors. And this morning my doctor, after inquiring as usual for my state of health, suggested that it would be well for me to suspend receiving visits, at least from strangers;

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and my own sense of propriety has been warning me for some time that I ought not to be on view for the public passer-by, when I am half deaf and half blind; and my teeth are dropping out or hanging loose and long, like a ragged row of rogues from gibbets. You will say, why not smile triumphantly like people in the newspapers with a shining double row of false teeth? Because the doctor and the dentist both don’t advise it, but whether it is because they think that at my age it isn’t worth while or is dangerous, in that I might not be able to survive the shock of having the remains extracted, I don’t know; probably for both reasons. And as Sabbatucci,1 my old doctor who looked after me before I came to this house, where he is one of the regular physicians and surgeons, said I should stop receiving visitors, [illegible ]I have sent today a notice to the woman who acts as porter at the house-door, that for the present no visitors are to be admitted. So you see (although of course such rules don’t apply in your case) what a lamentable spectacle you would find if you flew here to renew our old meeting at the Hotel Bristol. Much better retain that recollection uncorrected, and imagine me a pure spirit in a plump little middle-aged body and a bald head, not yet patriarchal. And you may look at odd moments into my new book (which will soon reach you, I hope) and read a chapter (they are almost all short) that will invite you at once to stop there for that day, before you are bored by a superfluity of words. Your letters show me American life as a hurly-burly of 150,000,000 people innocently chasing after the “40,000 things” of Lao Tse, because if they didn’t, what a dull thing life would be! Lao Tse was no visionary, but a solitary observer of common events; his disillusion about them was the more rational in that he had no compensating illusions about higher things. The Asiatic Buddhists have such compensating illusions, so that their unworldliness is less cynical. I have been reading a beautiful Italian book, “Segreto Tibet”, by Fosco Maraini,2 where there are no roads but only mule-paths, because the Tibetan government says: If we made roads, they would soon be used by motor-vehicles or trains, and what would then become of our muleteers? And the author thinks that in Tibet, without roads, and in spite of filth and ignorance, the Tibetans on the whole are “happier” than we are in the civilized West. I don’t trust these “odious” comparisons; but the fact is that they manage to lead an orderly traditional life without any government, except perhaps at the distant capital, which Maraini was not allowed to reach. The people seem to be philosophical, though in spots strangely superstitious. For instance they

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paint their guardian spirits most hideous and terrifying, so that the sight of them may scare away the devils. I suspect that what makes primitive peoples seem happier to us is that they have (apart from their superstitions) fewer unnecessary cares than we have imposed on ourselves. They are more resigned to live in harmony with the nature of things. Our folly is to insist on changing it. We do change them superficially and artificially; but we suffer in proportion by overstraining nature in ourselves, trying to keep our artificial worlds going, physically and morally. Since I began this letter, which is now three days ago, I have actually sent a notice to the house porter announcing that, according to my Doctor’s advice, I am not to receive visitors for the present. But on the back of the same half-sheet I made a short list of exceptions, for the nonce only four: and two of them together (which is particularly trying with my deafness) were with me the following afternoon for several hours. But they are both leaving Rome, and I may soon have to countermand my orders and let in all the interviewers. Yours affectionately GSantayana 11

Luigi Sabbatucci was Santayana’s physician in Rome from 1935 to 1952. Segreto Tibet: Presentazione di Bernardo Berenson (Bari: Edizioni “Leonardo da Vinci,” 1951). Fosco Maraini (1912–2004) was an Italian author, filmmaker, photographer, and educator. 2

To Anne Ford [Spring 1951] • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Dear Miss Ford: Yesterday Miss Tower and her friend1 brought me your box of chocolates and when I saw from whom it came I went out for a moment into the reception room to see them and thank them for their trouble; but at my doctor’s suggestion I have now had to abandon receiving visitors as with my impedimenta it is a strain on my declining vitality. The task of preparing my last book, now to be published, was rather too much for me, but I hope that after a long rest I shall be able to see everyone who has the kindness to wish to pay me the compliment of a visit. With many thanks for your kindness, from GSantayana 1

Friends of Miss Ford in the publishing business.

1948–1952

To Upton Beall Sinclair 21 April 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Indiana)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 21, 1951 Dear Mr. Sinclair1 I do remember your first book2 very well, not its title or details, but one scene describing childbirth, and the general impression that it was a cry from the deep. My background, my motives, my tastes were, I felt, entirely different from yours; we could not walk in the same path or belong to the same party. But my intention was never to belong to any party, and I have not followed your career. The world was full, and is now trembling, with the groans and rumblings from the depths; I have tried to disregard them, not because I thought them unimportant, but because my interest was never in meeting or reforming the currents in the world, but in being saved from them, as far as possible. I don’t know how far your sympathies now are communistic: but I read what comes in my way that seems to express the vital and genuine side of the present revolution. I know what its recognized spokesmen say, but that is plainly worthless philosophically. I should be very glad to read your latest book,3 if you think that it would enlighten me on the real dynamism of our times; but I am too old to recast my own opinions. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Upton Beall Sinclair (1878–1968), the great muckraking novelist, produced over a hundred writings during the period 1901–40 and was active in his craft until his death. 2 Saved by the Enemy (New York: Street and Smith, 1898). 3 Another Pamela; or, Virtue Still Rewarded (New York: Viking Press, 1950).

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 28 April 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. April 28, 1951 Dear Lowell All is good news in your letter. Constantinople will be a good place for you to take as a centre from which to project images of all the rest of the world: I don’t know what else there may be in “Turkey” to enlarge the

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mind. I went there after Greece,1 which is the right historical order; but was there only a few days, making two long visits to Santa Sofia,2 one with a guide, to learn the ropes, and another alone, to see the place It is like what you find in Tasso3 imitating half the good things and imitated by all the other half. My father—thinking of painting—used to say: “Imitate and you will be imitated.” This may now be true of the artists of each decade, but not on the grand historical scale. Greece, Santa Sofia, and all south and east of Rome, is a ruin, so that it can no longer be imitated, or even ^^ weighed in the same balance with what we can attempt. I am not worse or better in health than when you were here, but less tired, able to read philosophical reviews, Guzzo’s “Filosofia”,4 for instance, and to doze as much as I like at all hours. My book has reached the persons I had it sent to in America, several of whom have written prudently before reading it. It has not yet reached me, and should do so about the time when you are here; but you need not take your copy on your journey. I could keep it for you to take on your way back, or send ^ ^ it wherever you desire, where your books are stored. As to reviews, I feel as you do about half of them; but some I should prefer not to see at all, and others I keep, although I seldom look at them again. Sir James Marchant’s Symposium on “What I Believe”, in which my “The Wind and the Spirit” was to appear, has been postponed by printing and paper difficulties in England but, he tells me, will be published “shortly”. I shall be amused to see in what company I make my bow (as if risen from the dead) to the British public My fellow-contributors are, I fear, all old fogeys; but some critics are very perceptive, and I hope “Dominations & Powers” may be reissued in England, as it will surely be better received there (saving, alas! a few delicate hints) than in America. Your young friend Bowen5 will be welcome, whether you bring him with you or he comes alone: but in the latter case tell me or let him announce his visit, as I must countermand the order at the porter’s in respect to him. Ezra Pound has written me [across] quite intelligibly and in a placid mood, on receiving my book. I am very glad I sent it to him G.S. 1

From January to mid-May of 1905 Santayana traveled through several countries including Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Crete, Lebanon, and Palestine. 2 Hagia Sophia, also known as Santa Sofia, began as a Christian church, was converted to a mosque, and now is a museum in Istanbul (Constantinople). 3 Torquato Tasso (1544–95) was an Italian poet and author. “Gerusalemme liberate,” an epic poem, is considered his greatest work. 4 Guzzo began publishing the philosophical review Filosofia in 1950. 5 Unidentified. See 10 May 1951.

1948–1952

To Max Harold Fisch 4 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Illinois)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 4, 1951 Dear Mr. Fisch My doctor here, as well as the aggravation of my various complaints (which you must have noticed when you were good enough to come to see me) has advised me not to receive visitors for the present, and I am afraid I shall not be able to receive Dr. Enzio Boeri on this occasion.1 Perhaps later, if he should be again in Rome, I may be able to welcome him. The phrase about Pierce in your remarks about me was perfectly natural because, as you say, I doubt that I have ever mentioned him in my books; and he was not much talked of at Harvard in my day.2 Once, however, I heard him give an evening lecture there, where he was staying with William James It was about signs, and made a lasting impression on me; that all ideas, in so far as they convey knowledge, are signs has become a favourite doctrine of mine. But I have never studied his published works, and it is from your book I have first gained a general view of his achievement. If he had built his philosophy on signs I might have been his disciple. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), an American philosopher, considered the meaning of an idea to lie in an examination of the consequences to which the idea would lead. From him William James adopted the term pragmatism; the works of Royce and Dewey reflect Peirce’s influence. In Vagabond, Bruno Lind reported Santayana saying on 16 March 1951 that when he was young he was influenced by Peirce, and that he had attended some of his lectures (35–36). 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 10 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, May 10, 1951 Dear Cory The book has not arrived here but this morning, together with your letter of May 8th (the sciopero1 of all government services yesterday seems to have quicken the post) I received one from Mr. Wheelock containing three

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reviews,2 two of them whole front pages in the New York Times and the Herald Tribune, respectively by Sidney Hook and J. W. Krutch, and each with a large new portrait. Hook is more interested in preaching his own doctrine than in reporting mine, but is complimentary on the whole, and Krutch who I see is a professor of Literature, not philosophy at Columbia, is less didactic but also considerate, and makes good quotations, as does a shorter review published the next day also in the Times, by Orville Prescott.3 They are not adequate reviews, but satisfactory on the whole. The best “compliment” so far comes from Cardiff, from Yokima, Wash. State, who says: “You have produced a monumental work.” Wheelock says that he has found various printer’s errors in looking through the book, and hopes that you and I will report any that we may come upon. The weather, with the exception of a few scattered Spring days, has been very cold and rainy here also, so that you must not lay your discomfort to the British climate especially. Think how much I should enjoy a fire in this room! I have nominally suspended all reception of visitors: but Robert Lowell has been here two or three times, bringing me books from Principessa Margherita Caetani4 (with whom they were staying) and a friend named Bower,5 whom Lowell praised but who is ugly and not especially interesting. Yesterday, in spite of the rain, I drove in to town, left at the Banco di Roma my expectedly cheque from Boston and also another for £20 from Sir James Marchant, who explains that the delay in publishing his collection of views to be entitled “What I Believe”, in which “The Wind and The Spirit” figures, has been caused by paper shortage and other business accidents, but will take place “shortly”. I have read a little in his other collection called “If I Had My Time Again” 6 and it is not all by old fogeys. One says he is the greatest bicycle manufacturer in the world. But all are liberals in politics. G.S. 1

Strike (Italian). “Liberty, Society and Mr. Santayana” by Sidney Hook (New York Times Book Review, 6 May 1951): 1; an article by Joseph Wood Krutch in the New York Herald Tribune Book Review (6 May 1951): 1; and “Books of the Times” by Orville Prescott (New York Times, 7 May 1951): 23. 3 Orville Prescott (1906–96) was an American author, critic, and editor. 4 Marguerite Chapin Caetani (1880–1963), an editor and author, was married to Roffredo Caetani, the 17th Duke of Sermoneta and Prince of Bassiano. The Dutchess was the editor of Botteghe Oscure, a review publishing original poetry and fiction in the 2

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contributor’s language. She edited a collection of poems drawn from Botteghe Oscure called An Anthology of New Italian Writers (New York: New Directions, 1950). 5 Perhaps the American poet [William] Edgar Bowers (1924–2000), who at this time was a student of poetry at Stanford University. 6 If I Had My Time Again; An Anthology Contributed by Twenty Distinguished Men and Women by Sir James Marchant (London: Odhams Press, 1950). Sir Harold Bowden (1880–1960) took over the family business, Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, after his father, Frank Bowden, the founder, passed away in 1921. Frank Bowden started the business in 1887. The company is still in operation today.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 11 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 11, 1951. Dear Clemens Many thanks for your letter of May 4th with the good-humoured review in Time,1 which is the best I have seen so far, much better than those by the Professors Hook and Krutch in the New York Times and HeraldTribune. My new book is too complicated for a hasty reader to take in at once, and people are accustomed to be guided in public affairs by their feelings, without considering origins or tendencies in the actual events. I am content, for the moment, to be regarded as a mere curiosity. Tom Sawyer arrived in due time and has been religiously read from cover to cover. It is hardly as suggestive of Don Quixote as the latter part of Huckleberry Finn, but I will consider both books together and in that respect only in my paper, which is partly written but not quite finished even in the written part. You are not in a hurry and I am very slow now at everything. I have not had the “flu”, but only a recrudescence of my catarrh, and general fatigue, so that I have given up receiving visitors, except old friends. Please dont send me cheques for $1. We are not in business. I will send Tom Sawyer back at once. Yours sincerely G.S. 1

Time (7 May 1951): 109–10.

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To John Hall Wheelock 11 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, = 1951 Rome. May 11th Dear Mr. Wheelock = with the first three reviews of Dominations & Your letter of May 7th Powers arrived yesterday; Cory has received his three copies of the book and I am expecting mine at any moment. The reviews are inadequate but satisfactory in spirit. The critics had no time for really taking in so complicated a treatment of things which are habitually judged by one’s feelings, not by any analysis of their origin or interplay. The best compliment I have got so far came from Cardiff at Yakima, Wash, who says: “You have produced a monumental work.” Sidney Hook, whose early books about the Russian Revolution instructed and pleased me, disappoints me a little by developing his own current opinions instead of considering mine. The other two reviews are what was to be expected, and contain good quotations. I do not care, as you are right in thinking, to see all the notices in the press; but I should like to see any notable ones, whether favourable or hostile, more to feel the pulse of America than to read my own doom. How is it about the British public? Mr Kyllmann of Constable’s wrote some time ago that he had received an unrevised proof of the whole book, but added nothing about any arrangement with you and Cory about an English edition. Such arrangements have already been made for a German translation, through Heath in London,1 but I asked Cory not to accept unconditionally a proposal from Buenos Aires for the Spanish rights, because I do not wish to preclude a possible translation in Spain and because I have not forgotten the horrible fate, in their hands, of my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels.” I expect that my book will be better appreciated in Europe, and I include certain British circles, than in the United States, where there is naturally a strong current of patriotic emotion that cannot help disliking unattached opinions. I am quite content with merely being tolerated as a curiosity. But I hope, for your sake and Cory’s, that the book will sell, and have been surprised and pleased to see that the price is so moderate.2 You personally deserve my lasting gratitude for the interest and pains that you have taken in the publication. Yours sincerely GSantayana

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1 A. M. Heath & Co. See 31 January 1948. Dominaciones y potestades was translated by José Antonio Fontanilla (Madrid: Aguilar, 1953) and by Guido F. P. Parpagnoli (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1954). 2 The price of $4.50 was listed after Orville Prescott’s article “Books of The Times” (New York Times, 7 May 1951).

To C. L. Shelby 17 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Virginia)

6, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome, May 17, 1951 Dear Mr. Shelby1 Here I have no extra copies of my new book, but nothing is easier thank to ask the publishers to send you one from New York, with my compliments. I know what the thirst for reading is when buying them is impossible. In America I always got on well with public and university libraries, but Seymour, Texas may not offer the same facilities.2 I have just discovered an error on p. 169, line 20. “Work” should be arch. Please correct it, and don’t think that I write without making sense. Please let this note do instead on an autograph in the book Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. Seymour is northwest of Dallas, near the Texas-Oklahoma border.

2

To John Hall Wheelock 17 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 17, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock =, the three copies of Dominations & Powers finally Yesterday, May 16th arrived! I suppose strikes and scarcity of sailings for Italy delayed the post longer than in normal times. But all is well, and I am much pleased with the appearance of these volumes; I had rather expected a repetition of the binding and cover of Realms of Being which I have always liked; but the

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black binding and lightness of this long book, which seems smaller and more handy, are distinct excellent characteristics. The sobriety and clearness of the page are also reassuring, and I hope the sale will be satisfactory. Some one has sent me a review in Time that I like better than those in The Times and in the Herald-Tribune. It is not embarrassed and frankly friendly and sympathetic. A Madrid newspaper has a long full page review from its New York correspondent in which I am called a complete Spaniard and otherwise praised to the skies, with some inaccurately translated quotations.1 Evidently the dumb conservative stragglers in Europe will like my book Let us hope that the translations may be adequate Yours sincerely GSantayana (over) ^ ^ P.S. I have already come upon one misprint, not due to the printers but probably to Miss Tindal’s not expecting to understand the text, and our fatigue in reading so much proof. On page 169, line 20, for “work” read arch2 P.S. 2. Could you kindly send one more copy with my compliment to Rev. C. L. Shelby, The Manse 409 North Cedar, Seymour Texas 1

Unidentified. This correction, and all the subsequent corrections sent to Wheelock, appeared in the October 1951 printing of Dominations. See 6 June 1951, 20 June 1951, 5 July 1951 to Cory, 5 July 1951 to Wheelock, and 16 August 1951. 2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 29 May 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, May 29, 1951 Dear Cory The enclosed letter1 from Mr. Wheelock gives most of the news I have about the book, including Constable’s participation in the affair. It seems satisfactory, although I am a bit sorry that all the misprints that appear in

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the New York edition, so far, are apparently to remain in the 500 Constable issue. I have begun to read the text for more corrections, and find a good many, although in many places it puts me to sleep. I am not well. At night I sleep little, and consequently doze a good deal during the day. Food is unpalatable, and I grow flabby on milk and biscuits. The letters of thanks for my book, like the reviews, hardly touch the heart of the subject, but most of them are good-natured. Those in the N. Y. Times and the Herald Tribune, by professors, are the worst, because they are embarrassed, not daring to say what they think, in the hope of not having in the end to think so. I mean, not having to feel that I am right on the whole in my naturalism. Today at last the weather is warm, though still more or less overclouded. I am reading several nice books, on Spanish poetry (in Spanish) and on the Crusades. G.S. 1

Unlocated.

To Stuart Johnston Northrop 2 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Yale)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 2, 1951 I cannot bring myself to sign the horrible, and not recent, retouched photograph that you send me,1 and send you another that I have happenned to find, which is more decent and up to date GSantayana P.S. I have been reading a book by Professor Northrop of Yale who looks rather young to be your father2 but if he is, please give him my compliments on having written such an interesting book “Meeting of East & West” and on having such a son, and add that both these things may be more complicated than they seem 1 Stuart Johnston Northrop (1925–97) was a collector of Time magazine cover pictures. He sent Santayana a cover of the 3 February 1936 issue which carried Santayana’s portrait. The photograph Santayana enclosed is unlocated. 2 Stuart Johnston Northrop’s father, Filmer Stuart Cockow Northrop (1893–1992), was professor of philosophy at Yale. His second book was The Meeting of East and West: An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding (New York: Macmillan, 1946).

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To Cyril Coniston Clemens 4 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6, Rome, June 4, 1951 Dear Clemens No, thank you, I think you had better give the Duke of Windsor’s Memoirs to some one else.1 My article on Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote (not Mark Twain, except indirectly) was today left to be typed and will probably reach you within a fortnight. I return the review of my book in Newsweek,2 which I had already seen; but I have no scrap-book and candidates for such a mausoleum have to choose between my head and the waste-paper basket. There has not been, as far as I know, any serious or adequate review of my book, and that circumstance is intelligible, because it is not a book to read at ^ ^ one sitting or to place at once in the school-master’s list of graded praise and blame, which seems to be what critic’s think their vocation. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 A King’s Story: The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor (New York: Putnam, 1951). Edward VIII (1894–1972) was the king of Great Britain and Ireland for a brief time until he married Wallis Simpson. The public reason given for Edward VIII’s abdication of his throne was his wish to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson; however, there were no doubt political motives involved, such as the belief that Simpson (and, therefore, Edward) held extremely pro-German sympathies. Wallis Warfield Simpson (1896–1986), of the United States, divorced her second husband to marry Edward VIII. Edward, the eldest son of King George V, was the only British monarch to abdicate the throne voluntarily and married Simpson in 1937. They lived in exile as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, mainly in Paris. Simpson was the first woman chosen as Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” (1936). 2 “Santayana’s Summing-Up” (7 May 1951): 96–97.

1948–1952

To John Hall Wheelock 6 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano, Rotondo, 6 Rome, June 6, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock Once more I must trouble you to send another copy of Dominations & Powers to the address on the slip enclosed, and also to enclose (or paste) the dedication also enclosed,1 in the volume. Father Quinn2 I am told is very anxious to have my autograph in it. I also send a further list of errata or corrections for places that I have found somehow wrong. Yours sincerely GSantayana. Please send a copy of Dominations & Powers to Rev. Frank Quinn, P.O. Box 1636, Parkway Station Jackson Mississippi and charge it to the author’s account. GSantayana Dominations & Powers Errata P. 258

line. 3, 4.

282, 289, 349, 439,

4 6 2 21

delete comma after “liberty” and for commas after “and & “property” substitute a parenthesis ( ). for “lanes” read lands. for “Into” " In " “have " has " “is like” " likes

Rome, June 7, 1951 1

Unlocated. Unidentified.

2

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To John Brett Langstaff 13 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

6, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome, June 13. 1951 Dear Langstaff1 It is indeed a pleasure to hear from you after so many years and to be vividly reminded of our pleasant circle in Oxford in 1919. I am in blank ignorance about everyone: Raymond Mortimer is the only one, and he not of Magdalen but Balliol, whom I have seen recently, and read a pleasant book of his about literary people.2 What has become of Peter Warren, “Gov” Carnaghan and Jury?3 As to me, M. Maritain’s4 visit and attentions occurred some years ago when he was Ambassador to the Pope; he found me in tolerable […]5 solitude was always my true background—and I have many old interests and pleasures left, together with some new ones. Especially I have recently become deeply interested in the new American poets. I have long known Ezra Pound, and saw him often here during the war, but never was reconciled to his ways in speech or in writing. But Robert Lowell from the first attracted me for various paradoxes that I found realised in him; and his rugged personality, now that I have seen him, has not frightened me away. And the last ten years have also made the politics/al world inter^ ^ esting to me, although ominous. Best memories and wishes from your old friend GSantayana 1 John Brett Langstaff (1889–1985), A.B., Harvard, 1913, received the B.LITT. from Oxford in 1916. While at Oxford he roomed for awhile in the same building as Santayana, and they frequently socialized together. He wrote Oxford, 1914 (New York: Vantage Press, 1965), as well as other books. He was head of Magdalen College House and president of the Children’s Libraries Movement. 2 Mortimer’s books include The Bloomsbury Group: Clive Bell, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey (New York: L. F. White Company, 1929) and The Oxford Circus, A Novel of Oxford and Youth, by the Late Alfred Budd, ed. by Hamish Miles and Raymond Mortimer (London: J. Lane, 1922). 3 Peter Warren (b. 1898), who later became an architect, was a nephew of Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), whom Santayana visited while at Oxford (Persons, 500–503). Gouverneur Morris Carnochan (1892–1943), a 1914 Harvard graduate, died in a plane crash in South America while on active duty in the Naval Air Force. Charles Rischbieth Jury (1893–1958) was a poet, dramatist, and professor of English at the University of Adelaide in Australia (1946–49). He was known in Australia as a mentor and patron to young modernist poets such as the Angry Penguins. 4 Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) had been educated at the Sorbonne, where he studied with Henri Bergson. Brought up a Protestant, Maritain converted to Catholicism in

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1906 and became known as a liberal Catholic philosopher. From 1913 to 1940 Maritain taught philosophy at a Catholic institute in Paris; however, he spent the war years (1940–44) in America, teaching at Columbia University. He served as French Ambassador to the Vatican from 1945 to 1948. In 1948 he became professor of philosophy at Princeton University. His writings include technical philosophical and theological works, as well as books on education and politics. 5 A line or lines are missing here in the published version, which appeared in facsimile in Langstaff’s book.

To William H. Boyer 14 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Rome, 14th of June, 1951 Dear Mr. Boyer1 It is curious, but your letter, entirely different from any other that I have received about “Dominations & Powers”, is the only one that expresses (naturally in too polite terms) the feeling that I should think all the world (not with an axe to grind) would feel about it. Hasn’t public opinion rested for centuries in the West on an artificial tradition? I have sometimes nursed a project, which I am now too old and tired to carry out, of writing a course of afternoon lectures for ladies (which I should like to have written in French, under the title of Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie) explaining how Socrates—the most generally admired and loved of philosophers, whom I love and admire myself—was the first to deflect criticism and educated opinion from the natural path of experience and reason, which we call science, or common sense; and that Plato and even Aristotle immediately recast all knowledge for posterity by making it stand on its head, or be planted in the head and not in the world. That would be the first faux pas: and when after twenty centuries the West seemed ready to stand on its feet again (The Renaissance) the Reformation2 came to give reform the same egotistical moralistic and subjective turn, only far more subjectively, moralistically, and egotistically than Socrates, in the Reformation. And modern philosophy has not yet outgrown the Reformation or Reduplication of the first faux pas by the second. Spinoza is in some sense, with his German admirers, the first and only straight philosopher in the West; but not altogether. He instinctively calls his great cosmology “Ethics”:3 and that is Socrates and the Reformation readmitted into what meant to be science.

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Now of course I am not competent to write a sound cosmology; but I think I see what sort of thing it should be: the continuation of early Greek naturalism with the advantage of modern knowledge of nature and history. What I have done in Dominations & Powers is a suggestion of what I should welcome: but I began life with the subjective interest (religion) dominant in myself and with the philosophy that then prevailed as if it were normal, but was radically diseased. I have therefore had to correct my own traditions before I could begin at the right place. It was too much for my strength. But you may see how sincerely I appreciate your letter. GSantayana 1 William H[arrison] Boyer (b. 1924) is an American writer and professor who is politically active, focusing on issues of war, employment, and the environment. 2 The Renaissance, meaning rebirth (French), began in the fourteenth century in Italy and spread throughout Europe, up through the sixteenth century. It was a period marked by economic, social, artistic, scientific, and political advances. The Protestant Reformation began during the sixteenth century in Western Europe as an effort to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended up causing massive political upheavals and the establishment of various Protestant churches. 3 See 12 March 1948 to Munson (footnote 8).

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 15 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 15, 1951 Dear Clemens I had already seen several copies of this review,1 which is the pleasantest that I have read. Hadn’t one of them already come from you, with the request to have it returned? In any case, here goes this one. I am supposed to be resting after a trying winter Visitors (not old friends) are forbidden; and please don’t ask me if I have read or known people I never heard of, or send any one with a letter of introduction to me here. Fidelium animae requiescant in pace,2 even in this world. GS. 1

Brand Blanshard’s review of Dominations, “Reason in Politics,” in the Saturday Review (12 May 1951): 10. 2 Let the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace (Latin).

1948–1952

To Thomas H. B. Robertson 17 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Unknown)

6, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome June 17, 1951. Dear Mr. Robertson1 It is a pleasure, and not a common one, to hear a word of appreciation from the midst of the active and public world, not tinged by any literary or academic prejudice; and I am happy to know that you have found refreshment in the atmosphere of my writings. The present, without long perspectives into the past or the future, presses very hard on our generation: more on yours, I should say, than on mine, because in the 1890’s, when I reached my moral majority, there was still at least in Europe, a ^ ^ somewhat harmonious civilization, with a feeling of security which is impossible today. We are being punished for the sins of our fathers.2 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified. This is a reference to Exodus 20:5.

2

To John Hall Wheelock 20 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 20, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock An English friend, Major Philip Lane, has somewhat belatedly sent me a list of misprints or suggested changes for the text of Dominations and Powers, some of which are not worth troubling about; but I submit four of them to you at once (the last of which I had myself marked since my last letter to you) for eventual correction. Major Lane encloses a note from the Editor1 of “The Times Literary Supplement” who mentions that Constable is reported to be about to publish my book during this summer.2 I suppose these corrections, if not also yours and Cory’s (if any) are too late to be made in the sheets that you wrote to me you were sending to Constable; and in that case a more ^ ^

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complete list of suggestions for an English reprint, if one is later to be made, should be send by Cory and me to Constable later. If you have a list of the corrections made by us all, I should be much obliged to have a copy. Mine, and those I have adopted from Major Lane, are now ^ ^ recorded in my copy of the book, so that I cannot mislay them, and I should like to recorded — the others there also in case the occasion of a reprint arrises. Thank you for sending the copies asked for by these fearless priests. Yours sincerely GSantayana Further corrections for Dom. & P’ers Page 203 337 389 465

line for . . . . . . read 15 from bottom omit “contain” 2 “flood” . . . . . tide 9 fr. bottom for “ourselves” read themselves 8 " " " “we” . . . . . . . " . . they 6 omit quotation marks after “umbrellas” G.S.

{

Rome, June 20, 1951. 1 The note is unlocated. Alan Payan Pryce-Jones (1908–2000) was editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1948 to 1959. Educated at Eton but sent down from Oxford during his second term, he became well known as an editor and critic before World War II, when he served in British military intelligence. As editor of the TLS he was widely praised for revitalizing it by broadening its scope and raising the quality of reviews. 2 The Constable first printing of Dominations did not include any of the corrections sent to Wheelock in 1951. It is not known whether Constable printed a version of Dominations with the corrections that appeared in Scribner’s October 1951 printing.

To [ John Hall Wheelock] 24 June 1951 • Rome, Italy Please send a copy of Santayana’s Dominations and Powers to Prof. Paul A. Schilpp, Northwestern University. Evanston Illinois.

(MS: Princeton)

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and charge it to the Author’s account. GSantayana Rome, June 24, 1951.

To John W. Yolton 30 June 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

6, Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo Rome, June 30, 1951 Dear Mr. Yolton1 Your “Notes” 2 on my Last Puritan are remarkably friendly and sympathetic, and it has given me much pleasure to read them. Residence in Oxford seems to have already given you a softness and caution which I hardly think Professor Van Meter Ames, though he means well, could have shown in his lectures.3 There is only one fundamental point in your account, and a fortiori4 in the position of the other critics whom you refer to, that I should wish to correct. It is not any of the judgements you may pass on me or on my personages in the novel, but the assumption you all seem to make that what matters is the judgements I make and the standards that I proclaim, and not merely the picture of the world and its inhabitants (including myself) that I present in my writings. Mr. Vivas,5 if he is a Jew, may proclaim a Decalogue; and every old lady of your acquaintance may tell you what is right or wrong in everyone else: that does not seem to me to be the function of a philosopher. In my books you may easily see betrayed, frankly or unawares, what are my own tastes or preferences, or the virtues or vices of my characters in The Last Puritan, or in Dialogues in Limbo; I have decided preferences amongst persons as amongst ideas and they are not always the current preferences. That is natural when you consider the unusual circumstances of my birth and early surroundings, and American education, to which I had to react or to succumb. The rationale of this will become obvious to you if you consider my convictions regarding the place and essence of mind in the world. 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.6 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

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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.7 I should like nothing better than to be able to discuss with you the characters in The Last Puritan. I could tell you much about their origin, and you could show me better than I can discover for myself, how far I have succeeded in making them real persons for my reader. They are most real persons for me, even in the circumstance of retaining a hidden and problematic side. I have been told by various ladies that my women were “impossible”; one English critic, however, wrote that Irma was the “best” (morally?) person in the book, and several that Mrs. Alden was “the living picture” of an aunt or grandmother of theirs. That the first scene in the yacht between Oliver and Jim was the most “successful” was the judgement of a good critic; and the wife of a friend,8 who in his yacht had given me a model for Jim, wrote to me that when he appeared “his person and conversation were strangely familiar”. A friend, the late Professor Lyon Phelps of Yale,9 however, regretted not to find a single good character in the book. I replied that that was only because I hadn’t dared to put him and his wife into it. You may gather from this unexpectedly long letter that I appreciate your interest in my novel and in my philosophy. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

John W[illiam] Yolton (1921–2005), an American author and professor of philosophy, was a professor at York University, Canada (1963–78), and in 1978 became the Dean of Rutgers College. Yolton was a John Locke scholar. 2 “Notes on Santayana’s The Last Puritan,” The Philosophical Review 60 (April 1951): 235–42. 3 Van Meter Ames (1898–1985) was at this time a professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. His writings include Proust and Santayana; the Aesthetic Way of

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Life (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1937) and Zen and American Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1962), which includes “Santayana and Detachment” (chapter XII, 182–213). Yolton had mentioned in his letter to Santayana that he had been a student of Ames, since he “knew that Ames had had some acquaintance with Santayana many years ago” (Letters, 499). Santayana had met Ames when he and his wife visited Rome (9 January 1933), and Santayana was dismayed to find this meeting recounted inaccurately in Proust and Santayana (Clemens, 11 August 1937). 4 “With greater reason or more convincing force” (Latin). 5 Eliseo Vivas taught philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University. He wrote essay 11, “From The Life of Reason to The Last Puritan” (315–50) in The Philosophy of George Santayana. Yolton’s article “took issue with Vivas’s interpretation of the relation between Spirit and Matter in Santayana’s philosophy” (Letters, 499). 6 De Anima (On the soul) is one of Aristotle’s two works on psychology. 7 Everybody’s happy (Italian). 8 Countess “Elizabeth” Mary Annette Beauchamp von Arnim Russell. 9 William “Billy” Lyon Phelps (1865–1943) graduated from Yale (B.A., 1887; Ph.D., 1891) and Harvard (A.M., 1891). A popular teacher (Yale, 1892–1933), he was among the first Americans to specialize in modern literature. Phelps established the first college courses in contemporary drama and the novel and introduced Russian novelists to his students. He wrote books on modern literature, as well as “As I Like It,” a book column for Scribner’s Magazine. His Autobiography With Letters was published in 1939.

To Hirsch Loeb Gordon 2 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 2, 1951. Dear Dr. Gordon1 It was a happy thought on your part to send me your book on Caro,2 which I have read through with special interest, as I have never come across any such vivid picture of what the life and mind of orthodox Jews has been until recent times in Europe and the Levant.3 It was evidently far more severe and studious, far less a life “in the world” than that of the secular Christian clergy was during the same ages. I feel clearly for the first time how little of the “merry” life of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance affected the Jewish population. Naturally, being a minority, they could not have preserved their moral and cultural heritage if they had mingled more with the Christian majority. And they did, as you know better than I, cut a great figure as merchants, bankers, and physicians; but they must have drawn the line sharply, as Shylock does in Shakespeare,4 against any festive or friendly association with Christians. With Moslems things naturally went on better for both parties: the two religions were

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similar and simple, the observances of both less public and noisy than the Catholic, and less pagan. Even a large and intellectually influential Jewish minority did not alarm a Moslem society. The philosophers, Averroes, Avicenna, Maimonides,5 and Spinoza, even if sometimes too pantheistic for the orthodox of either religion, were of the same school, and they kept to the scientific realism of Aristotle, avoiding the mythical and political exuberance of Plato and the Christian Fathers. Your indignation at the persecution of the Jews is natural and just: but it has not been confined to Spain or to Catholic governments or to tragic times, somewhat like our own, such as the 16th and 17th centuries. Nationalities and Great Powers were then being consolidated, as now they are being challenged and perhaps dissolved; and the need, as well as the pride, of the rulers was to have a homogenous and united people to lead and to aggrandise. In Spain, just when a single monarchy had been established and the whole territory finally reconquered, this homogeneity was particularly requisite; and the expulsion of Moors and Jews not willing to be Spanish and Catholic was a political necessity. You mention once, but without indicating its political ground, that only Marranos, that is Jews who had pretended to be converted, so as not to have to migrate, were subject to the Inquisition. This was, and still is, a tribunal to judge any reported heresy or moral perversion arising within the Catholic fold; the accused being assumed to be pledged to support Christian faith and morals. The “people” are supposed to be unanimous, as in the present Communist countries; and torture was applied, as now in those countries, to extract confessions of guilt from the accused. Nobody was condemned who had not confessed sin, and fire, following on self-accusation, was calculated to burn the corruption away. I once read the verbatim reports of the trial of the Cenci family on the charge of having murdered their husband and father.6 The judge would say: “the Court knows,” and would retail the crime as discovered or imagined by the agents of the “Holy Office”: the prisoners all began by denying and all ended by confessing; and they were condemned to various punishments: the son to be branded with hot irons and then quartered; the wife and daughter to be beheaded, and the boy to be sent to the galleys for life. Horrible glimpses of hell, by which actual endless hell was avoided. There was a sort of rationality in this religious madness; and it is impossible not to be impressed by the overwhelming force of the moral tyranny asserted to rule the world. As to Caro, you know how entirely I agree with you on the importance of his familiar Spirit’s concession that all its words are but reflections of

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his own thoughts. A man’s past or his native potentialities are the source of such visions, revelations, or strokes of genius as he may come to have. Did these not have their roots within, in his primal Will, they would not be illuminations but information, such as he might have found in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. But does not the religious importance attributed to such phenomena disappear if they do not come from above? Do not they all become poetic fictions? This implication satisfies me and seems to me to make them interesting, instead of wretched delusions, as they would otherwise be: but I am a constitutional sceptic, and wish to believe in nothing except that which, in action, I find that I am assuming and verifying. Fictions, from those involved in sensation to those generated in play and in the liberal arts, seem to me the best of things and signs, when clear and beautiful, of a life being led in harmony with nature. Best thanks for your book and best wishes from GSantayana 1 Hirsch Loeb Gordon, M.D. (1896–1969), was a Jewish writer, Hebraic scholar, and Talmudist. 2 The Maggid of Caro: The Mystic Life of the Eminent Codifier Joseph Caro as Revealed in his Secret Diary (New York: Pardes Publishing, 1949). Joseph ben Ephraim Caro (or Karo, 1488–1575) was a Jewish codifier born in Spain. He compiled Shulhan Aruk, a basic legal and religious code of orthodox Judaism. 3 The Levant is a region of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. Syria and Lebanon sometimes are called the Levant states. 4 Shylock is the avaricious Jewish money-lender in Merchant of Venice. 5 Averroës (or Averrhoës or Ibn Rushd) (1126–98) was a Spanish Muslim philosopher and scholar known for his commentaries on Aristotle, which influenced medieval Christian scholasticism. Maimonides (1135–1204), called Rambam, was a rabbi, physician, and philosopher born in Spain. His Guide for the Perplexed profoundly influenced Jewish and Christian religious thinkers. 6 Beatrice Cenci (1577–99), known as the Beautiful Parricide (from a portrait in Rome’s Barbarini Palace), was the daughter of Francesco Cenci (1549–98), a cruel viceridden Roman nobleman. With her mother and two brothers, Beatrice successfully plotted her father’s murder by hired bravos. Great sympathy was later aroused for Beatrice. Her story is the theme of Shelley’s tragedy, The Cenci (1819).

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To Ira Detrich Cardiff 4 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, = 1951 Rome, July 4th Dear Mr. Cardiff Never have I seen such a complicated report of the sale or disposal of a new book1 as is this report, which I enclose,2 as I am myself, and wish to be, entirely out of the picture. But I suspect that publishers have to make frantic efforts to launch their books, unless the author is already a public favourite. In the case of my new book, Dominations & Powers, of which Scribner’s had great hopes, they told me that the “advanced sales” were 4,000; but I suspect this meant not sales but “sales promotion” of some sort. However they never inform me of details, and know that I do not count on royalties for bread and butter. In this case, I tried at first to shake off all claims; and every “atom” of profit should go to you who have done all the work and watched the infant in its cradle. Perhaps books of selections or epigrams or “thoughts” are bought principally for Christmas presents to aged relations, most of whom the world forgets. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Atoms. Unlocated.

2

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 5 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, July 5, 1951 Dear Cory Mr. Wheelock has sent me the enclosed list of corrections,1 with two added by me from a list sent spontaneously by Lane, who takes a protective and paedagogic interest in introducing me to the British public and seems to be in negociations with the editor of the Times Literary Supplement about having a long review of my whole oeuvre published there on occasion of our new-book; and the said editor gently puts him off, saying that the matter is under consideration, awaiting the proposed

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issue (of Scribner’s sheets) by Constable “during this summer.” 2 This issue will appear, therefore, without any of these corrections, or most of them, as the sheets have already crossed the Atlantic. I tremble at the possibility that the review in question is to be written by Lane. He is a good interpreter of my philosophy, but with an imperfect knowledge of my background, both Spanish and American, and a French standard of form, with a half-educated British standard of propriety. You know he was a Board School teacher in the region of Birmingham before he turned to literature and philosophy. But perhaps this idea of writing a long article for the Literary Supplement is his aspiration, not the Editor’s intention. I have received, from the “poet” Jeffers with a very complimentary dedication a copy of his long poem “The Double Axe” with shorter pieces attached:3 and at the same time from my new friend Bruno Lind of San Antonio, Texas, a thick tome of Jeffers’ works,4 together with a book of Prof. Northrup of Yale on East and West. I had read this book, which shows that the author has travelled in the Far East, and studied in the academic or journalistic American way, with good intentions but no saturation in the Spirit of anything foreign. When I had just finished the book, with the vague optimistic peroration that was inevitable, I received a nice letter from a Western college signed Stewart Northrup asking for an autograph; and in sending this relic, I asked my young correspondent, if he was the son of Prof. Northrup of Yale, to give him my compliments on his book. Now I have a letter from the father himself, extremely friendly and complimentary. So that I feel encouraged about at least a part of American opinion about our book. Lind (mentioned above) says the embarrassment of Americans about me comes from the strange fact that I write well and say what I think. It is so odd! Let me know if you have any additional corrections to make, so that I may write them out in my copy for reference. I am well and happy in the warm weather. G. S. 1

Unlocated. This review was never published in the Times Literary Supplement. 3 Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) was an American poet known for a pessimistic philosophy he called “inhumanism,” probably inspired by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Lucretius, in which nature is exalted over mankind. His book referred to here is The Double Axe and Other Poems (New York: Random House, 1948). 4 The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers (New York: Random House, 1938). 2

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To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 5 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Estefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, 5th of July, 1951 Dear Lind Your article1—is it written by you in Spanish or translated by someoneelse?—especially the latter part of it, puts the “solution” of the present political problem that I suggest, but do not expect to have history exemplify. It is too simple and final, as the real solutions in history (or evasions and abandonments of a solution) never are. It would give a fairer notion of my philosophy to mention that I approach the question psychologically or biologically, by studying what the various real interests are in human life: and from that point of view, divide the just adaptation of our wills to physical powers from the impossible adaptation of them to a single ideal good or purpose which does not exist at all, either above the universe or at the root of all our natures identically. It is therefore my general philosophy that leads me to that “dichotomy” not my political hopes, which I think can only be specific and of short range. That is the point I should like to have made in explanation of my daring to propose a solution of our difficulties at all. There is an objection that I expect will often be raised to this dichotomy. I say that the economic and legal order can be justly imposed by science and an international disinterested police, while moral, social, and religious life should be free for every individual or group to develop separately, according to its taste and genius. But, as I myself have pointed out some where, we are more gregarious mentally than materially. A man may prefer to walk alone over the mountains, but he hates to stand alone in his principles or opinions. I may seem, in my book, to have overbooked this desire to be unanimous ideally. If you take notice of my proposal, however, you will find that I speak of “moral societies” “moral units” in the midst of a single economic and police system and control. Religions and liberal arts will all be social, both in space and time; but they will be many and not easily sympathetic to one another. The continuity of any ideal science or art binds the generations of religious and artistic minds of each sort together, as may their flocking together with enthusiasm in each age. I value “club-spirit” as much a “team work” but I want many clubs, many arts and kinds of music. G.S.

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Note: I hadn’t understood that it was you [across] that sent me Jeffers’ and Northrup’s books. The latter has not been duplicated; but by chance I have got into touch with him personally, through his son! And Jeffers himself has sent me a copy of his “Double Axe,” which I have read. Many thanks. 1

A review of Dominations appeared in La Prensa, a Spanish daily of San Antonio, Texas, on 26–27 June 1951. It had been translated from English.

To John Hall Wheelock 5 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, July 5, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock Thank you very much for this neat list of corrections for Dominations & Powers and I too am distressed that they should be so numerous; especially as many of them are corrections more or less optional the/ at I have made for defects in my verbal revision of the text before it was printed. But so long and so occasional a composition as that of this book was not favourable to a steady maintenance of the just style and key; so that comparatively bad expressions (not to speak of repetitions) would creep in, when the spirit flagged: and afterthoughts are not always improvements. Other really clerical errors escape me because I do not read the letters but only recognize (or think I recognize) the words or phrases. “Gestalt” philosophy must have been invented by a man who was going blind.1 A good eye sees the whole by still seeing all the parts, only in their relations not one after the other. For instance, I did not see the error in “demogogues”: it was my friend Lane who pointed it out: and yet in such words — whe— re my Greek is sufficient for me to feel that only dem- comes from demos and the rest from agora ago, agoreno,2 that really does the work. But Lane was originally a schoolmaster, and sees the spelling all the time for its own sake. I am sending to Cory one copy of your list, adding the two items ^ ^ which I send you on a separate slip; and I am asking him to let me have any further corrections that he may have noticed; but I am not sure that he takes notes of such trifles. However, I also send him your letter of June = on this subject, to stimulate his technical conscience, and the impor28th tance of attending to details if there should ever be an English reprint.

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Perhaps this book will not be liked in England as much as in the translations into other languages. Somehow there is a contraction in British sentiment on all subjects, corresponding to the contraction of the British Empire and the rich men’s incomes. Very homely sentiments and very safe opinions seem to be needed for shelter from the storm. But I like their historical books better than ever. For instance, the first volume of a History of the Crusades by Stephen Runciman3 inspires confidence and enlarges the interesting world to cover Byzantium and the early middle ages. Historians no longer seem to take sides on every question and to condemn or praise every person. What a relief! Yours sincerely GSantayana Further corrections for Dominations & Powers Page 67 96

line 3 from bottom. Insert comma after surmounted 7 from botton. for demogogues read demagogues G.S.

July 5, 1951. 1

Gestalt philosophy proposes that a phenomenon is greater than the sum of its parts; hence, the actions of individual parts become “invisible.” 2 Demos refers to the populace or to the democratic assembly of Athens; agora is a marketplace, a speaker at an assembly, or the assembly itself. 3 Sir [ James Cochran] Steven[son] Runciman (1903–2000) was an English author and historian. He is widely known for A History of the Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951–54), published in three volumes.

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To John W. Yolton 12 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, July 12, 1951 Dear Yolton, Feeling that you are a sort of unofficial pupil of mine now, I wish to answer the chief question put in your letter,1 which I think can be done in a few words. There can be, I should say, no morality where there is no nature determining the needs, demands, and innate aspirations of living creatures. If such a creature were the only one of his race or in his circumstances, his good or his duties could be based only on his own idiosyncrasies. If there are many, or a close sect, of similar creatures, the assurance with which each, if alone, would have distinguished his good or duty will be vastly intensified by the herd instinct confirming and solidifying that animal assurance. This is what happens to sects and nations of all sorts. But in society, while natural virtues are sanctified by unanimity, they are rendered sad and embarrassed by contradiction, and arguments are sought for persuading oneself and others that one is right and others wrong. But this is foolish. If each knows himself he knows what is good for him by nature, and he must ask others, as Socrates did, to say for themselves each whether his own heart has the same voice. My new book is out in America and I will have a copy sent to you. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Yolton had written to Santayana “seeking clarification upon two main points: (1) his conception of philosophy and (2) how, if at all, we can deal philosophically with moral systems (such as Nazi Germany) which seem to endanger the whole of civilization” (Letters, 413).

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To Morton Dauwen Zabel 12 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Newberry)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. July 12, 1951. Dear Mr. Zabel1 The doctor’s advice not to see visitors is not a moral imperative for me, and if you will excuse my invalid’s quarters and costume, I shall be glad to see you any day between 5 and 7 p.m. all the more that you have been inspecting Spanish America which I have never seen (preferring both Spain and America neat)2 but which nevertheless I am curious about, as a variation on the question of human uprootings replantings, and racial graftings about which I have some family experience and many doubts. Looking forward to the pleasure of hearing something of your impressions on that subject, I am Sincerely yours GSantayana 1

Morton Dauwen Zabel (1901–64), a professor of English literature, wrote numerous texts on methods in fiction and poetry. From 1928 until 1937, Zabel served as associate editor and then editor-in-chief of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Zabel was a professor of North American Literature at the National University of Brazil (1944–46 and 1953–54). 2 Straight up or undiluted.

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 18 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 18, 1951. Dear Rosamond Your letter, with the announcement of a granddaughter,1 had been preceded by a long and important one from Bob, which I will answer later, because it gave me, not only that pleasant news, but an entirely new picture of Bob, his work, his tastes, and his plans. For all this I was not prepared and must digest it before quite knowing what to think or say ^^ about it. But there are two points that I can talk to you freely about also raised by your letter and the copy of the Harvard Bulletin2 in which an

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inaccurate note appears about my views of American politics. The first point regards your little granddaughter’s name “Susanna”. Of course, at the first glance, I thought of my sister, whom Bob never saw, and you saw only in her decline; and I, with my chronological centre in the last century, think of her as a young woman. And I was surprised at the Latin ^ ^ or Italian spelling (I suppose the Hebrew is “Susannah”) which you have chosen; and Bob speaks of it as a beautiful fancy name, and seems to forget his great, great grandmother “Susan” Parkman,3 after whom his grand-aunt, my sister, and her five cousins “Susie” Sturgises were named. That seems to me a choir of family ghosts hovering over the cradle of the new “Susanna”, thinking that she has been named in their honour. And there was recently working at a bank in Arlington Street another Susan ^ ^ Sturgis, daughter of Roger, the son of Robert Shaw Sturgis of China and Philadelphia. The latter’s wife was one of those lovely “Susie” s and her ^^ daughter another still more lovely.4 But the name “Susan” we regarded as unfortunately ugly. The other point, I am rather sore about. Scribner asked for answers to six leading questions about politics to use in advertising my new book, and I answered two of them, one at some length, saying that those who spoke for the government often justified sending an army to Europe because, if Russia conquered it all, civilization and liberty were endangered even in America. If this was the only motive for helping Europe, I thought it inapplicable. And I made a little fable about two men in a boat, one of whom wouldn’t help the other if the latter couldn’t help himself. This was NOT, I said, the traditional spirit of Americans. But my way of putting things embarrasses critics; they don’t stop to think the point out, and damn it all, and me. I don’t think you would find a trip to Europe at present satisfactory: you are safer even if more “anxious” at home. Yours aff tly G.S. [across] P.S. The view of the square in Avila is a surprise. They have widened and modernized the grounds. The walls and gates are as they were. 1

Susanna Jordan Sturgis (b. 8 June 1951). The Harvard Bulletin (now the Harvard Magazine) was founded in 1898. 3 Susan Parkman (d. 1827) was the wife of Nathaniel Russell Sturgis (1779–1856) and mother of Santayana’s mother’s first husband, George Sturgis (1817–57). The five cousins included Susan Sturgis (1846–1923), daughter of James Sturgis (1822–88). 4 Robert Shaw Sturgis (1824–76) was another son of Nathaniel and Susan Parkman Sturgis. He was married to Susan Brimmer Inches (d. 1900). 2

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To Cyril Coniston Clemens 22 July 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, July 22, 1951 Dear Clemens I am sorry that the books that arrived long ago had slipped from my memory: they came when I was especially preoccupied and tired. I suppose the copy of Dominations and Powers is for me to autograph and return. I am doing so today. As to the proof of my article, if it is ready in time to allow for the airjourney from Saint Louis to Rome and back, I should be glad to see it and send it back at once.1 It would be better, as my style is not always familiar to the printers or readers Do as you like about turning this article into a “little” book. “Little” books are soon lost to sight; but if you think that people who do not see your review might like to find it in a handy, and cheap, form, I am only the more flattered. But the article in your Review would always be recoverable if some remote generation wished to unearth it Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The corrected proof of “Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote” is among the Cyril Clemens papers in the Perkins Library, Duke University.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 4 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 4th August, 1951 Dear Clemens This is a sympathetic review1 and has more “perspective” than most of them. But the portrait makes me think of an anecdote about Rossini being taken in Paris to hear Patti for the first time.2 The opera was The Barber of Seville; and Rossini after the second act went to compliment Adelina on her wonderful birdlike, pure, faltless, angelic voice, etc, etc., and then added, “But then the music: perhaps you can tell me whose it is. It is not bad; but whose is it? She replied, pouting: “Yours, Maestro: but I have

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modified it a little”. And the Maestro turned away in a huff. So I say: “But the portrait, whose is it?” And the editor might answer “Yours, Sir; but I have modified it a little: refined it.” G.S. 1

Of Dominations, by Ernest Kirschten in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Giacchino Antonio Rossini (1792–1868) was an Italian operatic composer whose Barber of Seville is a masterpiece of comic opera. Adelina Patti (1843–1919), a coloratura soprano, was born in Madrid of Italian parents. She became the most popular and highest paid singer of her day. 2

To Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop 10 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Yale)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, August 10, 1951 Dear Northrop Please don’t think, because I have not written before, that your so spontaneous and friendly letter did not touch in me a responsive cord. It did: but I thought “I am very old and Northrop must be very busy. We shouldn’t attempt to carry on a correspondence on an endlessly complex subject which we inevitably approach from different quarters, and may become entangled in verbal misunderstandings. Better wait a bit, and get a general perspective.” What made me like your book and like you from the beginning was that you saw the genuine diversity between East and West and even between America and England, and did not put it down as a fault in the other fellow. Yet you seem to regard this diversity as a misfortune. Why? Diversity would not create quarrels if each side minded its own business. Or do you think all mankind ought to possess the same virtues or even speak the same language? It would be a convenience in trade. But wouldn’t it impoverish the world? That covers the principal difficulty that I found in your philosophy. But there are accidental historical views in which I think you are too much the professor and not realist enough. For instance, Locke no doubt was what revolutionary people most read in the revolutionary period. But did Locke make them revolt? He was not a Puritan or Presbyterian, nor an Irish patriot. And has it been Hooker1 that has kept the Southern English attached to their national Church and made it become Higher and Higher

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during the last century? I am perhaps too biological in my psychology but I think that tastes and distastes suggest aesthetic and moral ideals, and people naturally read most the authors that flatter their prepossessions. I shy a little also at the use of the word “aesthetic” for that which the Indians, etc., oppose to appearances or to Illusion. It seems to me that it is not nebulosity in the landscape, as distinct from precision, but concentration in the transcendental, inner feeling of existence, the sleep surviving (as they think) all dreams, that they retire into. There is nothing “aesthetic” in deliverance or peace. I have read recently a very good book by Fosco Maraini, “Segreto Tibet,” publish ed by the firm “Leonardo da Vinci” at Bari, which has ^ ^ wonderful photographs and a very intelligent sympathetic text. It shows a Buddhism to be admired ascetically, but not adopted! Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Richard Hooker (c. 1554–1600) is regarded among the greatest of English theologians. His masterpiece is The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, a work in eight volumes. The work is acknowledged for its exquisite prose style and is reputed to be the first great work of philosophy and theology in the English language. In the work, Hooker draws on Aquinas in demanding that the English Puritans reform their Church government. Hooker strongly influenced John Locke, and he is quoted extensively in Locke’s famous Second Treatise of Government.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 15 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Rome, Aug. 15, 1951 Dear Clemens Here is the proof of my article, which had evidently not been corrected by anyone at the printers. I hope the revision made by my weak eyes may be clear and sufficient. I have not been well, and will read and return Isherwood’s article later1 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (1904–86) was a British-born American novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and playwright. At the outbreak of World War II (1939), he emigrated to the United States, where he became friends with Aldous Huxley and converted to Vedantic Hinduism. Isherwood’s article was “The Smile of Santayana,” Tomorrow 10:12 (August 1951): 51–53.

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To John Hall Wheelock 16 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 16, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock st Many thanks for the report of Aug. l– on financial matters. I see that 1 my first book (no doubt thanks to the attractive form you have now given it, continues to be the “best seller” of all of mine. Is that a sign of intellectual decline in me (or in the age) from 1895 to 1951? Seeing that my credit is more than I shall want to dispose of in America for the moment, will you kindly, if there are no obstacles to the transaction, send a cheque for $500 to Brown Shipley & Co Ltd. 123 Pall Mall, London, S.W.1. Or is it simpler to make the cheque out to me to be cred^ ited to my account? directly, and I can pass it on to B. S. & Co to be cred^ ited to — mythat account, which I don’t like to see extinguished altogether. It is a pleasant survival of Victorian times. I enclose a list of — ten nine more corrections (I hope the last) discovered to be necessary in Dominations & Powers. I had at first begun reading the later chapters, which I knew would be the most critically examined, and only afterwards turned to the beginning. Now that I have reread all as an outsider I have received the unexpected impression that Book II. especially Part 2, on Enterprise is the best,2 and might make a little book by itself! Yours sincerely GSantayana

Page 119 144 161 168 183 190 218 246 253 258

Dominations & Powers. Santayana Corrections line. For read 9 (f. bott.) constutional constitutional 17 ineviable inevitable 10 has had 14 scultpures sculptures 1 the same always a 10 (f. bott.) its it 7 after “sometime” insert comma 16 omit comma 15 that than 12 (fr. bott) reasorbed reabsorbed

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Rome, August 16, 1951 1

Beauty. Pages 245–91.

2

To Robert Shaw Sturgis 18 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Sturgis)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 18, 1951. Dear Bob Your great letter of some time ago introduced me (as I wrote to your mother) to a new personage. Your three visits during the war had left an unsatisfactorily vague image of your mind in mine; my deafness and your reticence (added to the fact that my contacts with the Sturgis family and yours, though both intimate, had been in different branches of it and at different dates) made it impossible for me to be sure of your character. You were very imposing and attractive as a big boy; but what would you be as an architect or philosopher? I remember laughing at that time and repeating what the fox in Lafontaine says to the crow: Sí votre ramage se raporte à votre plumage, Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ce bois, “ramage”1 in my version (which may be misspelled) meaning intellect, and “plumage” personal charm; but the “bois” stands only for my brother’s descendents, which hardly make a forest. Now at last, and not because of any flattery on my part, you have opened your mouth and splendidly removed all my uncertainties. You are a firmly-knit man, and yet, happily for you, are a man of your exact ^^ time and place That is as it should be in a distinct and enterprising society. So long as the Niagara you swim with flows steadily and victoriously, though you may have some anxious moments, you will on the whole have a glorious experience, even if you are not a distinguished leader. And on this point I was pleased to see very ancient wisdom sprouting unexpectedly out of your modern discipline: that you wish to work in a small city, where your objects and your taste will be that of your townspeople, and even of your workmen. I am expecting a book on small mediaeval houses in Monmouthshire which I will send you if it does not disappoint the expectations that the review I saw of it aroused.2 There is an instance of social unity creating and transforming a genuine local-art;

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and this in the architecture of the middle ages was as mutable as it can be in America. The only question that comes to my mind is whether American life is not too uniform to let even a small town be original in its transformations. And your model for the City Hall though utterly different from the City Hall in School Street that I think I remember, belongs to a universally emerging type, however original the details may be. I wish you joy in this and in other competitions. I suppose so large a work will not easily be assigned to a young architect whose hand has not already been tested elsewhere. Congratulations to you and Chiquita on the advent of Susanna. She comes at the right moment. Let me extend my love and good wishes to her also. GSantayana 1 If your warbling / corresponds with your plumage, / You are the paragon of the occupants of this wood. From Jean de La Fontaine’s “Le Corbeau et le Renard,” Livre I—Fable 2: “si votre ramage / Se rapporte à votre plumage, / Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ces bois”. A French poet, La Fontaine (1621–95) wrote Fables choisies, twelve volumes containing approximately 230 fables. 2 Monmouthshire Houses: A Study of Building Techniques and Smaller House-Plans in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries, Part I Medieval Houses (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1951), by Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan (Baron FitzRoy Richard Somerset Raglan). This book was reviewed in the article “Domestic Architecture,” Times Literary Supplement (20 July 1951): 455.

To John W. Yolton 20 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, August 20, 1951 Dear Yolton Your second letter shows me that you are probably older, and certainly more expert in dialectic, than I assumed when I rashly volunteered to tutor you. Your insights into the implications of my various views in natural science and in morals are individually clear; but why do you think they are incompatible? My book does not pretend to be a mere description, in physics or history; it is philosophical; that is, it selects and compares features in both directions, as they appear from a cosmic point of view.1 Now my cosmic point of view, from which I seem to myself to discover the origins and mutual relations of these chosen facts and judgements, is naturalistic. Description therefore envelops the sphere of

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preference scientifically, as preference, in each case, must envelop all the facts that it compares. You prefer my moral apprehensions to my scientific apprehension of morals in general, including my own morals; and so my naturalism seems to you to belittle all morality. It does, inevitably, belittle it in time and space; and in my personal opinion also in dynamic importance, since in my opinion all forces are inherently physical even when they carry ideal or passionate aims. But the prenatal history of morals, or all natural history, does not belittle morally any of its data. If you think so you are applying an economic criterion to vital facts whose value is intrinsic. It is because our modern world is obsessed with matter and trembling at its possible revolutions (attributed to moral magic) that it clings to that other cosmic point of view—proper to Judaism and to Platonism—that it is a moral aspiration or predestination that rules the world and that our efforts can accelerate that consummation. This tradition is conventionally dominant everywhere, so that my book, if understood as well as you understand it, must be generally condemned by the professionals. I expect that; and should become suspicious of vague or incidental compliments from the dominant quarter. But is this still dominant assumption still vital? It is in America at this moment, for patriotic and optimistic reasons. But in Europe it is otherwise, and I hope to make even many Americans aware of the natural roots of all sorts of goods and the special conditions making each sort attainable. I should be glad to answer special questions if you like, but I think you can easily answer them for yourself. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Santayana had sent Yolton a copy of Dominations, which Yolton read before sending Santayana a letter on 16 August 1951 (Letters, 416).

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 21 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Rome, Aug. 21 1951. Dear Cory Your coming is put off until rather later than I expected, but the date is really of no consequence, now that the launching of Dom’. & P’rs is

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done with, and we may wait comfortably for the after effects, which with not include any tornadoes or devastations nearer than Jamaica. That busybody, Clemens, has sent me al long well-printed review by a man named Christopher Isherwood in a Review called “Tomorrow”, apparently published in St. Louis, or in that region. It is rather competent in some directions, but quite incompetent in fundamentals. I think it must be a Catholic Review, but only the pages devoted to the “ambiguous” Mona Lisa of American philosophy” (which I am said to be called) were sent me, and I could not gather the general character of the publication.1 More interesting, in this connection, are two long letters from an American in Oxford John Yolton, who tells me that he is to write the criticism of Dom’. & P’rs. for Mind. He is as interested and intelligent as Lind but much better equipped in philosophy I suspect that he is loosely attached to the University at Oxford, not a member of any college, and not very young. For some time my digestion, etc., had been going from bad to worse until last week I had a positive seizure (which I described in my last) from which I have had a very slow recovery; until yesterday, on hearing that I had vomited my whole supper, Sabbatucci declared that I had a catarro gastrico:2 and now I am rather pleasantly recovering from that, by eating very little and that little mainly liquid. The doctor says that when the warm weather passes I shall feel better; which I most powerfully and potently believe. Lane, in spite of every discouragement I could [illegible ]offer to prevent him, is going to turn up next week. Scribner’s has sent me my account up to Aug. 1st=. “The Sense of Beauty” 1895, still is the “best seller” of my works; and I have over $2000 to my credit in N.Y. I have asked Mr. Wheelock to send me $500 to B. S. & Co to keep my account there afloat; and meantime I send you your Xmas present for your journey in pounds. I am glad Mrs. Cory is better and hope she may feel like returning to Rome. G.S. 1 At this time, Tomorrow was a monthly review published in New York and edited by Irish psychic Eileen Jeanette Garrett (1892–1970). It was aimed at a general intellectual audience, offering articles on public affairs, literature, art, music, economics, science, philosophy, and education, as well as original stories and poems. In 1952 it became a quarterly review of psychic research. 2 Intestinal catarrh (Italian).

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To Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov 21 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Lipinsky)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 21, 1951 Dear Mr. Lipinsky Since you were here my health has been undergoing changes for the worse in various directions, and now my chronic bronchial catarrh has become “catarro gastrico”, so that I am not really free to receive any visitors; and in their absence there has been little occasion to distribute the photographs of your drawing. I believe only one is gone, to a priest1 from Avila who came in the name of my relations still living there, and had to be received with Spanish conventions. I may be better, the doctor says, when the warm weather changes into a bracing sea-wind (which I am never aware of here); and if you and Mrs. Lipinsky are then walking by and feel like inquiring for me, I hope it may be at a moment when I may have the pleasure of seeing you. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Unidentified.

To John Hall Wheelock 24 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Aug. 24, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock I have no recollection of your previous letter about a somewhat condensed Life of Reason. The mere idea of having to revise those five little volumes would have imprinted itself indelibly on my mind. But if the task is committed to Cory or Edman it would be not only agreeable to me (because I feel a little ashamed of some characteristics of that book, which would be removed or at least acknowledged to exist) but revision would ^ be also an advantage to the book itself, which needs much pruning. As ^ to the choice of surgeons, for cutting out the bad things, I should prefer Cory (if he could be brought to do the work seriously) and also because

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the royalties which you justly think of assigning to the reviser would then go to him by right of work done as well as for the somewhat insecure heritage of my royalties in general, which in the contrary case would have ^ ^ to go to the real collaborator Edman would be a more zealous and reliable reviser: but, alas! I fear that he would retain everything I should wish removed; although to do him justice I think he would retain the good passages also. He might make—by leaving out superfluities, repetitions, and blunders only (say 500 pages) while retaining all the pragmatisms, dogmatisms, and vulgarities that I should have expunged—make a better historical and biographical document of the condensed book, representing the tone and cockiness of the 1890’s. Would this less select version not do better, as a publication, than an expurgated version by Cory and me—for if still alive I should want to help him, and consultations with him would be easy, as they would be difficult with Edman.1 Edman in any case would be the man to complete the Selections, as you propose, which would be improved by representing the later-phase of my interests.2 Cory now intends to come to Rome in October. If you think it worth while to suggest the abridgment of The Life of Reason to him first, please let me know. Otherwise I will try not to speak of this subject to him, as I might be tempted to do. It would be better for you to sound him, and form a judgment as to his working capacity if you do not in any case prefer to ask Edman, who, I am afraid, is the safer man. But he might decline two revisions, and Cory might wake up to do something brilliant! Yours sincerely G Santayana 1

Scribner’s published a one-volume Life of Reason (edited by Santayana and Cory) in 1953. 2 A revised and enlarged edition of The Philosophy of Santayana: Selections from the Works of George Santayana, edited and with an introductory essay by Edman, was published by Scribner’s in 1953.

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To John W. Yolton 29 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, August 29th 1951 Dear Yolton During the last few days I have not been well, or I should have answered your letter of the 24th at once; for I am interested in your getting my point of view straight, as you are perfectly able to do, no matter how unfamiliar it may be to you. A moral system, in my opinion, cannot be “bad”, since it is the good as revealed to the Primal Will which that system expresses; that is, if it is the genuine morality of that person or society. Jewish religion and its offshoots are not “bad” for being militant; they have to be militant because their “good” is partly material, such as prosperity, length of life, and personal immortality; and universal domination is a “good” in that system. If it were a spiritual system the question of universal domination would not arise for it, because spiritual goods, like correct grammar in one language, does not interfere with goodness in the different grammar of another language. Militancy, in other words, is not implied in the inflexibility of a moral regimen. The inflexibility comes from the truth with which it expresses Primal Will at home; it becomes “bad” for another phase of Primal Will, when it attempts to legislate for that other Will abroad. The third “Book” in Dominations and Powers is concerned with rationality in government rather than with moral rightness in precepts or ideals.1 Moral rightness has its credentials in nature. All life, if not all existence, has an intrinsic direction; it therefore evokes phantoms of good and evil according as things (or words) seem to support or impede its own élan. There can be no question, no possibility, of abolishing moral allegiance: only, when it breaks down in part, to get it together again rationally, in its own interests. If I seem to you to be condemning militancy or unification, it is only because, in my own heart, I love things that have grown perfect, and hate the ideas that sanction the ugly impulses that come to destroy those perfections. And there is an ultimate mystical aspiration (not personally strong in myself) that would really transcend good and evil. It would not make any type of existence dominant, but all, in their perfection, coexistent, as in the realm of truth. That all evils remain unexpunged there

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spoils this prospect for the moral man, with his vital specific standards. But it appeases the Primal Will, which bred all those goods and evils, by the lapse of Will itself, as in Buddhism and even in Schopenhauer. I have drawn a good deal from both. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. You might compare the chapter on Chivalry in my book with all this.2 Also the motto from the Upanishads3 at the beginning of the Realm of Spirit. 1

“The Rational Order of Society,” 295–466. “The Disappearance of Chivalry,” 204–8. 3 “He who knows Brahma advances towards Brahma everywhere. He comes to the lake of enemies; he crosses it by his mind. When they that know only the present come to that lake, they are drowned. … As one driving swiftly in a chariot looks down on the two wheels revolving, so he too looks down on day and night, on good deeds and evil deeds and on all the pairs of contraries. Free from good deeds, free from evil deeds, knowing Brahma, he advances towards Brahma” (Kaushitaki—Brahmana—Upanishad, I, 4). 2

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 31 August 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, Aug. 31st, 1951 Dear Mr. Cardiff Scribner has no item in his report of Dec. 1st= of receipts from The Philosophical Library,1 and if any appear later they will be so belated and so meagre that it might be absurd to make a fuss about them. I wanted you, who did the work, to receive the payment, however small; but if you also are indifferent, my instinct certainly is to do nothing. Your friend2 is not the only critic who is busy dividing me into two, and imagining a chronological and biological succession or alternation between the two demons. If your friend had read (intelligently!) my account of my boyhood and relation to religion at that time, he would not have needed to invent a perpetual contradiction or inhibition of rival beliefs in me. This is the chief error of fact in my critics. They are positivists; apparently know nothing of poetry, history, or religion except their physical obstructive presence as words, events, and ceremonies. But I never, not in my earliest boyhood, was superstitious. I never expected fictions to interfere with or prolong physical processes. In this sence I ^ ^

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never believed in another world that coexisted with this one. What I suffered from was distaste for this world, and liking in pure speculation, in ^ ^ a sort challenge, to say “Life is a Dream”.3 It was not the Bible stories or the Church dogmas that troubled me. I was perfectly at home with them; but being dreams, and exercising no compulsion over me or my actions, they were all more or less welcome, according to the imagination and emotion that belonged to them, as to Greek or Shakespearean tragedies The idea of your friend (and of all positivists) that it is the outside, the cultus, that attaches people to the Church is based simply on ignorance. Most Catholic crowds have little aesthetic perception; but they have dramatic sympathy; they feel the catharsis of the passions evoked, and the ceremonies merely stage the play that fills the imagination. But when people have no imagination (or take such as they have for true knowledge of fact) they cannot conceive anything of human importance, history, poetry, religion, or art, as anything but true or false reporting of physical events in our world. If our world was a dream (and so it actually is in its sensuous or imaginative dimensions) it will vanish for each of us when we die. Nothing will probably succeed it for us: but other dreams are probably present to spirit at other times, seeming other worlds. Our good dreams (or poetry) are, however, a part of our world, its best part, because they are focussed on what is, for us, most congenial. [across ] There is therefore no conflict in a dissillusioned mind, between science and poetry, or religion well understood. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The publisher of Atoms. Unidentified. 3 Likely a reference to the play La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), published in 1636 by Spanish dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681). In the play a prince, Segismundo, who has been imprisoned his entire life in a crude tower, is drugged and wakes in the splendor of his father’s palace. After an attempted attack on the king, Segismundo is once again drugged and returned to his prison. When he awakes, his jailor, Clotaldo, convinces Segismundo that his time at the palace was only a dream. Eventually Segismundo is freed and takes his rightful place as prince. 2

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To Robert Shaw Sturgis 21 September 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Sturgis)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 21 September, 1951 Dear Bob After some hesitation I have sent you the book about small medieval houses in Monmouthshire: there are to be two more volumes about Tudor and renaissance houses in the same region, which will no doubt be more interesting.1 The authors are not accustomed to write for the general public, and their text is meagre and repeats itself too much, without going into the picture of life in those houses, although they shyly refer to it. But they are professional lovers of structural detail and history, and that side of the book interested me and may please you, unless it seems too elementary. I had never before known of the primitive custom of roofing houses and halls by pinning together the two halves of a crooked oaken log, sawn lengthwise. It proves that the resemblance of gothic vaulting to a forest is not a romantic fancy only but a material inheritance. No longer having any set task before me I am reading a good deal of history and wish I were not too old to write on Some episodes, such as Alexander’s attempt to merge Asia and Europe more chivalrously than the Russians are attempting it now. Yours affectly GSantayana 1 Monmouthshire Houses, Part II Sub-Medieval Houses, c. 1550–1610 (1953) and Part III Renaissance Houses, c. 1590–1714 (1954) were written by Cyril F. Fox and F. R. S. Raglan and published in Cardiff, Wales.

To Lawrence Smith Butler 28 September 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, = September, 1951 Rome. 28th Dear Lawrence Your account of things seen and done in Rome1 is too much like an obituary notice of me, the Pope, St. Peter’s, and life in general. Very kind and sweet of them to be so nice to you, and of you to be so nice to them. If you were naughty like me, (and you are much younger) you would

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“chuckle” more and make a little fun of it all. However if you are going to print your impressions of travel and your observations about aged friends./ , /I it is certainly better not to chuckle, but to be always duly ^^ ^ ^ sensitive, appreciative, and uplifted. You are so, for the moment: only there is another side of things round the corner which a satirical philosopher can’t help being aware of, and chuckling in consequence. There is only one point, when I am in the picture, that perhaps you might clarify a little. On page 2, 7 lines from the top, when you write “there”, you are going to speak of Santa Sabina on the Aventine, the restored “basilica” that I (and the present school of Architecture at Harvard) admire so much.2 It is not where you were (except in Rome) a moment before At St. Peter’s, you speak of George Rauh’s going to see the Moses and the Pietà of Michelangelo; but only the Pietà is there, Moses is at San Pietro in Vincoli on the side of the Aesculine towards us, at the Celio.3 I am glad the visit to the Pope made such a pleasant impression on you. I often wonder, when I see in the Osservatore Romano, the long list of persons and crowds of pilgrims that he has received, I wonder how he can stand it. Having to say affably, to hundreds of people in turn: “Have you been long in Rome? Only two days? But you had been in Rome before? No? Well, you must hope to come again, etc, etc”, would make me resign the triple tiara and become a Trappist.4 This Pope is wonderful at the job: He must be a Job —[ chuckle —] . My chronic catarrh has ceased to be only bronchial and has become gastric as well. It spoils my appetite, and I shall die of hunger at a daily banquet, like Sancho Panza, only that the viands I can’t eat were never tempting.5 I get on on weak tea and biscuits (as Cory calls my fare); but the tea has plenty of milk in it, and the biscuits include shortbread, sent to me from Limerick by Mother Ambrose, our former head here. Your old friend GSantayana 1

Unlocated. The Santa Sabina is a church in Rome located on the Aventine hill. The church was built and named after the martyr Sabina by Pope Celestinus the First from 425 to 432AD. 3 The Pietà, a sculpture by Michelangelo [Buonarroti] (1475–1564), is located in St. Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo was commissioned in 1498 by Cardinal Jean Bilheres de Lagraulas to sculpt an image of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. It was completed for the Jubilee of 1500. San Pietro in Vincoli, a church in Rome, was built c. 442 A.D. Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses was completed in 1515 as a part of Julius II’s tomb. The Esquiline and the Celio (Caelian) are two of the famous seven hills. 2

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4 The Triple Tiara is one of the many names for the papal tiara worn by the Pope. “Trappist” is another name for The Order of Cistercians of Strict Order, a monastic family of monks and nuns who are known for their vow of silence. 5 In Don Quixote, a satire on the exaggerated chivalry of the seventeenth century, Sancho Panza is an ignorant rustic who serves as Don Quixote’s squire. The contrasting figures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the visionary idealist and the practical realist, symbolize the duality of the Spanish character. In Chapter XLVII, when Sancho Panza governs an island, he sits down to a feast of delicious food, but upon trying to eat, the physician waves a whalebone wand and orders the dish to be taken away before Panza can take a bite.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 3 October 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 3 October, 1951 Dear Lind Your letter of July 31st was answered at once, but I got it back after a longish interval, marked in red pencil “A better address” (“wanted”, understood). I compared the address I had written down with that in your letter and could (with my bad astigmatism) discover no difference. Yesterday, however, when I showed Cory the envelope and your given address, he saw at once that I had written 525 University Avenue instead of 325. I am sorry, as there were points in my reply to you that I ought not to have left apparently unanswered The Roberts1 mentioned in “Persons & Places” was a school friend of Russell’s, whom I saw only once in a room with other people, when he had become a teacher of mathematics in some school, but had been mentioned in Lady Scott’s first lawsuit against Russell with scandalous insinuations. My friend Roberts was much younger, one of my pupils about 1910, Thornton Roberts of New York,2 who had been at St. Pauls School, and afterwards spent a year or two at Christ Church, Oxford rowing for the College. He was a critical self-reliant man and not quite normal. His last letter to me was quite insane, and I never was able to trace him afterwards, and feared he might be in an asylum. In these last years, however, I have had a correspondence with a lady who said she was a niece of his, and asked for my sentiments and knowlege about him. He had been living in an obscure hotel on the West side of the Park, quite alone and friendless, and reported to take opium. A sad end, but one not impossible to explain

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in view of his constitutional solipsism. But he had very fine perceptions and insights about other people. I hope you will not go in your book3 into the possibility of my replacing Aristotle as the accepted pagan philosopher for Catholics. The Church is founded on Judaism; it accepts a naturalism with miraculous powers secretly controlling it, and controlling each soul. My naturalism does not admit a moral or humanistic control over the cosmos; and it puts spirit at the top, and accidental ultimate self-awakening of organic formations, themselves perfectly automatic. Spirit comes and goes in the world like dew in the morning. That is not compatible with the supernatural realism and monarchical theism of the Church. There is another friend of mine, Prof. Michele Petrone, who thinks that my views might, if understood, start a sort of new spiritual discipline; but I think they offer too sporadic and unfruitful a consummation to satisfy mankind. Nietzsche said: “The great question is whether mankind can Yours sincerely endure the truth.” 4 GSantayana 1

Mentioned on page 312 of Persons. Full name unknown. Probably Thornton Delano Roberts, a member of Harvard’s class of 1903. See letter of 29 May 1928. Thornton Roberts’s niece is unidentified. 3 Vagabond Scholar. 4 Paraphrased in Egotism, chapter 12 (page 128 in Dent edition). This is a recurring theme in Nietzsche’s philosophy, which can be seen in his Genealogy of Morals (Essay III), Ecce Homo (Preface), and Beyond Good and Evil. “How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare? more and more that became for me the real measure of value (Ecce Homo, Preface).” 2

To George Rauh 21 October 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 21st October 1951 Dear Mr. Rauh Although you conveyed the news with caution and little by little, it was a severe shock to hear of so unexpected and cruel an accident overtaking Lawrence at this time when he was so happily surrounded and in such an appreciative mood for enjoying all that is enjoyable at his age, as his notes on Rome showed, and unfortunately also his wanting to swim in what cannot have been very smooth water and (I should imagine) a rather

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steep beach. Luckily you were at hand and as always quick to understand what was happening and to help efficaciously. Give him my love, and tell him that I too hope he may come to Rome again, perhaps not next summer, because unless you two came on purpose to take a long sea voyage, straight to Naples, I think it would be better for him to take a complete rest, and travelling from place to place and country to country is always rather agitating and exacting. The year after, if I am still alive, would be better, especially if the political sky has cleared a bit as perhaps it may. As for me, I am running down hill very slowly and pleasantly and am almost as likely to weather two more years than one. I am not attempting to write anything more; but Scribner has proposed a new abridged edition of my old book (in 5 small volumes!) in one volume. To think how many foolish and rash things I shall be able to leave out from an old effusion of mine rather excites me. Cory will be the official and responsible editor, but he will let me do as much of the work as possible, and has revealed a good flair for pointing out what ought not to have been said; so that between us we expect to reduce the weight and rejuvenate the outlines of that old fogey much to his advantage. With this affair and the political events of the times, I think I shall have enough to entertain me for many months and to live to see you and Lawrence again. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 3 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 3rd November, 1951 Dear Clemens My humble apologies for the forgotten “Tomorrow Magazine” and the review of my recent book which you asked me to return. I read the article when it arrived, but forgot all about it and now it is nowhere to be found. I am sorry; but I hope this will impress on you (what I have asked before) not to send me articles or books or newspaper-cuttings to be returned. I have more to fill my supposed leisure than I have time for, especially as at my age current events leave little impression on the brain unless they can be attached to memories of 1890.

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As to a photograph for the pamphlet (it can hardly be more) of my little article on Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote, do as you please. I shudder at them all; but get rid of them, as far as I am concerned, if they are on the paper —cover fly or a detachable fly-leaf. It is of course a question of attracting the public eye and helping the sale; and a legitimate consideration for the publisher. Don’t mind me. The loss or profit of the issue belongs entirely to you. Yours sincerely G Santayana

To Jorge Guillén 3 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, November 3, 1951 Dear Fellow-exile,1 I am glad to hear that you are in Rome, and wish to see me. It will be a great pleasure for me, but probably a disappointment for you, as I am full of achaques de la vejez2—deafness, half-blindness, toothlessness, and loss of memory, especially for words, in all languages. They flow better from my pen than from my tongue. But you will be prepared for this in a man of my age, and we will manage in one way or another. If you could come on some Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday, you will find me alone rather than on the other days of the week, when I have an old friend with whom I am trying to prepare an abridged edition of The Life of Reason, at Scribner’s request. The afternoon after five is my best time, and I am always at home I have not heard of any “sonnets” of Lowell’s, but his romantic story The Mills of Kavanaugh is in stanzas of 16 lines, and may be what you have heard of. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Jorge Guillén (1893–1984), a celebrated Spanish poet, was an outspoken critic of the Franco regime. He moved to the United States in the late 1930s. Santayana and Guillén translated some of each other’s poems. 2 Infirmities of old age (Spanish).

1948–1952

To Vincent Holme (Scharmel Iris) 3 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Newberry)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo 6 Rome, 3rd November, 1951 Mr. Vincent Holme.1 Lewis College, Lockport, Illinois. Dear Mr. Holme Immediately on the receipt of your letter and of these poems on Spain, I have read them all, and felt that they have much feeling and strength. But what is Spanish in them is only the mise en scène2 and external. The poor in Spain are particularly appealing, and misfortune, political and private, has always seemed to be present there, as tragedy is in Spanish popular music, beneath the frankly comic or frivolous surface. But poverty and suffering are found everywhere, and the mere expression of them in terse language does not represent the special temper of Spain. I have never come upon any English-S/ speaking person who understood this temper—Spain is a Christian country, with a tincture of Islam in it. It is unworldly. Its religion and philosophy (when it has a native philosophy) express a second birth, a revulsion from ordinary life. Foreigners in Spain are not likely to catch that aspect of feeling, Americans least of all. Iris does not catch it. For example, in the poem entitled El gran Poder,3 the bullfighters praying before a crucifix before they risk their lives in the ring, if they were praying merely for safety or victory might have prayed to the Virgin Mary or to Saint Expeditus, who helps people to pass examinations or succeed in trials of any kind. But they choose Christ on the Cross, Christ dying. That, I should say, indicates that they are praying for a happy death, for readiness to offer up their lives, as Christ offered his, or as the “Good Thief” did, and heard that he would be that day, with Christ, in Paradise.4 Paradise would not be at all like Andalusia.5 It would be the end, the happy end, of all that. If this element of self-surrender (not for any earthly benefit, even for others) but for salvation, is wanting, the soul of Spain is wanting. Now if I wrote a “Foreword” for these poems it would amount to an acceptance of them as a true appreciation of Spain. It seems to me the opposite: a foreign appreciation of Spain, in the classes where its spirit is

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human and appealing perhaps, but not characteristically Spanish. It is unChristian, not reconciled to inevitable surrender of everything. I therefore cannot appear to accept these poems as really Spanish at all Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Vincent Holme was a pseudonym used by Scharmel Iris (b. 1889), a minor American poet who published several volumes of verse and taught English at Lewis College. The pseudonym was used in dealing with publishers or seeking opinions of his work: he thought he would receive franker advice if his correspondents did not realize they were dealing directly with the author. His Spanish Earth (1964) contains poems with Spanish settings or subjects. It was published with an epilogue including distorted quotations from this letter that suggested that Santayana liked the poems. 2 Setting (French). 3 “The Great Power” (Spanish). 4 Luke 23:39–23:43: “And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” 5 Andalusia is the southernmost region of Spain, crossed by the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Morena and by the Guadalquivir River. Its climate is subtropical, and its soil very fertile. However, it has much rural poverty.

To Richard Colton Lyon 11 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome Nov. 11, 1951 Dear Dick, It is a relief, as well as a positive pleasure, to hear that you are happily settled in Clare College1 and that England has not rubbed you the wrong way. Your early thoughts of becoming a clergyman may have prepared the soil somewhat for the seeds of Anglican culture to fall on favourable ground. It doesn’t seem to surprise you, as it did Professor Northrop of Yale (with whom I have been having some correspondence) that people’s minds should be aware of a historic past. Apropos of that I have read somewhere that past and future (and things remote generally) must be driven from a mind wholly absorbed in present events. It is a pity, because then they can hardly see those events justly. The wider background produces that serenity which you notice in English views. And I am glad that

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Clare pleases you architecturally. As to the change in your studies, I see a good side in it. Locke is not a great philosopher, but he had a great influence and cannot be overlooked. Observe in particular how he shifts the meaning of the word idea from a clear and distinct image of Descartes, or “given essence” to a passing perception. The false assumption that a passing perception is a clear and distinct unit of existence passes to Berkeley and Hume, and makes the verbal atomism2 of the present day possible in England. It has no hold elsewhere, as far as I know. As to Leibniz and especially Spinoza for you, next year, I don’t think them at all out of place. On the contrary they are all the more necessary for you, as classics, on the highroad of speculation, in that you have no Latin and Greek. The English and German philosophy that we have become accustomed to is not normal. They are both, though differently, subjective, and therefore on a by-path in nature, the English being only literary psychology or autobiography and the German moralistic mythology. Leibniz’ Theodicy3 is an intelligent abstract of Christian doctrine, exhibiting what it would be if it were essentially scientific, whereas it is essentially moralistic, so that its inspiration is missed, while its dogmas are harmonized as much as possible. Spinoza does much the same thing for the natural universe. He misplaces nothing, but draws it all in purely intellectual concepts. He is a great master. There is a man at Oxford, named Yolton or Yorlton who has written to me about some points to be cleared up in my views. He is to write the review of Dominations & Powers in “Mind”. If you hear anything about him (he is an American) I should like to know it. Cory tells me that he belongs more or less to the verbal set. I hope you are making friends: it is a great help to acclimating oneself in a new country; and I send you a Xmas present to help you feel a little freer during your holidays. I have not been very well this year, but the changes are not important on the whole and I feel the relief of not having a book to finish. Yours GSantayana 1

Clare College of Cambridge University was founded in 1326. Verbal atomism recalls the logical atomism of Russell at the beginning of the 20th Century. Russell’s logical atomism took as basic certain categories of items which were then used to construct by logical means items in other categories. Russell came to understand these basic items as sense-data or direct, subjective sense impressions. Russell’s logical atomism emphasized logical analysis as a means to determine basic elements, and this analytic methodology greatly influenced philosophy throughout the century including, for example, the work of Rudolph Carnap and G. E. Moore. 3 Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal (Amsterdam, 1910). 2

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To John Hall Wheelock 23 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 23rd of November, 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock Cory and I have now gone over the first two volumes of The Life of Reason, he in the ordinary edition and I in vol. III of the Triton edition.1 He seems as yet not to have marked systematically the parts he thinks may be omitted, but seems to feel vaguely that the abridgement can be made satisfactorily. We both, however, have found the text better than we expected: a little cocky and flighty, as if “we had settled all that”, by/ut easy to read for the most part, and clear. I have been more consciencious, and find that I have marked one third of vol. I,2 and one sixth of vol. II3 to be cut out. I am afraid at this rate we should not succeed in reducing the text to the requisite limits for one popular volume. But I will now mark vol. IV. of the Triton Edition4 as severely as my paternal heart allows, and afterwards look over the part already marked to see if more pages and paragraphs cannot be condemned. My ambition would be, without trying to disguise the juvenility of The Life of Reasonx, to remove a confusion into which it falls in places in talking as if the subjective aspect of mind were ultimate and excluded its ^ ^ objective or self-transcendent intent and actual value: for the world we live in and see is one we have been born into and shall be buried in, not one in our heads. And as this realistic conviction is generally present in the text, I think that we should not be misrepresenting its philosophy by removing or correcting the occasional passages where the sound view seems to be contradicted. In vol V,5 moreover, Cory and I agree that the cock-sureness about “mechanism” and “progress” should be mitigated and brought up to date. Many thanks for the reviews of Dom. & P’rs which you have sent me. Alain Loeke’s,6 who I think was once a pupil of mine, is well-disposed but suffers horribly from the usual need of seeing everything as a contemporary political question, on which everybody should be on the right (one’s own) side. Edman’s review7 is also friendly and fluent; and I am well pleased on the whole with the British reviews that I have seen, especially with Prof. Oakeshott’s in the Spectator.8 The one in The Times Literary

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Supplement9 suffered from ignorance of my philosophy, but I liked its playful tone, and felt well treated. Now that Christmas approaches, may I ask you to repeat the favour done me in these last years and to send $500— to Mrs. David M. Little, Weston, Mass. (Mrs. Rosamond Little in the cheque) with my best wishes? And will you kindly have the enclosed slip10 pasted in a copy of The Last Puritan and sent to the attached address? Yours sincerely GSantayana [in margin] xI was over forty. A copy of The Last Puritan, with the enclosed slip pasted in it, to be sent to [typed: ] THE JOHN ERSKINE LIBRARY—Dijon, C /o Rene de Messieres,11 French Cultural Counselor, 934 Fifth Avenue New York 21, N. Y. 1

Common Sense and Society. Common Sense. 3 Society. 4 Religion and Art. 5 Science. 6 Alain Leroy Locke (1886–1954) was an American philosopher and critic who received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard (1918). He was the first AfricanAmerican to win a Rhodes Scholarship, receiving a B.LITT. at Oxford (1910). He chaired the department of philosophy at Howard University from 1917 to 1925 and again from 1928 to 1954. He was active in the Harlem Renaissance and as part of that movement he edited The New Negro (1925), an anthology of articles, stories, poetry, spiritual songs, and pictures. His review of Dominations was entitled “Santayana,” in Key Reporter 16:4 (1951): 4–5. 7 The New Yorker (25 August 1951): 74–78. 8 Michael Joseph Oakeshott (1901–90) was born in Chelsfield, Kent, England, educated at Cambridge, and taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and the London School of Economics. He was a philosopher and political theorist whose ideas tended to be conservative and pragmatic. His main philosophical work was Experience and Its Modes (1933). The Spectator was an English weekly periodical started in 1828. Oakeshott’s review of Dominations appeared in The Spectator (2 November 1951): 578. 9 “Soliloquies in Rome: George Santayana’s Latest Work,” Times Literary Supplement (12 October 1951): 637–38. It was written by Ernest Barker (1874–1960), a retired professor of political science. 10 Unlocated. 11 Unidentified. 2

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To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 25 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 25 Nov. 1951. Dear Rosamond Christmas is approaching and I am writing to Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s asking him to send you my prosaic present, as on recent years he has been kind enough to do. Don’t send me flowers, as they are rather wasted in my little room, which is crowded with books and tables, and not meant as a stage setting for poetry and phif/losophical vistas, as ideally it should be. But many years ago I gave up all dreams of finding beautiful quarters and surroundings. They would prove more a burden and a tether than a stimulus to pleasant thoughts Possessions, when I was younger were a nuisance for one who wanted to travel, and in time to return regularly to a fixed circle of chosen places, easily reached, as were Rome, Venice and Cortina; and now that I am in the last stage of my journey what I enjoy without qualification is to read, especially history. I have just finished (in three days, as if it were an exciting novel, a long book by a man named Brandon on the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and its effect upon Christianity, which he thinks was decisive.1 And the excursuses in Toynbee, which I had skipped on first reading his six volumes, are better than his text, and almost inexhaustible. You travel all over the world and through all ages without leaving your den. This is what most of the critics of my “Dominations & Powers” evidently never do, for I notice that they are blind to everything except current events and current questions, as if they could have any true vision of such things if they were ignorant altogether of the world in which these things arise and pass away. Another, but perfectly normal difficulty that my critics have is that they don’t know my philosophy, which is not an arbitrary “creation” of my fancy but simply the result or sediment left in my mind by living. For that reason I am compelled to imply and to illustrate it in all I say about anything; so that if they have a different philosophy or no philosophy laid up in their minds, of course they cannot see how what I say hangs together. A critic who has seen this is Oakeshott in the London Spectator. My health is naturally getting worse and worse along the old lines, and, by the way, I should like one or two more of those Benezedrex Inhalers

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that you mention. They help to check the flow of my catarrh at certain troublesome moments. With love and Xmas wishes for all the family from GSantayana 1 Samuel George Fredrick Brandon (1907–71) was an author and professor of comparative religion with an interest in the faiths of the Near East. He taught at Victoria University of Manchester from 1951 until his death. He wrote The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church: A Study of the Effects of the Jewish Overthrow of A.D. 70 on Christianity (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1951).

To Corliss Lamont 28 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. 28 November, 1951 Dear Mr. Lamont, I have not reread my “Three Philosophical Poets” for many years, perhaps never as a whole since its day, and I don’t know what I should say about the book now. But there is one qualm, or sense of guilt, that has sometimes come over me regarding the treatment of the third poet, Goethe.1 Professor Norton, at Harvard, when he spoke to me, of course very gently, about it, once added: “But why did you choose Goethe for your third poet?” and the sadness of his voice warned me that I had done “very wrong” There was, he said, more and better philosophy in Shakespeare: “Poor ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang”.2 I have often tried to define Shakespeare’s “philosophy”, after noticing the strange absence of religion in him; but perhaps he might be set down for a Humanist or Naturalist of our sect, his ghosts and witches and Ariels3 being wise, sceptical inclusions of mad dreams actually visiting distracted minds. But as to Goethe I remember that I excused myself to Norton by saying that the sworn allegiance to Life, bring it what it may bring, was a romantic philosophy, justifying egotism which the Germans had really made into a philosophy. I never liked this “totalitalian” love of life of all sorts; but there it was pictured in Faust,4 also in Hegel and Nietzsche; and I had felt that I must try to do it justice. I afterwards really tried to do it justice in “Egotism in German Philosophy”, especially in the second edition with its epilogue; but when I wrote the “Three Philosophical Poets” I had not got to the bottom either of the animal courage or of the irrational obedience to impulse that

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romantic passion implies and lives out dramatically. I was therefore a bit embarrassed in presenting Goethe as a great Spokesman for an inferior cause, not wishing to dishonour the great man that everybody at that time seemed to exalt. It was an embarrassment due to my still too foreign view of Goethe, taking him superficially, in order not to seem prejudiced against him. I remember my friend Strong saying, when we were talking about this, that Goethe’s morality turned out altogether inferior to Dante’s. I agreed; but I had not clearly perceived, or dared to assert, that it was so, when I wrote the book. Is the American attitude to the world today the same as Faust’s at the end of the second part, when he colonizes the Dutch or Flemish coast? I wonder. I should be sorry to think so. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The three poets are Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe. This is a famous line on mortality from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 (1609), widely considered one of the best English-language poems. 3 Ariel is a sprite in Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest. Enslaved to the sorcerer Prospero, Ariel assumes various forms in order to manipulate the other characters. 4 Goethe published Part One of his play Faust in 1808; Part Two was published in 1833, after his death. Faust is an old scholar who yearns to comprehend all experience. In order to do so, he promises his soul to a destructive tempting spirit, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles promises to show Faust the “small world” of personal feeling and experience and the “great world” of history, politics, and culture. This results in the seduction and tragic death of a young girl in Part One. In Part Two, Faust tries to conquer nature itself by reclaiming land from the sea; at the end, Faust’s soul is rescued by a choir of angels. 2

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 29 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, 29 November, 1951 Dear Lind I have been, and am, rather ill, and I don’t remember whether I have answered your letter of October 29 th with its interesting personal news and questions. But I feel like straightening out a little, even if I have already written something about it, the relation of myself and my family feelings to “The Last Puritan”. That book contains all my experience of human life and character. But the moral “essences” are manifested in

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entirely different circumstances and careers than those in which I “intuited” them. For instance, Oliver’s choice between his father and mother is a free choice. Both careers were open, and he chose the less alluring one because he was a Puritan. I had no real choice. Staying with my father in Spain was impossible, and he never proposed to me, although ideally, if it had been possible, both he and I would have preferred it. For Oliver it was a sacrifice, not for his mother’s sake, as you see later, in the scenes in the steamer returning to America after his father’s death. He had and he showed no sympathy with his mother but bitterly enjoyed defeating her plans. The relation between Peter and his wife was emotionally based on that between my father and mother, but historically the two cases are contraries. He had the money in the novel; she had it in real life, what little there was of it. But my father, if he had been very rich and yet independent of the world (which would not have been possible in Spain where there were a few rich landholders with complicated family and political duties, like the Duke of Alba, whose agent for the province of Avila was my brother-in-law,1 but no free capital)/ists)—if my father had been rich he would have lived much as Peter did, and would have behaved towards me as Peter did to Oliver. But I was more like my father (and like Peter) ^^ than Oliver was like his: for he really was more like his mother, only genuine and not sham in his virtue. And my mother was not like his. She was silent and indifferent in minor matters, and stoical. But the absence of affection all round was the same in both mothers and in both husbands and both sons. You will do right if you see the shadow of myself and my family in the book, but must not assimilate the circumstances. It was perhaps exactly a reversal, in a dream, of the circumstances of my life, while preserving the characters, that produced the novel. Mr. Wheelock, of Scribner’s, has induced Cory and me to undertake making a one-volume work out of the five vols of “The Life of ^ ^ ^ ^ Reason”, revised and abridged. I have now read half the book and marked 1/3 of vol. I, and 1/6 of vol. II, to be removed; and vol III is even less deserving of mutilation. We both find the thing better-written than we had supposed; but we must nerve ourselves up to condemn whole pages and chapters, as well as all the overworked words of that day: experience, practice, progress, consciousness, etc. “Creative” luckily was not yet the fashion. [across ] Congratulations on your new family life.2 GSantayana

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1 Don Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Falcó (1876–1953), the seventeenth Duke of Alba, inherited the titles of Don Carlos Maria Isabella Stuart (1850–1901), his father and sixteenth Duke of Alba, after his sudden death. Celedonio Sastre Serrano of Ávila, Spain, married Santayana’s half sister Susan on 26 November 1892. 2 Lind’s father had recently retired and moved in with him (Vagabond Scholar, 157).

To Richard Colton Lyon 29 November 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 29 th of November, 1951 Dear Dick I am troubled by the memory that I addressed my letter to you of some time ago, (Nov. 11, I think) only to Clare College, Cambridge, leaving out Memorial Court, 0–6, which according to my old habit in addressing members of colleges was superfluous. But times have changed, and perhaps one Porter’s Lodge is not enough, and my letter is waiting at the Head-Porter’s. If this is possible, please go to this dignatary’s and ask for it, showing the present envelope as a proof of your identity and my repentance. I have been rather ill with a complication of my catarrh, but am being well nursed, and entertained three evenings in the week by Cory, who is settled in Rome for the winter. I find him more interested than formerly on good subjects, like the origin of Christianity and history in general, so that our conversations need not revert always to the ways of my old friend Strong, whose secretary or pupil he used to be also. With best Xmas wishes from GSantayana

To Mercedes de la Escalera 6 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Vía Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6.—Roma, `6 de diciembre de 1951. Querida Mercedes:1 Alberto y su hermano2 menor, pero más alto y ya vestido de sacerdote, estuvieron aquí la otra tarde y me entregaron el turrón u otro dulce de Navidad de tu parte, el cual agradezco mucho, aunque no sé si me conviene regalarme con dulces tan sustanciosos cuando el

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estómago no vale ya más que para digerir leche y galletas. Por lo demás, a pesar de la tos que a ratos me molesta mucho, me dice la gente que estoy muy bien de salud y de humor para un viejo de 88 años, que cumplo en pocos días. Y es cierto que estoy satisfecho de haber terminado el que será mi último libro y de no tener otra ocupación fija que me preocupe. Paso el día leyendo (con cristal de aumento) y hablando con las personas que me vienen a ver, sobre todo con un antiguo amigo, Daniel Cory, americano que vive ahora en Inglaterra, pero viene a Roma a pasar el invierno. El mundo está muy revuelto ahora, pero yo no creo que nos espere ninguna catástrofe de las que ya hemos sufrido. Aunque los rusos nos invadieran no sería, como dicen los oradores políticos, el fin de la civilización. La civilización no ha sido nunca perfecta, ni ha dejado jamás del todo de existir. En todas las épocas ha habido desgracias y se ha divertido la gente joven. Los americanos han cambiado mucho en estos cuarenta años, desde que yo abandoné el nuevo paraíso terrenal que ellos creen que poseen. Todos allí dicen que todo ha mejorado mucho, pero yo creo al contrario: que en aquel tiempo era más culta la buena sociedad americana; se podía pasar allí muy bien la vida, y se venía con calma a pasar largas temporadas en Europa. Ahora vienen y van a escape, y no gozan de lo que aquí todavía se puede gozar. No cabe duda de que la civilización liberal y aristocrática del tiempo de la reina Victoria (¡de Inglaterra!) ha pasado, y que ha decaído mucho el tono de la sociedad. Pero es lo que se deseaba: la democracia; y a pesar de la democracia vigente se puede gozar de muchas cosas en este mundo. Lo que a mí más me gusta e interesa ahora es la historia, y los historiadores de hoy día son excelentes. No elocuentes y falsos como los liberales, pero científicos y exactos en lo que cabe. Te felicito por contar 96 años: eso es como ganar una partida; pero yo no aspiro a tanto. Sea lo que Dios quiera. Saludos y recuerdos a todos de Jorge. 1 Translation: Dear Mercedes: Albert and his brother, who is younger but taller and already dressed as a priest, were here the other afternoon and brought me the nougat or other Christmas candy from you, for which I thank you very much, although I don’t know if it is good for me to indulge myself with such rich sweets now that my stomach is only good for digesting milk and crackers. For the rest, in spite of the cough which at times bothers me very much, they tell me that I am in good health and mood for an old man 88 years of age, which I will reach in a few days. And it is true that I am satisfied with having finished what will be my last book and not to have any other fixed task to worry me. I spend the day reading (with a magnifying glass) and talking with the people who

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come to see me, above all with an old friend, Daniel Cory, an American who now lives in England, but comes to Rome to spend the winter. The world is all in turmoil now, but I don’t believe that any catastrophe such as those we have already suffered awaits us. Even if the Russians invaded us, it would not be, as the political orators say, the end of civilization. Civilization has never been perfect, nor has it ever ceased to exist completely. In all eras there have been misfortunes and young people have continued to enjoy themselves. The Americans have changed much in these forty years, since I left the new earthly paradise which they believe they possess. Everyone there says that all has gotten much better, but I believe on the contrary, that at that time good American society was more cultivated; one could spend one’s life very well there, and one could come calmly to spend long periods in Europe. Now they come and go at breakneck speed, and they don’t enjoy what one can still enjoy here. There is no doubt that the liberal and aristocratic civilization of the time of Queen Victoria (of England!) has passed, and that the tone of society has declined very much. But it is what people wanted: democracy; and in spite of the democracy that now exists one can enjoy many things in this world. What pleases and interests me most now is history, and the historians of today are excellent. Not eloquent and false like the liberals, but scholarly and exact as far as that is possible. I congratulate you on being 96: that is like winning a game; but I don’t have any such aspirations. Let it be as God wills. Greetings and regards to all from 2 Albert’s brother is unidentified.

To Conde de Marsal 15 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Sastre Martín)

Roma, 15 de Diciembre, 1951 Excmo Sr. Conde de Marsal1 Presidente del Patronato Nacional de San Pablo Madrid Muy señor mio y distinguido amigo2 He recibido su apreciable carta y el ejemplar de la Crónica del Patronato Nacional de San Pablo, obra que he leido con sumo interés admirando el selo con el cual trabaja esa institución a fin de mejorar la condición de presos y detenidos, de sus familias y de sus hijos, y sobre todo de plantar nuevamente en el ánimo de estos últimos las nobles tradiciones españolas. Dándole sinceras gracias por este obsequio, le ruego me crea siempre s. a. s. s.3 Jorge Santayana Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Roma.

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1

Unidentified. Translation: Dear sir and distinguished friend I have received your esteemed letter and the copy of the Report of the National Foundation of Saint Paul, admiring the zeal with which this institution works to better the condition of prisoners and detainees, of their families and their children, and above all to instill freshly in the minds of the latter noble Spanish traditions. I give you sincere thanks for this continued work, I beg you believe me always your obedient servant 3 Suyo afectísimo seguro servidor (or su atento seguro servidor ). 2

To Ira Detrich Cardiff 16 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec. 16, 1951. Dear Mr. Cardiff. It was very kind and friendly of you to send me this cablegram with = birthday. In theory, I hardly think it deserves congratulations on my 88th congratulation, at least not in the opinion of Ecclesiastes1 and other old fogeys with whom I should like to be numbered. But in my excep^ ^ ^ ^ tional case the usual illusions of youth and disappointments and crotchets of old age have, I think, been reversed in a great measure. I was solitary and in opposition to my surroundings when I was a boy, and now I feel that the world and I, though both far from sound in body, understand one another and that it would be absurd to have expected and demanded that we should have been perfect. I am perfectly ready, however, and entirely willing to part company with the world, as it enormously is in regard to me; so that a sort of satisfaction in comic absurdity on our respective parts seems to reconcile us to have been and to be what we are and to part ^ ^ company. I am not in good health; but my uncomfortable moments are occasional only, and my general mood cheerful and filled with interesting public and literary events. Therefore I accept your congratulations with thanks and corresponding good wishes GSantayana 1

Santayana could be referring to Ecclesiastes 6:6 (“Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?”) or Ecclesiastes 11:8 (“But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.”) See also 19 December 1951 and 24 December 1951.

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To Justus Buchler 18 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Brooklyn)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Dec. 18, 1951 Dear Mr. Buchler I am glad to hear from you again and to see that you are a member of the Philosophical Faculty at Columbia. As to an enlarged edition of Obiter Scripta the project seems a rational one and anything that seems to you appropriate can be included by obtaining permission from the first publisher.1 I should particularly like to see my essay on “Bishop [illegible ]Berkley” 2 brought to the attention of American students taught to climb the ladder Locke, Berkeley, Hume as the normal ascent to heaven. But what is “Tragic Philosophy”?3 I don’t remember, but whatever it is, I repeat that I trust your judgment what every your general theory of judgment may be, which I shall examine your book4 to discover—for which many thanks There is a little paper, which ought to have appeared or to appear soon in England in a book by various authors entitled “What I Believe”, my contribution being is called “The Wind and the Spirit”. It is a miniature cosmology and semi-poetical, but different from anything else of mine. The editor, Sir James Marchant, is apparently an Evangelical missionary and very enterprising but rather erratic. This particular collection was to have appeared before last year’s Christmas. When I wrote inquiring what was the cause of the delay, I received a vague answer accompanied by a cheque for £20, and have heard nothing since on the subject. Sir James evidently thought I was impatient for payment, whereas what I wanted was only liberty to let my friends see this little skit which may show how my physics finds a place for the Spirit. Excuse this unnecessary rambling into details of no importance, but I am annoyed at having my obiter scriptum5 held up, when I should like you to get hold of it. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

“Scribner said that the current state of ‘the Santayana market’ didn’t permit a new edition” (Buchler, in a letter to William G. Holzberger). 2 “Bishop Berkeley (1685–1753),” Triton Edition, volume 7 (1937), 203–16. 3 First published in Scrutiny 4 (Cambridge, England, 1936): 365–76. Reprinted in the Triton Edition, volume 2 (1936), 275–88.

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4 Toward a General Theory of Human Judgment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951). 5 Incidental writing (Latin), the singular form of “obiter scripta.”

To Richard Colton Lyon 18 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Dec. 18, 1951 Dear Dick Your letter, dated the 12th and post-marked the 14th reached me only today, and I see that you are to arrive in Paris tomorrow. I therefore hasten to send you a line at once, as I shall be without knowledge of your address after you leave Paris. It was a relief to hear from you, as I was afraid you might be seriously ill, or somehow in trouble. The hobbies of the contemporary Dons are not to be taken seriously. There is probably a native and a traditional wisdom that will shine through it in them when you become accustomed to the affectations on the surface. It is the reading of the standard philosophers, even Locke on account of his influence, to be detected and discounted in Western politics and philosophy. But the others—Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, and Spinoza are geniuses in themselves, and masters for us even in their imaginary universes. It is a great lesson, as I think of those who become Catholics, to have reached a solution. That it is a limitation to halt there is not a denial of the glory of having reached a universal point of view. It is glorious to reach a mountain-top, though impossible to live there. I should not advise you to try to see too many places, or to hurry away from one that attracts you and makes you feel at home in a new medium That is one of the merits of Paris itself Marseilles on the contrary is not, at least in my experience, a place to linger in. Dijon would be better, or the Provencal cities that you probably have in minds. These not very populous old towns were once centres of life and art. If you happen to go to Arles and to the Museum there, do look about and see if you find a bust of Antinöus, the favourite of Hadrian, and if it still stands, as it did in 1895, in front of a painting of the Crucifixion in a large landscape. That was a striking conjunction for me, and I wrote a sonnet about it that will appear among my “Posthumous Poems.1 The bust is the replica of one that you will see in the Louvre in a conspicuous position

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Let me know where, if anywhere, you decide to stay for some time. Wouldn’t the Riviera, say Nice, be a good place? Other wise I shall not be able to write to you in time to make any suggestions. I am glad my present is proving useful and you may count on one for your Easter holidays also. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

This book actually was titled The Poet’s Testament: Poems and Two Plays. “At Arles” appears on page 10 (Complete Poems, 266–67). Antinoüs (c. 110–130), a page in the court of the Roman emperor Hadrian (A.D. 76–138), was noted for his youthful beauty, and he became the emperor’s lover in the Hellenistic tradition of pederasty. After Antinoüs drowned in the Nile, Hadrian honored his memory by naming cities after him and having him deified.

To Corliss Lamont 19 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo. 6 Rome. Dec. 19, 1951 Dear Mr. Lamont Your long cablegram1 with its picture of your philosophic circle listening while you read my afterthoughts about Goethe’s Faust and sending me their congratulation on being 88 years old, was very pleasant and unexpected. In general I should agree with Ecclesiastes and other old fogeys that living after eighty is not a blessing; but in my case I cannot complain of misery or decrepitude of a moral kind. My little ailments are physical and quite endurable, and I was less fortunate in my early youth than in my late old age. The world has grown steadily kindlier and more interesting to me (though less satisfied with itself) and my mind less dépaysé2 than it felt itself at first. I never expected to have much support from my contemporaries; but now that I have survived most of them I find ample sympathy, if not agreement from many quarters, and also much more to attract and absorb me in the history of the past. It is history rather than philosophy that I read now with satisfaction. It is often, if not always, tragic, but it is a rich and varied dramatic spectacle; and how should natural existence be anything else? Yours sincerely, GSantayana 1

Published in Letters, 427. Uprooted, alienated (French).

2

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To John Hall Wheelock 22 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. Dec. 22nd 1951 Dear Mr. Wheelock Cory and I were much encouraged by your last letter urging us to act freely in revising and abridging our old text; but we think that a rather severe reduction of popular platitudes and superfluities will not only make the one volume less bulky but also the work as a whole more serious and beautiful. It is what we are aiming at. We have now reached the middle of vol. IV, so that we shall not be long in completing our first revision, and ready to return to reduce the early volumes more, since we were both led to read fast by interest in the subject matter, and to forget the faults of composition and over assurance We have both been absorbed in turn in a book by a Dr. Brandon on the effects of the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 on Christianity. I was glad to see Cory so absorbed in critical views of history and religious developments. May I ask you to have two more copies of Dominations and Powers sent to the addresses on the enclosed order, and charged to my personal account, not to Cory’s. Yours sincerely GSantayana Please send a copy of Santayana’s Dominations and Powers to each of ^ ^ the two following addresses and charge them to the Author’s account: Mrs. J. N. Miller,1 521 Welty St., Greensburg Pa. Mr. Alexander Lane,2 Mail Room, American Embassy 1. Ave. Gabriel Paris, France 1

Unidentified. Unidentified.

2

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To Raymond Brewer Bidwell 24 December 1951 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Bidwell)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome Dec. 24, 1951 Dear Raymond Time passes over me without leaving any clear marks of days, months, or even years All seem much the same, and if I remember particular events, like the entrance of the American army into Rome, which I went down to the corner at the foot of this hill to watch at close quarters, it seems a picture by itself, without any before or after, like the Trojan war. Another reason why I felt no immediate summons to write to you was that I did write to Dave and Carol from whom I had had letters with a warm picture of their domestic and business happiness. I see now how wise Dave was not to become a professor; as I had expected after what you had written to me about his brilliant work and summa cum laude from Harvard. He has what I call the “directive imagination”, or joy in being a boss, because of the consciousness of doing it well and seeing things change under his hand as if by magic. That is more exciting than lecturing every year on the same abstract subjects to classes that wonder what it is all about. And for so young a man Dave evidently does the work successfully and has no difficulty in impressing his business directors with his ability. They seem to enjoy moving about and electrifying another nerve-centre in the national business organism, and Saint Louis is (I suppose) a little more southern and western than the other places they have lived in, and at the same time bigger, so that it will not present, as it might have formerly, an immature or provincial aspect. I have an old acquaintance there, Cyril Clemens, a grandson of Mark Twain and a Catholic, who seems to think that he is driving the whole literary world like a fourin-hand. He lately lent me two books of Mark Twain’s that I had never read; and I have written an article for his special magazine on “Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote”, not yet out, as far as I know. That is meant to show how cosmopolitan and profound the Spirit of Missouri can be. I was 88 last week, an age eight years in excess of what the Bible allows even to the strongest man,1 the rest (according to Ecclesiastes) being only grunts and grumblings. That is not the case with me: I cough and spit more than is becoming, but morally I am quite content with existence,

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especially as I have now no works to which I am pledged, but plenty to interest me. With love and best wishes to you and Josephine from G. S. 1

In Psalm 90:10.

To Lawrence Smith Butler 8 January 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: University Club)

Via Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 8, 1952 Dear Lawrence Today your solid box of sweet biscuits has arrived very opportunely, as I had been reduced to hard tack for some time, partly because my new (gastric) form of catarrah had become acute, and I could not keep anything on my stomach, and partly because, in consequence, my last box of shortbread from the former head of this house, Mother Ambrose, now in Limerick, had gone stale also. I am now convalescent, but still on a strict diet. Perhaps one sweet biscuit may be allowed at tea and Cory, who comes every other day at that hour, will do the box justice. We are working on a revision and abridgement of my old work “The Life of Reason”, which had five (small) volumes. These are to be reduced to one large one, by correcting inaccuracies and removing superfluities. The question is how much will remain. I hope in these months you have got rid of your clinical trappings and can forget the horrid accident that has given you so much trouble. It was very kind of you to think of my Christmas at 88 and help to make it “merry”, as mine really has been in spite of everything.—With best wishes for you and Rauh from GSantayana.

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To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 10 January 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan. 10, 1952.1 Dear Lind The enclosed letter has just arrived, and makes me wonder at the complexity of life now in the U.S.2 It was much simpler in my early days. It occurred to me at once when you first wrote, including a typed letter for me to sign, to the Photographic Department in the Library of Congress, how easily I could have sent you a copy of that sonnet—only 14 lines!— which I have a copy of, and besides know by heart.3 It is not a good sonnet considered as a work of classic poetic art, but it has many tentacles stretching into feelings, backward from 1895, when it was written, and foreward also. For you will notice that the line “Why mourn for Jesus?— Christ remains to us” accurately prophesies my “Idea of Christ in the Gospels” published more than fifty years later. 1895 had been the year of my first visit to Italy, in company with my friend Loeser,4 and it was on my return from there that I stopped at Arles, and other places in Southeastern France, before returning to America in a cattle-boat, for economy, from London to N.Y. in 16 days, without a touch of seasickness. I am not sure whether I speak of this voyage in any detail, or of the journey to Florence, Rome, Venice, and Milan, but they were all sentimentally important episodes for me at that time, when I was beginning to live my second, or rather my third life after my “Change of Heart” in 1893, described in the first chapter of the third book of “Persons & Places”. This was a reversion to solitude enriched by a great many absorbing scenes in the past and absorbing themes in the present and for the future. The sonnet in question has not been printed expressly because I think it would not be understood as yet; but it will appear in my “Posthumous Poems”, which Cory will publish; and it occurs to me to say all this to you now, since you happen to have searched it out at the Congressional Library, to which I sent it (when asked for something) together with the portrait by Andreas Andersen, made one year later, when my College Life at the Harvard Yard was coming to an end. The next year 1896–7 I was at King’s College; and when I returned to Harvard I lived in rooms in the town, like any outsider. All these things and others are pertinent, beginning with the Platonic Sonnets, to the various implications of that Sonnet at Arles. I give you these hints,

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knowing that you are penetrating, and wishing that your penetration may go right. When do you expect to have your book done, soon or years hence?5 I should like to be able to read it before it is published. Yours sincerely GSantayana P.S. Feb. 25, ’52 I had just sent off my letter about your sonnets on the Via Crucis,6 when this was returned to me—my second blunder in addressing letters to you. I send it again, — hop hoping that this time it will reach you, as by chance it touches the same points as my last. G.S. 1 Lind noted on Santayana’s 10 January 1952 letter that it arrived one day after his 23 February 1952 letter (due to a mistake in the address; see Vagabond, 160). 2 The enclosure was a 5 January 1952 letter to Santayana from David C. Mearns, Manuscript Division, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., confirming receipt of the 10 December 1951 letter to Donald Holmes. 3 On 10 June 1939, Santayana had sent a letter and a hand-printed manuscript of “At Arles: Where a picture of the Crucifixion hung in the museum above a bust of Antinöus” to Joseph Auslander, the first Consultant in Poetry in the Library of Congress (1937–41). See photoprints of the manuscript and letter in Vagabond (first and third inset plates following page 96). Lind had composed the following letter and sent it to Santayana to sign:

December 10, 1951, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Italy Mr. Donald C. Holmes, Chief, Photo-duplication Department, Library of Congress, Washington 25, D.C. Dear Sir: Will you kindly sent a micro-film copy of my sonnet, AT ARLES: Where a picture of the Crucifixion hung in the museum above a bust of Antinöus, together with accompanying letter dated, Rome, June 10, 1939, to Mr. Bruno Lind of 1116 Donaldson Ave., San Antonio 1, Texas? Mr. Lind is working on a study of my life and works, and plans to make short extracts from certain unpublished works of mine. He has written me that you should bill him for the cost of reproduction and mailing. Sincerely yours, GSantayana 4 Charles Alexander Loeser (1864–1928), Santayana’s first college friend, was the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant in Brooklyn. He had been to school in Switzerland, knew French and German well, and was at home in Europe; he later lived in Florence.

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Loeser was a learned art critic, but he published nothing and thus attained no reputation (see Persons, 215–21). 5 Vagabond Scholar was published in 1962. 6 This postscript was written on the back of the Mearns letter to Santayana. It was sent with the returned 10 January 1952 letter after Santayana had already sent the 23 February 1952 letter.

To Max Forrester Eastman 18 January 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Indiana)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Jan.18, 1951. Dear Mr. Eastman Your letter and two articles1 have naturally interested me, especially where you catch the spirit on which I write, which is not always. But in speaking of my school friend Bayley2 you are very sympathetic. As to the use of the word “love”, I leave the discussion of it for the time when I shall have read you r views on my “system” of philosophy, where —n I ^ ^ ^^ shall have radical criticisms to make. Today, I wish to confine myself to a list of the trifling but strange errors on matters of fact which I have marked with a red pencil. This establishment is legally called “Calvary Hospital”. Nursing Sister of the Little Company of Mary”. One wing is the convent for the Sisters; the opposite arm of the “Cross” is the “Ospizio” 3 which you know, and the long middle wing at right angles is the Hospital proper. But we are not more than half a dozen guests in normal times, so that the three storeys over my head are often used for patients as well. You speak as if I had come to this refuge in order to retire from the world: why not become a monk rather than a nun? But my retreat has always been “moral” only, =) I was not disciplinarian, and it took place in 1893, when (until Dec. 16th 1 29 years old. I was 8 /2 (not ten) when taken to America (by my father, who remained a year in Beacon Street); and on the p. 35 I find that I am 89 years old (88 since Dec. 16 last) and an American, which is naturally the prevalent impression, but not legally or “morally” true. Had I been born when I was christened, on Jan. 1st= 1864, I should not have been ^ ^ reckoned to be one year older than I was all through life. On p. 36 you say I was over forty when “Interpretations of Poetry & Religion” appeared; but that date was 1900, when I was 37 on Dec. 16. On p. 37 “door was opened” must be what you wrote, as I never can stand leaving

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it open. Page 38 touches higher matters, which I will discuss when your third article appears, and I will skip to the fictions about my quoting Aquinas in Latin to a blundering missionary, to squash him; and that I came to this house because I was ill. The reason was that my money from America was about to be cut short, and I succeeded in making an arrangement with the Head of this Order to pay an equivalent of my dues here, in Chicago, where they have a large hospital. This was arranged; and I was for three years with 30,000 lire which I happened to have on hand for pocket-money. Later I found that the Treasury had stopped my nephew’s payments to Chicago, and he and I had much trouble for leave ^ from the government to pay up what was due, after the war. ^ Your trouble with me on major matters is that you do not understand that I am a pagan. Perhaps you don’t care for Greek & Roman classics. That seems to blind you to normality. America is not normal, not natural, but forced, Protestant. Yours sincerely G. S. 1 “Philosopher in a Convent,” American Mercury 73 (November 1951): 35–40; and “Sex and Santayana,” American Mercury 74 ( January 1952): 72–79. 2 Edward Bancroft Bayley (1864–1936) graduated from English High School in 1882 and became a Boston merchant. He was one of Santayana’s models for Oliver in Puritan (see Persons, 175–78). 3 Hostel or hospice (Italian).

To Evelyn Tindall 24 January 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Texas)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo 6 Jan. 24, 1952 Dear Miss Tindall Here is a long (and sad) chapter of my Recollections which I should like to have recopied. Mr. Cory and I are thinking of sending the third part1 to the publishers in New York, and as the book is not to be published for the present there is no hurry about it. We are sending it only to be in safer keeping than it might be here, in case of political or personal collapse. Please send your account with this, as there may not be other things to send to you soon. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Host.

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To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 29 January 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. Jan. 29 th 1952 Dear Rosamond Your letter of Jan. 12th, and your box which arrived the day before, would have been acknowledged sooner if I hadn’t been depressed by the persistence of my “gastric catarrh” and subject to a diet of milk and mashed potatoes, with one raw egg at mid-day, which reduces me to dozing most of the time. I am afraid at my age this is an incurable trouble, though not immediately fatal; but it is not painful (except at moments, when a fit of cough comes) and allows me to read and to write letters when the weather clears. After a hot and dull summer, we are having a cold and dark winter, which have alike contributed to my complaint, and I think, now that winter is (here) on the wane, that I shall feel better in the Summer. Lucky that this trouble didn’t come a year sooner, or I should never have managed to get my last book together. It is being well received in Europe: there is to be a German translation and two in Spanish, one at Buenos Aires and one at Madrid. I had a nice letter from Bob, partly about the architectural book I had sent him, on a trifling subject, which he has taken in the right spirit. Politics, with the morning and evening papers, naturally fill most of my waking time, and fortunately Cory is taking up enthusiastically a big job that Mr. Wheelock of Scribner’s had led us to undertake together, namely, preparing an abridged and revised edition, in one volume, of my old “Life of Reason”, which was in five. I had gone over more than half the text, in my copy, marking in red what I thought might be omitted or changed, when my digestion began not to work, and made my head do so also. But Cory is on the last lap of his revision, and quite confident of doing the operation successfully. The trouble is going to be to reduce the whole to one volume, as both he and I have been surprised at how good the old stuff is, which we had fallen into the habit of despising, as being too cocksure and professorial. I was lecturing every day when I wrote it, and that could not help making me too loquacious and superficial. On the other hand, it did enable me to let myself go when the spirit moved. An old English friend1 who turned up here not long ago said to me: “You used to be eloquent.” But I assured him that I still was so in my first draft; but I cut the “eloquence” out in the second. This may be sometimes a mistake.

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I hope the pressure of responsibility will not be too much for you all in America. I think things will come round somehow into equilibrium. But nobody knows how. GS. 1

Unidentified.

To Miriam Thayer Richards 7 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, Feb. 7th 1952 Dear Mrs. Richards1 You are much nearer in Cambridge now than I am to “happy snowflakes dancing” 2 and even to my beautifully edited “Essays”,3 which I had never heard of. My memory for current minor events is much worse than for incidents in my life in the 1890’s, which seem to be, in retrospect, the vital period in it. Someone may have written to me for my consent to collect these “Essays” of which you tell me. I should naturally have consented; but I have forgotten the matter altogether. But not long ago a visitor brought me a copy of “The Sense of Beauty” to autograph, and I was dazzled by the size and elegance of my first-born little girl. This is not the case with all my progeny, some being very shabby and others buried; but I have had the satisfaction of seeing my favourite child, “Dialogues in Limbo” reappearing in its original type, with additions perfectly prepared to suit. And Scribner is planning an abridged edition of “The Life of Reason”, in one volume, which will be made by my friend and occasional secretary, Mr. Daniel Cory, and which I perhaps may not live to see. Your name and your letter instantly turned my thoughts to Mrs. Toy,4 who so often and so affectionately used to speak of you. Her letters in her later years, and what I heard about her, which was very little, left a rather sad impression, as if her health and spirits suffered in solitude from the absence of the duties and pleasures of her former life. This was not a matter on which I could speak sympathetically, solitude being for me a sort of liberty realized; but of course it could not have been so unless I had a private picture gallery of friends and places in my head, to be revisited always with increased pleasure. It amuses me to read in the papers sometimes that I am now a recluse. It is accidentally a literal truth, because I seldom go about, on account of

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my bad sight and hearing, which makes crossing the city traffic dangerous; but I was never more conscious (or studious) of what goes on in the world, and there is nothing monastic about my daily life, in spite of liv^ ^ ing in a nursing home where the sister’s are nuns. But I see only one of them, the housekeeper,5 often, and almost all my visitors bring the air [across ] of free (but now pre-occupied) America with them. With best wishes and thanks for your kind letter from GSantayana 1 Miriam Stuart Thayer, daughter of Harvard Divinity School professor Joseph Henry Thayer, had married Nobel Prize-winning chemist Theodore William Richards (Harvard B.A., 1886; Ph.D., 1888), who died in 1928. 2 The final line of Santayana’s Sonnet XIV is “A happy snow-flake dancing in the flaw” (Complete Poems, 97). 3 Unidentified. 4 Nancy Saunders Toy (d. 1941), the wife of Crawford Howell Toy (1836–1919, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at Harvard, 1880–1909), corresponded with Santayana in his later years. 5 Maria.

To Richard Colton Lyon 12 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 12th Feb. 1952 Dear Dick When your letter from Frankfort reached me some month’s ago, I was already laid up with the complications of my bronchial-gastric catarrh, and put off replying until I should feel better. But what happened was that I caught the prevalent influenza in addition, and have had a long spell of steady fever, not high, but debilitating; and only recently persistent injections have driven the fever away, though I am still very weak and with no appetite. The weather has been horribly cold and dark, making it almost impossible for me to pick up my spirits. Today the sun is shining, and I take the first opportunity to send you a line of explanation together with the promised cheque for you Easter holidays. Cory is here, and gives me every other day the impressions he get about the fortunes of my last book, which seem to be increasingly favourable Write to me when you have time and tell me your plans. Yours sincerely GSantayana

1948–1952

To Evelyn Tindall 18 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Texas)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, 18th Feb. 1952 Dear Miss Tindall The weather and my influenza have taken a better turn, and I send you an installment rather than a final settlement for our account, as I feel that I may soon have a little more work for you. Yours sincerely GSantayana

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 23 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 23rd Feb. 1952 Dear Lind I have read your Via Crucis1 once, but carefully and with some reversion to confirm or correct the impressions received. There is an element— the spirit of the Stabat Mater2—that is perfectly orthodox or Catholic but which I have never liked or shared. All devotion, for me in my boyhood, was festive. Good Friday just as festive as Easter or Christmas, and I have never felt the usual distress or guiltiness in the presence of Christ’s mar^ ^ tyrdom, or any other martyrdom. It may be a turn of mind—too mental— that made my countrymen like Autos de Fe3 and bullfights. But it is not pure cruelty or tendency to destroy whatever does not please me. Let others enjoy it if they can. So I say to the Stabat Mater, which I used to ^^ hear sung and knew by heart, words and music—but in Rossini’s version! In the jolliest possible, lightest and most harmonious warblings. Was ^ ^ this simply bad taste? I think not. Life is essentially an élan vital, as Bergson calls it; that is, it is a passage from one state to another. But art, or the immortalisation of Life, is a synthesis. You preserve and recompose each episode in the light of the others that accompany or replace it. You make a mosaic or rose window of history; existence does not carry you on, but becomes truth for you.

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If you have my Idea of Christ at hand, look up what I say about the text, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” 4 I suggest that the reason is that Christ might forsake himself. The Jewish Messiah had to do that, or else to collapse morally. The Christian Christ outgrows his Palm Sunday illusion. David’s kingdom was good for David; Jesus does not really want it for himself. His triumph is spiritual. As I understand this it consists in the transcendence of Life into Truth or Art. I, or you for yourself, then falls/ out of the picture and the Via Crucis becomes a mosaic or a stained glass window. It does not make me suffer now at all There is a great deal of crimson still in the picture, and a great deal of sorrow and mourning, but it is all a beautiful procession, no desire to banish it, or regret that it should have existed. But of course I don’t want to live through it, or to have anyone else live through it again. I am now not ready to pass any criticism on your sonnets. But I feel that you must not dedicate them to me. I have nothing of that harrowed or repentant spirit, or desire for more life in art; only more of life transfigured into truth, history, and art.—This is my first impression. The book with illustrations may change it. Yours GSantayana 1

The title of a sonnet sequence (later renamed Stations of the Cross) that Lind sent to Santayana for his criticism and in the hope that a reply might reveal more explicitly Santayana’s attitude toward the Catholic faith. No publication of this title has been located. 2 From the first line, Stabat mater dolorosa (stood the mother, full of grief), of a sequence written by Jacobus de Benedictis in the thirteenth century. Several composers have set the words to music, including Mozart, Haydn, Vivaldi, and Rossini (written in 1842). 3 The auto-da-fé (or auto-de-fé ) was the ceremony accompanying the pronouncement of judgment by the Spanish Inquisition, which was followed by the execution of sentence by secular authorities (especially the burning of persons condemned as heretics or writings condemned as heretical). 4 From Matthew 27:46 or Mark 15:34. See Gospels, 133–35.

To John Hall Wheelock 23 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 23rd February, 1952 Dear Mr. Wheelock Some time ago I heard of Mr. Scribner’s death,1 and what you tell me gives me more reasons for regretting this loss to us all. I seem to have laid my social as well as philosophical eggs twenty or thirty years, systematically, before they were hatched. Those, like you and Mr. Scribner, who

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ventured to read and publish my “Sense of Beauty” when I wrote it, have never seen me alive; I vanished into another sphere before I became distinguishable. And my books, when supposed to represent a new phase, regularly contain my discoveries of the previous decade or even century. By the way, Cory and I have both been surprised to find “The Life of Reason” so much like my latest views. The difficulty will be the choose the out-of-date passages. He is very much interested in the work and has already revised it all in a cursory way. I have stopped before the last volume, having fallen a victim of influenza on top of my double catarrh. But he will be able and happy to do everything himself. Thank you for the royalty reports and especially for letting me use your office as a sort of bank. I hope “Vendome” and my occasional calls for $500 do not give too much trouble Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Charles Scribner (1890–1952), son of Charles Scribner the younger, was president of Charles Scribner’s Sons from 1932 until his unexpected death at the ColumbiaPresbyterian Medical Center. His son, also named Charles Scribner (1921–95), became the firm’s new president.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 24 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, 24th Feb. 1952 Dear Clemens When I saw “Tom Sawyer Abroad” and “Tom Sawyer Detective”1 I couldn’t help being sorry that you hadn’t sent me that book before I wrote my little paper; I might have found so many other hints, or positive events, there to correct my first impressions of Tom’s character and future! But on sitting down to the new book I soon saw that it kept Tom young and engaged in wild adventures, without that moral quality that had made me think of Don Quixote as an affinity. And as my paper was already printed (with two misprints (on column 1, line 16 and line 16 column 2) I didn’t pursue reading further in that book, which seems to be in the style of Jules Verne2 rather than Cervantes. But the “Mark Twain Quaterly” having arrived today, I have read Sister Mary Teresa Roades learned article3 (more in my line) and found it interesting but not philosophical. I had yesterday sent off your other book with my autograph.4

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This delay has been due to illness. I have caught influenza on top of my double chronic catarrh, and not been fit for some weeks for anything. But today the weather has changed and I rembered an old line of Swinburne’s: “The hounds of Spring were on Winter’s traces;” 5 and even the political scene seems brighter Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Tom Sawyer Abroad (New York: C. S. Webster, 1894) by Huck Finn (pseud.), edited by Mark Twain (pseud.) and Tom Sawyer, Detective (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1882). 2 Jules Verne (1828–1905), a French writer, wrote semiscientific adventure stories that were popular and prophetic. His works include A Voyage to the Center of the Earth (1864), The Mysterious Island (1870), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). 3 Sister Mary Teresa Roades received her M.A. from the University of Kansas in 1926. Her thesis was titled “Cervantes and Mark Twain.” 4 A copy of Dominations. 5 Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) was an English poet whose work represents a blending of classical theme with flamboyant romanticism. His literary criticism helped popularize older English dramatists. From his “Chorus”: When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Tracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil and all the pain.

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 28 February 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. 28th February, 1952 Dear Rosamond, Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and to morrow, by old calendars, should be the first day of Spring; and in fact there seems to be a sudden jump from cold and fog to sunshine and wide open windows. I am afraid I have two or three letters and a box from you either unacknowledged or not done so properly. The reason is that I have become a real invalid and lost all clear sense if dates, hours, and the order of recent events I read or look over two newspapers daily, the Tempo in the morning and the

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Osservatore Romano (the Pope’s paper) in the evening; but the gossip in them passes through my mind without leaving any useful trace. But that miscelany in drifting by also leaves a sort of atmosphere, and seems in these last days to have become more Springlike. I have also a new book on an ancient subject, “Hellenistic Civilisation” 1 which takes me to the times and places where I ought to have lived and where my philosophy belongs. The author is a Scotish professor called Tarn, whose point of view in everything is that of Aberdeen and Morality. It reminds me of old Boston, and my first professor of philosophy at Harvard, whom we called “Fanny Bowen”;2 and as I have survived him I can survive and even enjoy Tarn. All this has little to do with answering your question about the safe arrival of your box. It arrived safely but one of the two benzedrex inhalers turned out to have been crushed in a corner and the inner tube, which is very thin had been crushed and the white powder in it spilled. No harm done for the present as I use the inhaler only now and then to clear the nose, and the one that came “safely” will do for many months, especially as winter is now over. However, if later you would send me another, it would supply me with all I need for a year. There is one thing that I sometimes wish I could have, and that is the “corn flakes” or other “breakfastfoods” to be eaten with cream or milk, as milk is now a chief part of my diet, and becomes monotonous three times every day. Perhaps such things have gone out of fashion, but fifty years ago it used to be a great resource for breakfast standing up at a counter before a lecture. Oatmeal was too heavy, but any of the crisp thin flaky things would do. My part of the abridgment of “The Life of Reason” has been done, and Cory will do the rest, and is very enthusiastic about its. I have all the more time to drink in Hellenistic Civilisation a little late in the day. I enjoy ed ^ ^ the equivalent in real life in the 1890’s. G.S. 1

William Woodthorpe Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation (London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1952). 2 Francis “Fanny” Bowen (1811–90) was the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard (1853–89). See Persons, 236.

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To Horace Meyer Kallen 8 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. March 8. 1952 Dear Kallen Yesterday your friend Loring1 brought me your letter and “Patterns of Progress” 2 and found me at 11 a.m reading in Lorenzo de’ Medici3 some musical verses on the diabolical act of Prometheus4 in bringing fire down to earth with the dreadful consequences of war, trade, and the devouring of cooked carcasses. All fire wills to go heavenward, where according to Aristotle it belongs, and on earth, according to the love-sick Lorenzo, there should be only vegetables and nude Adams and Eves. I could not help smiling at the contrast with your book, and your “Will to Progress”. I began to read at once with your last chapter where you, like Prometheus, advocate science and work for civilisation. I am with you rather than with Lorenzo, not caring at all for love-making in Paradise, but thinking that knowledge both as a means and an end is the best of acquisitions. As to civilisation and work I am not clear. Knowledge not only opens up opportunities but (especially medical and historical knowledge) but gives us remedies and warnings. Those seem to be an important part of wisdom because when our primal will is thwarted we need not, perhaps, give up our hope and merely try something else (as our children probably would do if we merely bowed out and gave them a chance) but we may revise our means of approach, assuming that circumstances have not changed radically, and this time succeed. We shall then have become more civilised and richer, because we have enlisted natural powers on our side. It is natural that in America you should think of compromising with other wills rather than of building on a rock; because you have hitherto been transforming your material and social environment rather than learning what nature and human nature can or cannot be made to yield in the end. Am I right in thinking that your philosophy differs from mine in being religious, while mine is naturalistic? You seem to put “Progress” in the place that the ancient Hebrews gave to Israel; there is a single political body, with a special tradition and inspiration, that is destined to move on and gradually attract all mankind into its current. Instead of Israel you have America: in their ultimate moral mission they might indeed be

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identified. In your case this is a natural political faith. But for a naturalist there is no ground to assign priority or perpetuity to either of these communities. Loyalty to them is legitimate and heroic, but not more so than to any other, if one’s moral sense does not passionately prefer it. Am I wrong? Your old friend GSantayana 1

Probably Lee Loring, a painter with whom Kallen was acquainted. Horace Meyer Kallen, Patterns of Progress (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950). 3 Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92), called Il Magnifico (The Magnificent), was a patron of many famous Renaissance artists, including Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and the young Michelangelo. Lorenzo de’ Medici wrote Petrarchan sonnets and other verse, sacred drama, and literary criticism. An astute politician, he kept Italy united through the use of diplomacy. 4 In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a champion of men against the gods. Zeus withheld fire from men, and Prometheus stole it. As punishment, Prometheus was chained to a mountain, where an eagle tore out his liver by day and it grew again by night. 2

To Richard Colton Lyon 9 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, March 9 th 1952 Dear Dick I was glad to have direct news of you after an interval that seemed the longer to me because I was ill and idle having caught the influenza from Sister Angela and Maria and Dr. Sabbatucci who have been or are still down with it. But I am decidedly better now and counting on the Spring weather of which we have had some signs already. I have finished all that I mean to do about the revision and abridgement of The Life of Reason, leaving the rest to Cory, who is quite absorbed in it. I am therefore quite free to read and write as the spirit may move. About Hume and your work in general at Cambridge I am too old to follow the new fashions that have set in lately in England, especially as it may be fifty years since I have opened a book of Berkeley or Hume, and they never seemed to me to belong, as the English think, to the main line of philosophy, but to a loop-line called subjectivism, and limited, in appeal, to the Protestant and romantic movements. What I hear of the present “logical realism” 1 from Cory (who is obliged by his fellowship to write an essay or two every year about it) seems to me to be a radical form

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of it, “giving it away”, and reducing it to verbal dialectics. Meantime I have a great esteem for both Berkeley and Hume in their personal dispositions and temper, each in a different way. I think you have read my paper on Berkeley: but in regard to Hume I think I have written nothing. But as a man of the world and a historian he felt as I do, and was not subjective or negative at all. [I say “negative” rather than “sceptical” because he was a sceptic in official philosophy but a naturalist in his real convictions. The quotations you make from him illustrate this: also a recent remark of Bertrand Russell, in talk with Cory, that Hume had no right to use the word “impression” for his fundamental facts, because that implies contact with an external agent. All “Knowledge” does; dialectic and deduction only elaborate ideas: what the Germans now call “Problematik”.2 As to your holidays, you must trust your own impulse and the circumstances When I travelled at your age I was always alone and bent on seeing Cathedrals; for that the north of France would be better than the south. And to drink in the spirit of a place you should be not only alone but not hurried. And a real friend, if a foreigner, is a better stimulus and revelation than any sight-seeing. Send me postcards when you are actually travelling and gathering “impressions.” G.S. 1

“Santayana must have meant ‘logical positivism’,” according to Cory (Letters, 430). Uncertainty or ambiguity (German).

2

To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. 13 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. March 13, 1952 Dear Lowell For some days I had been on the point of writing to you in a highly poetical and philosophical strain, inspired by a “Poemetto” of Lorenzo de’ Medici entitled Ambra1 which seemed to me to pre-echo (if that is possible) the last ten lines of your Ravenaughs,2 and on the whole to make explicit the moral of your whole inspiration, which for me, at least, is not explicit in your verse. Now that your letter comes, reassuring me about

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your address and otherwise bringing me down to the tourist and chronological level and to your observations about me in relation to Bertrand Russell and Wm James, which would suggest a different direction of thought altogether, I may not recover the mood that Lorenzo de’ Medici had then thrown me into. As far as I remember, I had never read a word of his before; but a young friend, George Salerno, an American of Italian-Spanish parentage who has been in Rome for some years, now made me a present of a ^ ^ popular edition of Lorenzo’s Poemettì.3 The first part of these seemed to me rather trivial, but further on, when he comes especially to Ambra and to the Dialoghi (a characterization of a crowd of drunkards and gluttons going to a feast) suddenly gave me a glimpse of a tragic philosophy of life. I daresay Lorenzo did not live by it or perhaps take it very seriously; but there it is, as in the Greek lyric poets The first 19 stanzas of “Ambra” have nothing to do with the subject, but = we come to real life: a peasant family at dawn opening their with the 20 th cow-sheds and trudging to work in the fields, the woman already tired, the child crying, and a man on the roof scanning the horizon anxiously, to see what the weather promises for the crops. Moral: Human life is hard and sad for the people. Then we see Ambra, the nymph of a stream that runs into a/the broader and colder waters of the Ombrone, where she likes to swim. She has a happy Platonic affair with Lauro (Lorenzo) a poet. But today the god of the Ombrone feels her plunge and falls desperately in love with her, pursues her, but she takes to the bank, where he cannot reach her. There is a long chase, beautifully described with equal sympathy for his passion and for her flight. Finally the river-god who cannot catch her, appeals to the Arno, whose tributary he is, to waylay her. The Arno does so: she finds herself surrounded by water, and in dispair cries out to Diana, goddess of virgin nymphs, to save her. And instantly (this is Ovidian) she feels her limbs grow hard and numb, and she turns slowly into stone, showing, like the first stages of a sculptor’s work, the rough hint of a living body. Ombrone, finding only a stone, is in despair. “I never should have thought”, he cries, “that my passion (pietà) could have been overcome by the greater passion of my lovely Ambra, and that this passion of hers, now in me, could bring me to tears. And yet my life ^ ^ now, poor and sad but immortal is worse than hers, become insensible.” Then he in turn prays to the North Wind: “O Boreas, you whose breath can freeze the ponds, turn my flowing waters too into hard ice, that I may

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go the way my love is gone. And let the sun never melt to water with his hot rays the hard crystal that I have learned to be”. “Nè ’l sol giamai, co’ raggi chiari e gialli, risolva in acqua i rigidí cristalli.” Am I wrong in thinking that this is the ultimate, if not the express, moral of the last lines of your “Ravenaughs”? Your heroine says it is love that has turned her into stone; in Lorenzo’s heroine it is the horror of blind and deceptive love. Pure love was that of her poet, who loved her in the natural form of flowing water. Of course the mythological trick of turning rivers into river-gods with extremely animal passions confuses the issue. A man who was only animal would find true love, permanent or transitory, in a warm, comfortable and safe nest. But the question is whether domesticity covers, or even approaches, the ultimate range of the human psyche. Certainly not in all men. The solution found by Ombrone, and apparently by Lorenzo de’ Medici, in spite of his brilliant worldly career, is that a soul is inevitably unhappy when its allegiance is ambiguous. Many of us have too many unrealizable ambitions. The result, if anything is ever reached, is distraction or suicide. There is a partial coincidence between the early renaissance and the present American relations with Europe and the past generally. The “Dialogues” in Lorenzo’s book (which are incomplete) show the brutal zest of living in his day, in contrast with his own exquisiteness and classicism: and perhaps, like Shakespeare he enjoys the rowdy element too. But it is difficult to play both parts well. I am moderately well and happy, and hope to see you as you propose. G. S. 1 Santayana’s partial translation of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s poem, “Ambra,” is published under the title “Ombron and Ambra” in Complete Poems, 435–40. Santayana originally intended to translate twenty-five stanzas of the forty-eight stanza poem. He was able to complete twenty-three stanzas, which was then edited to twenty stanzas (Years, 319). See also 22 July 1952 and 24 July 1952. 2 The Mills of the Kavanaughs. 3 Santayana’s library contained a copy of this book, edited by Emilio Cecchi (Milan, 1943). George Salerno was an American soldier who visited Santayana often after the war (see 7 November 1946).

1948–1952

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 16 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome. March 16, 1952 Dear Rosamond The little parcel with its three little bundles of breakfast foods arrived safely the day before yesterday; but I wanted, before reporting progress, to try at least two of them. They go equally well. The truth is that my palate is not sensitive, and the conditions in this Irish-Italian establishment are not those of an American “cafeteria”, such as the one in the ^ ^ little corner of the barbershop where, in my last years at Harvard I used to have a stand-up breakfast before going to my 11 o’clock lecture. All that, although I felt at the time that I was living in a railway station, now seems a sort of magic transformation scene, where things, if you knew how to take them, as I then did, all fitted perfectly together. I used to have lunch, after that lecture, either at the Faculty Club or at the Harvard Union, always at 12.30 (when service began, and there were few people) tea in my rooms in Prescott Hall, and dinner at my Mother’s with Josefina, my sister (for my Mother was then bed-ridden) or at some Italian restaurant in town, preferably the Napoli, in the North End. Those impressions of my last years in Boston have somehow remained more vivid than my earlier, more social life. [illegible ] It was most obliging of you to send me these “flakes” or “crispies” by air: I was really not in pressing need, but it has been a relief to have something crisp to go with my milk. The doctor (who is now ill himself, and a ^ doctor does not visit me, for I really don’t need fresh advice) prescribed ^ one litre of milk a day for my chief nourishment, when my digestion had refused to work. Besides I had one egg a day, and biscuits: also sometimes a soup, if it was not loaded with half-cooked pasta or rice. Rice, which is my favourite food, is spoilt for me in Italy for not being enough cooked by the natives. Formerly, when I ate at good hotels or restaurants, this did not happen. But here now it is a standard difficulty, which may have had something to do with my trouble. But now, the weather having cleared, though still cold, I hope to rearrange my diet gradually, by the help of all my friends and fancies. Work is definitely over; but I have several disciples or correspondents who keep me awake to the questions that they discuss now in philosophical schools, mostly verbal, as they seem to me; and

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my two daily papers give me the very interesting political news of these chaotic times. America takes the lead now with great courage, and we all hope for the best. Yours affectionately GSantayana

To Richard Colton Lyon 16 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 16, 1952 Dear Dick Don’t worry about what I may have said about scepticism or about agreeing or disagreeing with me. In any case the distinction you make is evidently reasonable, although scepticism as a method, especially if only a temporary method, as in Descartes, is not a system of philosophy or morals whereas openness of mind and distrust of one’s own opinion is a moral habit. Whether it involves, as you say, the doctrine that reality is unknowable depends on the definition given to “knowledge”. Certainty about transitive beliefs is impossible; but awareness of a pain is not an opinion but a feeling not intrinsically asserting that something not a pain is hurting you; although animal instinct will lead you to look for what that possible cause may be; and examination may prove that it was a pebble; although this opinion, too, being transitive, may be wrong. You may find that it was “really” a hazel-nut or a button. Yet the “knowledge” so acquired, though intrinsically self-transcendent and therefore perhaps wrong, is scientifically reached and, if you trust memory and reason, is an approach to the reality: the pain was really caused by a small round hard object in your shoe. I don’t remember now what I wrote, in my letter, about Hume’s scepticism; I think perhaps I ought to have been a historian rather than a philosopher talking about essences, for verbal logic doesn’t hold my attention or respect, and I must turn to something imaginable. But I do believe in the incapacity of images or concepts to fathom or “explain” reality. Matter, or if you prefer, Wind, is not exhaustively representable in Spirit (which is an original music made by the Wind) but Spirit being secondary and an approximate index to the way the Wind is blowing in one place at a certain time, Spirit knows a lot about the ways of the Wind. The

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Hebrews were wise and prudent in speaking about the “ways” of the Lord, rather than of his nature. The sketch I wrote about The Wind and the Spirit for Sir James Marchant’s book on “What I Believe”, which should have appeared about Xmas, 1950, has not yet turned up. But, when I made inquiries, the evidently thought I was impatient for my share of the profits, and sent me £20, saying the book would appear “shortly”—about a year ago. And I haven’t a clean corrected copy of the text, nor the wit at present to rewrite it! Best wishes for thesis from G.S.

To Chauncey Devereux Stillman 26 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, March 26, 1952 Dear Mr. Stillman1 Your name, which was well known in the Harvard of the late 1890’s (doubtless your father’s) and the many others of my friends that you mention have naturally caused one of those frequent reversions of my memory to the circle that was at the “Gashouse” during my second, and more agreeable, college life.2 I see, by referring to the Delphic Club Catalogue that you were in the Class of ’29, and I wonder that I was so well remembered at the Club after so many years. As to the inscription on my pewter mug I can explain it to myself after a little thought, because Boylston Beal, who got it and had it engraved for me, was not so versed in Spanish heraldry as in English or even German. For some reason he seemed to be less at home in Spain and even in France than in England and Italy, and also in Germany, where we spent the winter of 1888 in the same boardinghouse. My full name in Spanish is sufficiently absurd: Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, but Boylston, in his zeal to miss nothing put in the “la” beside the “de” and got them in the wrong place. I don’t remember ever noticing that the inscription was queer; probably I never read it as the mugs were not often used. Let me apologize for accusing you for the joke, if we say it must have been one. Just now, while I am writing this letter, one of the Sisters has come in bearing a huge parcel which turns out to be your present of handkerchiefs, worthy of a royal bride. They are too superior for my wardrobe,

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but at the same time very opportune, as catarrh is my chief disease. I will use them and try to live up to that degree of perfection. At least they will succeed in taking me back for a moment to the pleasantest memories of my youth. I have now given up all literary work and devote myself to reading, especially history, which I ought to have done before writing philosophy, or at least moralizing about human life. And history is what the learned men of today are best able to write. They are free (some of them) from moral or political preconceptions, and scrupulous about the truth, which they can find in history, but hardly in anything else. Your kindness to me surprises me so much that I hardly know what to say by way of thanks— Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Chauncey Devereux Stillman (c. 1907–89), son of Charles Chauncey Stillman of the Harvard class of 1898, was an alumnus of Harvard College and Columbia University. Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, Chauncey Devereux was an investor and philanthropist. The Stillman Infirmary at Harvard is mentioned in Puritan (308). 2 The period in which he was a philosophy instructor, beginning in 1889.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 27 March 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. March 27, 1952 Dear Lind I am surprised and very sorry to hear that you are having difficulties as to your occupations. My surmise was that you were a teacher in a High School, like the Boston Latin School which is responsible for my free but superficial education, & which was a most regular and ancient estab^ ^ lishment. These night schools for veterans coming to an end and temporary employment in town Schools seem insecure and unsatisfactory. I hope you will find something that may leave you time for your literary projects. That you Via Crucis is a part of a sort of poetic anthology of religious passions changes my impression of those sonnets and their morbid sensibility. As I said in my letter this is orthordox Catholic sentiment, but not

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dominant in Christian devotion as a whole Of the 15 mysteries of the Rosary only five or “dolorous”, the others being either “joyful” or “glorious”.1 But female piety is often accentuated by bereavements. I shall be greatly interested in seeing the whole collection. It is true that, especially in “The Idea of Christ” have attempted just such an interpretation of one phase of religious feeling, without pretending to believe in the legend that supplies the particular instance described. But I have distinguished what I sincerely believe to be the spiritual insight of a man living (as Aristotle recommends (without having practiced it) as much as possible in the eternal. That is not sentimental nor even humanitarian, but purely intellectual. As a man, however, is much besides intellect, the rest of his nature has to be somewhat objectified and deflated in assuming the divine view of it all. As to the character, and especially the conversation, of the young Russell, being attributed by me to Lord Jim, that is very true, and was recognized by the latter’s wife, Elizabeth, author of “Vera”, who however did not reproduce it in her book.2 What she reproduced was only his domestic fussiness and exactions (from which I never suffered; on the contrary, living with him, even at close quarters, as in his yacht, was (as he put it himself) the most “lotus-eating” life possible. As to my Lord Jim’s temptation to make troublesome persons disappear, Russell never had it. He had always been in command; and had always believed he had a right to mastery over wives and servants. But this he felt to be virtuous severity, as is perhaps not clear enough in “Vera”. Lady R. was too exasperated to be fair on this point. Yours sincerely GSantayana [across ] P.S. My question as to when your book about me would be published was prompted only by the sense that I should not live to see it. I feel better now, and think I may live a while longer. 1

The “Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries,” which signify events in the lives of Jesus and Mary, are recited on specific days of the week. There are now twenty “Mysteries of the Rosary,” five being added by Pope John Paul the II. 2 Vera (1921) is an imaginative and bitter characterization of Elizabeth’s three years of married life with John Francis Stanley Russell.

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To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 17 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 17, 1952 Dear Rosamond Your large box, with the three boxes of breakfast foods and the inhaler arrived yesterday in good shape, and this morning I began with the smaller box of “Rice Krispies” at breakfast, which I now take after getting up, as the mornings have become mild and moderately bright, in spite of the strange foggy greyness that has prevailed all this year. Thank you very much for everything. I am now well-provided with all necessaries and hope to spend a quiet summer. Visitors and letters take up a lot of my time, and I spend the rest over the newspapers and old familiar authors. I have just re-read all six of Terence’s plays, taken from the Greek, and even the Latin accompanied by a modern English translation, which is absurdly Cockney. The translator1 was a master at the old Westninster College, close to the Abbey, and he translated his Roman text into a language that his pupils could make life-like when they gave their yearly Latin play. It is the colloquial Latin of an early date, and not like the classical texts; and it would go beautifully into comic Shakespearean idioms—not yet Cockney— The illustrated weekly reviews, that you usually put in for padding into your food-parcels, entertain me a good deal. There is confusion of subjects and colours, but all contributes to produce a sense of millions and millions of people and dollars going it as hard as they can. I think it will all prove a comedy, not a tragedy. The world is in a terrible mess philosophically, but at least in Rome life is orderly and apparently prosperous, and the possibility of a communist conquest (perhaps without much fighting) seems unreal. When one thinks of the French Revolution, and the ease with which the Empire and Restoration reestablished respectibility and peace, and fashionable society, it seems as if civilisation would not really disappear, but there would be at most a carnival of rowdyism, a counter revolution, and modern routine once again. The revision of my old “Life of Reason” is finished as far as my help is concerned and Cory will take the responsibility of deciding what to keep and what to leave out. He is strangely interested in the work, and we both have found the text less positivistic and philistine than we had expected. Affectionately G. S.

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1 Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) (b. c. 185–195 B.C., d. c. 159 B.C.), a Carthaginian slave to Roman senator Terentius Lucanus, perfected the Latin comedy of manners in dramatic adaptations of Greek classics. Six of his comedies still exist today: Andria, Heautontimorumenos, Eunuchus, Phormio, Adelphi, and Hecyra. Santayana was probably reading the dual-language editions that were “printed for the school” and published at Westminster in the 1890s. These editions include each play “as it is performed at the Royal College of St. Peter, Westminster; together with the verse translation of George Colman, the elder.” George Colman the Elder (1732–94) was a lawyer and theater manager who had graduated from Westminster.

To John Hall Wheelock 17 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 17, 1952 Dear Mr. Wheelock Cory and I are much pleased to know that the third part of “Persons & Places” has arrived safely in your hands. You are very considerate to consult my susceptibilities by asking whether you are free to read this M.S. Certainly you are. Half of it has, or is about to, appear in the “Atlantic”.1 The other half, although still primarily about persons and places, at bottom expresses rather my personal feelings in regard to them; and it is not so much the reader’s’ impressions that I deprecate for the moment, [illegible ]as my own existence to hear what they are. Let me be out of earshot before these private sentiments of mine are discussed. In your case I can rely on charity and even sympathy, although you may find, here and there, an attitude to human relations that does not please you. Don’t tell me so, and all will be well, as far as I am concerned. There is a person called Bruno Lind, in San Antonio, Texas, who has actually read the questionable chapters: on King’s College, the Russells and their wives, “Oxford Friends” and “Farewell to England”.2 But he is a mature person, over forty, and is planning a book about my life & writings. He was here for some time two years ago, and I thought him a most sympathetic critic and a possible biographer who would understand my Spanish side much better than Howgate. He feels that my sentiments about people are sad rather than heartless, which I am afraid most people will think them. Bertrand Russell has said to Cory that he (Russell) had no objection ^ ^ to what I say about his brother in “The Middle Span”; but in the third part (I am not sure that the title I have proposed for this part is satisfactory)

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there is much more, also about himself and his philosophy, that he may not like. I should regret to seem ungrateful to two brothers to whom I owe so much. I am writing to the editor of the “Hudson Review” 3 to express my regret that I have no written essay or article that I can send him, and that I cannot count on fresh inspiration. What you say about that review makes me wish to see it, but I will ask Cory to see, when he goes back to London, if he can get me a copy and then subscribe for it year , if we ^ ^ both are pleased with it. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 “I Like to Be a Stranger,” Atlantic Monthly (May 1952), 48–53. This was later published as chapter 7 of Host, “Old Age in Italy.” 2 Chapter XXVI, “King’s College, Cambridge”; chapters XIX, “Russell,” and XXVIII, “On the South Downs”; chapter XXIX, “Oxford Friends,” and chapter XXX, “Farewell to England,” in Persons. 3 The Hudson Review is a quarterly literature and arts magazine in New York City, which began in 1947 with founding editors Frederick Morgan, Joseph D. Bennett, and William Arrowsmith. Santayana’s letter is unlocated.

To Alan Denson 20 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: De Kalb)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 20, 1952 Dear Mr. Denson As to the letter addressed by me to “Æ” about Mother Nature, I shall be gratified if you think it worth publishing in your book about him.1 I have written too many books: “he writes, and writes and writes!” exclaimed the reviewer of my last one in The Times Literary Supplement.2 It is not strange if many of them are out of print That is not the case, however, with “Three Philosophical Poets”, published by the Harvard University Press some forty years ago, since I get a yearly cheque from them for royalties. “Platonism & the Spiritual Life” was published by Constable, and doubtless he does not think it safe to make a new reprint.3 They may have some stray copy at Scribner’s in New York, and I am asking them, in that case, to send it to you, as well as a copy of the “Three Poets” which I am pleased to be able to add to your

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list and hope that your young friend4 will like the parts of Lucretius and Dante. The part on Goethe is not written with the same real enthusiasm. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Letters from Æ includes Santayana’s 22 September 1933 response to Æ’s letter of 19 September 1933. 2 “He has written, written, written, in his ‘monastic retirement,’ with a quick mind darting off perpetually at a tangent, and with no taut hold on any guiding and connecting thread” (referring to the series of essays that make up Dominations ). “Soliloquies in Rome: George Santayana’s Latest Work,” Times Literary Supplement (12 October 1951): 638. 3 Poets was published in 1910. Platonism was published both by Constable and Scribner’s in 1927. 4 Unidentified.

To Winfred Overholser 20 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Congress)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, April 20, 1952. 1 Dear Doctor Overholser I shall be very glad to see you and Mrs. Overholser again, and hope you will carry out your project of another journey to Rome. It is not a surprise to see my first sonnet,2 of 1884, raised to a sort of monument in a Unitarian temple.3 I was twenty years old and given to pious language; but the real inspiration of that Sonnet was something that Unitarian respecti/ability would not approve of. It was Dionysiac4 revels. The second line,5 of which the rest is merely a conventional development (with a reference to Columbus,6 as inspired by “faith”, really of the enterprising earthly kind) that caused it to be adopted for religious popular calendars and other innocent means of edification. That second line was a loose translation of four words in a chorus in the Bacchae of Euripides: To\ sofo\n ou) sofi/a.7 I often use this as a motto when giving someone my autograph. But the sonnet never expressed my own conclusions, and in the sequence of my early poems, published in 1894, I introduced it by two others as a starting point from which I had very willingly departed.8 But I am pleased to have done some good at least in my immaturity. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Winfred Overholser (c. 1892–1964) was superintendent of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., where Ezra Pound had been committed in 1946. In 1958

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Robert Frost and other literary figures attempted to gain Pound’s release. In the hearings resulting in this release, Overholser testified that, though Pound was “permanently and incurably insane,” he was not dangerous and should be released. He believed that Pound’s anti-American wartime broadcasts from Italy probably resulted from his insanity. 2 Sonnet III of the First Sonnet Series begins “O world, thou choosest not the better part!” This was actually the fourth sonnet he composed, not the first (see Complete Poems, 28 and 92). 3 This sonnet was printed on the 13 April 1952 program of All Souls’ Church of Washington, D.C. 4 Dionysus, also known as Bacchus in both Greece and Rome, was the Greek god of wine. He is associated with drunkenness, madness, and ecstasy. 5 See letter to Munson, 12 March 1948, and Complete Poems, 92. 6 Christopher Columbus. 7 The second line of Sonnet III reads, “It is not wisdom to be only wise.” 8 Sonnet I begins “I sought on earth a garden of delight” and Sonnet II begins “Slow and reluctant was the long descent.” See Complete Poems, 91.

To John Hall Wheelock 20 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, April 20, 1952 Dear Mr. Wheelock May I again trouble you with an order for books? An odd personage, Mr Alan Denson, is distressed on finding the two books of mine, which he thought salutary to provide for a young person whom he seems to be educating, out of print. These books are “Three Philosophical Poets” and “Platonism and the Spiritual Life” The first is still selling by the Harvard University Press, since I receive a yearly cheque of considerable value from them for it, but the second is out of print in England. If you have a stray copy of it, I should be much obliged if you would have it sent, with the “Three Poets” to the address below, and charge them to my account. Yours sincerely GSantayana Alan Denson, Esq., 60, Low Fellside, Kendal, England.

1948–1952

To Richard Colton Lyon 22 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, April 22, 1952 Dear Dick You may imagine my surprise at learning that you are to be married on May 24th, about a month from to-day. You are of the right age and temperament to be married, and in that fact, ideally, there is nothing out of the expected and agreeable in the news. But it is the circumstances, your studies and finances, that seem against it. I see that, except for a brief excitement and interruption, your ^ studies may well go on, perhaps even more favourably, when you are ^ settled next year in lodgings in Cambridge (for you can’t remain in your college rooms) in the peace of seclusion and sympathy in your beloved Cambridge; and I have no means of knowing how your finances may stand. As to the bride, I hope to see her before long, and will abstain from ignorant judgments.1 If by “next” summer you mean this Summer (for it has suddenly come here) you will presumably find me here, if you two agree to face the heat of Rome at this season, probably no greater than in Texas; and I send you a wedding present to express my good wishes and also the desire to encourage that journey. That Cambridge should have endeared itself to you makes a new bond between you and me; for though I prefer Oxford, Cambridge has all the typical charm of rural and scholastic England, and of English life and manners. The “Trumpington grind”2 and the walk down the river, as far as the lock, were my favourites; in fact I hardly knew of other long walks, and in the latter I was often accompanied by Lapsley,3 so that appropriate conversation was not wanting; and you, with your bicycle, must have had a greater range, and if you row or paddle the “paradise” of the upper river as well, which I was not able to frequent. I wish I could be present at your wedding in All Hallows’,4 not only on your joint account, but because, if I am not mistaken, it has a beautiful white and gold interior by Wren,5 peculiarly appropriate for an occasion when one’s feelings are otherwise stirred and the widest perspectives opened— With the affection and complete sympathy of your aged friend GSantayana

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1 Arline Denny McTee and Richard were married at the Church of All Hallows-bythe-Tower in London on 24 May 1952. Santayana expected the Lyons on the 28th or 29th of June. See 26 June 1952 to Lyon and 1 July 1952 to Cory. 2 This is a nickname for the footpath connecting Cambridge to the nearby village of Trumpington. 3 Gaillard Thomas Lapsley (1871–1949), Harvard class of 1893 (Ph.D., 1897), was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University. 4 All Hallows’ is an Anglican church that has been rebuilt four times, twice in different locations. The third incarnation of this church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren; however, it was pulled down in 1939 due to structural defects. The All Hallows’ referred to by Santayana was designed by Robert Atkinson in 1940. 5 Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723) was an English architect entrusted with the reconstruction of innumerable buildings, notably Saint Paul’s Cathedral, following the 1666 great fire of London. His work is characterized by decorative interiors ornamented with designs and by graceful spires.

To John W. Yolton 27 April 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, April 27, 1952 Dear Mr. Yolton You were very good to send me the number of the Columbia Philosophical Journal chiefly devoted to comments on my recent book, including your own article.1 I have at once read this, and most of the others, and my general impression is of the great difference in interest and taste that separates American feeling now from me, due doubtless to my advanced age and to the excited and absorbing sentiment that the political anxiety of the moment naturally produces in the United States. You are less affected (as I gathered long ago from your letters) than most of the others by this preoccupation, and yet I seem to see traces of it, not so much in what you say as in the omission of a point in my view of rational government which I regard as important: the idea of “moral societies”. Individual psyches are surely the only seat of synthesis for political ideas; but these ideas are largely diffused and borrowed in their expression and especially in the emotion or allegiance that they inspire. Religion, especially, is traditional. In conceiving of a Scientific Universal Economy, with exclusive military control of trade, I expressly limited its field of action to those enterprises in which only economic interests and possibilities were concerned. Education, local government, religion, and laws regarding private property, marriage and divorce, as well as language and the arts, were

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to be in the control of “moral societies” possessed of specific territories. These would be governed in everything not economic, by their own constitutions and customs. Of course sentiment and habits would be social in these societies. Children would all be brought up to expect and normally to approve them; but any individuals rebelling against their tribe would be at liberty to migrate, and to join any more congenial society that would take them in, or remain in the proletariat, without membership in any “moral society”. My view is that civilizations should be allowed to be different in different places, and the degree of uniformity or variety allowed in each would be a part, in each, of its constitutional character. It would by no means be expected that every person would lead a separate life. What I wish to prevent is the choking of human genius by social pressure. Yours sincerely, GSantayana 1

“The Psyche as Social Determinant,” The Journal of Philosophy 49 (7): 232–39. This issue also included articles about Santayana by Van Meter Ames, Sterling P. Lamprecht, Herbert W. Schneider, Celestine J. Sullivan Jr., and Marten ten Hoor. The Journal of Philosophy was founded by Columbia University professors Frederick J.E. Woodbridge and Wendell T. Bush, and at this time was edited by Columbia professors Herbert W. Schneider, John H. Randall Jr., and Ernest Nagel.

To John W. Yolton 2 May 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Unknown)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, May 2nd 1952 Dear Mr. Yolton Argument has never been, in my opinion, a good method in philosophy, because I feel that real misunderstanding or difference in sentiment usually rests on hidden presuppositions or limitations that are irreconcilable, so that the superficial war of words irritates without leading to any agreement. Now in your difficulty with my way of putting things I suspect that there is less technical divergence between us than divergence in outlook upon the world. And I am a little surprised that you should attribute to official America today an ambition to prevent Russia from establishing labour-camps, etc. All that I should impute to American policy is that it fears the eventual spreading of Russian methods over the whole world. This is what the Russians mean to do, and gives a good reason for resisting, not for abolishing, them; which last, as far as I know, nobody intends.

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And it is what people intend or actually do that interests me, not what they think they or others ought to do. Therefore in my books, at least in the mature ones, I am not recommending a rational system of government but at most considering, somewhat playfully, what a rational system would be. And in considering this, I come upon the distinction between the needs and the demands of various human societies. The needs and the extent or possible means of satisfying them are known or discoverable by science. So medical science may prescribe for all persons the operations, cures, or diets that it discovers to conduce to health. And so, I say, economic science might discover how best territories may be exploited and manufactures produced, in so far as they are needed or prized. There should therefore be a rational universal control of trade, as of hygiene; and both involve safety for persons and their belongings. The police, communications and currency should be universal and international; and the limits of wages and profits in all economic matters should be equitably determined by economic science. There could therefore be no strikes, monopolies, labour-camps or capitalists, and a scientific communism would reign in most of the things that now cause conflicts in government and between nations. But the justification for this autocracy in the economic sphere would be that only [illegible ]the force-majeure of nature imposed on mankind in their ignorance; whereas, imposed by doctors of science, it would prevent all avoidable distress and unjust distribution of burdens. With this foundation laid in justice and necessity all races, nations, religions, and liberal arts would be allowed to form “moral societies” having, like “Churches” among us now, their special traditions and hierarchies and educational institutions. Each would have an official centre, as the Catholic Church has the Vatican, but need not have any extensive territory. I am always thinking of the East where great empires have always existed, controlling in a military and economic way a great variety of peoples, and preserving a willing respect for their customs. It does not occur to me to say whether cruel institutions should be suppressed from outside if odious to other peoples. Violence, in any case, would be impossible, since that could be exercised, in the name of Nature, only by the rational universal economic authorities, and all the “moral societies” would be unarmed. They would not be able to prevent rebels within their society to leave it; nor would they be compelled to unite or compromise with any other moral society. They might mingle as Jews, Moslems and Christians mingle in the East when they have a good impartial government, such as

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Alexander planned to establish and the Romans and in a measure the Moslems have sometimes carried on. I suspect that you naturally think of “moral” passions as guiding governments and instigating wars. You expect “ideologies” to inspire parties, and parties to govern peoples. All that seems to me an anomaly. And it is not the intellectual or ideal interests invoked that really carry on the battle, but the agents, the party leaders, who have political and vain ambitions. Mohammed1 was a trader before he decided to be a Prophet, dictated to by the Archangel Gabriel;2 and it is already notorious that in Russia the governing clique lives luxuriously and plans “dominations” like so many madmen. It is human: and the gullibility of great crowds when preached to adroitly or fanatically enables the demagogues to carry the crowd with them. There would be no “communists” among factory hands if they knew their true friends. I have nothing to do now, having decided that I must write nothing more to be published, and I have run on in this letter out of habit. Probably I have not said anything that will answer your objections, but I value your opinion and think you would be less puzzled by me if you saw how different my Weltanschauung3 was from that of modern politicians. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

Mohammed (c. 570–632) founded the religion of Islam. He came from a clan in Mecca that depended on commerce to make a living, although he was relatively poor before taking a job in 595 as steward for a wealthy woman. Around 610 he began to receive visions and messages from God, which are recorded in the Koran. 2 In Islamic tradition, Gabriel revealed the sacred laws to Mohammed. Gabriel is one of three archangels mentioned in the Roman Catholic Bible, out of seven that were known in post-Exilic Judaism; and in Christian tradition he is the messenger of divine comfort and mercy. 3 Worldview (German).

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little 4 May 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 4, 1952 Dear Rosamond Your package by air arrived safely a few days ago, and I have already had some good rice soup with the prepared rice, and put away the three

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pieces of camphor for the next morning when I feel like unpacking and repacking my winter garments, which requires a household conscience which I have almost lost. Luxury for me now lies in having nothing to attend to, yet plenty to excite the speculative mind. This has been accomplished lately by a bundle of three books that have arrived from Blackwell’s in Oxford, where I order my fancy reading, one on the poet Pope,1 much too laudatory for such a butterfly, another on “Animal Evolution, to fortify my naturalism, and a third on “The Age of Wren”2 illustrated, which I mean to send to Bob if I find the text more satisfactory than the rather pale views, mainly from old engravings. Besides, touching my naturalism less sympathetically than the evolution of animals, I have received a special number of the Columbia “Journal of Philosophy” devoted mainly to reviews of my recent book, “Dominations & Powers”, all by America professors or advanced students who are so full of the controversies of the day that they have no eye for history or anthropology; and this at the moment when the weight of the East is bearing down the Asiatic pan of the sempe/ iternal balance between tradition and impatience. The Orientals have caught our impatience, but we have no caught their experience. I am an ancient philosopher in my convictions (“un sage antique”, the French Protestant Émile Boutroux3 once called me) and I seem to learn more from the fate of the Jews in the face of the Babylonian and Roman empires, and from the pathetic desire of Alexander the Great to “fuse” East and West, and its interesting outcome in Asiatic Hellenism and Eastern Roman quite oriental Byzantium, than I can learn the childish cooings of the United Nations of doves. Nobody seems to understand that when I describe (somewhat facetiously) what seems to me would be a rational order of society, I do not expect or ask the world to realize it, because I see that the world is irrational, and its great achievements can be only partial, heterogeneous, and unforseen. My critics think this is no coming too any consistent conclusion. They mean [across ] proposing no utopia fit to carry an election. Don’t feel obliged to send me anything by air-mail as I can manage always with what the Sisters provide. Affectionately yours G.S 1

Probably Alexander Pope, by Bonamy Dobrée (London: Oxford University Press, 1951). Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was known for his metrical skill and satirical wit. 2 Probably George Stuart Carter’s Animal Evolution: A Study of Recent Views and Its Causes (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1951). Ralph Dutton (1898–1985) wrote The Age of Wren (London: Batsford, 1951). 3 An ancient wise man (French). Émile Boutroux (1845–1921) was a French philosopher of science and religion who believed these disciplines were compatible.

1948–1952

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 10 May 1952 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Duke)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 10, 1950 Dear Clemens1 I send back this fragment of Eastman’s articles (which I had seen before) supposing that you wish to keep such treasures.2 I have known Eastman by name & some correspondence since early times, and lately he has paid me various visits without saying that they were interviews with literary motives. He is not scrupulous about facts and impertinent in his inferences. But sheep, from a sociably literary point of view, have fleece only to be sheared, and then dyed according to the public taste. I have only too much to read. Don’t send me anything more unless you are sure that it would appeal to me Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

This letter is written on the other side of a sketch of a man’s head and shoulders. See 18 January 1952.

2

To William A. Kirkwood 27 May 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, May 27, 1952 To Professor Wm A. Kirkwood, Ph.D.1 Trinity College, Toronto Dear Sir, It was a happy impulse that prompted you to think that the books you speak of and their annotations, and especially the lines in praise of Homer written by my friend Stickney would interest me. They have called up vividly in my mind the quality of his mind, although the verses represent a much earlier feeling for the classics, and a more conventional mood than he had in the years when we had our frequent moral fencing bouts; for there was a contrary drift in our views, in spite of great sympathy in

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our tastes and pursuits. These verses are signed Sept. 15,,//90. Now Stickney graduated at Harvard in 1895, so that five years earlier he must have been about 17 years old. This explains to me the tone of the verses and also the fact that they advance line by line, seldom or never running over, and breaking the next line at the cæsura or before it, as he would surely have done in his maturity, when he doted on the dramatic interruption of Shakespeare’s lines in Antony and Cleopatra in particular, and in all the later plays in general. I see clearly the greater mastery and strength of impassioned drama, if impassioned drama is what you are in sympathy with; but I like to warn dogmatic critics of what a more naive art achieves in its impartial and peaceful labour and the risk that overcharged movement or emphasis runs of drowning in its troubled waters. Every form of art has its charm and is appropriate in its place; but it is moral cramp to admit only one form of art to be legitimate or important. The reminder of this old debate that I had with Stickney, who enlightened me more (precisely about the abuse of rhetoric)2 than I ever could enlighten him about the relativity of everything has been a pleasant reminder of younger days: although I am not sure that much progress towards reason and justice has been made since by critical opinion. With best thanks and regards Yours sincerely G.Santayana 1 William Alexander Kirkwood (1873–1960) graduated from Harvard (1909) and was professor of Latin at Trinity College from 1912 to 1939. He had retired from Trinity as dean of Arts in 1943. His daughter, Dr. Mossie May Kirkwood (Waddington), wrote Santayana: Saint of the Imagination (University of Toronto Press, 1961), dedicated to her father. 2 Stickney’s doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne, Les Sentences dans la poésie grecque: d’Homère à Euripide (Paris: Societe Nouvelle de Librairie et d’edition, 1903) “was an attack on rhetoric” (see Persons, 387). See also the letter of 18 January 1951.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 30 May 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

Friday, May 30 th 1952 Dear Cory Glad to hear that all except the heavy British breakfast downstairs (I hope not at a precise hour as in the model household, where papa has to

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be sent well-fed to the City by an early train) has welcomed you to Bexhill.1 Here, I have received at last a letter of thanks from Dick Lyon, written (without excessive apologies) while sitting on a bench in a park overlooking the harbour of Plymouth an hour before taking the tender to go and meet his fiancée on board her steamer; but he does speak of my fatherly letter as “a miracle of friendship” and as to the cheque says it left him “literally speechless”, so that I am reconciled to his dilatory habits. Meantime a fresh box of John O’Groats’ shortbread has arrived from Limerick, and three more French books from Mrs. Mercer at the Hôtel Hassler; one of letters of Paul Valéry,2 most illuminating as to his “antiphilosophy”; or absolute egotism. Poetry should be made the standard of science, not vice-versa. Also a visit from the Marchesa Iris Origo3 who tells me that she is living in a flat in Rome, so that her two daughters may go to a French school. As to “Father” Butler’s Thesis,4 after reading half of it and making notes here and there on the margin, I have decided it would be a waste of time to go on, as at close quarters, he is absolutely incompetent. Does he expect me to return the thesis, and if so, what is his American address? My health, with momentary relapses, continues the same, and my time more than filled with reading and with writing letters. The “breakfast foods” received from my niece (accompanied with idiotic clippings and illustrated reviews) do very well in the morning. I take the “flakes” apart (because they are crisp and savoury as they come in the box) and sip the hot milk at intervals to wash them down. The Anglo-Saxon press seems to be aghast at the resurrection of a popular “Right” in Italian politics. Britain was always a “tight little island” and the vast American plains, morally, another equally “tight”, but it would not be surprising to those who understand Europe if, like Spain and Portugal, it reverted, when the present chaos settles down, to take distinctive and native political shapes. The Times Lit. Suppl. arrives punctually but so far contains nothing notable. But I am sending for “The Root of Europe” by Michael Huxley.5 Who is he? G.S. 1

Cory and his wife were living at the Hotel Carlton, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex. Probably Lettres à quelques-uns (Paris: Gallimard, 1952). 3 Iris Margaret Cutting Origo (1902–88) was an English author living in Italy with her husband, the Marchese Antonio Origo. She was the daughter of Santayana's Harvard friend, William Bayard Cutting Jr. and his wife, Lady Sybil Cuffe. 2

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4 Richard Edmund Butler (1918–88) was a Dominican priest who visited Santayana during 1951 and 1952. His doctoral dissertation in philosophy was published as The Mind of Santayana (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1955). 5 Michael Heathorn Huxley (1899–1979) was the founder and editor of The Geographical Magazine (the British counterpart to National Geographic ) and a cousin of Aldous Huxley. He was also the editor of The Root of Europe: Studies in the Diffusion of Greek Culture (London: The Geographical Magazine, dist. by Chatto and Windus, London, 1952).

To Cyril Coniston Clemens 2 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Duke)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, June 2nd 1952 Dear Clemens Here is the review of a book of mine in 1933 by “Nino Ferrari” 1 which has the advantage of being amiable and carrying a photograph of 1923, when I was 60 by/ut looked young for my age. It is quite true that I am a ^^ materialist in cosmology: my taste need not be materialistic on that account. Every naturalist must assume that spirit has arisen naturally in the world of nature and astronomy; and I have settled convictions, and have had them since I was 20, on that point. But religions have always appealed to me as myths more or less expressing the fortunes of spirit in the world that generates it, as in theology the Holy Ghost “proceeds” from the Father (Matter) and from the Son (Form) but suffers a good deal (as Christ did by being incarnate.) Cf. my book on The Idea of Christ. It is only through having roots in the natural world that such ideas have, for me, any truth or beauty. As to Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper”2 It is evidently a sentimental tale, perfectly false, set at a moment when England was being debauched by Henry V3 and all the bishops but one, and when Mark Twain could not possibly feel what was at stake. I could never bring myself to read it. Shall I send it back? G.S. 1

Dino Ferrari wrote “Santayana’s Lucid Rationalism,” a review of Turns, in the New York Times Book Review (3 December 1933). Ferrari (1900–1943), an Italian immigrant who graduated from Columbia College in 1926, was a critic and translator who sympathized with Mussolini’s Fascist government. 2 The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages was first published in 1880.

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3 Twain’s book is set in 1547, at the end of the reign of Henry VIII, who is named in the text as the father of Prince Edward (becoming Edward VI when Henry dies in the story). Henry VIII (1491–1547) was notorious for his ruthless cruelty toward his political enemies, religious opponents, and wives. Santayana is probably referring to John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, who was executed for defying the Act of Supremacy, which required an oath affirming Henry as head of the church in England.

To Alan Denson 2 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: De Kalb)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome, June 2, 1952 Dear Mr. Denson It was indirectly through Scribner’s that your copy of “Platonism and the Spiritual Life” (originally a review of Dean Inge’s Plotinus)1 was found by Constable, because they did not find one in New York. But Mr. Wheelock, one of the partner’s of Scribner’s, is a most — obli obliging person, and sent word to Constable in London that a copy of that book was desired for you. I should be glad if I had at my command a similar means of finding a photograph of me for your new business quarters, but I am never voluntarily photographed, and the reporters and occasional stray artists who insist on taking my likeness do not leave me samples of their art, and I have nothing that I can send you.2 Perhaps your imagination can summon up something more characteristic than what the professionals produce. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 William Ralph Inge (1860–1954), an Anglican prelate and author, was dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral (1911–34). His lectures include The Philosophy of Plotinus, the Gifford Lectures at Saint Andrews, 1917–18 (London: Longmans, Green, 1918) and The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought, the Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge, 1925–26. 2 Both Harry Wood and Lino S. Lipinsky had sent Santayana photographic copies of their portraits of him. (See 13 May 1950 to Wood and 15 February 1952 to Lipinsky.)

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To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 14 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome. June 14, 1952 Dear Lind. I may repeat in beginning this letter what I seem to have said at the end of my last, but not by announcing a continuous convalescence. On June 4th I had an accident very nearly fatal. I fell backwards going down the (artificial) marble stairs at the Spanish Consulate, and struck the edges of the steps with the back of my head and with my side I saw it happen, ^ ^ as I was going down cautiously with one hand grasping the rail; but when I tried to get up, I lost consciousness. On coming to, I found myself being carried into my taxi by a lot of men; four got inside with me, and a fifth next to the chauffeur in front. When the doctor examined me, he said no bones were broken, but only a few abrasions, only one (on the head) bleeding. He put patches on these and gave me some anaesthetic which dulled all pain. The worst, they said later, had been the severe shock. The Consulate people (the one that held me was, I think, the vice-consul) were very attentive and told the Sisters that they were in charge and would pay for everything.1 I am in much better odour in Spain now than ever in my life before. This is the accident: the rest has been only warding off fever by repeated injections. Another day I will answer your “notes” in detail.2 They are all well grounded, only that other considerations, in some cases, seem to me more crucial. My athletic incompetence, and generally my “psyche” compared with my speculative leanings, does not so much produce over-emphasis on spiritual things as overvaluing the perfection of (Greek) physical virtues. My denial of any intrinsic moral dignity or power in essences contrasts with Bertrand Russell’s original worship of mathematics as “true”. They are only correct, but, like music, have marvellous harmonious complexity which delights the intellect as music does the spirit. Truth proper does not come in, because mathematics and music reveal nothing except themselves. But that is no reason for poopooing them, as Russell now does essences. They are the intrinsic exercises and joys of mind But a perfect bodiless mind would not be a perfect man; only an insipid angel.

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Seeing that you are working on my biography, I will send you shortly a very sympathetic “poem” about me as an undergraduate at Harvard by a man I never knew: Eugene Shippen of the class of 1887.3 Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

See 20 June 1952. Lind had commented that Santayana’s “lack of manual dexterity in his youth may have led [him] to overemphasize the gap between action and reflection.” See Vagabond Scholar, 168. 3 Eugene Rodman Shippen (Harvard A.B., 1887) was a Unitarian minister who retired from the Second Church (Boston) in 1929 and moved to Winter Park, Florida. The poem “George Santayana” was included in a 1945 self-published compilation of Shippen’s poetry entitledVerses Grave and Gay (46–49). The first lines read: “Like Dante, though a lad, it was his lot / To suffer exile from the town he loved. / Uprooted and transplanted over-seas, / A sprig of Avila, he grew and throve, / Despite the alien soil and leaden skies.” 2

To Alan Denson 18 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: De Kalb)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6 Rome, June 18, 1952 Dear Mr. Denson Here is Bertrand Russell last pronouncement,1 which I had not seen, and which naturally much interests me, as do your philosophical reflexions. But I am laid up in consequences of an accident (falling down a stone staircase). They are not serious, but not favourable to writing at length on any subject, as at my age I was not prepared for the “shock” Yours sincerely GSantayana 1

The Impact of Science on Society (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952).

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To José Luis Ochoa 20 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Consulate)

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Roma, 20 de Junio, 1952 Al Señor Consul de España Don José Luis Ochoa Muy Señor mio y distinguido Amigo,1 Han pasado muchos días desde el 4 de junio, y en cada uno de ellos he recordado con gratitud las atenciones que en aquel día tuvieron para mi usted y todo el personal del Consulado, acudiendo a socorrerme donde habia caido, y despues acompañandone hasta esta casa y encargandose de los detalles y sufriendo las molestias que mi situasión ocasionaba. Creo que sin tan oportuna ayuda no hubiera yo, a mis años, resistido al golpe—sobre viviendo a varios achaques crónicos proprios de la vejez. A ellos le ruego que atribuya el retraso en mandar a Usted y a sus asistentes la expresion de mi profundo agradecimiento y de creerme siempre S. a. s. s2 Jorge Santayana 1 Translation: Dear Sir and distinguished Friend, Many days have gone by since the 4th of June, and on each one of them I have remembered with gratitude the kindnesses which on that day you and the personnel of the Consulate showed me, coming to my aid where I had fallen, and afterward accompanying me to this house and taking care of the details and putting up with the bother which my condition caused. I believe that without such opportune help, I would not have been able, at my age, to withstand the blow—and survive a number of chronic failings that come with old age. To them I beg you to attribute the delay in sending you and your assistants the expression of my profound gratitude and believe me always Your obedient servant 2 Suyo afectísimo seguro servidor or Su atento seguro servidor.

1948–1952

To Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little [21] June 1952 • Rome, Italy

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(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. June 20, 1952 Dear Rosamond I have been laid up by an accident for the last fortnight, which came near costing me my life, but actually broke no bones and seems now to have left no traces.1 I had gone one morning to renew my passport at the Spanish Consulate, where I was served attentively and quickly (I am becoming known in Spain) and had got down almost to the bottom of the stairs when suddenly my head swam or my foot slipped and I fell backwards on the (artificial) marble steps. I saw that I had fallen, but in the effort to get up, lost consciousness altogether. When I came to (it must have been some minute later) I was being carried by a lot of strange men into my taxi. The chauffer’s round face and yellow rain-coat was all I could recognize, peering at me through the opposite window. He must have been fetched, since they are not allowed to wait in that narrow ancient street: Via Campo Marzio. Four other men from the Consulate, and the office boy outside, packed the taxi, and we started on what seemed to me a strange and long way to this establishment. I was panting for breath, but hardly conscious of what was going on. Once lying on the couch in my room, where they had doubtless given me some strong injections, I felt at home and not in pain except in changing position or being pressed where I had been bruised, on the left shoulder and ribs, and on the back of my head, where the bruise as I was surprised to see had bled profusely over my collar and shirt. It was there, I began to understand, that the well-dressed man (probably the viceconsul) who had been holding me up — by in the carriage, had been staunching the wound all the way from the consulate. The sisters told me, some days after, that the Spanish officials had said that they were in charge of everything, and I suppose went back to town in the same taxi and paid the chauffeur in full. They also telephoned later to learn how I was getting on. There is no doubt that they were most attentive, and yesterday I finally wrote a Spanish letter to the consul to make the best acknowledgements that I could think up.

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The breakfast cereals have done splendidly, and I should be glad of more “grapenut-flakes”, which I am having for supper also. But take your time, as there are British imitations for sale here, which Cory has discovered. Yours affectionately G.S. 1

X-rays revealed three broken ribs on the left side and two pneumonia patches on the lungs. Dr. Sabbatucci was amazed at his recovery (Years, 318).

To Richard Colton Lyon 23 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, June 23, 1952 Dear Dick I write with some days’ advance on your expected arrival, because letters take longer to cross Rome than to cross Europe, which I understand they now do by air. If I get word from you that you are going to another hotel I can have the Sisters telephone to you to stop at the Imperial and ask for this letter. You will find me in another phase of decrepitude than I was in when you came first. Beside the several years intervening I have had this =, an accident which might have been fatal. In going month, on June 4th down the stone stairs at the Spanish consulate, I suddenly fell backwards, hitting the back of my head and various places on my left side. When I tried to get up, I lost consciousness. On coming to I found myself being carried by strangers into my taxi, and taken home. When we arrived, and I was on my chaise-longue, I must have had strong injections administered, because I felt quite normal and clear-headed again, and was surprised to see blood on the collar and shirt that were being removed. They told me afterwards that the people from the Spanish Consulate had assumed charge of everything. It was very attentive of them, and very likely they saved my life. The taxi could not have been at the door as in the narrow Via Campo Marzia/ o carriages are not allowed to wait. They must have fetched him from round the corner, and taken some time to decide what to do. Five of them came in the taxi.

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8:455

It turned out that I had no bones, only a few bruises, only the one in the head bleeding. These were soon patched up. I had no pain except when moving, and the rest was only lying still and getting over the shock. Meantime the heat has been tropical and laden with the grey fogg of the scirocco. I hope this will be quite over when you arrive. I give you these particulars beforehand so that you may both be prepared to find me only an invalid and incapable of going out with you to see anything. But you will be freer and more active by yourselves, and with my wits still more or less about me and more than ever pleased to see real friends. As you know I don’t leave my bedroom, which in the morning is rather in a mess; so please come in the afternoon There was a good article in the last number of the Times Lit. Suppl. on your Cambridge empiricism.1 Cory, whom the Sister’s summoned, has taken it away, but I can tell you what I liked in it. G.S. 1 A review of British Empirical Philosophers: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and J. S. Mill, edited by A. J. Ayer and Raymond Winch (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952), titled “Empiricism Old and New,” Times Literary Supplement (13 June 1952): 385–86.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 26 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6, Rome. June 26, 1952 Dear Lind I have delayed sending you the blank verse of my eulogist Shippen because Miss Tindall, whom I meant to copy it, has been having her precious holiday in England. But meantime I have reread the eulogy and think it is not worth quoting in any history or criticism about me, because he misrepresents too many points in my sentiments and motives. He did not know me personally, and has let his imagination and prejudices loose. Nevertheless I send you the “Poem” and his letter that came with it,1 to show you what a nineteenth century American of the expatriate type could think off me. You may keep the document or throw it away: I do not care that it should be taken seriously. There would be more nonesense than truth in doing so. What chiefly pleased me at first was that he should have taken me for an exiled patrician when I was a penniless waif and my American friends, also the English, my social models. It was

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really true that I was morally independent, until I found my masters in the ancients. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1 Shippen sent the letter and poem to Santayana in fall 1944, but their current location is unknown. Santayana responded to Shippen on 1 January 1945.

To Richard Colton Lyon 26 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6, June 26, 1952 Dear Dick I wrote some days ago to you at the Imperial e , but there is no need ^^ of your going there to get the letter, as I can tell you everything of interest that there may be there. I shall expect you on Saturday or Sunday afternoon in any case and then we can explain ourselves viva voce. G.S.

To John Hall Wheelock 28 June 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Princeton)

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6. Rome, June 28, 1952 Dear Mr. Wheelock Without frightening you more by rashly writing a long letter, let me say that, apart from my advanced age, there was nothing serious about my accident. No bones broken, a few bruises to be patched, only one that had bled visibly. The shock, until injections began to normolize my consciousness, was the chief danger. When Sister Angela (the housekeeper) asked me if I wished to summon Cory, I said no: but the Head probably thought it safer to call him, I suppose by telegraph. He immediately came, having a return-ticket by the best air-line, and kept me company almost

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8:457

every afternoon in the extreme heat which prevailed. No doubt he was glad to find that I was all right; but also enjoyed the excitement and the journey, and is looking forward to the next, early in September. My old friends Mrs Mercer (Martha Dana) and the Marchesa Origo (Iris Cutting) have given or lent me (before the accident, or not having heard of it) modern French books which I have not liked particularly: too modern for me!x Yours sincerely GSantayana [across ] xI am translating some lovely verses by Lorenzo de’ Medici.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 1 July 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

July 1st 1952 Dear Cory Your second letter arrives today, and one has come also from Mr. Wheelock evidently very seriously and permanently alarmed by you about my approaching death. It is approaching, and my accident was a warning of how accidentally the “One Horse Shay” could collapse at any moment.1 But every Christian knows that this collapse is possible for him at any age. The probability of its coming tomorrow is hardly greater at ninety than at nineteen. I don’t feel that it is imminent for me now, or during this summer. The great heat of June, after moderating a little, has almost returned but I feel very well, and my nights are more appropriately visited by sleep than they have been for years (the cough being almost cured, I think by my severe diet). The cereal breakfast foods do very well. I now take a little for supper as well as for breakfast. The Lyons have come three times, and this afternoon is to see their fourth and last visit. I have talked the whole time as she (not very young, but well dressed and pretty) only smiles and seems to catch all my points. Evid ently she knows more of the world than her husband. His speech ^ ^ (not in the least Anglesied by one year at Clare College) was utterly unintelligible to me, so that we have had no real conversation, and I have learned nothing of them or their plans.2 Mrs. Bush3 has sent me a book about Paul Valéry by Elizabeth Sewell4 an English Don now lecturing in America. It is very interesting and as

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you, unlike me, have no prejudice against female philosophers, I will send it to you as soon as I have finished it “Ombron & Ambra” goes very well. I have done, and copied in ink, nine stanzas—nearly half of the twenty-five. I have not taken liberties with the rhymes but have changed and often amplified the language and the thought. I make a real tragedy of a sort of pastoral elegy. But there is philosophy enough in the original to deserve a tragic interpretation. My special cheque from Mr. Murphy has arrived, but I am waiting for the ordinary bi-monthly one to send both to Gilberto Gilberti,5 on your suggestion G.S. 1

This is a reference to a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–94), The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or the Wonderful One-Hoss-Shay: A Logical Story, included in the essay The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, published by The Atlantic in 1858. In the poem, the shay (a carriage, as in the French chaise) is perfectly constructed using Puritan logic, but it suddenly collapses after one hundred years, leaving the parson sitting amidst the wreckage in front of the church. 2 Santayana wrote on 8 July 1952 to Janeth Calvert Aldrick (c. 1925–2007), a teacher and travel agent, regarding his Dialogues in Limbo and more specifically his dialogue “Normal Madness.” “Scribner … reproduced exactly or well imitated in the three Dialogues. … I think it my best book; if you should care to look into it, don’t begin with the first Dialogue … but turn to the one entitled “Normal Madness” which is easy reading. …” Santayana and Lyon began discussing “Normal Madness” in 1948 in their correspondence. The Edition located this letter at http://cgi.ebay.com/Spanishphilosopher-George-Santayana-signed-letter-1952_W0QQite on 8 August 2007, but is unable to transcribe portions of it. 3 Mary Potter Bush, widow of Columbia University professor of philosophy Wendell T. Bush (1867–1941). 4 Paul Valéry: The Mind in the Mirror (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952). Elizabeth Sewell (1919–2002) was born in India of English parents and educated at Cambridge. She later moved to America to escape the inflexibility of the English university and taught English at a number of American universities. She published numerous books of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism. 5 Gilberto Gilberti was an official at the Banco di Roma.

To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) 18 July 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

July 18, 1952 Dear Lind I have read this twice and find it splendid.1 My eyes are getting weak and uncertain, so that both reading and writing are difficult. In my first reading I thought perhaps you repeated your classification too much, and

1948–1952

8:459

that “Intellectuals” was vague But I felt this less on the second reading; ^ ^ also missed altogether a quotation that I meant to ask you to leave out, although I did not understand it. This makes me think that the difference of “aesthetic” views between us is only a difference in taste in some particulars; for my Aesthetic theory or criterion of excellence is a part of my ethics, and not dogmatic. Each real artist has a message of his own. No one else is obliged to share it nor (except as a part of politics or ethics) even to exclude it from his sympathy. It has occurred to me that the most radical way of describing my ethics is to say that its principle is not Duty but Virtue. It is only when a particular duty is an exercise of natural virtue that it can be binding morally. G.S. 1 “A Gentle Warning in Place of a Preface,” the first chapter of Lind’s projected but never-published book Bohemian of the Infinite.

To Richard Edmund Butler 20 July 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Provincial)

Rome, July 20, 1952 Dear Father Butler My eyes have suddenly failed me at least for reading and writing A foretaste of this trouble was one reason why, on reaching page 60, I gave up reading your thesis. But I had a more pertinent reason I do not think you have learned any thing from reading my books; you have read the words and perhaps thought what Saint Thomas might have said about it. This would do nicely for passing an exammination; but it would not enlarge your mind: This is confirmed by your saying that “Soliloques —ies” is (verbally) the best of my books all of them being mere attempts to defend “Interpretations.” It is true that, as to religion, this book had struck the keynote. But as to “reason” and “ideas” all is changed in “Soliloquies.” G.S.

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

(MS: Houghton)

July[illegible ] 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 beginin — nning 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 ot/ctava rima, making a complete partlyp 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 July 22 ’52 GSantayana

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 24 July 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

July 24, 1952 Dear Cory The sight of my handwring will have told you that I have taken another step towards the grave: I can hardly see to read or write. For other things there is no perceptible change. Mr. Wheelock wishes to know whether my version of Lorenzo de’ Medici is to be among my posthumous poems. That will be for you to settle when you have seen the verses, 184 lines.1 Finishing this was one of the causes of the weakening of my eyes; but there were other causes: Father Butler’s Thesis (60 pages read) and 20 pages (read twice) of Bruno

1948–1952

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Lind’s first chapter of his book about me, as a Bohemian. It is very good, and makes the necessary reservations. I wish you would undertake to answer all my official letters, especially to Mr. Wheelock, as I am ashamed of the change he will see in the form if not in the substance; and after all it is you who are principally concerned.2 G S. 1

The translation in Complete Poems is twenty stanzas of 158 lines (435–440), and William Holzberger provides a detailed description of the difficulty of reconstruction (655–58). Twenty-three stanzas are shown on the manuscript, but Santayana had cancelled or superseded certain stanzas and used them to reconstitute other revised stanzas, perhaps after this letter was written. The holograph manuscript is in the George Santayana Collection, Butler Library, at Columbia University. 2 At Santayana’s death Cory would inherit the right to receive Santayana’s royalties.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 3 August 1952 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Columbia)

August 3, 1952 Dear Cory I have had another attack of gastric catarrh1 with no food—for I vomitted everything and little sleep, but I am now almost without flegm, and able to doze at all hours. The occulist said that the cataract in my right eye was ripe for an operation, the beginnings of one were appearing in my left or good eye. He seemed to think that I had not been exact enough in my double daily application of drops and nd ointment. But as I have worried along for two or three years without much change, he agreed that I m i ght as well ^^ worry along for a few months longer. I can read clearly written letters like yours with ease, but small print in books or newspapers defeat me. As to your coming and its financial side, I think September 1st= a good date,2 and I enclose a cheque for £100, as for this month of August, and will send you another for September, a little before the 1st= of that month, which you can devote to good return tickets for you and your wife, and if the return date is not fixed in advance, she could return before you; and my intention is to let you have £100 as regular monthly stipend as official secretary. You would have been increasing your London balance by £100 a month until my London account was exhausted. If I found earlier that it would be safer to let my credit be transferred to you at once, I suppose there would be difficulty or tax on a deathbed present

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The Banco di Roma acknowledge the receipt of my (English) letter to Gilberto Gilberti; but no answer has come from him. He is doubtless away, and my two big cheques not deposited. G.S. 1 Dr. Sabbatucci said: “It is cancer of the stomach. Professor Santayana thinks it is only intestinal catarrh. I did not like to tell him” (Years, 322). 2 Cory arrived in Rome on 8 September. (In Years, 321–27, see his account of the last days of Santayana’s life, Santayana’s death on 26 September 1952, and the burial in the Tomb of the Spaniards in Rome’s Verano Cemetery.)

EDITORIAL APPENDIX

Textual Commentary I. Summary Statement of Textual Principles and Procedures for The Works of George Santayana A. The Works of George Santayana and Editorial Scholarship The volumes of The Works of George Santayana are unmodernized, critical editions of George Santayana’s writings. This scholarly edition is “unmodernized” because it retains original and idiosyncratic punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and word division in order to reflect the full intent of the author as well as the initial texture of the work; it is “critical” because it allows the exercise of editorial judgment in making corrections, changes, and choices among authoritative readings. The editors’ goals are to produce texts that accurately represent Santayana’s final intentions regarding his works and to record all evidence on which editorial decisions have been based. Except for the Letters and Marginalia volumes, The Works of George Santayana pertain typically to materials composed by Santayana that he intended for publication and dissemination in a printed form. For these writings there may exist a holograph manuscript, a typescript, printers’ proofs, two or more editions, and multiple impressions of editions. In such cases the term “critical edition” indicates the task of comparing these various forms of the text in order to ascertain and perpetuate the author’s “final intentions” regarding his work. When the genealogy of the text has been established and the relationships of all pertinent documents determined, the editors choose the document that will serve as copy-text for the critical edition. In the absence of the holograph manuscript, this is normally the document which is closest to the author’s hand. Two independent sight or machine collations are performed against the copy-text for each form of the text produced by Santayana or published during his life-time.

B. Transcribing, Editing, and Typesetting The Works of George Santayana Transcribing, editing, and typesetting the copy-text(s) to reproduce a critical text as accurately as possible is the primary goal of the Santayana Edition. This reproduction of The Works of George Santayana is, therefore, done electronically and, beginning with Volume Five, the books are produced with QuarkXPress, a commercial electronic typesetting program. First the text is

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carefully transcribed (a literal transcription indicating internal variants is produced if the copy-text is the holograph manuscript or a typescript corrected by Santayana). As part of the initial transcription the editors identify the various text elements (chapter headings, subheadings, marginal headings, standard paragraphs, extracts, poetry lines, footnotes, and the like), each of which is rendered visually distinctive with the help of QuarkXPress, making systematic use of the program’s template features. Each transcription then receives at least two independent sight collations against the copy-text to ensure its accuracy. Various software programs aid the editors in locating, counting, and compiling material needed in making editorial decisions. Together with a “Word Book” indicating Santayana’s usage and spelling of problematic words, they are used to identify patterns of punctuation and spelling and all line-end hyphens in the copy-text. In addition to the copy-text, files consisting of the front matter, textual notes, various appendixes, references, and index are compiled and organized using a variety of software programs. These files are placed into the QuarkXPress program and the pages produced are proofed twice for accuracy and checked against the text as necessary. Use of the QuarkXPress desktop publishing program enables the editors to send proofed pages to MIT Press for printing. Before the book is printed, a check of the blueprints (contact prints of the negatives) is made. At this stage, alterations to the text can quickly be identified by focusing principally on a comparison of line and page breaks. Differences in lineation or pagination signal changes within the lines that must then be scrutinized carefully. The desktop typesetting employed in The Works of George Santayana greatly facilitates the editing and publication processes because it maintains the accuracy of the textual record, keeping it free from the errors or alterations almost invariably arising from retyping a document. In having direct control over the printing process, then, the editors also safeguard the integrity of the critical edition text. The final critical edition of a text is, except for emendations dictated by editorial policy, identical to the thoroughly proofread transcription of the copy-text.

II. Publication History of the Letters Santayana probably never intended his correspondence to be published, and did not write letters as he wrote works for publication. The intent of this volume is to present the letters in a form that will give the reader an experience close to that of reading the original letter. Therefore, these published letters are, as much as possible, exact copies of the holograph original. That is, they are, in effect, semi-diplomatic transcriptions, reproducing all of the characteristics of the autograph letters, including misspellings, mispunctuation, grammatical errors, slips of the pen, and such alterations as cancellations and

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insertions. The printed form of the letters adheres to the characteristics of the originals in all of these particulars. The exceptions to this practice of exact transcription and reproduction are lineation, pagination, and other physical features of his letters which it is clear Santayana did not intend to carry any meaning. The editors subscribe to the view of modern epistolary scholarship that “a scholarly edition should not contain a text which has editorially been corrected, made consistent, or otherwise smoothed out. Errors and inconsistencies are part of the total texture of the document and are part of the evidence which the document preserves relating to the writer’s habits, temperament, and mood.”1

A. Earliest Publications A few hundred of Santayana’s letters have appeared unsystematically, in whole or in part, in a number of periodicals and books. Recipients of the letters, editors of periodicals, and authors of books on Santayana recognized the quality and interest of the letters and were desirous of putting them before the public, but it was not until 1955 that a book-length collection of Santayana’s letters became available. The first volume of Santayana’s letters was collected and edited by Daniel Cory and published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1955. The idea for a collection of Santayana’s letters began to take shape in the autumn of 1952 when, in a 21 October letter to Daniel Cory, Scribner’s editor John Hall Wheelock suggested the undertaking of such a project.2 Cory agreed to edit the collection and write an introduction for it, and he and Wheelock worked together at the task of gathering the letters. The Scribner’s edition of The Letters of George Santayana is a handsome and well-made volume and an excellent selection of Santayana’s letters. Cory and Wheelock made every effort to present the 296 letters to 86 recipients (constituting a wide variety of persons) as Santayana wrote them. A deliberate effort was made to preserve Santayana’s spellings (American in the earlier letters and British in the later ones) and punctuation. Except for a few mistranscriptions from the holographs, the text of the 1955 edition is accurate (for a more detailed description of the Scribner’s edition of The Letters of George Santayana, see Letters, Book One, [MIT], 424–25).

B. The Comprehensive Edition of Santayana’s Letters: Origins and Development The project for a comprehensive edition of Santayana’s letters was originated by Daniel Cory (for a more detailed version of this section, see Letters, Book One, 426–28). His association with Santayana began in 1927, when the philosopher engaged the young man to serve as a literary secretary or assis-

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tant, reading his manuscripts and advising him on technical and compositional elements. This relationship—with many separations and interruptions—lasted until Santayana’s death on 26 September 1952. Santayana bequeathed to Cory his remaining unpublished manuscripts—and the rights to his literary properties generally—and named him his literary executor. Cory placed Santayana’s manuscripts in four university libraries that were to become principal centers for Santayana manuscript materials: the Butler Library at Columbia University, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. He also began editing and publishing the essays, poems, and plays not published during Santayana’s lifetime. In July 1971 Cory began to make arrangements with an American university press for a new and enlarged edition of Santayana’s correspondence. He then had on hand about 700 letters not included in the Scribner’s volume, and a new twovolume edition was envisaged. At the same time William Holzberger was working on a critical edition of Santayana’s poetry (published as The Complete Poems of George Santayana by the Bucknell University Press in 1979), and, while doing his research, he located and collected copies of approximately four hundred unpublished Santayana letters in twenty-one libraries. In 1972 Cory entered into a collaboration with Holzberger to produce the new edition. After Cory’s sudden and unexpected death later that year Margot Cory succeeded her husband as literary executor and approved the idea of continuing work on the letters edition. Early in 1977 Holzberger joined the project initiated by members of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy to produce a critical edition of all of Santayana’s writings. Subsequently it was decided to incorporate the letters edition into the Critical Edition of The Works of George Santayana.

III. Textual Principles and Editorial Procedures for The Letters of George Santayana A. Collection of the Letters The goal of the editors has been to identify and collect all of George Santayana’s letters for publication in The Works of George Santayana. Although substantial numbers of his letters have been found, many are missing. Some letters are known to have been destroyed, while others remain unlocated (for a list of unlocated letters, see pages 599–603). The search for Santayana’s letters, begun by Daniel Cory in the early 1950s and ongoing by the present editors, has resulted in the location of more than three thousand pieces of correspondence. These include letters,

Textual Commentary

471

notes, postcards, and a few telegrams and cablegrams; the texts of all of these are contained in this edition. Daniel Cory’s method of locating and collecting the letters was to publish advertisements in leading journals and reviews, to visit libraries known to contain principal collections of Santayana manuscript materials, and to write to individuals who he believed might have corresponded with Santayana. Later, in the 1970s, William Holzberger consulted both the first and second editions of American Literary Manuscripts: A Checklist of Holdings in Academic, Historical, and Public Libraries, Museums, and Authors’ Homes in the United States 3 to generate a list of institutions reported as holding Santayana manuscripts. Letters of inquiry were sent to libraries at sixty-three institutions. In addition, fresh advertisements for Santayana letters were run in a number of leading literary publications, including The Times Literary Supplement (London), The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, and American Literature. Letters of inquiry were sent to more than fifty individuals believed to have received correspondence from Santayana. Also, scholars familiar with this project have kept an eye out for Santayana letters in the course of their research efforts, and this has resulted in the acquisition of several valuable pieces of correspondence that otherwise might not have been acquired. This continuous effort to locate Santayana letters in the libraries or files of institutions and in the possession of private individuals has resulted in the identification and acquisition of over two thousand more letters than the original thousand that Daniel Cory and John Hall Wheelock had accumulated at the time the selection was made for the 1955 Scribner’s edition. The title of the present edition, The Letters of George Santayana, is the same as that of Cory’s selected edition. It is the best title for such a collection because it suggests comprehensiveness without implying absolute completeness. Although every effort has been made to locate and acquire all of Santayana’s letters, that remains a goal impossible to achieve. We know that Santayana himself destroyed the letters he had written to his mother, and he made references to other letters that remain unlocated. However, this comprehensive edition is as complete as many years of work can make it, and it certainly represents the principal corpus of Santayana’s correspondence.

B. Arrangement of the Letters The letters are arranged chronologically, from earliest (to Susan and Josephine in 1868) to latest (to Daniel Cory, 3 August 1952), a period of about eighty-three years. This chronological progression, together with division of the letters into books of approximately equal length, constitutes the sole organizing principle for the edition. Except for the period covered in the first two books (1868–1920), Santayana’s history is not clearly marked either by a sequence of periodic residences or dominating events. Therefore, any division of Santayana’s life and

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letters into episodes seemed artificial and undesirable. Because of the gap between the earliest extant letter and the next earliest one (21 August 1882) and the fact that, as would be expected, fewer of the early letters have survived, the first book covers a much longer period than subsequent books. The organization of the letters in Volume V of The Works of George Santayana is as follows: Book One, [1868]–1909; Book Two, 1910–1920; Book Three, 1921–1927; Book Four, 1928–1932; Book Five, 1933–1936; Book Six, 1937–1940; Book Seven, 1941–1947; and Book Eight, 1948–1952.

C. Transcription of the Letters 1. Transcribing the Texts from Originals or Photocopies of the Original Holograph Letters In the case of correspondence the original handwritten document (holograph manuscript) is the only extant authorial form of the text (the boards of this book provide a typical example of Santayana’s letters). This holograph manuscript, therefore, constitutes the copy-text for the vast majority of the letters included in this edition. In those instances where no holograph is extant, the editors have had to choose a form of the letter which seems to be the closest and most likely to reproduce the missing original. For some letters this is a transcription typed by the recipient specifically for an earlier edition of the letters or for deposit with a library or another individual. For others it is a typed transcription prepared by Daniel or Margot Cory or William G. Holzberger for the edition of letters which Cory, and later Holzberger, anticipated publishing; these transcriptions were done against originals borrowed from the recipient or photocopies thereof. And for some letters the only extant form is a previously published version. Fortunately, most of these “published version” letters are included in the 1955 edition of Cory’s The Letters of George Santayana, where, for the most part, it was Cory’s intent to publish them without alteration. When using these alternative forms in lieu of originals, the editors still have been conservative in making emendations. Based on the editors’ careful comparisons between transcriptions of letters where the original or photocopy survived and those where the letter was lost, the attempts at making the transcriptions more standardized for an earlier publisher (i.e., underlining titles rather than leaving the quotation marks used by Santayana, deleting or standardizing the format of addresses, dates, or signatures) are considered to be earlier editorial alterations and thus not part of the original letter. Also those errors in transcription or typesetting which seem to be merely typographical in nature are not reproduced as part of the critical text. Since the editors’ aim is to provide the reader with a text that can be described as semi-diplomatic, their task lies in correctly reading and transcribing this copy-text first and then in assembling and reproducing the letters

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critically in printed form. Wherever possible, exact transcriptions were made from original holograph manuscripts or photocopies of them. All transcriptions were made by members of the editorial staff of the critical edition. The essential principle guiding transcription was to record everything that Santayana wrote on the holograph. This meant that any revisions that Santayana made—cancellations and insertions—were noted. The 155 letters for which original holographs have not been located are noted as ‘(MS: Unknown)’ in the headnote.4 The textual notes contain more specific information about the actual source for the letter.

2. Plain-Text Transcription This edition of Santayana’s correspondence is a “plain-text” edition. As the editors of Mark Twain’s letters (1988–) explain, “plain text” differs in intent and in form from the two other principal types of transcription of texts: “clear text” and “genetic text.”5 Transcriptions in “clear text” are devoid of editorial symbols; information regarding authorial revisions is provided in footnotes or in appropriate sections of the editorial appendix. Transcriptions in “genetic text,” through the use of arbitrary symbols (such as angle brackets and arrows), attempt to report any and all revisions that the author made on the holograph. “Plain-text” transcription is like “clear text” in avoiding arbitrary mechanical symbols, but like “genetic text” in presenting the creative process at work within the original document. The concept of “plain text” is to represent authorial revisions by signs more natural and less arbitrary, thus making a clearer and more immediately intelligible text for the reader. The editors, by means of plain-text transcriptions, have attempted to represent the original holograph letters as nearly as an efficient printed format will allow. The goal has been to enable the reader to approximate the experience of reading the original holograph letters. To this end, the texts of the letters have not been altered (except in rare instances, where meaning would otherwise be obscured): misspelled words are left uncorrected; no changes are made in grammar; and punctuation is neither altered, added, nor deleted. The letters for which an alternative form of a letter is copy-text are carefully reproduced, though without any plain-text transcription, with appropriate emendation and regularization based on the editors’ familiarity with Santayana’s style of writing and composing letters. Whatever the copy-text for a specific letter, any changes or emendations of it are reported in the textual notes, and errors are listed and marked ‘[sic ] ’ to provide assurance that they represent accurate readings of the copy-text, not editorial inattention. Cancellations: single-character words, or single characters within words, cancelled on the holograph letter are indicated by slash marks. See 7 January 1948 to Rosamond Sturgis (‘E/eyes’), where Santayana wrote the ‘e’ over the

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‘E’, or 12 March 1948 to Frank O’Brien (‘your own?/.’), where the question mark was replaced with a period. Cancellation of two or more characters as words, word fragments, or within words is indicated by a horizontal rule through the cancelled matter. See examples at 17 February 1948 to Daniel Cory (‘three —five months’), where ‘five’ was written over ‘three’; at 1 March 1948 to Robert Lowell (‘may —ore’), where ‘ore’ was written over ‘ay’; and at 5 June 49 to Robert Fitzgerald (‘thin ker spirit’), where ‘spirit’ was written over —— ‘thinker’. Insertions: single characters, word fragments, words, or phrases inserted on the letter are indicated by the use of inferior carets. See for example the letter of 20 September 1948 to John Wheelock (‘salutary effect on’), or 6 May 1948 ^ ^ to Richard Lyon (‘exclusive ly ’), or 27 November 1948 to Robert Lowell ^ ^ (‘“better not to know for a particular natural creature”’). Both linear and ^ ^ marginal insertions are indicated in this way, with marginal insertions further described in a textual note. Insertions above cancellations: words written above cancellations are indicated by a combination of the horizontal rule and the inferior carets (‘— alm— ost more than twenty years’, 20 May 1950 to Cyril Clemens), and the ^ ^ revision is also further described in a textual note. Cancellations within insertions: are indicated by the combined use of slashes or horizontal rules and inferior carets (‘there are also ways new wars’, ^ — ^ 3 July 1941 to Lawrence Smith Butler). It should be remembered that although plain-text transcriptions, through the employment of type-identical signs, bear a greater resemblance to the original handwritten letters than do transcriptions using the traditional editorial symbols, they are not in fact type facsimiles of the holograph letters. Plain-text transcriptions do not reproduce the original lineation, pagination, or any nonverbal characteristics of the manuscript unless the author intended these features to bear meaning, as for instance in quoting poetry. (The purpose of plain text is not to reproduce the holograph letters pictorially, in the way of facsimiles.) The plain-text transcriptions of Santayana’s letters in this edition are intended to represent the original holograph letters in type in such a way that any revisions are immediately identifiable and the texts completely legible. Other signs used in this edition for transcribing Santayana’s correspondence include: —[ —] Broken brackets: indicate matter bracketed by Santayana on the holograph. [ ] Editorial brackets: supply text the editors think necessary for sense or describe textual conditions (the latter signaled by italic type). * or x Asterisks or superscript ‘x’: designate Santayana’s footnotes. 1 Superscript numerals: indicate editorial footnotes.

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D. Emending and Regularizing the Letters Although the editors’ aim is to publish the original document unchanged, some emendations are made in the copy-text. With certain exceptions corrections and alterations of words or spelling or punctuation are recorded in the textual notes. Santayana’s nonlinear placement of text along the margins of his manuscript pages has been standardized, with appropriate editorial explanation. See, for example, the letter of 20 March 1948 to Rosamond Sturgis, ‘anything to fear if it [across] doesn’t go to war,’, where the text beginning with ‘doesn’t’ is written crosswise in the blank margin; that of 16 October 1949 to Ira Cardiff, ‘[across page one] P.S. I appreciate particularly your references to the Soliloquies.’, where Santayana returns to the first page of the letter and writes in the blank margin; and that of 4 December 1938 to Cyril Coniston Clemens, ‘I imitated them [across text] in one passage’, where Santayana has actually written crosswise over words already on the page. Accidentally repeated words are removed from the text, and such emendation is further described in the textual note. Santayana very often did not close a paragraph with final punctuation, particularly at the end of a letter. This has not been altered, and since it is so common the editors have chosen not to note every instance in the textual notes. Santayana followed a common nineteenth-century convention of indenting the first paragraph of his letters more deeply than subsequent paragraphs. This has not been replicated in the text.

1. Santayana’s Spelling Santayana generally preferred British spelling forms, although American spellings are common in his early letters and manuscripts. No effort has been made to standardize spelling; words are reproduced as Santayana wrote them. He was a good speller and only rarely misspelled a word. (A curious exception is his repeated misspelling of the word ‘parliament’, in which he regularly metathesizes the ‘ia’ to ‘parlaiment’.) Notwithstanding Santayana’s competency in spelling, one of the idiosyncracies of his handwriting makes it generally impossible to distinguish between ‘s’ and ‘z’ in words that contain the letter sequence ‘is’ or ‘iz’. In those cases the editors provide the spelling that reflects Santayana’s unambiguous use of the same word elsewhere and the rules observed by British scholarly presses at the time (Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, by Horace Hart, nineteenth edition, 1905, and thirtieth edition, 1936) in accordance with his stated preference for British spelling.

2. Santayana’s Punctuation The letters are generally conscientiously punctuated. But certain marks of punctuation used by Santayana have always troubled his editors, partly

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because of the difficulty of determining the specific mark of punctuation represented in his handwriting, and also because of certain idiosyncratic usages. For instance, Santayana’s colon and semicolon are frequently indistinguishable. That, of course, is characteristic of many writers’ handwritten manuscripts; but sometimes Santayana also used the colon where the semicolon is generally called for (as shown in his published writings for which he had read and approved proofs). Daniel Cory said that Santayana once told him that this unorthodox use of the colon was due to a habit of “thinking in opposition.” The procedure of the present editors has been to read a colon where clearly indicated on the holograph letter and commensurate with Santayana’s habitual usage; but where the punctuation mark is unclear on the holograph and is situated where a semicolon would be standard usage, we have read the mark as a semicolon. (Thus, our practice sometimes differs from that of Cory in Letters [1955] and The Later Years [1963], where he has in certain instances read colon and we have read semicolon.) One or two other punctuation problems have bedeviled Santayana’s editors. Santayana’s period frequently resembles a hyphen, and it has been read, by Daniel Cory and Bruno Lind, as a dash. Santayana’s dashes, however, are generally longer than this “sliding period,” which perhaps resulted from writing rapidly with an old-fashioned, holder-and-nib-type pen. Santayana also appears to vacillate in the letters between the British custom of placing on-line punctuation either inside or outside of quotation marks depending upon whether or not the on-line punctuation is part of the meaning of the matter quoted, and the American practice of uniformly placing it inside except for semicolons and colons, which are always placed outside the quotation marks. In every clear instance, we place the on-line punctuation either inside or outside the quotation marks, according to where it occurs on the holograph letter. However, when—as often happens—the on-line punctuation falls directly beneath the quotation marks, we place it inside the quotation marks. Except for this practice, no effort has been made to standardize the form.

3. Letters in Languages Other than English The comprehensive edition of Santayana’s letters contains forty-six items of correspondence by Santayana written in a language other than English. Santayana wrote in Spanish to members of the family of his half sister, Susan (her husband, and her stepsons and their wives in Ávila). There is also a formal letter in Spanish to Miguel de Unamuno. There is one letter in Italian to Dino Rigacci of 29 April 1945. Letters written in a language other than English appear in the original language of composition in the letters text, with a fairly literal English translation given in a footnote.

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4. Recipients, Provenances, Addresses, and Dates A headnote is added to each letter, indicating the recipient, date and place of composition, and manuscript location (typically giving the name of the institution of higher learning if it houses one collection with correspondence by Santayana, but giving the name of a particular library or collection if the institution serves as repository of Santayana materials in more than one place):

To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis 7 January 1948 • Rome, Italy

(MS: Houghton)

A key to the manuscript location is found in the List of Manuscript Locations. ‘MS: Houghton’ means that the original holograph letter is in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The textual notes give more information about particular collections. If the correspondence is a postcard or telegram, that will be indicated following ‘MS’.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory 17 January 1937 • Rome, Italy

(MS postcard: Columbia)

Also, an effort has been made to identify many, if not all, recipients with short biographical footnotes. Dates editorially supplied are placed in square brackets, uncertain dates being followed by a question mark. When the letter is written on printed stationery, the printed address is included in small capitals. Printed postcard captions are handled the same as printed stationery (SMALL CAPITALS), with no distinction being made. Pre-printed text is reproduced minimally, only to help the reader make sense of a letter, a telegram, or a picture postcard. No account is taken of envelopes, date stamps, or docketing by a recipient except when used to establish the date of a letter, the recipient thereof, or Santayana’s address. If a letter is dated by a postmark, that date is given in the header followed by ‘[postmark]’.

5. Signatures The usual signature on the letters is the writer’s standard ‘GSantayana’. The early form of his signature was ‘G. Santayana’ (as found, for instance, on the holograph of the letter to C. A. Strong of 26 February 1917). Later, he dropped

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the period following the first initial, carrying the stroke from the G to join the first letter of his last name.

E. Editorial Footnotes to the Letters The policy of the comprehensive edition of Santayana’s letters regarding annotation is essentially to limit explanatory footnotes to supplying factual information likely to make the letter more intelligible or meaningful to the reader. However, some effort has been made in the case of letters dealing with events of great historical importance (e.g., the First and Second World Wars, or the Spanish civil war) to provide historical information that will help the reader place the letter in the historical context and for that reason perhaps better understand it. This principle of a fuller understanding has also informed our practice in regard to providing translations of foreign words or expressions in footnotes. Santayana read and spoke several languages, and he makes frequent use of words, phrases, or quotations in the letters from these languages, including Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. In order to facilitate the fullest possible understanding of the letters, we have included translations of foreign terms and phrases in the footnotes except in those instances where the foreign term or phrase is very commonplace or its meaning completely obvious. English translations of titles of books or articles in foreign languages are also provided in the footnotes if the work was translated. We have made fairly extensive use of information about Santayana’s life supplied by Daniel Cory in his book, Santayana: The Later Years: A Portrait With Letters (New York: George Braziller, 1963), frequently quoting directly from the book in footnotes. Any footnotes by Cory included in this edition are identified by the bracketed initials ‘[D. C.]’. The procedures for identifying persons mentioned in Santayana’s letters follow a standard routine. Full identification in the footnotes occurs at the first mention of the name. Subsequent occurrences of the name are noted in the index, which allows for cross-referencing. Names are first checked in authoritative dictionaries and encyclopedias (including the Dictionary of American Biography, the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Oxford Companion to American Literature, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, and the Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University, 1636–1925) and also in the “WorldCat” database of “FirstSearch” in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). In those instances in which no reference could be found, the notation “unidentified” appears in the footnotes and index.

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Lists of errata in Santayana’s published works, sent by him in or with letters to his publishers, are included with the letters with which they were transmitted. Such information may be useful to the reader of these letters in correcting his or her own copies of Santayana’s works. W.G.H. M.S.W.

Notes 1

G. Thomas Tanselle, “The Editing of Historical Documents,” Studies in Bibliography 31 (1978): 48. 2 Wheelock to Cory, 21 October 1952, Scribner Archives, Princeton University Library. 3 Edited by Joseph Jones, Chairman of the Committee on Manuscript Holdings, American Literature Group, Modern Language Association of America, et al. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958). Second edition edited by Professor J. Albert Robbins, Chairman (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1977). The editors are grateful for the kind assistance provided by Professor Robbins in 1977 before the second edition of American Literary Manuscripts went to press. 4 Among the letters for which no holograph could be located and for which no photocopy is extant are twelve letters to Daniel Cory that Margot Cory copied by hand. These are not among the rest of Santayana’s letters to Cory in Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. They are dated 18 November 1927, 13 June 1933, 2 September 1933, 5 December 1934, 7 December 1934, 9 June 1935, 26 September 1935, 20 September 1936, 14 October 1937, 30 April 1938, 11 May 1938, and 18 May 1938. Similarly, we have not been able to locate the original holograph of the letter to Cory of 13 September 1950 and have had to transcribe the extract from it printed in Santayana: The Later Years (1963). 5 Mark Twain’s Letters, ed. Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, and Kenneth M. Sanderson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), Vol. 1, xxvi-xxvii, and xlv, footnote 1.

Short-Title List The following short-title list includes the works most frequently cited in the footnotes. Primary Sources Beauty The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: A. and C. Black, 1896. Critical edition edited by William G. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988. (Footnotes refer to critical edition page numbers.) Character Character and Opinion in the United States: With Reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and Academic Life in America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd.; Toronto: McLeod, 1920. Complete Poems The Complete Poems of George Santayana: A Critical Edition. Edited by William G. Holzberger. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1979. Dialogues Dialogues in Limbo. London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1925; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. Doctrine Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: J. M. Dent & Sons Limited, 1913. Dominations Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd, 1951. Egotism Egotism in German Philosophy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915; London and Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons Limited, 1916. Essays Little Essays: Drawn From the Writings of George Santayana by Logan Pearsall Smith, With the Collaboration of the Author. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1920. Genteel The Genteel Tradition at Bay. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: “The Adelphi,” 1931. Gospels The Idea of Christ in the Gospels; or, God in Man: A Critical Essay. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; Toronto: Saunders, 1946. Hermit A Hermit of Carmel and Other Poems. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901; London: R. Brimley Johnson, 1902. Interpretations Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Black, 1900. Critical edition edited by William G.

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Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989. (Footnotes refer to critical edition page numbers.) Letters The Letters of George Santayana. Edited by Daniel Cory. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1955. Lucifer “Lucifer, A Prelude.” In Sonnets and Other Verses. Cambridge and Chicago: Stone and Kimball, 1894. With changes becomes Act I of Lucifer: A Theological Tragedy. Chicago and New York: Herbert S. Stone, 1899. Obiter Obiter Scripta: Lectures, Essays and Reviews. Edited by Justus Buchler and Benjamin Schwartz. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1936. Persons Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography. Critical edition edited by William G. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1986. Background Span Host

Persons and Places: The Background of My Life. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1944. The Middle Span. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1945; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1947. My Host the World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Cresset Press, 1953.

Platonism Platonism and the Spiritual Life. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1927. Poems Poems: Selected by the Author and Revised. London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1922; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923. Poets Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1910. Puritan The Last Puritan. London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1935; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936; Critical edition edited by William G. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp Jr. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994. (Footnotes refer to critical edition page numbers.) Realms Realms of Being. Four volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1927-1940. Essence Matter Truth Spirit

The Realm of Essence: Book First of Realms of Being, 1927. The Realm of Matter: Book Second of Realms of Being, 1930. The Realm of Truth: Book Third of Realms of Being. Scribner’s, 1938; Constable and Toronto: Macmillan Company, 1937. The Realm of Spirit: Book Fourth of Realms of Being, 1940.

Realms (1 vol.) Realms of Being. One-volume edition, with a new introduction by the author. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942.

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483

Reason The Life of Reason: or, the Phases of Human Progress. Five volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd, 1905–1906. Common Sense Society Religion Art Science

Introduction and Reason in Common Sense. Volume 1, 1905. Reason in Society. Volume 2, 1905. Reason in Religion. Volume 3, 1905. Reason in Art. Volume 4, 1905. Reason in Science. Volume 5, 1906.

Scepticism Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System of Philosophy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1923. Soliloquies Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1922. Sonnets Kimball, 1894.

Sonnets and Other Verses. Cambridge and Chicago: Stone and

Testament The Poet’s Testament: Poems and Two Plays. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953. Truce Revised limited second edition published as Lucifer, or the Heavenly Truce: A Theological Tragedy. Cambridge, MA: Dunster House; London: W. Jackson, 1924. Turns Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933.

Other Works Philosophy Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods (later The Journal of Philosophy). New York: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Santayana McCormick, John. George Santayana: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. Years Cory, Daniel. Santayana: The Later Years: A Portrait with Letters. New York: George Braziller, 1963.

Textual Notes Numbers on the left (i.e. 3.18 and 3.25) refer to Critical Edition pages and lines (Volume V, Book Eight). Line numbers refer to the text of the letters themselves. No heading or editorial footnotes are included in the count. The virgule ( / ) between words on the left of the bullet indicates line-end hyphenation in this edition; that same symbol between words on the right of the bullet indicates a line break in the copy-text. 

7 January 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

3.18 and 3.25 3.27 3.29 3.32

buiscuits • [sic ] marmelade • [sic] cant • [sic] E/eyes • [‘e’ over ‘E’]

 13 January 1948 • Josephine Sturgis and Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

4.12 5.2 5.5 5.9 

correspondance • [sic] Otherwise • Other- / wise book —x • [‘x’ over ‘ok’] table-d’hôtes • table- / d’hôtes

16 January 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 281, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



17 January 1948 • John McKinstry Merriam • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 368–69. Emendations and textual notes: 

7.1 7.2 7.8

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO, Rome, Jan. 17, • ROME, JAN. 17 Russianised • [sic]

8:486 7.9 7.15 7.22 7.24 8.4–5 8.13 

The Letters of George Santayana outpost • [sic] real problem, • real problem, may • may everywhere • every- / where willing • willing GSantayana • [not present]

23 January 1948 • Francis Henry Appleton Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



27 January 1948 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.

 



28 January 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

11.17 11.22 11.33 12.11 12.16 12.29 

confesser • [sic] quarters, and had • quarters, and / and had passa” The • [sic] something • some- / thing Catholocism • [sic] laberynth • [sic]

31 January 1948 • William Gerber • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of William Gerber. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.

 



31 January 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana.” Filosofia 10 (1959): 811. Emendations and textual notes: 

15.11–12 15.12–13 15.27 

“Edizioni Comunit” • «Edizioni Comunit» [sic ] “Idea … Gospels” • «Idea … Gospels» GSantayana • G. SANTAYANA

5 February 1948 • Otto Kyllmann • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections, Temple University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



Textual Notes 16.12 16.15 

8:487

instand • [sic] unfortunely • [sic]

8 February 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana.” Filosofia 10 (1959): 811–12. Emendations and textual notes:

17.10–11 17.22 

Edizioni Comunità • Edizioni Comunità [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] GSantayana • G. SANTAYANA

8 February 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Robert Shaw Sturgis. Previous publication: Letters, 370–71. Emendations and textual notes:



18.11 

Morrison • [sic]

9 February 1948 • Arthur Allen Cohen • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Copy-text is a typewritten transcription by Margot Cory made from a typed copy sent to Daniel Cory in 1951 by Cohen. Previous publication: Partisan Review 25 (Fall 1958): 632, 635, 637. Emendations and textual notes:



20.1–2 20.14 21.26 

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6, / Rome, February 9, 1948 • Via Santo Stefano Rotondo 6, Rome, February 9, 1948 more; and more of • [sic] GSantayana • G.Santayana

10 February 1948 • Ginn and Company • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS is unlocated. Copy-text is a typewritten transcript sent to Whit Burnett on 18 March 1948, File F31, Box 10 of the Story Magazine Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

23.13–14 

Michael Angelo • [sic ]

10 February 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

24.15 24.33 24.34 25.17

thought —h • [‘h’ over ‘ht’] criticised • [sic] “Autoloquies —gus” • [‘gus’ over ‘quies’] [sic] Französe/ische • [‘i’ over ‘e’]

8:488 

The Letters of George Santayana

15 February 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 812–13. Emendations and textual notes: 

26.6 26.11 26.15 27.23 

“Life of Reason” • «Life of Reason» [all words and phrases in quotation marks reflect this pattern ] problem • problem [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] imposes • impose GSantayana • G. Santayana

17 February 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 281–82. Emendations and textual notes: 

28.3 28.4 28.7 28.9 28.11 28.16 28.27 28.28 28.34 

Ryles • [sic] recognised • [sic] “Self-transcendence?” • “Self- / transcendence?” elsewhere • else- / where apperently • [sic] Besides • Be- / sides three —five • [‘five’ over ‘three’] Adviser • [sic ] in “true” • [sic]

17 February 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 813–14. Emendations and textual notes: 

30.4–5 30.11 30.16 30.16–17 30.23 

The Idea … Gospels • The Idea … Gospels length • lenght 249 • [sic] “to fly … true good” • «to fly … true good» [all words and phrases in quotation marks reflect this pattern ] GSantayana • [not present]

17 February 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

31.17

Valdens/cian • [‘c’ over ‘s’] [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:489

1 March 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

32.6 32.11 32.30 33.8 33.10–11 

may — ore • [‘ore’ over ‘ay’] disintergrating • [sic] are only thirty • are only only thirty often in • [sic] profoundly, Especially, • [sic]

7 March 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

34.6 34.9 34.16 

Gospels • [sic] Edizioni di Unità • [sic] Sweedish • [sic ]

12 March 1948 • Thomas N. Munson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version in Letters is copy-text. Previous publication: Munson, The Essential Wisdom of George Santayana (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 143–46; Letters, 371–74. Emendations and textual notes:



35.9 35.10 35.12 35.17 35.30 36.35 37.2 37.23 37.35 38.4 

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO, Rome, March 12, • ROME, MARCH 12, an interested day • [sic] preferred … aesthete: • preferred … aesthete: [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] had trace • [sic] des Veaux • [sic] and will this • and with this existentent • [sic] of it. it is • [sic] GSantayana • [not present]

12 March 1948 • Frank O’Brien • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers [*91M-53 (f)], by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

42.6 42.11 42.12

you way • [sic] at before • [‘b’ over ‘at’] — own?/. • [‘?’ erased]

8:490 

The Letters of George Santayana

13 March 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 283–84. Emendations and textual notes: 

43.8 43.13 43.18 43.27 43.28 43.29 44.2 

criticise • [sic] it mean • [sic] Such as study • [sic] a man name • [sic] femenine • [sic] ear should • [sic] the Communism • [sic]

14 March 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

45.23 

There —y • [‘y’ over ‘re’]

20 March 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

46.18–19 

(because … supper. • [sic ]

26 March 1948 • Winifred M. Bronson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Banc Mss 84/156 c, reproduced courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



10 April 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

48.13 48.27 

Week’s • [sic] botton • [sic]

10 April 1948 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 

Textual Notes 

8:491

10 April 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

49.20 50.9 

this —ese • [‘ese’ over ‘is’] the sent • [sic]

12 April 1948 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

51.14 51.16 51.23 51.25 52.8 

anything • any- / thing recognised • [sic] hypocrital • [sic] pasage • [sic] nanely • [sic]

16 April 1948 • Francis H. Appleton Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

52.12 

1946/8 • [‘8’ over ‘6’]

16 April 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 814. Emendations and textual notes: 

53.12 53.14 53.19–20 53.25 

as so • [sic] pipiu • [sic] Et ses […] d’autrui. • Et ses […] d’autrui. GSantayana • [not present]

29 April 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

54.34 55.8 55.9

relei —ieved • [‘ie’ over ‘ei’]

/t his • [‘h’ over ‘t’] minuit • [sic]

8:492 

The Letters of George Santayana

[May 1948] • Arthur Tisch • [Rome, Italy]

Copy-text: MS unlocated, at one time in the collection of Arthur Tisch. Published excerpt is copy-text. Previous publication: “Letters,” Newsweek (12 May 1997), excerpt, 26. Emendations and textual notes: none.





5 May 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 815–16. Emendations and textual notes: 

56.12 56.12 57.6 57.26 57.36 58.8 

if • if [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] decypher • [sic] criticise • critise and with which • [sic] humain • [sic] GSantayana • [not present]

6 May 1948 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

58.21 58.22 59.7 59.9–10 59.16 

[illegible]caught • [‘caught’ over unrecovered characters ] were each was • [‘each was’ over ‘both were’] both— — Rone • [sic] konvent- / hospital • [sic] had/s • [‘s’ over ‘d’]

8 May 1948 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

60.4 60.12 60.28 60.32 61.3 

the Scribner’s • [sic] undertake • under- / take authoratative • [sic] E/ Osbert • [‘O’ over ‘E’] suggestion • [sic]

11 May 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 284, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes:

61.17 61.20

I ready • [sic] sometimes • some- / times

Textual Notes 

8:493

14 May 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 816–17. Emendations and textual notes: 

62.26 

GSantayana • [not present]

21 May 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 284–85. Emendations and textual notes:

63.8 63.16 63.16 63.17 

something • some- / thing Maughan • [sic] Jane Austin • [sic] Rouge et Noir • [sic]

21 May 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Years, 284–85. Emendations and textual notes:

65.5 65.19 66.3 66.10 66.10 

photograph • photo- / graph Pampadour • [sic] inand • [‘and’ over ‘in’] — year’s’ • [sic] wadrobe • [sic]

23 May 1948 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

67.17 67.23 67.26 

in/ t • [‘t’ over ‘n’] six of • [sic] y/here • [‘h’ over ‘y’]

26 May 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 817–18. Emendations and textual notes:

68.28 69.7

Good • [sic] GSantayana • [not present]

8:494 

The Letters of George Santayana

29 May 1948 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



4 June 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 285–86. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



8 June 1948 • Page Smith • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription by Page Smith is copy-text. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

72.11 

GSantayana • G. Santayana

9 June 1948 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: Commonweal 57 (24 October 1952): 61, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

73.6 73.13 73.14 

enogh • [sic] Laswell’s • [sic ] promissing • [sic]

12 June 1948 • Melvin L. Sommer • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Melvin Sommer. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

74.3 74.6 74.17 74.18 

Sommers • [sic] brothes • [sic] b/ But • [‘B’ over ‘b’] 1632?” • [sic]

19 June 1948 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

75.17 

the “Boston’s • [sic ]

24 June 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 

Textual Notes 

8:495

9 July 1948 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



17 July 1948 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



21 July 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

78.19 79.7 79.8 79.12 79.37 

openned • [sic ] — / tal hospital • hospital contains • cont– - / tains [‘t’ struck out and hyphen added ] a table d’hôtes • [sic] trustee’s • [sic]

25 July 1948 • Francis H. Appleton Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

80.12 80.17 

in scientific • [sic] household I • household / I [sic]

25 July 1948 • Whit[ney] [Ewing] Burnett • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, File F31, Box 10 of the Story Magazine Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.





27 July 1948 • Peter Robert Edwin Viereck • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Peter Viereck. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

82.19 

Crade/le • [‘l’ over ‘e’]

28 July 1948 • Eric C. Parsons • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 375. Emendations and textual notes: 

84.4

GSantayana • [not present]

8:496 

The Letters of George Santayana

31 July 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 287–88. Emendations and textual notes: 

84.15 85.18 85.22 

persistant • [sic] in —as • [‘as’ over ‘in’] outlook • out- / look

6 August 1948 • Paul Arthur Schilpp • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.





13 August 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

87.11 87.33 

have — d • [‘d’ over ‘ve’] Communist • [sic]

16 August [1948] • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



24 August 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

89.28 90.12–13 90.13 90.31 90.34 90.36 

Rome It • [sic ] sendreserve • [‘reserve’ over ‘send’] — in for • [‘for’ over ‘in’] — Cambride • [sic] St. Benedict’s, Rd. • [sic] Congresional • [sic]

27 August 1948 • Enrico Castelli • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Enrico Castelli. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

91.6 91.9

person • [sic] men readers • [‘readers’ over ‘men’] —

Textual Notes 

8:497

27 August 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

91.20 

Heart” Wouldn’t • [sic]

31 August 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

93.7 93.11 

lookind/ g • [‘g’ over ‘d’] William’s • [sic]

4 September 1948 • Enrico Castelli • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Enrico Castelli. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



5 September 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

95.4 95.5 95.27–28 95.31 96.13 

carelessly —ness • [‘ness’ over ‘ly’] Fellowship • Fellow- / ship title Of • [sic] Madness —] It • [sic] Kie —eith • [‘ei’ over ‘ie’]

10 September 1948 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 818–19.  Emendations and textual notes: 

97.30 

GSantayana • [not present]

20 September 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

98.5 98.10

smi —imultaneously • [‘im’ over ‘mi’] a very • [sic]

8:498 

The Letters of George Santayana

21 September 1948 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

99.12 99.12 

Appercepzionsmasse • [sic] easy/ily • [‘i’ over ‘y’]

22 September 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 288, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

100.6 100.14–15 100.19 100.20 

reread • re- / read celebral • [sic ] paedogogy • [sic] Materialy/ly • [‘ly’ over ‘y’]

23 September 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 375–76. Emendations and textual notes: 

101.21 

/i on • [‘o’ over ‘i’]

29 September 1948 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

102.23 103.16 

you eastward • [sic] [illegible]a set • [‘a set’ over unrecovered characters ]

29 September 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



[c. October 1948] • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.

Textual Notes 

8:499

4 October 1948 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

104.25 105.27 105.28 105.29–30 105.38 

decide me • [sic] materialist are • [sic] materialistic • [sic] contradictory —ion • [‘ion’ over ‘ory’] this —eir • [‘eir’ over ‘is’]

6 October 1948 • Paul Arthur Schilpp • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: Letters, 377. Emendations and textual notes:



106.25 

Laurence • [sic]

8 October 1948 • Melvin L. Sommer • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Melvin Sommer. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

107.13 107.18 107.19 107.20 107.22 107.31 

of in • [‘art’ over ‘oint’, ‘in’ over ‘of’] point —art — distroy • [sic] Peloponesian • [sic] pre-eminence • [sic] AntiChrist • [sic] pot-boiler • pot- / boiler

12 October 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 289, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



17 October 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

109.19–20 

that two • [sic ]

29 October 1948 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



110.10 110.29

attendents • [sic] mayonaise • [sic]

8:500 

The Letters of George Santayana

30 October 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



30 October 1948 • Peter Robert Edwin Viereck • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Peter Viereck. excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

113.12 113.23 

Previous publication: Letters, 378,



extraordinary • extra- / ordinary Beda • [sic]

5 November 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

114.7–8 114.13–14 114.18–19 

bio-psycholigical • bio- / psycholigical [sic] “Will … know.” … acquaintance.” • [sic ] eighteenth century editions • [sic ]

7 November 1948 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

115.18 115.28 116.1 116.17 116.24 

than/ t • [‘t’ over ‘n’] [illegible]it • [‘it’ over unrecovered characters ] eighteenth century man • [sic] ciscendental • cis- / cendental i.e. —or • [‘or’ over ‘i.e.’]

12 November 1948 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

117.19 

improbality • [sic ]

15 November 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

118.18 118.23

Quadangle • [sic] pigeon-hole • pigeon- / hole

Textual Notes 

8:501

[16] November 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

119.2 119.8 119.18 

Nov. 15 • [sic] addressed • [sic] book’s • [sic ]

27 November 1948 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

120.28 121.5 121.30 

autobiography I • autobiography / I [sic] should appreciate • [sic] share/ing • [‘ing’ over ‘e’]

12 December 1948 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

122.6 122.7 122.13 122.20 123.8–9 

indiscreetions • [sic] them / se • [‘se’ over ‘m’] Gettysburgh • [sic] comple • [sic] form reproduction • [sic]

20 December 1948 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

123.27 124.3 

grandchildren • grand- / children of as • [‘as’ over ‘of’] —

24 December 1948 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 289. Emendations and textual notes:

125.2 125.14 125.17 125.20

grand-nephews • grand- / nephews R / Quarterly • [‘Q’ over ‘R’] already • [sic] birthplace • birth- / place

8:502 

The Letters of George Santayana

14 January 1949 • Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Lino Lipinsky. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

126.3 126.7 126.7 

Lipinski • [sic] firelight • fire- / light Staughton • [sic]

14 January 1949 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

128.12 128.28 

rencontres • [sic] Stambul • [sic]

17 January 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

129.23 

lieg und • [sic]

21 January 1949 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

130.17 

us But • us / But [sic]

26 January 1949 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

131.7 131.15 132.4–5 132.7 132.13 132.17 132.18 132.32 

understand • under- / stand charm If • [sic] now- / a-days • now-a- / days Italy made • [sic] home-like • home- / like overpowered • over- / powered Thucidides • [sic] “Family Quarrel” • [sic]

27 January 1949 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

Textual Notes 134.6 134.10 134.30 

8:503

potatoe • [sic] they have • they have / have you to your • [sic]

28 January 1949 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

135.6 135.24 

Bidwell’s • [sic] sirrup • [sic]

10 February 1949 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

136.17 136.29 and 137.2 137.4 137.18 

handkerchiefs • hand- / kerchiefs Means • [sic ] Laswell • [sic] reveal it me • [sic]

11 February 1949 • Francis Gardner Clough • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 379. Emendations and textual notes: 

138.17 138.23 

old-fashioned • old- / fashioned GSantayana • [not present]

17 February 1949 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

140.5 

everywhere • every- / where

21 February 1949 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

140.15 140.23 

indefatiguable • [sic]

/ion • [‘o’ over ‘i’]

23 February 1949 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

141.8

on/f • [‘f’ over ‘n’]

8:504 

The Letters of George Santayana

27 February 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 290–91. Emendations and textual notes: 

142.28 

competion • [sic]

28 February 1949 • Ervin Paul Hexner • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Rare Books Room, The Pennsylvania State University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

143.17 

every mans • [sic]

28 February 1949 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

144.9–10 

and how this, … will bring you. • [sic]

1 March 1949 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

148.4 

criticising • [sic]

[1 March] 1949 • John McKinstry Merriam • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of John Merriam. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

149.2 

February 29, 1949 • [sic]

15 March 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 291–92, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

149.27 149.28 150.2 150.6–7 150.9 150.13 150.22 150.29 150.30

c/Corso • [‘C’ over ‘c’] 200 lire • [sic] 250 lire • [sic] (you … Roma. • [sic] the/at • [‘at’ over ‘e’] whether, they • [sic] ingand • [‘and’ over ‘ing’] — (which … (is … improvement?) • [sic] (or intellect) — it • [inserted in left margin; ‘ct)’ over ‘it’]

^

^

Textual Notes 150.31 150.33 

8:505

thing a • [sic] omnipolence • [sic]

30 March 1949 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

151.10 152.6 

houskeeper • [sic] everywhere • every- / where

9 April 1949 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

152.15 152.18 152.26 152.30 

short-distance • short- / distance [illegible]power • [‘wer’ over unrecovered characters ] passtime • [sic] nevertheless • never- / theless

18 April 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



20 April 1949 • Wincenty Lutoslawski • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



154.9 154.27 155.2 155.7 

Sister • [sic] autobiography • auto- / biography favourably • [sic] however • how- / ever

27 April 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

155.27 156.2 156.7 

anything • any- / thing aerea • [sic] by/ut • [‘ut’ over ‘y’]

8 May 1949 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

8:506

The Letters of George Santayana

157.11 157.35 

as/nd • [‘nd’ over ‘s’] non/t • [‘t’ over ‘n’]

13 May 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



13 May 1949 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

160.4–5 160.12 160.35 

of perhaps • [sic] something • some- / thing rout • [sic]

17 May 1949 • Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



24 May 1949 • Allison Delarue • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Allison Delarue Papers (Box 1, Folder: S), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

162.11 162.14 

his her daughter’s • [‘daughter’s’ over ‘her’] ^ ^—^ ^ [illegible]have they • [‘ve they’ over unrecovered characters ]

26 May 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

163.9 163.13 163.13 163.18–19 163.26 

argument, • [sic] dipicting • [sic ] novels/ists • [‘ists’ over ‘s’] sympathic • [sic] the copies of • the copies of the copies of

29 May 1949 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 

Textual Notes 

8:507

4 June 1949 • Andrew Joseph Onderdonk • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



5 June 1949 • Robert Stuart Fitzgerald • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Robert Fitzgerald. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

167.8 167.14 167.16 167.21 

seashore • sea- / shore ker spirit • [‘spirit’ over ‘thinker’] thin— — uncivilised • [sic ] mankind • man- / kind

5 June 1949 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

168.19 169.16 169.26 

however • how- / ever understand • under- / stand by announced • [sic]

6 June 1949 • Brooks Otis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Brooks Otis Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

171.4 

than/ t • [‘t’ over ‘n’]

6 June 1949 • Peter Russell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Collection (#6947), Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

172.14 172.16 172.21 172.26 172.33 

[illegible]Epstein • [‘Epstein’ over unrecovered characters ] frontispiece • frontis- / piece elsewhere • else- / where long If • long / If [sic] perquisite.). • [sic]

9 June 1949 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 

8:508 

The Letters of George Santayana

11 June 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 293–94. Emendations and textual notes: 

174.3 174.12 

Beerbohn • [sic] against the old • against the / the old

21 June 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

175.19 

the who • [‘who’ over ‘the’] —

26 June 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 294–95. Emendations and textual notes: 

176.21 

Winbourne • [sic]

29 June 1949 • Augusto Guzzo • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Guzzo, “Ten Letters and a Foreword of George Santayana,” Filosofia 10 (1959): 819–20. Emendations and textual notes: 

178.14 178.26 178.33 

new light • new light Dominations and Powers • Dominations and Powers GSantayana • [not present]

10 July 1949 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

179.9 179.12 

Pompei • [sic] a/ the • [‘the’ over ‘a’]

11 July 1949 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 380–81. Emendations and textual notes: 

179.24 180.5 180.8–9 180.20

ha —to • [‘to’ over ‘ha’] me) • [sic] your philosopher • [sic] Lafontaine • [sic]

Textual Notes 180.22 180.29 180.36 

8:509

standbye’s • [sic] nevertheless • never- / theless “Ajoutez … effacez. • [sic]

25 July 1949 • George Grady • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



181.9 182.5 182.5 182.10 182.17 182.28 

rhymth • [sic] first last • [‘last’ over ‘first’] — of the firt paragraph • [marginal insert] [sic] ^ ^ a work • [sic ] true false • [‘false’ over ‘true’] — when • [sic]

28 July 1949 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



30 July 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

185.1 185.4 185.9 185.9 

forgot • for- / got 10%. but 10%. / but [sic] thi/ese • [‘e’ over ‘i’] easily —y • [‘y’ over ‘ily’]

1 August 1949 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 381–82. Emendations and textual notes:

185.29 186.19 186.23–24 

something • some- / thing in and • [‘and’ over ‘in’] — occasionally • [sic]

5 August 1949 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

187.6 187.16 187.19

everywhere • every- / where “faraony/a” • [‘a’ over ‘y’] spagghetti • [sic]

8:510 187.20 187.28 

The Letters of George Santayana deserts • [sic] Span”) Very Span”) / Very [sic]

8 August 1949 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

188.12 188.13 189.9 

there all not • [sic ] signs Not • signs / Not [sic] is gives • [‘g’ over ‘is’] —

14 August 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

190.14 190.23 191.15 

decretely • [sic] Little Appley • Little / Appley [sic] etherial • [sic]

14 August 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 295–96. Emendations and textual notes: 

192.19 192.25 

throughout • through- / out Frazer • [sic ]

15 August 1949 • Peter Russell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Collection (#6947), Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

193.12 

Frazer’s • [sic]

21 August 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

194.20 194.26 

snapshots • snap- / shots

/Ibut • [‘b’ over ‘I’]

31 August 1949 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

Textual Notes 195.5 195.6 

8:511

M.S • [sic] arecan • [‘can’ over ‘are’] —

1 September 1949 • William Bysshe Stein • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Photocopy of the letter at the University of Florida, Department of Special Collections, Manuscript Collection of Letters, is copy-text. Previous publication: Modern Language Notes 73 ( January 1958): 23–25. Emendations and textual notes: 

196.4 196.11–12 

carots • [sic] not share • [inserted in left margin]

^

^

2 September 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

197.18 197.18–19 

to — right write • [‘write’ over ‘right’] a— good bad • [‘bad’ over ‘good’]

8 September 1949 • Peter Robert Edwin Viereck • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Peter Viereck. Previous publication: Letters, 382–84. Emendations and textual notes: 

198.10 198.20 198.32 198.32 199.1 199.11 

as prophet • [sic] philosophy/er • [‘er’ over ‘y’] in/ s • [‘s’ over ‘n’] Swiss —German • [‘Germ’ over ‘Swiss’] [illegible]hereditary • [‘hereditary’ over unrecovered characters ] [illegible]rational • [‘rational’ over unrecovered characters ]

15 September 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 296–97 [misdated ‘September 18’]. Emendations and textual notes: 

200.11 200.12–13 

Robert Russell • [sic ] “the … “poem”. • [sic ]

22 September 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 

8:512 

The Letters of George Santayana

22 September 1949 • Rimsa Michel • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Collection (#6947), Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

201.19 201.28 202.3 202.6 202.13 202.14 202.14 

Mr. Michel • [sic] it own • [sic] L/long • [‘l’ over ‘L’] Edwin Edman • [sic] Catholics s like • [sic ] has/ve • [‘ve’ over ‘s’] they • [inserted in left margin]

^

^

23 September 1949 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 384–85. Emendations and textual notes: 

203.3 203.7 203.30 

L/Rosamond • [‘R’ over ‘L’] everything • every- / thing recognise • [sic]

16 October 1949 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

204.10 205.2 205.20 205.25 

or/f • [‘f’ over ‘r’] AS WELL AS ITS BENEFACTOR

• [double underline in original]

con there • [‘the’ over ‘con’] — Bent • [sic ]

18 October 1949 • Bryn[jolf] J[akob] Hovde • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



207.1 

think/ g • [‘g’ over ‘k’]

25 October 1949 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 297–98, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

207.26 208.3 208.9 208.21

pres/ceding • [‘c’ over ‘s’] one pen • [‘pen’ over ‘one’] — beginning suggest • [sic] Robert Russell • [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:513

4 November 1949 • Mrs. Walter F. Fauerbach • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Rare Books Room, The Pennsylvania State University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

209.3 209.12 209.13 209.16 209.20 

Feuerbach [sic] stanza verse [‘stanza’ inserted in right margin] ^ ^— verse — stanza [‘stanza’ over ‘verse’] boyhood • boy- / hood underlying • under- / lying

8 November 1949 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 385–87. Emendations and textual notes: 

210.7 210.7 210.12 210.12 210.14 

omnivorence • [sic] overtaxing • over- / taxing Hussler — erl • [‘erl’ over ‘ler’] there is • [sic ] it presence • [sic]

22 November 1949 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



22 November 1949 • Andrew Joseph Onderdonk • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

212.14 

penecilla/ in [‘i’ over ‘a’] [sic]

[Late] November 1949 • Peter Robert Edwin Viereck • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Peter Viereck. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

213.20 214.4 

introduc. • [sic ] 191/05 • [‘0’ over ‘1’]

8 December 1949 • Cornel Adam Lengyel • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Poetry Society of America, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Previous publication: Letters, 387–88; Official Bulletin of the Poetry Society of America (Oct 1953): 19–22; The Lookout’s Letter (Georgetown, CA: Dragon’s Teeth Press, 1971), as the foreword; Overheard in Seville (Fall 1989), 25. Emendations and textual notes: 

8:514

The Letters of George Santayana

214.22 215.11 215.12 

this —ese • [‘ese’ over ‘is’] [illegible]truth • [‘truth’ over unrecovered characters ] landscape • land- / scape

8 December 1949 • Stefan Schimanski • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Rare Books Room, The Pennsylvania State University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

215.23 215.27–28 216.3 

“World Review, • [sic ] ‘Dominations and Powers” • [sic ] Rob— ert Peter • [‘Peter’ over ‘Robert’] —

9 December 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

216.24 

Places. • [sic]

13 December 1949 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

217.8 217.13 217.18–20 217.19 217.22 217.23 217.25 218.11 

eighty-sixth • eighty- / sixth sometimes • some- / times (you … Cory. • [sic] Chetwynde • [sic] [illegible]stimulating • [‘stimu’ over unrecovered characters ] [illegible]something • [‘thing’ over unrecovered characters ] [illegible]have • [‘have’ over unrecovered characters ] and other will • [sic]

22 December 1949 • John P. McKnight • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

219.4 219.4 219.12 219.19 219.28 219.31 220.3–4 220.9

“Interpretations … Religion, • [sic ] publish in • [sic ] opinions Of • opinions / Of [sic ] essentiall • [sic ] they ordinarily they • [inserted in left margin] [sic] ^ ^ Toym / nbee • [‘n’ over ‘m’] asin • [‘in’ over ‘as’] — marriage-laws • marriage- / laws

Textual Notes 

8:515

29–30 December 1949 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

221.39 

assited • [sic]

30 December 1949 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

223.22–224.3 

(I … recovery. • [sic]

31 December 1949 • Harold Witter Bynner • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1629), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

224.14 

anybody • any- / body

[Late 1949 or early 1950] • Peter Robert Edwin Viereck • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Peter Viereck. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

225.10 and 16 225.10 and 14 225.13 

Moore • [sic] Babbit • [sic ] Moore’s • [sic]

[1950–1951?] • George Perrigo Conger • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Conger Papers, Manuscripts Division, University of Minnesota Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



3 January 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

226.25 227.1 227.7 227.8

tofor • [‘for’ over ‘to’] — in with • [‘with’ over ‘in’] — Robert Russell • [sic] traversty • [sic]

8:516 

The Letters of George Santayana

6 January 1950 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription from Lamont is copy-text. A typed copy also is located in the George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Letters, 388–90. Emendations and textual notes: 

228.6 228.39 

F. R. S. Schiller [sic] GSantayana • G Santayana

10 January 1950 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

229.18 230.1 

chei —ief • [‘ie’ over ‘ei’] Philosopher [sic]

22 January 1950 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Lamont family papers. Previous publication: Letters, 390–91. Emendations and textual notes:



230.13 230.17 231.2 

sympathise • [sic] gennuine • [sic] with surely • [sic ]

31 January 1950 • George Rauh • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 391–92. Emendations and textual notes: 

231.16 232.5 232.11 232.28 232.35 

publishers’ [sic] 16th Century [sic] Terrarima • [sic] Longfellow • Long- / fellow GSantayana • [not present]

7 February 1950 • Ezra Loomis Pound • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Pound Papers II, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Previous publication: Letters, 393. Emendations and textual notes: 

234.1 234.3 

me I me / I [sic] [double underline in original]

EFFICIENTLY

11 February 1950 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

235.1 235.4 235.8

perceptably • [sic] “/ the • [‘t’ over quotes] Property” This Property” / This [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:517

11 February 1950 • John McKinstry Merriam • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, in collection of John M. Merriam. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



235.26 235.27 236.23 236.27 236.28 

buckwheat • buck- / wheat beside • [sic] which I began • [sic] grand ne/iece • [‘i’ over ‘e’] [sic] which —om • [‘om’ over ‘ich’]

20 February 1950 • Hamilton Vaughan Bail • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

237.9–10 237.27 

before between • [sic] Morrison • [sic ]

26 February 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

239.7 239.9 

no yet • [sic] Arivederci • [sic]

10 March 1950 • Andrew Joseph Onderdonk • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



12 March 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

240.6 

h/and • [‘a’ over ‘h’]

23 March 1950 • Alan Denson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

240.24 241.6

philosopher — y • [‘y’ over ‘er’] not further [sic]

8:518 

The Letters of George Santayana

23 March 1950 • Paul Arthur Schilpp • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



242.14 

therefore • there- / fore

26 March 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



26 March 1950 • Victor Wolfgang von Hagen • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription by Daniel Cory is copy-text. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

244.4 

GSantayana • G. Santayana

17 April 1950 • Frances I. Brickman • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS P277:1, Department of Special Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



17 April 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



29 April 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 300, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

245.20 246.3 246.5 

will • [sic] celebrety • [sic] [illegible]Book • [‘Book’ over unrecovered characters ]

29 April 1950 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

246.20

interval’s • [sic ]

Textual Notes 

8:519

7 May 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



10 May 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 301, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

248.17 249.15 249.17 249.20 

penetential [sic]

/i at [‘a’ over ‘i’] [sic] Schroederer [sic] ?/! [‘!’ over ‘?’]

10 May 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

250.4 

Here in • [sic]

12 May 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

250.19 

194/50 • [‘5’ over ‘4’]

12 May 1950 • Harry Emsley Wood Jr.• Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



252.24 252.33 253.5 

suggesting • [sic] repectable • [sic] Il Greco • [sic]

20 May 1950 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: Commonweal 57 (24 October 1952): 61–62, excerpt. The first two paragraphs of the published version of the letter dated ‘May, 1950’ are from the letter of 8 December 1950. Emendations and textual notes: 

253.21 253.24 254.4

Jeffersen • [sic ] ost more than • [‘more than’ above ‘alm ost ’] alm— — —— ^ ^ [illegible]from • [‘from’ over unrecovered characters ]

8:520 

The Letters of George Santayana

22 May 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



26 May 1950 • Dagobert D. Runes • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS of page one, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Beginning with ‘racial stamp’ the MS is unlocated and the typed transcription by William G. Holzberger is copy-text. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

255.23 255.23 255.30 256.7 

emphasize • [sic] anticlericalism • anti- / clericalism extraordinary • [sic ] GSantayana • G. Santayana

26 May 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



27 May 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 301–2. Emendations and textual notes: 

257.5 257.8 

mind notion • [‘notion’ over ‘mind’] — of/r • [‘r’ over ‘f’]

27 May 1950 • Mary Ambrose O’Donnell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

257.18 258.5 

Francis A. Appleton • [sic] elder/st • [‘st’ over ‘r’]

28 May 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

258.20 258.21 258.33 259.4

orthodoxes • [sic ] inventive After inventive / After [sic] another’s • an- / other’s Polish-Jewish • Polish- / Jewish

Textual Notes 

8:521

3 June 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

260.7–11 

“When … consent [sic]

8 June 1950 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription from Lamont is copy-text. A typed copy also is located in the George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Letters, 394–95. Emendations and textual notes:

261.10 261.38 

pre-existence • pre- / existence GSantayana • G Santayana

10 June 1950 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

262.16 263.5 263.16 

proof-reading —ers • [‘ers’ over ‘ing’] [sic] mucou —us • [‘u’ over ‘ou’] are excellent. • [sic]

17 June 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

264.34 

[illegible]readers • [‘readers’ over unrecovered characters ]

18 June 1950 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 395–96. Emendations and textual notes: 

265.19 266.6 

di/emittis • [‘e’ over ‘i’] nursery-maids • [sic]

27 June 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

266.20 267.1

“Sonnets & Other Poems” • [sic] Authur • [sic]

8:522

The Letters of George Santayana

267.4 267.7 267.8–9 267.11 

/iof • [‘o’ over ‘i’] “Three … Poets • [sic] “Persons and Places • [sic] Editors • [sic ]

29 June 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

267.29 267.32 268.6 268.7 

Book II, (to • [sic] Roma I • [sic] Corea • [sic] reaching • [sic]

4 July 1950 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription from Lamont is copy-text. A typed copy also is located in the George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

269.4 

GSantayana • G Santayana

8 July 1950 • Rimsa Michel • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 397–98. Emendations and textual notes: 

269.6 270.17 270.29 

Mr. Michel • [sic ] commonsense • common- / sense GSantayana • [not present]

13 July 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

271.5–7 271.11 271.33 

(my … banks. • [sic ] handwriting • hand- / writing a/ruled • [‘ru’ over ‘a’]

13 July 1950 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

272.4 272.11–12

14/3 • [‘3’ over ‘4’] (whose … told. • [sic]

Textual Notes 272.16 272.16–17 272.17 272.27 273.2 and 6 273.8 273.17 273.26 and 29 

8:523

[illegible ]my • [‘my’ over unrecovered characters ] (fearing … now. • [sic ] [illegible]be soon • [‘be soon’ over unrecovered characters ] now all [‘all’ above ‘now — —’] ^ ^ Dav • [sic ] give [sic] Arthur’s [sic] Corea • [sic]

18 July 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

274.4 

you note • [sic]

21 July 1950 • Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Lino Lipinsky. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

274.16 

morning It morning / It [sic]

28 July 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 302, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

275.7 275.11 275.16 275.20 275.31 

are now • [sic] or I; [sic] anything • any- / thing /Iyou • [‘you’ over ‘I’] Corea • [sic]

28 July 1950 • Fraser Bragg Drew • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Fraser Bragg Drew Collection, University of Vermont Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



28 July 1950 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 399–400. Emendations and textual notes: 

278.2 278.3 278.3 278.3

chariot-race • chariot- / race If — Weep, • [‘W’ over ‘If’] son, • [in margin] ^ ^ y/if • [‘if’ over ‘y’]

8:524 

The Letters of George Santayana

31 July 1950 • Andrew Joseph Onderdonk • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

279.1 279.9 279.12 

you It you / It [sic] was —ere • [‘ere’ over ‘as’] very exceptionally • [‘exceptionally’ above ‘very — —’] ^ ^

4 August 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

280.11 280.24 

c/ Change • [‘C’ over ‘c’] an awnings • [sic]

11 August 1950 • Alan Denson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

281.9 

Fallstaff • [sic]

13 August 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 303. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



17 August 1950 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

283.9 

end Laus • [sic]

18 August 1950 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

283.20

you opportunities • [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:525

22 August 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

284.7 

intreview • [sic]

30 August 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: Letters, 400–401. Emendations and textual notes: none.



1 September 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

286.15 286.22 

June —uly • [‘uly’ over ‘une’] side It side / It [sic]

4 September 1950 • Paul Arthur Schilpp • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



287.10 287.23–24 

reprint • re- / print (your printing it too) • [in margin] ^ ^

5 September 1950 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 401–2. Emendations and textual notes: 

288.11 288.12 288.18 288.27 

explore I explore / I [sic] didnt • [sic] sophisticol [sic] contrains • [sic]

[13 September 1950] • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Years, 303–4, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: none.





14 September 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

290.13

Miss Tindall new • [sic ]

8:526 

The Letters of George Santayana

21 September 1950 • Paul Arthur Schilpp • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



290.21 291.8 291.9 

to fast • [sic] accomplished I accomplished / I [sic] unforseen • [sic]

27 September 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

291.22 

entitle • [sic]

30 September 1950 • Paul Arthur Schilpp • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



292.6 292.11–12 292.20 

guarranteed • [sic] (which … through, • [sic ] reappear • re- / appear

2 October 1950 • Anne Ford • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: “Santayana: Bostonian.” Catholic World 178 (November 1953): 119. Emendations and textual notes: 

292.24 292.25 292.26 293.9 293.10 

Via • “Via Rome • “Rome Dear Miss Ford: • “DEAR MISS FORD: sincerely • sincerely, GSantayana • G. SANTAYANA.

6 October 1950 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



12 October 1950 • George Rauh • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. A photocopy of the original at The University Club Library, New York, is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 403–4. Emendations and textual notes:

294.14 294.31

Commintern [sic] Americans [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:527

16 October 1950 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

295.20 296.1 296.5 296.18–19 

inactivity • in- / activity Scribner’s … his [sic] ingrag/ciates • [sic] philosophy He • [sic ]

22 October 1950 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 23–25. Emendations and textual notes: 

297.4–5 297.5 297.13–14 297.22 297.23–24 298.3 298.5 298.14 298.16 298.18–19 

my philosopher • [sic] seen You [sic ] excelsis [sic] entitle • [sic] A second • A se- / second scense • [sic] poor For poor / For [sic] as in Racine for • [sic] transcenden • [sic] automous • [sic ]

23 October 1950 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

299.9 300.2 300.6 

afternoon This afternoon / This [sic] acqueduct • [sic] Luteran [sic]

28 October 1950 • Henrietta Cholmeley-Jones • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection, Special Collections, Bowdoin College Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

300.25 301.8

c/ Class • [‘C’ over ‘c’] place But [sic]

8:528 

The Letters of George Santayana

4 November 1950 • Luciano Sibille • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



5 November 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

302.27 303.17 303.20 

bora/oque • [‘o’ over ‘a’] [sic] the they • [sic] boroque • [sic]

9 November 1950 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

304.4 

u/University • [‘U’ over ‘u’]

16 November 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

305.3 

about the paragraph • about the / the paragraph

25 November 1950 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 26–27.Emendations and textual notes: 

306.2 306.17 

Mine Host • [sic] hei —ierarchy • [‘ie’ over ‘ei’]

1 December 1950 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

307.11 307.17

unpublished • unpu- / published everywhere • every- / where

Textual Notes 

8:529

1 December 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



8 December 1950 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: Commonweal 57 (24 October 1952): 61, excerpt. The first two paragraphs of the published version of the letter dated ‘May, 1950’ are from this letter. Emendations and textual notes: 

308.27 309.2–3 309.6 309.12 

Twains books • [sic] good-humor/ured • [‘u’ over ‘r’] and … of ) • [sic] crampt • [sic]

8 December 1950 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription from Lamont is copy-text. A typed copy also is located in the George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Letters, 404–6. Emendations and textual notes:

309.22 311.1–2 311.17 

difference quality • [sic] excelsis • [sic] GSantayana • G Santayana

24 December 1950 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

312.4 312.9–10 312.15 

international • inter- / national particularly • [sic] threating • [sic ]

25 December 1950 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

313.19 313.27

landscape • land- / scape inmate • [sic]

8:530 

The Letters of George Santayana

26 December 1950 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

314.9 

staid • [sic]

30 December 1950 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



31 December 1950 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

317.4 317.10 

4/5. • [‘5’ over ‘4’] Hukleberry • [sic]

31 December 1950 • Mercedes de la Escalera • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Indice 7 (15 Oct 1952): 3. Emendations and textual notes: The text of the letter is printed entirely in italics in the published version. 

318.1 318.3 

Via • Vía Querida • QUERIDA

10 January 1951 • Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Lino Lipinsky. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

319.9 320.9 320.9 

characterisation • [sic] Scribners • [sic] the • the / the

12 January 1951 • Max Harold Fisch • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Max Fisch Papers, University of Illinois Archives. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



320.20 320.22 320.22

book part • [‘part’ over ‘book’] — Mrs. Fishe • [sic ] preferrably • [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:531

18 January 1951 • John Berryman • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, John Berryman Papers, Manuscripts Division, University of Minnesota Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

321.17–18 321.24 321.28 321.29 321.34 

to — be his prose works seem to be • [transposition by seem— — ^ ^ Santayana] Carybdis • [sic] Cad/nada • [‘n’ over ‘d’] Catholis/cism • [‘c’ over ‘s’] civilisation • [sic ]

19 January 1951 • George Rauh • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Original was seen for auction at www.ebay.com in August 2000. Printed copy from computer is copy-text. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

322.8 

to send me a • to send / me send me a

19 January 1951 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

323.12–13 323.13 323.14 323.24 323.28 

never finished. • [sic ] Too very • [sic ] staid —yed • [‘yed’ over ‘id’] weak • [sic] recepticals • [sic]

21 January 1951 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

324.25 325.3 

mise-en-scène • mise-en- / scène Bernhard • [sic]

23 January 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.

8:532 

The Letters of George Santayana

30 January 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: Letters, 406–7. Emendations and textual notes: 

326.29 327.10 327.20 327.26 

Mid-century • Mid- / century characterised • [sic] criticise • [sic] Midcentury • [sic]

9 February 1951 • Warren Allen Smith • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 407–8. Emendations and textual notes: 

328.1 328.2 328.7

329.7 

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, February • ROME, FEBRUARY Religion in the Twentieth Century • Religion in the Twentieth Century [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] GSantayana • [not present]

15 February 1951 • Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Lino Lipinsky. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

330.7 330.20 

Arthur • [sic] imagination You • [sic]

17 February 1951 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 28–29. Emendations and textual notes: 

331.8 331.20 

“cicular” • [sic] sugges • [sic]

20 February 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: Commonweal 57 (24 October 1952): 62, excerpt. The published version is incorrectly dated ‘Feb., 1952’. Emendations and textual notes:

332.22

is the • [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:533

23 February 1951 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

333.17 

Middlemen • [sic]

27 February 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

334.16 334.17–18 334.20 334.21–22 334.26 337.25 337.26 

background • back- / ground that seem • [sic ] your • [sic] preoccupied • pre- / occupied looks like • [sic] Liberia • [sic] Lousiana • [sic]

1 March 1951 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

339.1 339.2 339.9 339.33 

to ties • [sic ] lady-love • lady- / love metre —er • [‘er’ over ‘re’] Hickery, dickery • [sic ]

12 March 1951 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

340.11



my they publishers • [‘my’ inserted in right margin, ^ ^ —^ ^ ‘publishers’ inserted in left margin with ‘hers’ over ‘they’]

14 March 1951 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



15 March 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

341.27

arrangement • [sic]

8:534 

The Letters of George Santayana

25 March 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

342.4 342.11 342.14 

your • [sic] in with • [‘with’ over ‘in’] — he • [sic]

28 March 1951 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

342.27 344.4 

forebade • [sic] ourselves • ourselv— / selves

[Spring 1951] • Anne Ford • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version in Catholic World is copy-text. Previous publication: Ford, “Santayana: Bostonian,” Catholic World 178 (November 1953): 119; “Los chocolates del filósofo Santayana,” Hechos y dichos 29 (Madrid, 1954): 250–54; Joaquín Iriarte, Nuevos Pensares (Madrid: Editorial Razón y Fe, S.A., 1963), 598. Emendations and textual notes:

344.19 344.20 344.29 

Dear Miss Ford • “DEAR MISS FORD Yesterday • “Yesterday GSantayana • “G. SANTAYANA.”

21 April 1951 • Upton Beall Sinclair • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sinclair Manuscripts, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



28 April 1951 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

346.3 346.24 

place It • place / It [sic] public My • [sic]

4 May 1951 • Max Harold Fisch • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Max Fisch Papers, University of Illinois Archives. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



347.9 347.13

Pierce • [sic] James It • [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:535

10 May 1951 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 308–9, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

347.24 348.9 348.21 348.24 

have quicken • [sic] Yokima • [sic] Bower • [sic] expectedly • [sic]

11 May 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: Commonweal 57 (24 October 1952): 62. Emendations and textual notes: 

349.6–7 349.18 

Herald- / Tribune • Herald- / Tribune dont • [sic]

11 May 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



17 May 1951 • C. L. Shelby • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Collection (#6947), Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

351.5 351.12 

thank • [sic] on an • [sic]

17 May 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

352.11 352.15 352.19 

book Let • [sic] Tindal’s • [sic] compliment • [sic]

29 May 1951 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 309. Emendations and textual notes: 

353.2

issue • [sic]

8:536 

The Letters of George Santayana

2 June 1951 • Stuart Johnston Northrop • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

353.18–19 

happenned • [sic ]

4 June 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

354.15 

critic’s • [sic]

6 June 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

355.1 355.7 355.24–25 355.28 

Stefano, • [sic] autograph • auto- / graph “and & “property” • [sic] “have • [sic]

13 June 1951 • John Brett Langstaff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Oxford—1914, 136–37. Emendations and textual notes:

356.5 356.9 356.19 

1919 • [sic] Carnaghan • [sic] politics/al • [‘al’ over ‘s’]

14 June 1951 • William H. Boyer • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription by Margot Cory is copy-text. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

358.11 

GSantayana • G. Santayana.

15 June 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

358.18

winter Visitors • [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:537

17 June 1951 • Thomas H. B. Robertson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Text is taken from a typed transcription by Margot Cory and was read against a photograph of the original for sale on Ebay on 22 July 2002. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



20 June 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

360.2 360.7 

send • [sic] arrises. • [sic]

24 June 1951 • [ John Hall Wheelock] • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



30 June 1951 • John W. Yolton • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 409–11. Emendations and textual notes: 

361.4

Via di Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA DE SANTO STEFANO

361.5 361.7

Rome, June • ROME, JUNE Last Puritan • Last Puritan [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] however • how- /ever GSantayana • [not present]

ROTONDO

362.20 362.33 

2 July 1951 • Hirsch Loeb Gordon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 411–13. Emendations and textual notes: 

363.1 363.2 364.13 364.17 365.5 365.15

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, July • ROME, JULY homogenous • [sic] political • political [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] Brittanica • [sic] GSantayana • [not present]

8:538 

The Letters of George Santayana

4 July 1951 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



5 July 1951 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 310, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

366.25 367.6 367.15 and 22 367.20 

negociations • [sic ] background • back- / ground Northrup • [sic ] Stewart Northrup • [sic ]

5 July 1951 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 154–55. Emendations and textual notes: 

368.1 368.24 368.26–27 368.34 369.2 

Estefano • [sic] some where • [sic] overbooked • [sic] as much a • [sic] Northrup’s • [sic]

5 July 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

369.11 369.24 369.30 370.7 370.18 370.18 

the/at • [‘at’ over ‘e’] agoreno • [sic] takes notes • [sic] Stephen • [sic] 96 • [sic] [this text is found on page 93 in the first printing ] botton • [sic]

12 July 1951 • John W. Yolton • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 413–14. Emendations and textual notes: 

371.1 371.2 371.7

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, July • ROME, JULY nature • nature [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in

Textual Notes

371.24 

8:539

the published text] GSantayana • [not present]

12 July 1951 • Morton Dauwen Zabel • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The Newberry Library, Chicago. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

372.8 

nevertheless • neverthe- / less

18 July 1951 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



22 July 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



4 August 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

374.26 374.26 374.27–28 

faltless • [sic] etc, • [sic] “But … it? • [sic]

10 August 1951 • Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

375.9 

cord. • [sic]

15 August 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



16 August 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

377.5–6 377.11–12 377.13

(no … it, • [sic] to be credited to my account? • [in margin] ^ ^ mythat • [‘that’ over ‘my’] —

8:540 377.15 377.26



The Letters of George Santayana ten nine • [‘nine’ over ‘ten’] — constutional • [sic] [the writing between ‘s’ and ‘u’ is mostly obscured by a crease in the paper , but the first printing of Dominations reads ‘constiutional’]

18 August 1951 • Robert Shaw Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Robert Shaw Sturgis. Previous publication: Letters, 414–15. Emendations and textual notes:



378.14 378.18 378.22 

Lafontaine • [sic] descendents • [sic] place That • place / That [sic]

20 August 1951 • John W. Yolton • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 416–17. Emendations and textual notes:

379.13 379.14 379.21 380.27 

Via S. Stefano Rotondo • VIA S. STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, August • ROME, AUGUST philosophical; • philosophical; [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] GSantayana • [not present]

21 August 1951 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 310–11, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes:

381.1–2 381.3 381.7–8 381.13 381.24 381.27 

with not • [sic ] al • [sic] “ambiguous” … philosophy” • [sic ] philosophy I • [sic] [illegible]offer • [‘offer’ over unrecovered characters ] 1895 • [sic]

21 August 1951 • Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Lino Lipinsky. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



24 August 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: Letters, 417–18. Emendations and textual notes:

383.21

Otherwise • Other- / wise

Textual Notes 

8:541

29 August 1951 • John W. Yolton • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 419–20. Emendations and textual notes: 

384.1 384.2 384.10 384.20 385.6 

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, August • ROME, AUGUST genuine • genuine [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] another • an- / other GSantayana • [not present]

31 August 1951 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

385.27 386.3 386.7–8 386.22 

sence • [sic] sort challenge • [sic] tragedies The • tragedies / The [sic] dissillusioned • [sic ]

21 September 1951 • Robert Shaw Sturgis • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Robert S. Sturgis. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

 

387.8 387.17 

without • with- / out on Some • [sic ]

28 September 1951 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: Letters, 421, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

388.3 388.15 

friends./ , /I it • [‘,’ over ‘.’ and ‘i’ over ‘I’] ^^ ^ ^ Aesculine • [sic]

3 October 1951 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 156–57. Emendations and textual notes: 

389.17 389.23

Pauls • [sic] knowlege • [sic]

8:542 

The Letters of George Santayana

21 October 1951 • George Rauh • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. A photocopy of the original at The University Club Library, New York, is copy-text. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



3 November 1951 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

391.29 392.4 

nowhere • no- / where —cover • [‘cover’ over ‘fly’] fly

3 November 1951 • Jorge Guillén • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Span 115), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

392.24 

The Mills of Kavanaugh • [sic]

3 November 1951 • Vincent Holme (Scharmel Iris) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The Newberry Library, Chicago. Previous publication: Excerpts in Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America 27 and Spanish Earth (1964). Emendations and textual notes: 

393.15 393.15 

English-S/ speaking • [‘s’ over ‘S’] understood • under- / stood

11 November 1951 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 422–23. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



23 November 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

396.9 396.10 396.29 

by/ut • [‘ut’ over ‘y’] consciencious • [sic] Loeke’s • [sic ]

25 November 1951 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 423–24. Emendations and textual notes: 

Textual Notes 398.8 398.11 398.16 398.34 

8:543

phif/losophical • [‘l’ over ‘f’] thoughts Possessions • thoughts / Possessions [sic] (in … days, • [sic] Benezedrex • [sic]

28 November 1951 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Corliss Lamont Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Letters, 425–26. Emendations and textual notes: 

399.10 399.14 399.23 

sometimes • some- / times wrong” There • [sic] totalitalian • [sic]

29 November 1951 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 158–59. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



29 November 1951 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

402.9 

dignatary’s • [sic]

6 December 1951 • Mercedes de la Escalera • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Indice 7 (October 1952): 3. Emendations and textual notes:

402.21 403.31 

Querida • QUERIDA Jorge. • Jorge.

15 December 1951 • Conde de Marsal • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of Sra. Eduardo Sastre Martín, Madrid, Spain. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



16 December 1951 • Ira Detrich Cardiff • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Letters, 426–27. Emendations and textual notes: none.

8:544 

The Letters of George Santayana

18 December 1951 • Justus Buchler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Brooklyn College Archives. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

406.9 406.12–13 406.17 

[illegible]Berkley • [‘Berkley’ over erasure] [sic] what every • [sic ] being is called • [sic]

18 December 1951 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

407.22–23 407.23 407.25 407.28 407.31 408.2 

medium That • [sic ] itself Marseilles • [sic] minds • [sic] Antinöus • [sic] “Posthumous Poems. • [sic] Other wise • Other / wise [sic]

19 December 1951 • Corliss Lamont • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Typed transcription from Lamont is copy-text. A typed copy also is located in the George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Letters, 427. Emendations and textual notes: 

408.27 

GSantayana • G. Santayana

22 December 1951 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

409.12 

over assurance • [sic]

24 December 1951 • Raymond Brewer Bidwell • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, collection of the Bidwell Family. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

410.5 410.25 

years All • [sic] grandson • [sic]

8 January 1952 • Lawrence Smith Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The University Club Library, New York. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 

Textual Notes 

8:545

10 January 1952 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 160–61. Emendations and textual notes: 

412.12 

foreward • [sic ]

18 January 1952 • Max Forrester Eastman • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Eastman Manuscripts, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Previous publication: Great Companions (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1959), 126–27, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes:



414.2 414.8 414.12–13 414.22 

1951. • [sic] where —n • [‘n’ over ‘re’] Nursing Sister … Mary”. • [sic] on the p. 35 • on the / p. 35 [sic]

24 January 1952 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



29 January 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



7 February 1952 • Miriam Thayer Richards • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 428–29. Emendations and textual notes:

417.31 418.4 

sometimes • some- / times sister’s • [sic]

12 February 1952 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

418.11 418.11 418.12 418.20 418.21

Frankfort • [sic ] some month’s ago • [sic] bronchial-gastric • bronchial- / gastric you • [sic] he get • [sic]

8:546 

The Letters of George Santayana

18 February 1952 • Evelyn Tindall • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



23 February 1952 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 162–63. Emendations and textual notes: 

419.26 420.10 

immortalisation • [sic] all There • [sic]

23 February 1952 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: Letters, 429. Emendations and textual notes: 

421.6 

be the • [sic]

24 February 1952 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

421.25 421.27 421.28 422.3 

(with two misprints (on • [sic ] Quaterly • [sic] Roades • [sic] rembered • [sic]

28 February 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

422.10 422.15 422.15 423.3 423.7 423.24 423.27 

to morrow • to / morrow [sic] if dates • [sic] events I • [sic] miscelany • [sic] Scotish • [sic] breakfast • break- / fast its. • [sic]

8 March 1952 • Horace Meyer Kallen • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

Textual Notes 424.13 and 16 424.14 424.17–18 424.24 

8:547

civilisation • [sic] love-making • love- / making but (…) but • [sic] civilised • [sic]

9 March 1952 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 430–31. Emendations and textual notes: 

426.6–8 426.14–15 

—[ I … convictions. • [sic] circumstances When • [sic]

13 March 1952 • Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr. • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1905), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

426.29 427.17 427.21 427.28 428.6 

Ravenaughs • [sic] cow-sheds • cow- / sheds a/ the • [‘t’ over ‘a’] dispair • [sic] “Ravenaughs” • [sic]

16 March 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 431–32. Emendations and textual notes: 

429.8 429.20 

one in the • [in margin] ^ ^ [illegible] • [one word cancelled by Santayana]

16 March 1952 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 432–33. Emendations and textual notes: 

431.6 

the evidently • [sic]

26 March 1952 • Chauncey Devereux Stillman • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 433–34. Emendations and textual notes: 

431.11 431.12 431.26–27 432.14

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, March • ROME, MARCH Jorge … Borrás • Jorge … Borrás GSantayana • [not present]

8:548 

The Letters of George Santayana

27 March 1952 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 166–68. Emendations and textual notes: 

432.26 432.28 433.1 433.2 433.5 433.9 433.12 433.18 

you • [sic] orthordox • [sic] whole Of • whole / Of [sic] five or • [sic] that, … have • [sic] (as … (without • [sic] somewhat • some- / what (from … suffered; • [sic]

17 April 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

434.15 434.21 434.28 434.29 

Westninster • [sic] food-parcels • food- / parcels respectibility • [sic] civilisation • [sic]

17 April 1952 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

435.10 435.10–11 436.8 

reader’s’ • [sic ] [illegible] • [one word cancelled by Santayana] for it year • [sic]

^

^

20 April 1952 • Alan Denson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections, Northern Illinois University Libraries, De Kalb. Previous publication: Letters, 435. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



20 April 1952 • Winfred Overholser • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Previous publication: Letters, 435–36. Emendations and textual notes: 

437.13

respecti/ability • [‘a’ over ‘i’]

Textual Notes 

8:549

20 April 1952 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



22 April 1952 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none. 



27 April 1952 • John W. Yolton • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 436–37. Emendations and textual notes: 

440.1 440.2 441.14 

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, April • ROME, APRIL GSantayana • [not present]

2 May 1952 • John W. Yolton • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS unlocated. Published version is copy-text. Previous publication: Letters, 437–40. Emendations and textual notes: 

441.15 441.16 441.25 442.20 443.21 

Via Santo Stefano Rotondo • VIA SANTO STEFANO ROTONDO Rome, May 2nd • ROME, MAY 2ND prevent • prevent [all words underlined in this letter are italicized in the published text] [illegible] • [one word unreadable] GSantayana • [not present]

4 May 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

444.7–8 444.14 444.17 444.18 444.25 444.29 444.29 444.30

“Animal Evolution, • [sic] America • [sic] sempe/iternal • [‘i’ over ‘e’] have no • [sic] understand • under- / stand unforseen • [sic] is no • [sic] too any • [sic]

8:550 

The Letters of George Santayana

10 May 1952 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

445.2 

1950 • [sic]

27 May 1952 • William A. Kirkwood • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Mossie May Kirkwood, Santayana: Saint of the Imagination (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961), 234–35. Emendations and textual notes: 

446.1 

15,,//90 • [‘/’ over ‘,’]

30 May 1952 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 315–16. Emendations and textual notes: 

446.27 

household • house- / hold

2 June 1952 • Cyril Coniston Clemens • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Cyril C. Clemens Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

448.4 448.5 448.6 448.17 448.19 

Nino • [sic] photograph • photo- / graph by/ut • [‘u’ over ‘y’] Pauper” It • [sic] Henry V • [sic]

2 June 1952 • Alan Denson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections, Northern Illinois University Libraries, De Kalb. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

449.7 

partner’s • [sic]

14 June 1952 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 169–70. Emendations and textual notes: 

450.8 450.33

side I • [sic] mind But • mind / But [sic]

Textual Notes 

8:551

18 June 1952 • Alan Denson • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Special Collections, Northern Illinois University Libraries, De Kalb. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

451.9 

Russell • [sic]

20 June 1952 • José Luis Ochoa • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Spanish Consulate, Rome, Italy. Previous publication: José María Alonso Gamo, Un Español en el mundo: Santayana, poesía y poética (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1966). Emendations and textual notes:



452.9 452.10 452.13 

acompañandone • [sic] situasión • [sic] proprios • [sic]

[21] June 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 440–41. Emendations and textual notes: 

453.2 453.6 453.12 453.13 453.25 453.26 454.2 

June 20 • [sic] passport • pass- / port minute • [sic] chauffer’s • [sic] well-dressed • well- / dressed by in • [‘in’ over ‘by’] — grapenut-flakes • grape- / nut-flakes

23 June 1952 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: 

454.12 454.15 454.27 455.1 455.4 455.11 455.14 

Imperial • [sic] Beside • [sic] Marzia/o • [‘o’ over ‘a’] no bones, • [sic] fogg • [sic] bedroom • bed- / room Sister’s • [sic ]

26 June 1952 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 170. Emendations and textual notes:

8:552

The Letters of George Santayana

455.27 455.28–29 

off me. • [sic] nonesense • [sic]

26 June 1952 • Richard Colton Lyon • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes: none.



28 June 1952 • John Hall Wheelock • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Author Files I, Box 131a of the Scribner Archives, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:

456.20 

normolize • [sic ]

1 July 1952 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 319–20, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

457.15 457.28 

“One Horse Shay” • [sic] Anglesied • [sic ]

18 July 1952 • Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers (bMS Am 1542), by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Lind, Vagabond Scholar: A Venture into the Privacy of George Santayana (New York: Bridgehead Books, 1962), 171–72. Emendations and textual notes: the letter is written in pencil. 

459.1 

vague • [in margin]

^

^

20 July 1952 • Richard Edmund Butler • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Provincial Archives, Province of St. Albert the Great, U.S.A., Chicago, Illinois. Previous publication: none known. Emendations and textual notes:



459.15 459.18 459.20 459.22 

writing A • [sic ] any thing • any / thing [sic ] exammination • [sic] Soliloques —ies • [‘ie’ over ‘es’]

22 July 1952 • Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Little • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, Sturgis Family Papers, by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Previous publication: Letters, 441–42. Emendations and textual notes: 

460.1

July[illegible] • [partially cut off ]

Textual Notes 460.5–6 460.7 460.10 460.12 460.12 

8:553

beginin —nning • [‘nnin’ over ‘nin’] anything • any- / thing making alternative • [sic] ot/ctava • [‘c’ over ‘t’] partlyp • [sic]

24 July 1952 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 320. Emendations and textual notes: 

460.22 

handwring • [sic]

3 August 1952 • Daniel MacGhie Cory • Rome, Italy

Copy-text: MS, George Santayana Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Previous publication: Years, 320–21, excerpt. Emendations and textual notes: 

461.9–10 461.10 461.15 461.18 462.1

vomitted • [sic ] flegm, • [sic] nd • [sic] defeat • [sic] acknowledge • [sic]

Report of Line-End Hyphenation In quotations from the present Critical Edition, no line-end hyphens are to be retained except the following.

7.12–13

make-shift

259.19–20 anti-religious

16.19–20

full-length

263.16–17

snap-shot

45.19–20

well-known

268.2–3

proof-corrections

51.7–8

anti-traditional

271.19–20

re-read

59.9–10

konvent-hospital

273.27–28

fifty-six

116.13–14

well-chosen

278.26–27

132.4–5

now-a-days

well- stocked, ^ ^ 295.23–24 galley-proofs

136.20–21 sub-conscious

308.3–4

high-flown

167.7–8

love-affair

309.2–3

167.10–11

ground-swell

349.6–7

good-humor/ured Herald-Tribune

182.16–17

clear-sighted

368.4–5

someone-else

187.20–21

tea-things

374.8–9

air-journey

201.3–4

air-mail

384.10–11

off-shoots

208.12–13

semi-dreams

394.1–2

un-Christian

217.13–14

“lower-middle

410.26–27

four-in-hand

233.14–15

philo-epistemologia

423.20–21 “breakfast-foods”

252.34–35 snap-shots

431.25–26 boarding-house

Chronology William G. Holzberger This chronology is based upon various sources of information about Santayana’s life and work, including his autobiography, entitled Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography, originally published in three volumes as Persons and Places, The Middle Span, and My Host the World (in 1944, 1945, and 1953 respectively); his letters; the biography by Daniel Cory, entitled Santayana: The Later Years; and my conversations with Cory. It is also indebted, however, for its dating of Santayana’s transatlantic journeys and other travels, to a large printed map of Europe sent to me by Santayana’s grandnephew, Don Eduardo Sastre Martín, on which, in the early years of the twentieth century, Santayana carefully inscribed, in red ink, the dates of his voyages, the names of the transatlantic steamships on which he traveled, and the routes that he followed. 1847 or 1848 Agustín Ruiz de Santayana (c. 1814–93), George Santayana’s father, is appointed Governor of Batang in the Philippines. 1849 On 22 August Josefina Borrás (c. 1826–1912), George Santayana’s mother, marries George Sturgis (1817–57) of Boston, aboard a British warship at anchor in Manila Bay. They have five children, but only three survive to adulthood (Susan Parkman, 5 June 1851; Josephine Borrás, in 1853; and Robert Shaw, in 1854). The other two ( Joseph Borrás, who was called Pepín, born in 1850, and James Victor, in 1856) die in infancy. 1856 Josefina and George Sturgis, with their surviving children, visit America. They sail from Manila to Boston aboard the Fearless, a journey of ninety days. Agustín Santayana is also aboard, on leave from his post at Batang and bound for Spain via America and England. 1857 George Sturgis dies in Manila at the age of forty. His brother, Robert Sturgis, gives Josefina ten thousand dollars.

558

Editorial Appendix

1858 Josefina Sturgis sails for Boston from Manila. Her youngest child, James Victor, aged one year and seven months, dies on the journey, in London. Josefina and her three surviving children remain in Boston for three years. 1861 or 1862 Josefina and her children return to Spain. They live in Madrid with the parents and family of Mercedes de la Escalera y Iparraguirre. 1862 In Madrid Josefina Borrás Sturgis marries Agustín Santayana (whom she had known during their years in the Philippines). 1863 On 16 December, at No. 69, Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, Madrid, George Santayana is born. (He retains his Spanish citizenship throughout his life.) 1864 Santayana is christened Jorge Agustín Nicolás, on 1 January, in the parish church of San Marcos, Madrid. The first name is given by the godmother, his twelve-year-old half sister, Susan (Susana), who chooses the first name of her own father, George Sturgis. 1866 Santayana’s parents and the four children move from Madrid to Ávila. Afterwards, Santayana’s half brother, Robert, is sent to live in Boston. 1868 or 1869 Santayana’s mother, with Susan and Josephine, leaves Ávila for Boston, in obedience to her first husband’s wish that his children be brought up in America. George Santayana, age five, is left with his father in Spain. 1872 In his ninth year, Santayana and his father leave Spain in June, bound for America, where the boy is to be raised and educated. They sail from Liverpool on 4 July on the Cunard steamer Samaria. Santayana’s first American residence is his mother’s house at No. 302 Beacon Street, where his father remained for several months before returning permanently to Ávila. Santayana attends his first American school, Miss Welchman’s Kindergarten on Chestnut Street. 1873–74 During the winter of 1873–74, Santayana is at the Brimmer School, the public grammar school of the district. In the autumn of 1874, he transfers to the Boston Public Latin School, where he spends eight school years.

Chronology

559

1876 Santayana travels to Philadelphia with his half brother, Robert, to see the Centennial Exhibition. 1880 In June Santayana, age sixteen, is awarded the Poetry Prize at the Boston Latin School for his poem “Day and Night.” He regards the event as his “emergence into public notice.” During the ’80s Santayana regularly attends mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Boston. 1881–82 Santayana’s senior year at the Boston Latin School. He becomes founding editor of the Latin School Register, the student paper, in which he anonymously publishes poems. In the autumn of 1882, he matriculates at Harvard College. Throughout his undergraduate years, he lives in room No. 19, Hollis Hall, the Harvard Yard. On weekends he visits his mother, who now lives in Roxbury, Massachusetts. During this freshman year, he discovers Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, which he studies in Latin, but he fails algebra and does poorly in his course in Greek, taught by Louis Dyer, whose book, The Gods in Greece, is to influence him considerably. In the Greek course, he reads the Bacchae of Euripides, from which he takes his personal motto: To\ sofo\n ou) sofi/a which, in translation, becomes the second line of his famous Sonnet III: “It is not wisdom to be only wise.” He becomes cartoonist for the Harvard Lampoon. 1883–84 Santayana’s sophomore year at Harvard. In June 1883, at the age of nineteen, he makes his first return to Spain to visit his father, sailing alone from New York to Antwerp and traveling from there to Ávila by train. He also visits relatives in Catalonia, where, at Tarragona, he contracts a mild case of smallpox. Nevertheless, he manages to see a number of major Spanish cities and also visits Lyons and Paris. Returning to America in October, from Antwerp, he resumes his studies at Harvard. At first he is advised by a skeptical William James against going in for philosophy. At the Church of the Immaculate Conception, he meets Ward Thoron, who becomes his closest friend during their undergraduate years. 1884–85 Santayana’s junior year at Harvard. He is initiated into two undergraduate societies, the O.K. (on 22 April 1885) and the Hasty Pudding. 1885 He becomes a founding member of the editorial board of The Harvard Monthly, the avant-garde college literary magazine founded by classmate Alanson Bigelow Houghton. The first issue of October 1885 carries a sonnet by Santayana, and he continues to publish poems in the Monthly until 1903.

560

Editorial Appendix

1885–86 Santayana’s senior year at Harvard. He meets Charles Augustus Strong, who had come from the University of Rochester to study philosophy for a year at Harvard. Together they found the Harvard Philosophical Club. They are awarded jointly, by the Harvard Philosophy Department, the Walker Fellowship for graduate study in Germany. The stipend of five hundred dollars is to be divided between them. The issue of The Harvard Monthly for April 1886 contains what is to be Santayana’s most anthologized poem, his Sonnet III, beginning, “O World, thou choosest not the better part!” He is introduced to John Francis Stanley, 2d Earl Russell (“Frank”), age twenty, who is visiting America after being “sent down” from Balliol College, Oxford, in May 1885 for an alleged misdemeanor. Russell, elder brother of philosopher Bertrand Russell, becomes Santayana’s most admired friend and the model for Jim Darnley of Santayana’s novel, The Last Puritan (1935). Santayana’s Bachelor of Arts degree is awarded summa cum laude and in absentia, Santayana having sailed for Cherbourg after taking his last examination. In July 1886 he returns for the second time to Ávila, where he spends the summer with his father. In mid-August he is at Göttingen, Germany, and later that autumn (September) spends four to six weeks at Dresden. He also journeys to London, visiting that city for the first time, in company with Strong. They sail from the port of Bremen in northern Germany. In October 1886 Santayana is in Berlin for the start of the winter semester. 1887 In late March (at the close of the winter semester at Berlin) Santayana and Strong travel to England for a holiday. Santayana spends two days with Earl Russell aboard the latter’s steam yacht Royal, sailing down the Thames from Reading to London. In April Santayana first visits Oxford, where, through Earl Russell, he meets poet Lionel Johnson, then a student at New College. On 18 June Santayana is in London. He visits Winchester, Russell’s school, in company with the young nobleman. On 20 June he views the procession for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee (the fiftieth anniversary of her reign) from a room in Buckingham Palace Road engaged for the occasion by John D. Rockefeller. The company includes Rockefeller’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth (“Bessie”), and Charles Augustus Strong, to whom she had become engaged that spring. During the summer, Santayana makes his third return to Spain. He is in Ávila in July and August. On 2 September he takes a ship from Malaga to meet his sister, Susana, on Gibraltar for a few weeks to tour southern Spain before returning to Germany. From that autumn until the following spring, Santayana continues his graduate studies at Berlin. (His December address in Berlin is Pottsdamerstrasse 123III.) The current German psycho-physiological approach to the study of philosophy is uncongenial to Santayana; also he is apprehen-

Chronology

561

sive about writing a doctoral dissertation in German. He decides to return to Harvard to complete his doctoral program. 1888 He joins Earl Russell at Valence, France, on 2 June for a seventeen-day canal journey through Burgundy aboard the Royal. On 18 June they reach Paris, where Santayana leaves Russell. In August, following his summer stay in Ávila, he visits Russell at his house, Broom Hall, situated at Teddington. After over two years abroad, Santayana returns to America, sailing from Liverpool to Boston on the Catalonia. Josiah Royce rejects the suggestion of Schopenhauer as the subject of Santayana’s dissertation, recommending Lotze instead. Until the following autumn (1889), Santayana lives with his mother in her house in Roxbury, Massachusetts, working on his doctoral dissertation. 1889 Santayana completes his dissertation on Lotze’s System of Philosophy and is awarded Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees by Harvard University. During the summer he stays with Julian Codman and his family at Cotuit, on Cape Cod, where he meets the novelist Howard Sturgis, cousin to his relations. That autumn, at the rank of instructor in philosophy, he begins his twenty-two-year teaching career at Harvard. During the academic year 1889–90, Santayana lives in rooms in Thayer Hall in the Harvard Yard. He becomes an honorary member of several college clubs, including the Delta Phi or “Gas House” (later the Delphic), the Zeta Psi (called “The Spee”), and the Signet Society. He meets Henry Adams at the historian’s home in Washington, D.C., where he is taken by Ward Thoron. 1890 In June Santayana sails from New York for Liverpool. During the summer he first visits Queen’s Acre, novelist Howard Sturgis’s home near Windsor Park, England, which he is to visit almost yearly until Sturgis’s death in 1920. He spends part of July and August in Ávila. Sailing from Liverpool on 3 September on the Teutonic, Santayana returns to America and moves into rooms at No. 7, Stoughton Hall, the Harvard Yard, where he will spend six winters. About this time he begins his “Poetry Bees”: regular meetings held in his rooms with a group of student friends for the purpose of reading aloud from the celebrated poets. This practice is continued for several years before being discontinued and is revived in 1910–11, with Conrad Aiken as the leading light among the student members. Also, at about this time, Santayana, William Vaughn Moody, Norman Hapgood, Boylston Beal, and others, as a lark, found the Laodicean Club at Harvard, and Santayana is elected “Pope” by the membership.

562

Editorial Appendix

1891 Santayana sails from Boston to Liverpool in June aboard the Cephalonia. He makes his first visit to Telegraph House (or “T.H.”), Earl Russell’s estate on the South Downs in Hampshire, England, where Santayana is to be a regular visitor until 1923. He visits Ávila in August and returns to Boston in September. 1892 Santayana spends the summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the autumn he makes his first visit to Yale, where he is invited by William Lyon Phelps to watch the Harvard-Yale football game. Santayana is writing “nothing but poetry” at this time. On 26 November his half sister, Susana, then forty-one, marries Celedonio Sastre of Ávila, a widower with six children. On 16 December, Santayana’s twenty-ninth birthday, he gives a dinner party for a group of Harvard friends: “one of the pleasantest memories of my life.”1 1893 On 10 June Santayana sails from New York for Gibraltar on the Fulda.2 Crossing to Tangiers, he meets the American painter John Singer Sargent on board ship. During the summer, he is in Ávila, where he witnesses his father’s death at seventy-nine. He leaves Ávila on 22 August for London and returns to New York, sailing from Southampton on 3 September. He spends two weeks with Strong in New York on his arrival. Back in Cambridge in October, he learns of the death of the closest of his younger friends, Warwick Potter (who had graduated from Harvard that spring), from cholera in the harbor of Brest during a voyage aboard a friend’s yacht. The body is returned to New York, where Santayana attends the funeral. He writes the four “To W. P.” sonnets. About this time he is approached by Herbert S. Stone and Hannibal Ingalls Kimball, young Harvard men who offer to publish a collection of his poems. He also attends the New York wedding of Robert Burnside Potter, Warwick’s elder brother. At the end of this year Santayana undergoes his metanoia, or fundamental change of heart, resulting in a renunciation of the world. This is brought about by a combination of disconcerting events, including Susana’s marriage, his father’s pathetic death, Warwick Potter’s death, the end of youth (signaled by his thirtieth birthday), and the prospect of an undistinguished career and life in Protestant America. 1894 Santayana remains in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the summer. Earl Russell, en route to San Francisco, spends a week with him in Cambridge. Santayana’s first book, Sonnets and Other Verses, is published by Stone and Kimball in Cambridge and Chicago.

Chronology

563

1895 In Cambridge, Massachusetts, until June, Santayana again sails from New York to Gibraltar on the Werra. During the summer, he visits Earl Russell at his “ugly villa” at Maidenhead, England, and meets Mrs. Marion Sommerville, who is later to divorce her husband and become Russell’s second wife (“Countess Mollie”). During this summer, Santayana also travels in Italy with Charles Loeser and makes a one-hundred-fifty-mile walking tour through France to Switzerland with Guy Murchie. He returns to Cambridge in late September, sailing from London to New York on a cattle steamer. 1896 Santayana’s first book-length prose work is published by Scribner’s: The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory. The second edition of Sonnets, containing the thirty new sonnets of the Second Sonnet Series, also is published by Stone and Kimball in this year. Andreas Martin Andersen makes his charcoal drawing, which becomes Santayana’s favorite portrait of himself. On 28 June Santayana sails from Quebec on the Parisian, bound for Liverpool and a year’s leave of absence from Harvard. He plans to spend a year in advanced study at Cambridge University. From late July through early September, he is in Oxford. Early in October he visits Bertrand Russell at Haslemere, England; in September he begins a four-week stay in Maidenhead, England. He also appears in court in Winchester on 9 or 10 October to testify on behalf of Frank Russell, against whom charges were brought by the Earl’s estranged first wife, Mabel Edith, and her mother, Lady Lena Scott. Afterwards, Santayana goes immediately from Winchester to Cambridge, where he is admitted as an advanced student to King’s College, with the standing of Master of Arts. His Cambridge friends include Nathaniel Wedd, G. Lowes Dickinson, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and J. M. E. McTaggart. He studies Plato under the direction of Henry Jackson of Trinity College. That December Santayana testifies on behalf of the “wicked Earl,” as Russell’s notorious courtroom adventures caused him to be designated by the journalists, at the trial of Lady Scott and her codefendants for libel, held at the Old Bailey in London. They are convicted and sentenced to eight months at hard labor, but Russell intercedes to reduce the severity of Lady Scott’s punishment. Santayana spends the Christmas holidays in Paris with club acquaintances at Harvard, who are studying at the Beaux Arts. 1897 In January Santayana returns to King’s College, Cambridge, England. He spends April and May traveling in Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burnside Potter, visiting Florence, Venice, and Rome. On 22 June, in company with the Rockefellers (as in 1887), Santayana views Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession (the sixtieth anniversary of her reign) from a room in Picadilly

564

Editorial Appendix

taken by John D. Rockefeller for the occasion. During the summer Santayana sees Lionel Johnson again, in Earl Russell’s London rooms in Temple Gardens. His study at King’s College is finished during July and August, and, after fifteen months abroad, he returns on 2 September 1897 to Boston from Liverpool in the Gallia. He resumes his teaching duties at Harvard and lives with his mother in her house in Longwood, Brookline, Massachusetts, walking to classes. 1898 Despite Harvard President Charles William Eliot’s disapproval, early in the year Santayana is promoted from instructor to assistant professor for a five-year period at an annual salary of two thousand dollars. The promotion is endorsed by William James, Hugo Münsterberg, and Santayana’s other colleagues in the philosophy department. He takes up permanent residence on Brattle Street in Cambridge to “do one’s share in maintaining or establishing the academic traditions of the place.”3 In June he sails to England for his summer holiday abroad, but he is dismayed by the ignominious defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila Harbor and Santiago in the Spanish-American War. He returns in September, sailing from Liverpool to New York. 1899 Santayana’s Lucifer, a mythological tragedy, is published in Chicago and New York by H. S. Stone. Santayana sails from New York to Southampton in June and spends the summer at Oxford completing work on the manuscript of Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. He visits the Robert B. Potters at Sainte Marguerite and then spends two weeks with Susana and her family in Ávila before sailing to Quebec from Liverpool in September. 1900 Santayana spends the summer abroad, sailing in June from New York to London. He visits a number of cities in France, including Chartres, Orleans, and Toulouse, and then settles in Oxford for most of the time. Returning to America from Southampton in September, he moves into rooms at No. 60, Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he continues to live until mid1904. He meets Baron Albert von Westenholz (“one of my truest friends” [Persons, 261]) when the young German aristocrat appears at Harvard. Interpretations is published by Scribner’s in New York and A. & C. Black in London. 1901 The last collection of new poems by Santayana, A Hermit of Carmel and Other Poems, is published in New York by Scribner’s (and in London by R. B. Johnson in 1902). Henceforth, Santayana writes little poetry, concentrating

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instead on philosophy. He spends the summer abroad, sailing for England in July and returning in September. 1902 Santayana again spends the summer abroad, sailing in June from New York to Southampton and returning from London in September. 1903 Santayana is reappointed assistant professor for a second five-year period, at the same annual salary of two thousand dollars. Again the summer is spent abroad, with Santayana sailing from New York to Southampton in June. In mid-August he leaves Oxford for Portsmouth, to visit Earl Russell. He returns to Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Hamburg in September. 1904–6 Santayana spends twenty-seven months abroad, including his only sabbatical leave (1904–5), traveling in Europe and the Middle East. In mid-July 1904 he sails from New York to Plymouth, England. That September, he sends the last batch of manuscript for The Life of Reason to the publishers and then sets out from Paris for his “first real travels.” He visits Rome and Venice with Charles Loeser. After spending a few weeks at Naples in December, he visits Pompeii; then he goes on to Sicily, where, at Syracuse, he reads the first proofs of The Life of Reason. He returns from Sicily to Naples and sails for Greece. He is in Egypt in January 1905 and travels by boat up and down the Nile. From Egypt he travels to Palestine and Tel Aviv, spending three weeks at Jerusalem. He visits Damascus and Baalbeck, then travels from Beirut to Athens and through Greece, which, in its modern form, disappoints him. He sails from Piraeus to Constantinople, concluding his odyssey with Budapest and Vienna. Never again will he travel “for the sake of travelling.” (Persons, 467) While still in the East in 1905, Santayana is invited by Harvard to become Hyde Lecturer at the Sorbonne for 1905–6; he accepts, thus extending his holiday for a second year. During this period he lectures on philosophical subjects at Paris and the provincial universities. The five volumes of The Life of Reason; or, the Phases of Human Progress are published during 1905–6 by Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London. Santayana rejects an offer of a position on the philosophical faculty of Columbia University. He returns to America in September 1906, sailing from Southampton to New York, and resumes his teaching duties at Harvard. 1907 Santayana is promoted from assistant professor to full professor, and his salary is doubled to four thousand dollars per year. In June he sails from New York to Hamburg and returns to Boston from Liverpool in September.

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1908 Santayana sails from Boston to Plymouth in June and spends time in England and France before returning to Boston from Cherbourg in September. 1909 Santayana is elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters (later the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters). He spends the summer in Europe, sailing in July, from Boston to Liverpool, on the Lusitania, and returning from Liverpool in September aboard the Mauretania. 1910 In February Santayana delivers a course of lectures, on “Three Philosophical Poets,” at Columbia University. On 13 April he addresses the Century Club in Chicago, and from 14 April to about 24 April he repeats his course of six lectures on the “Three Philosophical Poets” at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. These lectures constitute the book Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe published later in the year by Harvard University Press, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and by the Oxford University Press, in London. Santayana sails from Boston to Liverpool aboard the Lusitania in June, and he makes his penultimate transatlantic crossing in September, sailing from Hamburg on the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria. 1911 In April Santayana delivers his final lecture at Harvard. He receives an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Wisconsin. From Madison, he travels to the University of California at Berkeley, where, beginning in June, he teaches in the six-week summer session and has his only experience of the American West. 1912 Santayana makes his final transatlantic crossing (thirty-eighth), sailing aboard the Olympic from Boston on 24 January, bound for Plymouth and a holiday in Europe. He plans to return to Harvard in September 1913, but in fact he has left America for good. On 5 February Santayana’s mother dies. His share of the inheritance, coupled with his savings, enables him to resign his professorship, which he does with a letter to Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell of 6 June. In February he visits Cambridge University, where, as Bertrand Russell’s guest, he sleeps in the clock tower of Trinity College. During the spring he lives in Spain with Mercedes de la Escalera (an old family friend) in her home in Madrid. At this time, Santayana’s bronchitis becomes chronic, and he suffers from it periodically during the rest of his life. In May he moves into C. A. Strong’s Paris apartment at No. 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, which, until his settlement in Rome in 1928, becomes his prin-

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cipal residence. At this time, his sister Josephine Sturgis is taken by her brother Robert to Spain, where she will remain permanently. 1913–14 Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion is published by Scribner’s in New York and Dent in London. Santayana is in Ávila during December 1913 and spends the period January through May 1914 in Seville. He is back at Strong’s Paris apartment in June. In July Santayana crosses the English Channel “to do some shopping, and see a few friends,”4 travels to London, and early in August, to Cambridge. World War I breaks out, and Santayana returns to Oxford, where he remains essentially throughout the war, until the end of April 1919. During this period he often visits Earl Russell at Telegraph House. At Oxford Santayana also becomes friends with Robert Bridges, the poet laureate, and, through Bertrand Russell, with Lady Ottoline Morrell, whose Manor House at Garsington (near Oxford) is at this time a gathering place for the British literati. 1915 The controversial Egotism in German Philosophy is published by Scribner’s in New York (and, in 1916, by Dent in London). Santayana is accused by his critics of writing propaganda. 1918 During the winter Santayana gives the Third Annual Henriette Hertz Lecture, before the British Academy in London. The lecture is published as “Philosophical Opinion in America,” in the Proceedings of the British Academy for 1917–18, and later appears, in 1920, as chapter five of Character and Opinion in the United States. 1919 Robert Bridges tries unsuccessfully to persuade Santayana to remain in England. He wishes to arrange a lifetime membership for him in one of the Oxford colleges with which Bridges is affiliated, Corpus Christi or New College. Santayana is still considering a permanent residency in Oxford, but wants to travel for at least a year. At the end of June, after considerable difficulties obtaining a French visa, Santayana returns to Strong’s Paris apartment to write. He declines an offer from Professor Wendell T. Bush to lecture at Columbia. In late November he accompanies a crippled Strong to his Villa Le Balze at Fiesole near Florence. 1920 During this year Santayana begins his practice of passing the winters in Rome, but continues to spend the summers in Paris, Ávila, Glion, at Lake Geneva, or Cortina d’Ampezzo. Little Essays: Drawn From the Writings of George

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Santayana by Logan Pearsall Smith, With the Collaboration of the Author is published by Constable in London and Scribner’s in New York. Character and Opinion in the United States: with Reminiscences of William James, and Josiah Royce, and Academic Life in America is published by Constable in London, Scribner’s in New York, and McLeod in Toronto. His work continues on Soliloquies and Realms of Being. 1921 Santayana spends the winter months in Spain (Toledo and Madrid) concentrating on his writing. Several of the English soliloquies are published separately in the The Dial, the The Athenaeum, and the Journal of Philosophy. At the end of March he returns to Paris, and in October he travels to Rome. 1922 After a winter in Rome organizing the Realms of Being, Santayana spends the summer in Paris working on the manuscript of Scepticism and Animal Faith. Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies and the revised second edition of the five volumes of The Life of Reason are published by Constable and Scribner’s (Life of Reason by Constable in 1923). 1923 The introduction to Santayana’s system of philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith, and the last collection of Santayana’s poetry to appear during his lifetime, Poems: Selected by the Author and Revised, are published by Scribner’s and Constable. Santayana has by now changed his mind about retiring permanently in England, partly because of the winter climate and partly because of his dissatisfaction with the current tone of life there. On his penultimate visit to England, Santayana delivers the Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford (entitled The Unknowable and published by the Clarendon Press). He makes final visits to Cambridge and to “T.H.,” where Earl Russell is now alone, his third wife, the novelist “Elizabeth” (Mary Annette Beauchamp, widow of the German Count von Arnim) having left him in 1918. 1924 Santayana declines Professor George Herbert Palmer’s invitation to read the Phi Beta Kappa poem at the Harvard Commencement exercises. A revised version of his tragedy (originally published in 1900) is published as Lucifer; or the Heavenly Truce: A Theological Tragedy, by Dunster House, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1925 Dialogues in Limbo is published by Constable in London (and by Scribner’s in New York in 1926).

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1926 Santayana writes a short preface to the 1926 reprint of Winds of Doctrine (New York: Scribner’s; London: Dent). During the summer, in a room in the Hotel Cristallo, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, he composes, “at one stretch,” (Persons, 529) Platonism and the Spiritual Life. That autumn Santayana begins the annual practice of spending all or part of the months of September and October in Venice, staying at the Hotel Danieli, en route back to Rome from Cortina. 1927 Early in April Santayana meets Daniel Cory, age twenty-two, who has come from England at Santayana’s invitation to meet the philosopher in Rome. In August Santayana officiates as a “substitute papa”5 at the wedding of Margaret Strong (daughter of C. A. Strong and Elizabeth Rockefeller) to George Cuevas, in Paris, by giving the bride away. The first volume of Santayana’s system of philosophy, The Realm of Essence: Book First of Realms of Being, is published by Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London. 1928 Early in January Santayana declines the offer, from President Abbott Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, of the Norton Chair of Poetry for 1928–29. His half sister Susana dies in Ávila, on 10 February, in her seventy-seventh year. At the end of August Strong gives up his Paris apartment, in which, for many years, Santayana has lived as Strong’s guest. Early in September Santayana makes a penultimate visit to Spain. Avoiding Ávila, he goes to Mercedes de la Escalera in Galicia to ascertain the state of mental and physical health of his sister Josephine, who is living with Mercedes, and to advise her regarding her will. About this time, at a suggestion from his nephew, George Sturgis, Santayana begins composing his autobiography. 1929 By the first of September Santayana has finished work on the manuscript of The Realm of Matter. Again settled at the Hotel Bristol in Rome, in October he begins work on The Realm of Truth. 1930 Celedonio Sastre Serrano, husband of the late Susana, dies in Ávila on 12 May. At the end of May Santayana makes his final visit to Spain in order to settle the affairs of his surviving sister, Josephine, as well as his own. He gives his father’s house in Ávila to the Sastre brothers, Celedonio’s sons. After his return to Rome, Josephine dies in Ávila, on October 15, at the age of seventy-seven. The Realm of Matter: Book Second of Realms of Being is published, by Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London, and “A Brief History of My Opinions” appears in volume two of Contemporary American Philosophy: Personal

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Statements, edited by George P. Adams and William P. Montague, and published by Macmillan in New York. 1931 John Francis Stanley, 2d Earl Russell, dies at Marseilles on 3 March at the age of sixty-five. Santayana reverses his intention to visit Ávila in the spring or summer, both because of disinclination and the worsening political unrest in Spain, presaging the impending civil war. The Genteel Tradition at Bay is published by Scribner’s in New York and by the Adelphi in London. In December Santayana receives and declines the offer to become William James Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. 1932 Santayana attends the philosophical congress commemorating the tercentenary of Spinoza’s birth, held at The Hague on September 6–10, where he delivers a lecture on Ultimate Religion (published in Septimana Spinozana, by Martinus Nijhoff, at The Hague, in 1933). He also goes to London, where he attends a meeting held there to commemorate the tercentenary of the birth of John Locke. On 19 October he gives an address on “Locke and the Frontiers of Common Sense,” which becomes the first of five essays constituting Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy (published in England by the Cambridge University Press and in New York by Scribner’s in 1933). 1933 Evelyn Tindall, an Englishwoman who is secretary for the British Legation to the Holy See in Rome, is first mentioned as typing Santayana’s manuscripts. Beginning with The Last Puritan, she continues her work with Santayana for almost twenty years. 1934 On 31 August Santayana completes work on his novel, The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel. Begun in the early 1890s as a story of college life, the work has been in progress for more than forty years. 1935 In the spring Santayana declines the invitation of President James Bryant Conant and the Harvard Tercentenary Committee to attend the Commencement exercises in June and receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. He also declines the subsequent offer to receive, together with sixty other scholars, an unspecified honorary degree to be presented at Harvard during the summer. He regards these offers as merely grudging recognition of his achievement by official Harvard. The Last Puritan is published by Constable in London (on 17 October) and by Macmillan in Toronto. The

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Scribner’s edition, published in New York in 1936, becomes a Book-of-the-Month Club bestseller. 1936 The first six volumes of the Triton Edition of The Works of George Santayana, Scribner’s deluxe limited edition of the collected writings in fifteen volumes, are published in New York. Santayana writes a general preface and autographs sheets which are placed at the front in volume one. (The remaining nine volumes are published during the period 1937–40.) Obiter Scripta: Lectures, Essays and Reviews, edited by Justus Buchler and Benjamin Schwartz, and Philosophy of Santayana: Selections From the Works of George Santayana, edited by Irwin Edman, are published by Scribner’s (Obiter is also published by Constable). During June and July, Santayana makes a final visit to Paris. 1937 On 29 May Santayana’s favorite grandnephew, Roberto Sastre (son of José [“Pepe”] and Isabel Sastre) is killed while fighting on the Falangist side in the Spanish civil war. The Realm of Truth: Book Third of Realms of Being is published in London by Constable (and in New York by Scribner’s in 1938). 1938 The first book-length biography, George Santayana, by George Washburne Howgate is published in Philadelphia by the University of Pennsylvania Press. 1939 World War II breaks out in Europe. Santayana is refused a regular long-term visa by the Swiss officials and decides to remain in Italy. Daniel Cory stays with him at Cortina d’Ampezzo until the end of August. (Their next meeting will be at the Blue Sisters’ nursing home in Rome, early in September 1947, eight years later.) In the autumn the Hotel Bristol in Rome, Santayana’s home for many years, is closed for reconstruction. Santayana decides to spend the winter of 1939–40 in Venice, a decision that, because of the severe cold and dampness of Venice in winter, he afterward regrets. In September he learns of the suicide of his friend Baron Albert von Westenholz. 1940 On 23 January, at Florence, Charles Augustus Strong dies at the age of seventy-seven. The Realm of Spirit: Book Fourth of Realms of Being is published by Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London. The Philosophy of George Santayana, volume two of The Library of Living Philosophers, Paul Arthur Schilpp, Editor, is published in Evanston by the Northwestern University Press. The book, composed of critical essays by several hands, contains also Santayana’s rejoinder entitled “Apologia pro Mente Sua.”

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1941 Santayana spends the summer at Fiuggi, returning to Rome in the Autumn. The Hotel Bristol being closed, he lives for a time in the Grand Hotel. Now seventy-seven years old, he finds looking after himself more difficult and, on 14 October, moves into a nursing home operated by the Blue Sisters of the Little Company of Mary, an order of Roman Catholic Irish nuns. The large establishment is situated in the Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, atop the Celius (Monte Celio), one of Rome’s seven hills. This is to be Santayana’s last home, where he will live for almost eleven years. 1942–43 The manuscript of Persons and Places, the first volume of Santayana’s autobiography, is refused by the Italian postal authorities. Scribner’s editor John Hall Wheelock, and Irish poet Padraic Collum, with the cooperation of American and Vatican diplomatic officials, succeed in spiriting the manuscript across national lines and ultimately to New York. Cut off by the war from correspondence with America and England, Santayana continues to write his autobiography and works on the manuscript of Dominations and Powers, a book composed of essays written over a great many years. 1944 Like The Last Puritan, in 1936, Persons and Places becomes a Book-ofthe-Month Club bestseller. On 20 December George Sturgis, Santayana’s nephew and financial manager, dies of a heart attack. 1945 The second volume of Santayana’s autobiography is published as The Middle Span, the title being supplied by editor Wheelock of Scribner’s. Santayana is awarded the Nicholas Murray Butler Medal by Columbia University. 1946 The Idea of Christ in the Gospels; or, God in Man: A Critical Essay is published by Scribner’s in New York and Saunders in Toronto. 1947 Daniel Cory spends nearly two months with Santayana in Rome, living in a room opposite Santayana’s in the Blue Sisters’ establishment. He finds Santayana completely deaf in one ear. On 13 October Santayana gives Cory the manuscript of his Posthumous Poems, inscribing a personal dedication. These unpublished poems and translations, which Santayana had begun revising and transcribing at the end of the war, are published in The Poet’s Testament, in 1953, edited by Cory and John Hall Wheelock.

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1948 Dialogues in Limbo, With Three New Dialogues is published in New York by Scribner’s. 1949 Cory spends the months of April and May helping Santayana with his work on the manuscript of Dominations and Powers. They agree that henceforth Cory should spend the winters in Rome. Cory returns to Rome at the end of October and remains there until the end of April 1950. In December 1949 Cory consults Santayana’s physician, Dr. Luigi Sabbatucci about Santayana’s persistent cough and recent loss of appetite. He interprets the doctor’s circumspect answers as suspicion of serious illness. 1950 Artist Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov does his series of pencil portraits of Santayana in August 1950. Cory returns to Rome from England in early October 1950 and remains there until early May the following year. He assists Santayana with the final checking and correction of the proofs of Dominations and Powers, and they complete this labor by the beginning of the New Year. In mid-October 1950 Robert Lowell and his wife, novelist Elizabeth Hardwick, visit Santayana in Rome. 1951 Dominations and Powers: Reflections on Liberty, Society, and Government, Santayana’s last book published during his lifetime, is issued by Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London. Santayana receives another visit from Robert Lowell early in the year, and Cory spends about nine months [c. September 1951–May 1952] with Santayana in Rome. They spend the autumn collaborating on the revised one-volume edition of The Life of Reason (originally published in five volumes in 1905–6, the new edition is published by Constable in London and Scribner’s in New York in 1954). Cory observes that Santayana’s deafness is increasing and that his vision, never good, is impaired by cataracts. 1952 On 4 June Santayana falls on the steps of the Spanish Consulate in Rome, where he had gone to renew his passport. He is taken to the nursing home in a taxi by officials of the Consulate. The effects of the fall include three broken ribs, a bleeding head wound, and patches of pneumonia on the lungs. Cory, hastily summoned from England by the Sisters, remains with Santayana until the end of June. Dr. Sabbatucci is amazed by Santayana’s recovery. While recuperating, Santayana receives, as a present from George Salerno (a young American journalist, who had met Santayana while a soldier in the occupation forces), a copy of the poems of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Santayana decides to

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spend the summer translating Lorenzo’s lengthy pastoral Ombron and Ambra, and he works at this task into the summer, until increasing blindness and illness make further labor impossible. By the third week of August, Santayana becomes desperately ill. Cory arrives in Rome on 8 September and is told by Dr. Sabbatucci that Santayana is dying of stomach cancer. On 26 September, after much suffering, Santayana dies. His wish to be buried in unconsecrated ground in a Catholic cemetery is frustrated by the lack of such a section in Rome’s Campo Verano. The Spanish officials intercede and, on 30 September Santayana’s body is interred in the Tomb of the Spaniards. At the graveside, Daniel Cory reads aloud Santayana’s poem, “The Poet’s Testament.” 1953 The third volume of Santayana’s autobiography, entitled (by the publisher) My Host the World, is published in London by the Cresset Press, and in New York by Scribner’s. The Posthumous Poems, together with two early plays, are published by Scribner’s as The Poet’s Testament: Poems and Two Plays. 1955 The Letters of George Santayana, a selection of two hundred and ninety-six letters to eighty-six recipients, edited by Daniel Cory, is published by Scribner’s.

Notes 1

Letter to Daniel Cory of 11 November 1932. On page 36 of volume 3 of Scribner’s edition of Persons and Places, entitled My Host the World (1953) (and also on the holograph manuscript itself), Santayana’s second visit to Gibraltar is described as follows “… I returned there in 1891, this time from America, and crossed to Tangiers. …” On page 37, he observes that he was again at Gibraltar “two years later.” Evidently, the date of 1891 is a slip, for on the map referred to above in the headnote to this chronology Santayana has indicated that in June of 1893, and again in June of 1895, he sailed from New York to Gibraltar, on the Fulda and the Werra, respectively. The map also indicates that in June 1891 he sailed from Boston to Liverpool aboard the Cephalonia. Santayana had left the map in Spain many years before, and therefore did not have it by him while composing his autobiography in Rome during the 1940s. 3 Letter to Guy Murchie of 17 July 1897. 4 Letter to Mary Williams Winslow of 16 August 1914. 5 Letter to Boylston Adams Beal of 21 November 1927. 2

Addresses The following list of addresses is drawn from the place and date-lines and from the contents of Santayana’s letters, from information provided in his autobiography, Persons and Places, and from other biographical sources. The list includes addresses where Santayana stayed for long and short periods, and it includes trips and visits to various places. Santayana’s habit of changing residence with the seasons, however, complicates the task of accounting for his addresses, and this list, containing estimations as well as gaps and omissions, does not pretend to be complete. It is, nevertheless, reasonably accurate, and used in conjunction with the Chronology serves to inform the reader as to where Santayana was and what he was doing at a given time. The names of clubs at which Santayana dined and from which he wrote letters, but at which he did not actually reside (e.g., the Colonial and Delta Phi Clubs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or the National Liberal Club in London, England) are not included in this list. Indented dates indicate temporary absence from a permanent address. 1863–66 69 Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, Madrid, Spain 1866–72 ( June) Ávila, Spain (father’s house) 1872

(15 July)–1881–82 (Winter) 302 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts (mother’s house)

1881–82 (Winter)–1882 (September) 26 Millmont Street, Roxbury, Massachusetts (mother’s house) 1882

(September)–1886 (May) Room no. 19, Hollis Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1883 ( June–September) Visit to Spain; trips to Lyons and Paris, France

1886–1912 Spends each summer in Europe 1886

( July–early August) Ávila (father’s house)

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(early August) Visits to Paris and Cologne en route to Göttingen, Germany (12 August to end of August) c/o Fräulein Schlote, 16 D Obere Karspüle, Göttingen (September) c/o Frau Sturm, Werder Strasse 6, Dresden, Germany (Autumn 1886) Visit to London 1886

(October)–1887 (February) Schiffbauerdamm, 3II, Berlin, Germany

1887

(late March) Two-day boat trip down Thames, from Reading to London, visits to Windsor, Eton, and Winchester, England (21 April–May) Oxford, England ( June) 87 Jermyn Street, St. James, London, England ( July–August) Ávila (father’s house) (early September) Trip to Gibraltar and tour of southern Spain

1887

(1 November)–1888 (mid-March) Potsdamerstrasse 123III, Berlin

1888

( June) Canal journey through Burgundy, visit to Paris ( July–August) Ávila (father’s house)

1888

(August)–1889 (August) 26 Millmont Street, Roxbury, Massachusetts (mother’s house)

1889

(September)–1890 (Spring) Room no. 29, Thayer Hall, Harvard Yard

1890

(Summer) Visit to Queen’s Acre, Windsor, England (Howard Sturgis’s house), and Ávila

Addresses

1890

577

(Autumn)–1896 ( June) Room no. 7, Stoughton Hall, Harvard Yard 1893 (Summer) Visit to Gibraltar and Ávila, Spain 1895 (22 June–late September) Summer abroad: Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, England 1895 (December) Naushon Island, Buzzard’s Bay, Cape Cod, Massachusetts ( John Forbes’s house)

1896

(27 June) Chateau Frontenac, Quebec, Canada ( July–September) 26 Banbury Road, Oxford, England (September) Visit to Amberley Cottage, Maidenhead, England (villa of John Francis Stanley, 2d Earl Russell) (October–December) King’s College (1 Silver Street), Cambridge, England (December) Trip to Paris

1897

( January–June) King’s College (2 Free School Lane), Cambridge, England ( July–August) Gibbs Hall (Fellows’ Building), King’s College, Cambridge, England (Nathaniel Wedd’s rooms)

1897

(September)–1898 (Spring) 75 Monmouth Street, Longwood, Brookline, Massachusetts (mother’s house)

1898

(Spring)–1899 (Spring) 52 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts

1899

( June–August) Summer at Oxford, visits to France and Spain

1899

(Autumn)–1904 ( June) 60 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1900 (Summer) France, 108 Jermyn Street, London, England, and Oxford

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1901 ( July–September) Oxford, England (5 Grove Street, now Magpie Lane) 1902 and 1903 Summers in Europe 1904

( July)–1906 (September) Twenty-seven months abroad: sabbatical leave and Hyde Lecture program 1904 ( July–September) Travels in England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and France (24 September–October) Ávila (sister Susana’s house) (November) Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Florence, Italy (the Bernard Berensons’ villa) (25 November–8 December) Grand Hôtel de Russie et des Iles Britanniques, Rome, Italy 1905 ( January–August) Traveling in the Middle East and Europe ( January) Egypt (February) Israel and Lebanon (March and April) Greece (May) Turkey, Hungary, and Germany ( June and July) England (August) Germany (visits Baron Albert von Westenholz) 1905 (September)–1906 ( June) Hyde Lecturer at the Sorbonne and at French provincial universities, Paris address: Hôtel Foyot, Rue de Tournon (September) Compiègne (October–mid-November) Ávila (Susana’s house) (April) Lyons, Montpellier, Cannes, Nîmes, and Orange (29 April–5 May) Toulouse (May) Pau, Bordeaux, Arcachon, La Rochelle, and Caen ( June) Dijon, Morez, Lyons, and Grenoble

1906

(mid-September)–1908 (mid-June) 75 Monmouth Street, Longwood, Brookline (mother’s house) 1907 ( January) Lectures in New York City

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1907 (mid-June–mid-September) Summer abroad: Germany, Switzerland, Spain (18 September) Arrival from Europe in New York City: Hotel Manhattan 1908

(mid-June–mid-September) Summer abroad: England, France; visit to Queen’s Acre, Windsor, in July (Howard Sturgis’s house)

1908

(mid-September)–1912 ( January) Room no. 3, Prescott Hall, Harvard Yard 1909 (mid-July–mid-September) Summer in England; visit in August to Telegraph House (“T.H.”), Chichester, Hampshire, England ( John Francis Stanley, Second Earl Russell’s house) 1910 (February) New York City (April) Visits Chicago, Illinois, and lectures at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (8 June–17 September) Summer abroad; visit to Ávila 1911 (mid-June–end of August) University Club, San Francisco, California

1912

(29 January) On board the R.M.S. Olympic (February) Visits to Queen’s Acre, Windsor, and to Trinity College, Cambridge (20 February) 7 Bennet Street, St. James, London (28 February) Hotel du Quai Voltaire, Paris (March and early April) Serrano 7, Madrid, Spain (Mercedes de la Escalera’s house) (May–August) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (Charles Augustus Strong’s apartment becomes Santayana’s principal residence [except during the period July 1914–August 1919] until the end of August 1928.)

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(September–November) Travels in Italy (Milan, Bologna, Naples, Palermo) with an extend ed stay in Rome 1912

(30 November)–1913 (early January) Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Florence

1913

(February–mid-March) French Riviera: Nice and Monte Carlo (mid-March–April) Serrano 7, Madrid (May–mid-July) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (3 July) Hotel de Ville, Brussels, Belgium (mid-August–October) 66 High Street, Oxford (November) 45 Chesterton Road, Cambridge, England (December) Ávila (Susana’s house)

1914

( January–mid-May) Hotel la Peninsular, Seville, Spain (mid-May–June) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (27 July) Euston Hotel, London (2–3 August) Red Lion Hotel, Cambridge, England (5 August) Visit to Queen’s Acre, Windsor (16 August) Oxford, England (late August–11 October) 3 Ryder Street, London (12 October–14 December) 45 Chesterton Road, Cambridge

1914

(14 December)–1915 January) Old Ship Hotel, Brighton, England

Addresses

1915

581

(February–April) 45 Chesterton Road, Cambridge (May) 66 High Street, Oxford

1915

( June)–1919 (April) 22 Beaumont Street, Oxford (main residence during World War I) 1915 (September) Visits London, Lewes, and North Luffenham, England 1915 (October) Visit to Bournemouth, England 1917 (February–March) 6 Park Street, Torquay, Cornwall, England 1918 (Winter) Trip to London

1919

(end of April) Trip to London (13–16 and 20–25 June) Richmond Hill Hotel, Richmond, Surrey, England (16–20 June) Trip to London ( July–November) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris

1919

(December)–1920 (20 January) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence, Italy (Charles Augustus Strong’s villa)

1920

(20 January–early May) Hotel Minerva, Rome (during 1920) Final visit to Queen’s Acre, Windsor (May 1920) Florence (early June–September) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (October) Ávila, Spain (Susana’s house)

582

Editorial Appendix

1920

(late October)–1921 (3 January) Hotel Castilla, Toledo, Spain

1921

(3 January–7 March) Serrano 7, Madrid, Spain (end of March–end of October) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (early November) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, and afterwards the Hotel Royal, Rome

1921

(15 November)–1922 (22 April) Hotel Marini, Rome

1922

(24 April–11 October) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (part of June and early October spent in the Hôtel du Palais Royal)

1922

(25 October)–1923 (8 May) New York Hotel, Nice, France

1923

(mid-May–mid-September) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (mid-September–31 October) Penultimate visit to England: London, Cambridge, Chichester, Oxford, Bath, and Dover (6 November–mid-November) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence

1923

(mid-November)–1924 (6 May) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1924

(6 May–mid-June) Hotel Bauer-Grünwald, Venice, Italy (mid-June–29 September) Hotel Cristallo, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (30 September–mid-October) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence

1924

(late October)–1925 (1 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1925

(1–22 June) Paris

Addresses

583

(23 June–mid-July) Ávila (Susana’s house) (mid-July–September) 9, Avenue de 1’Observatoire, Paris 1925

(October)–1926 ( June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1926

(end of June–1 October) Hotel Cristallo, Cortina d’Ampezzo (1–10 October) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice

1926

(10 October)–1927 (5 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1927

(6 June–mid-September) 9, Avenue de 1’Observatoire, Paris (mid-September to mid-October) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice (except for four days in Padua)

1927

(17 October)–1928 (10 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1928

(11 June–end of August) 9, Avenue de l’Observatoire, Paris (Strong gives up the apartment at the end of August 1928.) (early September) Trip to Oporto, Portugal, and Bayona, Spain (6–21 September) Hotel Continental, Vigo, Spain (22 September) Santiago de Compostela, Spain (early October) Grand Hotel Miramare & de la Ville, Genoa, Italy (3–16 October) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence

1928

(16 October)–1929 (May) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1929

(early June–mid-September) Hôtel Victoria, Glion-sur-Territet, Switzerland

584

Editorial Appendix

(mid-September–20 October) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence 1929

(November)–1930 (20 May) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1930

(22 May–15 June) A brief stay at the Hôtel Royal Haussmann, Paris. After final visit to Ávila, a return to the Royal Haussmann. (16–22 June) Pavillon Henri IV, Saint Germain-en-Laye, France (early July) Hôtel Foyot, Paris (11 July–23 September) Hôtel Vouillemont, 15, rue Boissy d’Anglas, Paris (end of September–21 October) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence

1930

(21 October)–1931 (10 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1931

(11–22 June) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice (22 June–11 September) Hotel Miramonti, Cortina d’Ampezzo (12–17 September) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice (18 September–23 October) Hôtel de Londres, Naples, Italy (23 October–end of December) Hotel Bristol, Rome (except during the first week of December in the Anglo-American Nursing Home, 311 via Nomentana)

1931

(1 January)–1932 (22 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1932

(23 June–early July) Hôtel Royal Haussmann, Paris ( July–August) Hôtel des Réservoirs, Versailles, France

Addresses

(1–5 September) Hôtel Royal Haussmann, Paris (6–10 September) Hôtel des Indes, The Hague, Netherlands (11 September–20 October) 7 Park Place, St. James, London (final visit to England) (21–24 October) Dover, England (25 October–early November) Paris 1932

(8 November)–1933 (20 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1933

(22 June–early September) Hotel Miramonti, Cortina d’Ampezzo (6 September–20 October) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice

1933

(20 October)–1934 (19 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1934

(20 June–16 July) Villa Le Balze, Fiesole, Florence (18 July–11 September) Miramonti-Majestic Hotel, Cortina d’Ampezzo (12 September–17 October) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice

1934

(20 October)–1935 (28 May) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1935

(29 May–17 June) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice (18 June–10 September) Grand Hotel Savoia, Cortina d’Ampezzo (10 September–15 October) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice

1935

(16 October)–1936 (3 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

585

586

1936

Editorial Appendix

(4 June–11 August) Savoy-Hotel, rue de Rivoli, Paris (12 August–21 September) Hôtel Victoria, Glion-sur-Montreux, Switzerland

1936

(22 September)–1937 (14 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1937

(15–16 June) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice (17 June–13 September) Grand Hotel Savoia, Cortina d’Ampezzo

1937

(14 September)–1938 (17 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome

1938

(18–20 June) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice (20 June–13 September) Grand Hotel Savoia, Cortina d’Ampezzo

1938

(14 September)–1939 (18 June) Hotel Bristol, Rome (Autumn 1939: Hotel Bristol closed for reconstruction)

1939

(19–21 June) Milan and Venice (22 June–3 September) Grand Hotel Savoia, Cortina d’Ampezzo

1939

(4 September)–1940 (19 June) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice

1940

(9 June–6 July) Hotel Ampezzo, Cortina d’Ampezzo (6 July–11 September) Grand Hotel Savoia, Cortina d’Ampezzo (11 September–end of September) Hôtel Royal Danieli, Venice

1940

(end of September)–1941 (c. 20 June) Grand Hôtel, Rome

Addresses

1941

(c. 20 June–12 September) Palazzo della Fonte, Fiuggi, Italy (12 September–14 October) Grand Hotel, Rome

1941

(14 October)–1952 (26 September) Calvary Hospital, Clinic of the Little Company of Mary, 6, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome

587

Manuscript Locations Academy

American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York NY

American

American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati OH

Amherst

Amherst College Library, Amherst MA

Antiquarian

American Antiquarian Society, Worcester MA

Barnes

Catherine Barnes, Philadelphia PA

Beinecke

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven CT

Berkeley

The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley

Bidwell

David Bidwell, Geneva, Switzerland

Bodleian

The Bodleian Library, Oxford University, England

Boston

Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library, Boston MA

Bowdoin

Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick ME

Bowling Green

Western Kentucky University, Department of Library Special Collections, Bowling Green

British

The British Library of the British Museum, London, England

Brooklyn

Brooklyn College Library, Brooklyn NY

Brown

The John Hay Library, Brown University, Providence RI

Cambridge

University Library, Cambridge University, England

Castelli

Enrico Castelli Gattinara di Zubiena

Chicago

The Modern Poetry Library, University of Chicago Library, Chicago IL

Columbia

Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY

Congress

The Library of Congress, Washington DC

Constable

Constable and Co. Ltd., London, England

Consulate

Spanish Consulate, Rome, Italy

Cornell

Cornell University Library, Ithaca NY

Dartmouth

Baker Memorial Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

590

Editorial Appendix

DeKalb

The University Libraries, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb

Denson

Alan Denson, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Dickson

Mr. Carl Byron Dickson, Doswell VA

Duke

William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC

Dykeman

King Dykeman, Fairfield University, Fairfield CT

Fales

Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, Fales Library, New York University, New York City

Fitzgerald

Robert Stuart Fitzgerald

Florida

University of Florida Library, Gainesville

Gardner

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA

Georgetown

Lauinger Library, Georgetown University, Washington DC

Gerber

William Gerber, Washington DC

Gilmour

Mervyn D. Gilmour, Portadown, Northern Ireland

Harvard

Harvard Archives, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Houghton

The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Howgate

Mrs. George W. Howgate

Huntington

The Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino CA

Illinois

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Indiana

The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington

I Tatti

Villa I Tatti, Settignano, Italy

Kansas

University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence

Kentucky

University of Kentucky, Lexington

King’s

King’s College Library, Cambridge University, England

Lamont

Collection of Lamont family papers

Lango

John W. Lango, New York NY

Leeds

Leeds University Library, The Brotherton Collection, Leeds, England

Lipinsky

Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov

Lockwood

Lockwood Memorial Library, State University of New York at Buffalo

Loyola

Loyola University Library, Chicago IL

Macksey

Richard A. Macksey, Baltimore MD

Manuscript Locations

591

McMaster

Mills Memorial Library, Bertrand Russell Archives, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Merriam

John McKinstry Merriam

Michigan

Bentley Historical Library, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Minnesota

University of Minnesota Libraries, St. Paul

Morgan

The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York NY

Mumford

Lewis Mumford

Munitz

Milton Karl Munitz

Murchie

Guy Murchie Jr.

Newberry

The Newberry Library, Chicago IL

New York

The New York Public Library, New York City

North Carolina

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Northwestern

Northwestern University Library, Evanston IL

Ohio

Ohio Historical Society, Columbus

Oregon

University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene

Penn

The Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania State University Libraries, University Park

Princeton

Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ

Provincial

Provincial Archives, Province of St. Albert the Great, Chicago IL

Radcliffe

The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge MA

Reading

The Library, University of Reading, England

Redwood

The Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport RI

Rigacci

Dino Rigacci

Riverside

Rivera Library, University of California, Riverside

Rockefeller

Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

Rollins

Rollins College, Winter Park FL

Salamanca

University of Salamanca, Casa Museo Unamuno, Salamanca, Spain

Sanchez

Paloma Sanchez Sastre, Madrid, Spain

Santayana

Santayana Edition, Indianapolis IN

592

Editorial Appendix

Sastre

Sra. Rafael (Adelaida Hernandez) Sastre, Ávila, Spain

Sastre Martín

Sra. Eduardo Sastre Martín, Madrid, Spain

Scheuermann

Robert Scheuermann, Beverly Hills CA

Scotland

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Smith

Smith College Archives, Northampton MA

Smithsonian

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Sommer

Melvin L. Sommer

Sorbonne

Universites de Paris, Bibliotheque de la Sorbonne, France

Southern

Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Spiegler

Mrs. Charles (Evelyn) Spiegler, Forest Hill NY

Stanford

Stanford University Libraries, Stanford CA

Stroup

Timothy Stroup, Annandale NY

Sturgis

Robert Shaw Sturgis, Weston MA

Syracuse

Syracuse University Library, Syracuse NY

Temple

Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia PA

Texas

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

Thompson

Samuel Martin Thompson

Tisch

Arthur Tisch, Palm Beach Gardens FL

Trinity

Trinity College Library, Cambridge University, England

UCLA

University of California at Los Angeles

Union

Union College Library, Schenectady NY

University Club

The University Club, New York NY

USC

University of Southern California Library, Los Angeles

Vermont

University of Vermont Libraries, Burlington

Viereck

Peter Robert Edwin Viereck, South Hadley MA

Virginia

Alderman Library, University of Virginia at Charlottesville

Wellesley

Wellesley College Library, Wellesley MA

Wheeler

Samuel Wheeler, Storrs CT

Williams

Williams College Archives and Special Collections, Williamstown MA

Yale

Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven CT

YIVO

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York NY

List of Recipients Book Eight, 1948–1952 Appleton Jr., Francis Henry Bail, Hamilton Vaughan Berryman, John Bidwell, Josephine Sturgis and Raymond Bidwell, Raymond Brewer Boyer, William H. Brickman, Frances I. Bronson, Winifred M. Buchler, Justus Burnett, Whit[ney] [Ewing] Butler, Lawrence Smith Butler, Richard Edmund Bynner, Harold Witter Cardiff, Ira Detrich Castelli, Enrico Cholmeley-Jones, Henrietta Clemens, Cyril Coniston Clough, Francis Gardner Cohen, Arthur Allen Conger, George Perrigo Cory, Daniel MacGhie Delarue, Allison Denson, Alan Drew, Fraser Bragg Eastman, Max Forrester Escalera, Mercedes de la Fauerbach, Mrs. Walter F. Fisch, Max Harold Fitzgerald, Robert Stuart Ford, Anne Gerber, William

594

Editorial Appendix

Ginn and Company Gordon, Hirsch Loeb Grady, George Guillén, Jorge Guzzo, Augusto Hahnel, Robert C. (Bruno Lind) Hexner, Ervin Paul Holme, Vincent (Scharmel Iris) Hovde, Bryn[jolf] J[akob] Kallen, Horace Meyer Kirkwood, William A. Kyllmann, Otto Lamont, Corliss Langstaff, John Brett Lengyel, Cornel Adam Lind, Bruno (Robert C. Hahnel) Lipinsky de Orlov, Lino S. Little, Rosamond Thomas [Sturgis] Lowell Jr., Robert Traill Spence Lutoslawski, Wincenty Lyon, Richard Colton Marsal, Conde de McKnight, John P. Merriam, John McKinstry Michel, Rimsa Munson, Thomas Nolan Northrop, Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop, Stuart Johnston O’Brien, Frank Ochoa, José Luis O’Donnell, Mary Ambrose Onderdonk, Andrew Joseph Otis, Brooks Overholser, Winfred Parsons, Eric C. Pound, Ezra Loomis Rauh, George Richards, Miriam Thayer Robertson, Thomas H. B.

Recipients Runes, Dagobert D. Russell, Peter Scharmel, Iris (Vincent Holme) Schilpp, Paul Arthur Schimanski, Stefan Shelby, C. L. Sibille, Luciano Sinclair, Upton Beall Smith, [Charles] Page Smith, Warren Allen Sommer, Melvin L. Stein, William Bysshe Stillman, Chauncey Devereux Sturgis, Robert Shaw Sturgis, Rosamond Thomas Bennett Tindall, Evelyn Tisch, Arthur Viereck, Peter Robert Edwin von Hagen, Victor Wolfgang Wheelock, John Hall Wood Jr., Harry Emsley Yolton, John W. Zabel, Morton Dauwen

595

List of Unlocated Letters The following is a list of letters by George Santayana which were known to exist, but have not been located by the editors. To Mr. and Mrs. Jack Ames Prior to 21 June 1936 In 21 June 1936 to George Sturgis To Sarah Ripley (Mrs. Jack) Ames c. 23 July 1936 In 23 July 1936 to George Sturgis To Francis Henry Appleton Jr. c. 3 March 1945 In 3 March 1945 to Rosamond Sturgis c. 7 September 1945 In 7 September 1945 to Daniel MacGhie Cory To Maximilian Beck June 1947 In 30 June 1947 to Daniel Cory To Henri Bergson Prior to 13 September 1911 In 13 September 1911 to C. A. Strong To David and Carol Bidwell 30 April 1948 In 29 May 1948 to Raymond Bidwell Before 30 March 1949 In 30 March 1949 to Raymond Bidwell 10 February 1950 In 11 February 1950 to Raymond Bidwell Before 24 December 1951 In 24 December 1951 to Raymond Bidwell To Josephine Sturgis Bidwell January 1945 In 13 January 1945 to Rosamond Sturgis 7 June 1945 In 7 June 1945 to Raymond Bidwell c. 20 March 1946 In 22 March 1946 to Raymond Bidwell To Emile Boutroux Prior to 21 December 1916 In 21 December 1916 to John Jay Chapman To C. H. Brooks of A. M. Heath & Co May 1946 In 24 May 1946 to John Hall Wheelock February 1948 In 8 February 1948 to Augusto Guzzo To Wendell T. Bush 8 November 1914 Mentioned in letter from Bush of 23 November 1914 4 July 1915 Mentioned in letter from Bush of 23 August 1915 To Lawrence Smith Butler September 1941 Mentioned in Sturgis Family Papers, Houghton Library

598

Editorial Appendix

To James McKeen Cattell c. April 1906 In 11 April 1906 to Hugo Münsterberg c. May 1906 In 10 May 1906 to Hugo Münsterberg To Marie Chassarant c. 10 December 1920 In 10 December 1920 to C. A. Strong c. 10 April 1922 In 10 April 1922 to C. A. Strong c. 10 January 1940 In 10 January 1940 to George Sturgis To James Bryant Conant Prior to 14 April 1934 In 14 April 1934 to George Sturgis To Daniel MacGhie Cory 9 September 1933 (In a letter to William G. Holzberger, Mrs. Cory asked that this letter not be included, the editors never received copy, and it is not at Columbia.) Between 12 and 20 August 1951 In 21 August 1951 to Daniel Cory To George and Margaret de Cuevas Dates unknown Two mentioned in 11 March 1940 to Daniel Cory To Durant Drake c. 21 July 1917 In 21 July 1917 to C. A. Strong c. 21 September 1917 In 21 September 1917 to C. A. Strong c. 3 October 1917 In 3 October 1917 to C. A. Strong c. 21 October 1917 In 21 October 1917 to C. A. Strong c. 10 December 1917 In 10 December 1917 to C. A. Strong To Mr. Hoppin Duffield & Co. Date unknown In 21 March 1922 and 13 May 1922 to Constable & Company To Jacques Duron 20 September 1933 Cited in Duron’s La Pensée de George Santayana, 87 6 February 1939 Cited in Duron’s La Pensée de George Santayana, 518 To Arthur Eldridge Prior to 10 June 1950 In 10 June 1950 to Rosamond [Sturgis] Little To Josephine Sturgis Eldridge Prior to 3 November 1922 In 3 November 1922 to George Sturgis To Kenneth A. Fowler Prior to 28 April 1937 In 28 April 1937 to Fowler To Françoise c. 5 August 1914 In 5 August 1914 to C. A. Strong c. 9 August 1914 In 9 August 1914 to C. A. Strong c. 20 August 1917 In 20 August 1917 to C. A. Strong c. 30 April 1919 In 30 April 1919 to C. A. Strong

Unlocated Letters

599

To George Grady Date unknown (A letter to George Grady of 25 July 1949 is in Special Collections/Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, and the librarian knew of the existence of a second letter to Grady which was sold to a private collector.) To Carl Sadakichi Hartmann c. 3 November 1922 In 3 November 1922 to George Sturgis To Philip M. Hayden April 1945 In 8 April 1945 to Daniel Cory To Leslie W. Hopkinson c. 2 April 1940 In 2 April 1940 to Nancy Saunders Toy To Alanson Bigelow Houghton Two mentioned in 31 August 1887 to William Morton Fullerton To John Galen Howard Prior to 21 August 1882 In 21 August 1882 to Howard To the editor of the Hudson Review Date unknown In 17 April 1952 to John Hall Wheelock To Otto Kyllmann Telegraph of 26 August 1935 Mentioned in letter to Kyllmann of same date To Philip Lane [1951?] In 21 August 1951 to Daniel Cory To Pierre de Chaignon la Rose c. 8 March 1929 In 8 March 1929 to Maurice Firuski After 10 March 1930 In 10 March 1930 to Maurice Firuski To Abraham Lincoln Association Before 12 October 1948 In 12 October 1948 to Daniel Cory To Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) c. 31 July 1951 In 3 October 1951 to Lind To Herbert Lyman 16 August 1940 Mentioned in Sturgis Family Papers, Houghton Library To Manageress of St. James’s Prior to 25 August 1932 In 25 August 1932 to Daniel Cory To William Pepperell Montague c. 28 March 1921 In 28 March 1921 to C. A. Strong To Samuel Eliot Morison c. 10 March 1930 In 10 March 1930 to Maurice Firuski To Mr. Murphy Prior to 10 June 1950 In 10 June 1950 to Rosamond [Sturgis] Little

600

Editorial Appendix

To Frederick H. Nash c. 21 October 1945 In 21 October 1945 to Daniel Cory To Filmer Stuart Cockow Northrop After 10 August 1951 in 11 November 1951 to Richard Colton Lyon To Old Corner Bookstore September 1936 In 11 September 1936 to George Sturgis To Andrew Joseph Onderdonk 10 January 1940 Mentioned in Sturgis Family Papers, Houghton Library, and in 10 January 1940 to George Sturgis To James Bissett Pratt c. 14 September 1917 In 14 September 1917 to C. A. Strong To Thornton Delano Roberts Date unknown In 3 October 1951 to Bruno Lind (Robert C. Hahnel) To José Rodriguez Feo Date unknown Mentioned in biographies of Wallace Stevens To William Greene Roelker c. 10 April 1931 In 10 April 1931 to Curt John Ducasse To Arthur Kenyon Rogers c. 14 September 1917 In 14 September 1917 to C. A. Strong To T. P. Salmon c. 22 March 1946 In 22 March 1946 to Raymond Bidwell Prior to 10 May 1946 In 10 May 1946 to Francis Henry Appleton Jr. c. 2 January 1947 In 2 January 1947 to Raymond Bidwell 30 April 1948 In 29 May 1948 to Raymond Bidwell 29 May 1948 In 29 May 1948 to Raymond Bidwell Before 23 September 1948 In 23 September 1948 to Rosamond Sturgis To Celedonio Sastre Serrano 3 December 1928 In 4 December 1928 to George Sturgis To Schroederer or Schroeder c. 10 May 1950 In 10 May 1950 to Daniel Cory To Gregg M. Sinclair Prior to 4 September 1950 Correspondence mentioned in 4 September 1950 to Paul Arthur Schilpp To George Frederick Stout 13 February 1912 In 14 February 1912 to George Herbert Palmer 23 February 1912 In 23 February 1912 to George Herbert Palmer To Charles Augustus Strong c. 23 April 1920 [telegram] In 23 April 1920 to Strong c. 8 January 1929 In 19 January 1929 to Daniel Cory

Unlocated Letters

601

To Margaret Strong c. 3 September 1912 In 3 September 1912 to C. A. Strong c. 3 October 1916 In 3 October 1916 to C. A. Strong c. 13 January 1917 In 13 January 1917 to C. A. Strong To Carol Avery Sturgis (second wife of George Sturgis) Date unknown In 10 March 1945 to Raymond Bidwell (written shortly after the death of George Sturgis, probably early 1945) To George Sturgis Postcard between 8 June and 17 July 1939 In 17 July 1939 to George Sturgis To Joan Eleanor “Chiquita” Sturgis Between 28 January 1949 and 13 May 1949 In 13 May 1949 to Rosamond Sturgis To Josephine Sturgis (sister) 12 December 1914 In 14 December 1914 to Susan Sturgis de Sastre Prior to 28 March 1915 In 28 March 1915 to Susan Sturgis de Sastre Prior to 29 June 1915 In 29 June 1915 to Susan Sturgis de Sastre To Maud Sturgis Prior to 16 January 1924 In 16 January 1924 to George Sturgis To Susan Sturgis de Sastre 13 August 1903 13 August 1903 to Susan mentions another postcard sent on this date 24 April 1906 25 April 1906 to Susan mentions another postcard sent on this date 24 September 1912 Companion to another postcard of same date 30 September 1912 Companion to another postcard of same date 28 October 1913 Companion to another postcard of same date To Unidentified Recipients Prior to 7 February 1934 In 7 February 1934 to Charles P. Davis Prior to 1 January 1936 In 1 January 1936 to Otto Kyllmann To James Ward January or early February 1912 In 14 February 1912 to George Herbert Palmer To Bentley Wirt Warren Correspondence mentioned in 31 May 1933 to George Washburne Howgate To Luciano Zampa c. 14 September 1919 In 14 September 1919 to Joseph Malaby Dent

INDEX Abbot, Henry Ward Harvard University, student at, xlix, liv Santayana gives advice to, xlix–l mentioned, li, liv, lv, lvi Abraham, lxi Abraham Lincoln Association, 109, 110n The Abraham Lincoln Quarterly ( journal), 125, 125n, 141 Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina. See Avicenna Acadians, 325, 326n The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 317, 317n, 332, 333, 349, 410 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain), 332, 333, 333n, 349, 410 Æ. See Russell, George William Aeneas, 12, 13n The Age of Wren (Dutton), 444, 444n À la recherche du temps perdu (Proust), 289, 289n Albert (unidentified), 319n, 403n Albi Tibulli Carmina (Tibullus), 33, 34n Alcibiades identified, 6n mentioned, 6, 9, 12, 24, 50, 81, 98, 123, 132, 278, 285 Alden, Peter (Puritan), 18, 19n Alderman Library (University of Virginia), 466 Alexander Pope (Dobrée), 444, 444n Alexander the Great book(s) on, 248, 249n, 260, 285, 286n identified, 249n mentioned, 271, 291, 292, 387, 443, 444 Alexander the Great (Tarn), 248, 249n, 260 Alighieri, Dante. See Dante All Hallows’, 439, 440n All Souls’ Church of Washington, D.C., 437, 438n Alvarez, Juan de Yepes y. See John of the

Cross, Saint Ambra (“Ambra”), 427 “Ambra” (Medici), 426–28, 428n, 458, 460

America(n) and “Americanism,” 140, 264 American Revolution, 253 army, 268, 410 Boston Brahmin, lxvi Cathedral of the Incarnation, 183, 184n Constitution, 253 and contemporary writing, 23 critics, 225, 255 democracy, 311 education in, Santayana on, xlviii essence of, 74 government, 47, 294–95, 311 life in, 343, 379 novelists, 163 poetry, 326, 356 and politics, 373, 440 and Roosevelt, Franklin, 29, 29n Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg (law firm), 95, 96n and the Sacco and Vanzetti case, lx and Santayana, 43, 63 Santayana, does not return to, xlv Santayana on, xlv, 12, 23, 182, 202, 211, 255–56, 286, 294–95, 325–26, 373, 378–79, 404n, 415 Santayana lectures in, 77, 77n Strong on, lii and Truman, Harry S., 114, 114n, 136 Vendôme Table Delicacies, 3, 4n, 95, 99, 118, 235 and Wilson, Woodrow, 301, 301n mentioned, xlv, lxiv, 7, 11, 47, 91, 94, 264, 273, 292, 296, 306, 309, 312, 367, 400, 424, 430, 440, 447 American Authors Today (ed. Burnett and Slatkin), 23, 23n American Literary Manuscripts: A Checklist of Holdings in Academic, Historical, and Public Libraries, Museums, and Authors’ Homes in the United States (ed. Jones, 1958; Robbins, 1977), 471, 479n American Literature, 471

604

The Letters of George Santayana

“American Poetry To-Day,” 326, 327n American Scholar ( journal), 192, 192n Ames, Van Meter identified, 361–62n mentioned, 361 A. M. Heath & Co., 15, 16n, 17, 34, 350, 351n Amory, Cleveland identified, 19n The Proper Bostonians, 18, 19n his writing, Santayana on, 18 “An Afternoon with George Santayana” (P. Russell), 216, 216n, 227 The Analysis of Political Behavior (Lasswell), 73, 73n Anchises, 12, 13n Andalusia (Spain), 393, 394n Andersen, Andreas Martin identified, 126n Santayana, drawing of, 126, 126n, 194, 238, 251, 412 Santayana on, 251 Angela, Sister, 3, 4n, 134, 151, 187, 235, 269, 323, 425, 456 Angst, 20, 179, 180, 185, 186 Animal Evolution: A Study of Recent Views and Its Causes (Carter), 444, 444n Animal Faith and Spiritual Life (Lachs), 6n Animal psyche, 21 Another Pamela; or, Virtue Still Rewarded, (Sinclair) 345, 345n Antinoüs identified, 408n mentioned, 408 Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius. See Marcus Aurelius Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare), 446 Aphrodite. See Venus Appleton, Francis Henry Jr. identified, 9n letter(s) to, 9, 52, 80 mentioned, 95, 101, 111, 124, 257 Arabian Nights. See Thousand and One Nights Arcadia, 253, 254n Ariel (The Tempest ), 399, 400n Aristippus, 81, 82n The Aristotelian Society for Systematic Study of Philosophy, 36, 38n Aristotle De Anima, 361, 363n

the first entelechy, 37 identified, 26n his philosophy, 25, 311 and the psyche, 37 the second entelechy, 37 mentioned, xlvi, 61, 121, 169, 357, 364, 390, 424, 433 Arnold, Matthew identified, 128n mentioned, 126 Arthur William Patrick Albert identified, 293n mentioned, 293 Arts, economical and liberal, 27 “Arts Liberate the Spirit” (Santayana), 218, 218n, 222, 227 Asia, 136 Associated American Artists, 63, 64n “At Arles” (Santayana), 407, 408n, 412, 413n The Atlantic Monthly (magazine) and “Arts Liberate the Spirit,” 218, 218n, 222, 227 and “The Hidden Soul,” 10n, 28, 48 and “I Like to Be a Stranger,” 435, 436n and “The Libertine,” 10n, 28, 48, 49 Maugham’s reviews in, 55, 56n, 63, 64n and “Metanoia,” 48, 49n and “Morality and Religion,” 218, 218n, 222, 227 My Host the World, chapters from, 85, 85n, 120 Santayana’s works, 6n, 10n, 12–13, 64n, 81, 85, 143, 306 and “The Vortex of Dialectic,” 10n mentioned, 50, 63, 109, 125, 126, 255, 255n, 256 Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts from George Santayana (Cardiff), 50–51, 52n, 59–60, 74–75, 104–5, 129, 130, 184, 190, 196–97, 200, 204–5, 205n, 206n, 231, 231n, 245, 255, 256–57, 258–59, 263, 264, 277, 286, 302–3, 315–16, 366 Attic (dialect of ancient Greek), 298, 299n “Aus den Erinnerungen eines Philosophen” (trans. of Santayana), 187, 188n Austen, Jane identified, 64n mentioned, 63

Index Auto-da-fé, 419, 420n Averroës identified, 365n mentioned, 364 Avicenna identified, 25n mentioned, 24, 40n, 98, 364 Avicenne (Carra de Vaux), 36, 40n

Babbit, Irving identified, 225n Santayana on, 225 Babylonian Empire, 444 Bacchae (Euripides), 23, 23n, 35, 276, 437 Bacchic, 160, 161n Bacon, Francis identified, 206n Baeda. See Bede Bahamonde, Francisco Franco identified, 315n mentioned, 314 Bail, Hamilton Vaughan identified, 238n letter(s) to, 237 Baldpate, Inc., 167, 168n, 174 “Ballad of the Jollie Gleeman” (Viereck), 82, 83n Balzac, Honoré de identified, 204n mentioned, 203 Banfi, Antonio and communism, 44 identified, 44n Barber of Seville (Rossini), 374, 375n Barker, Ernest identified, 397n “Soliloquies in Rome: George Santayana’s Latest Work,” 396, 397n Barlow, Robert Shaw “Bob,” lxx Baths of Caracalla (Rome), 285, 286n Baudelaire, Charles Pierre identified, 55n mentioned, 54 Bayley, Edward Bancroft identified, 415n and The Last Puritan, 415n Santayana, school friend of, 414 Beal, Boylston Adams and the Delta Phi Club, 18, 19n, 431 identified, 20n

605

mentioned, li The Beatitudes, 106, 106n Beatrice, 207, 208n Bede identified, 114n mentioned, 113 Beerbohm, Max his caricatures, 174, 174n identified, 174n Benedictis, Jacobus de, 420n Berenson, Bernard identified, 249n Smith, Mary Whitall, married to, 279, 279n mentioned, lxiii, 249 Berenson, Mary Whitall Smith (Mrs. Bernard Berenson) Berenson, married to, 279, 279n identified, 279n mentioned, lii Bergson, Henri and Berkeley, 148 identified, 40n and images, 288 Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion, 169, 171n L’Évolution créatrice, 288, 289n Matière et mémoire, 288, 289n and memory, 288 and naturalism, 328 his philosophy, xlvi Santayana on, 288, 338 and time, 288 and truth, 288 mentioned, 36, 172, 419 Berkeley, George identified, 39–40n his philosophy, xlvi, 146–47, 147, 148, 185 Santayana influenced by, 36 Santayana on, 116, 425 mentioned, 37, 205, 266, 395, 406, 407 Berman, Eugene his designs, 162 identified, 162n Bernard, Henriette-Rosine. See Bernhardt, Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah identified, 325n mentioned, 325

606

The Letters of George Santayana

Berryman, John identified, 322n Stephen Crane, 321, 322n, 324 Beyle, Marie Henri (pseud. Stendhal) identified, 49n La Chartreuse de Parme, 63, 64n The Red and the Black, 55, 56n, 63, 64n mentioned, 63 Bidwell, Carol Jones (Mrs. David Dudley Bidwell) her daughter, 235, 235n Santayana on, 139 her travels, 139 visits Santayana, 124, 125, 135, 137 mentioned, 10, 10n, 80, 152, 234, 410 Bidwell, David Dudley (Santayana’s great nephew) Carol Jones, engaged to, 10 his daughter, 235, 235n and Harvard, 10, 80, 125, 137, 137n identified, 5n, 70n his marriage, 69, 80 Santayana on, 124, 137, 139–40, 410 Santayana sends gift, 125, 273 Santayana’s will, 123 his travels, 139 visits Santayana, 124, 125, 135, 137 mentioned, 5, 124n, 151, 152, 188, 234, 263 Bidwell, Jane Sturgis (Santayana’s great neice) Santayana’s will, 123 mentioned, 5n, 124n, 236 Bidwell, Josephine Sturgis [Eldredge] (Mrs. Raymond Bidwell) her granddaughter, 235, 235n letter(s) to, 4 identified, 5n Santayana, sends gifts to, 5, 10 Santayana’s will, 123 mentioned, 70n, 124n, 234, 236, 258, 272, 336 Bidwell, Raymond Brewer his granddaughter, 234, 234n letter(s) to, 4, 10, 69, 139, 151, 188, 234, 410 identified, 5n Santayana, sends gifts to, 5, 10, 140, 151 mentioned, 69n, 79, 124n, 274, 335 Billings sisters. See Williams, Kate and Nelly

Bishop, Elizabeth identified, 93n Poems: North & South, 92, 93n “Bishop Berkeley (1685–1753)” (Santayana), 116, 117n, 406, 406n, 426 Bivar, Ruy Díaz de (El Cid ), 133n Blackwell (bookseller), 4–5, 114, 118, 155, 235, 444 Blue Nuns. See The Little Company of Mary (Rome) Blue Sisters. See The Little Company of Mary (Rome) Boeri, Enzio (unidentified), 347 Bohemian of the Infinite (Lind, unpublished), 459n, 460–61 Bohemia(ns), 298 Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas identified, 181n L’Art poétique, 180, 181n his maxim, 218, 218n Bolsheviks, lx, lxix, lxx Bolshevism, lxvii Bonaparte, Napoleon identified, 8n mentioned, 7 “Books of the Times” (Prescott), 348, 348n, 350, 351n, 352, 353 Boothby, Robert John Graham identified, 62n I Fight to Live, 62, 62n, 73 and “A Tory Radical,” 73n The Boston Latin School Merrill, headmaster of, l Santayana, student at, l mentioned, 75, 75n, 149, 221, 234, 235n, 283, 283n, 432 Boutroux, Émile identified, 444n mentioned, 444 Bowden, Harold identified, 349n mentioned, 348 Bowen (unidentified), 346 Bowen, Francis “Fanny” identified, 423n mentioned, 423 Bowers, [William] Edgar identified, 349n mentioned, 348 Bowra, Cecil Maurice

Index The Creative Experiment, 155–56, 156n, 163, 170 identified, 156n “The Boy and the River,” 308, 309n Boyer, William H. identified, 358n letter(s) to, 357 Bradford, Joel (unidentified), 310 Brahman, 20, 21, 142, 143 Brandon, Samuel George Fredrick The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, 398, 399n, 409 identified, 399n Brickman, Frances I. (unidentified) letter(s) to, 244 Bridges, Robert Seymour identified, 71n mentioned, 70, 195 British Commonwealth of Nations, 8, 8n British Empirical Philosophers (ed. Ayer and Winch), 455, 455n Bronson, Ira Hull, 48, 48n Bronson, Winifred M. letter(s) to, 47 and Harvard, 47 identified, 48n Brooks, C. H., 17, 17n The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky), 55, 56n Browning, Robert identified, 13n Santayana on, 12, 28, 195 and “A Version of Browning,” 229, 230n Brown Shipley and Company, 67, 172, 173n, 195, 207, 227, 235, 249, 274, 377, 381, 461 Bruno, Giordano, liii Buchler, Justus and Columbia University, 406 identified, 130n letter(s) to, 406 Obiter Scripta, 129, 130n, 406 Toward a General Theory of Human Judgment, 406, 407n Bucknell University Press, lxviii Buddhists, 343 Bulfinch, Charles identified, 19n and Merchant’s Row, 18 Burke, Edmund identified, 199n

607

mentioned, 198 Burnett, Mrs. (unidentified), 236 Burnett, Whit[ney] [Ewing] identified, 82n 105 Greatest Living Authors Present the World’s Best Stories, Humor, Drama, Biography, History, Essays, Poetry, 81, 82n and Story (magazine), 81, 82n Bush, Mary Potter identified, 458n mentioned, 457 Butler, Lawrence Smith his accident, 390, 411 Cathedral of the Incarnation, 183, 184n his health, 110, 133, 164 identified, 111n letter(s) to, 110, 133, 164, 179, 183, 321, 387, 411 Santayana, sends gifts to, 110, 133–34, 322, 323 Santayana on, 324 his travels, 179, 183 visits Santayana, 164 mentioned, 232, 295, 335 Butler, Richard Edmund identified, 448n letter(s) to, 459 The Mind of Santayana, 447, 448n, 459 his writing, Santayana on, 459 Butler Library (Columbia University), lxxii Bynner, [Harold] Witter identified, 224n letter(s) to, 224 visits Santayana, 224 Byron, George Gordon Noel Don Juan, 211, 211n identified, 133n mentioned, 132 Byzantium, 285, 292, 370, 444

Caelius (seven hills of Rome, one of), 285, 286n Caetani, Marguerite Chapin identified, 348–49n her works, 348 Calvinism, 266 Canby, Henry Seidel and The Saturday Review of Literature, lix Candide (Voltaire), 38, 41n

608

The Letters of George Santayana

Capen, Charles J. the Boston Latin School, teacher at, 283, 283n identified, 283n Capitalism, Santayana on, lxx Cardiff, Ira Detrich Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts from George Santayana, 51–52, 52n, 60–61, 75, 104–5, 129, 130, 184–85, 191, 197, 200–201, 204–5, 205n, 231, 231n, 243, 256–57, 258–59, 263, 264 267, 277, 286, 302–3, 315–16, 366 identified, 52n letter(s) to, 51, 60, 75, 99, 104, 129, 159, 184, 194, 197, 200, 204, 242, 245, 258, 264, 266, 286, 302, 315, 366, 385, 405 Santayana on, 258, 264, 277, 286, 302–3, 316 on Santayana’s philosophy, 315 his writing, Santayana on, 204, 256–57, 258 mentioned, xlvii, 98, 280, 336, 348, 350 Carnochan, Gouverneur Morris identified, 356n mentioned, 356 Caro, Codifier Joseph, 363, 364, 365n Carra de Vaux, Bernard Avicenne, 36, 40n identified, 40n Santayana influenced by, 36 Carus, Titus Lucretius. See Lucretius Cary, Henry Francis Divine Comedy, translation of, 232, 233n identified, 233n Castelli, Enrico Introduzione ad una fenomenologia della nostra epoca, 91, 91n, 93 identified, 23n L’esistenzialismo, 21, 23n letter(s) to, 91, 93 mentioned, 98, 304, 337 Cathedral of the Incarnation (New York), 183, 184n Catherwood, Frederick identified, 244n his writing, Santayana on, 243 Catholicism, lxix, 11, 12, 28, 57, 93, 167, 168, 174, 182, 196, 202, 221, 255, 256, 259, 261, 264, 296, 321, 324, 325, 338, 386, 390, 419 Catullus, Caius Valerius

identified, 34n Santayana on, 33 mentioned, 212 Cavalcanti, Guido, xlv Cecchi, Emilio identified, 338n and Poemettì, 427, 428n mentioned, 337, 428n “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (Twain), 308, 309n Celio (seven hills of Rome, one of), 388, 388n Cenci, Beatrice identified, 365n mentioned, 364 Cenci, Francesco identified, 365n mentioned, 364 Cervantes, Miguel de Saavedra Don Quixote, 332, 333n, 349, 388, 389n identified, 333n Santayana on, 332 mentioned, 421 “Cervantes and Mark Twain” (Roades), 421, 422n Chapman, John Jay and the Aryan Society, lxii Charioteer of Delphi, 229, 230n Charles V identified, 299n mentioned, 298 Charles Scribner’s Sons (publisher) archives, 475 and Cardiff, 60 and Dialogues in Limbo, 25n, 60, 99 and Dominations and Powers, 29, 217, 243, 266, 280, 295–96, 312, 333, 355, 366 and The Letters of George Santayana (ed. Cory), 469, 471, 472 and The Life of Reason, 383n, 392, 401, 416, 417 and My Host the World, 415 and Obiter Scripta, 406, 407n and Platonism and the Spiritual Life, 438, 449 and Poems: Selected by the Author and Revised, lii, 159 and press release(s), 340, 340n, 341, 373 Realms of Being, 25, 26n

Index Santayana’s account, 75, 190, 191, 222, 377, 381 and Santayana’s portrait, liii, 252–53, 319–20 and Santayana’s royalties, lviii and Santayana’s works, 60, 75, 184, 267 The Works of George Santayana, 26n mentioned, li, 3, 4n, 92, 103, 120, 129, 161, 171, 178, 194, 216, 223, 227, 235, 255, 262, 366, 385, 391, 392 Charybdis (Odyssey), 321, 322n Chen, Dr. (unidentified), 284, 327 Chetwynd Family, 217, 218n China, lxix, 275 Cholmeley-Jones, Henrietta Howard Boit identified, 301n letter(s) to, 300 Slow Advance, 301, 301n “Chorus” (Swinburne), 422, 422n Christianity, lxi, 20, 21, 57, 107, 154, 202, 219, 230, 259, 261, 285, 291, 363–64, 398, 420, 457 The Christmas Tree (Bolton), 163, 164n The Christopher Publishing House (publisher), 75, 75n, 99, 104, 105, 129 Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer identified, 199n mentioned, 198 Ciardi, John identified, 327 and Mid-century American Poets, 327, 327n Cincinnatus, Lucius Quinctius identified, 254n mentioned, 253 Civitas Dei, 107 Clare College (Cambridge University), 394, 395n, 402, 457 Classical humanism, 328 Classic American Philosophers (ed. Fisch), 320, 320n, 347 Clear text edition, 473 Clemens, Cyril Coniston and the “Esteemed Knight of Mark Twain,” 72, 73n, 78 identified, 73n letter(s) to, 72, 78, 117, 130, 140, 152, 173, 211, 229, 253, 308, 316, 332, 349, 354, 358, 374, 376, 391, 421, 445, 448 and Mark Twain Quarterly, 73n, 317n, 332, 333n, 374, 422

609

Santayana on, 141, 152–53 mentioned, 381, 410, 475 Clemens, Katharine Boland, 140, 141n, 308 Clemens, Samuel Langhorne (pseud. Mark Twain) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 317, 317n, 332, 333, 349, 410 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 332, 333, 333n, 349, 410 and “The Boy and the River,” 308, 309n “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” 308, 309n identified, 309n The Prince and the Pauper, 448, 449n Santayana on, 308–9, 332 Tom Sawyer Abroad, 421, 422n Tom Sawyer, Detective, 421, 422n mentioned, liii, 354 Clough, Francis Gardner his poetry, 138 identified, 138n letter(s) to, 138 The Cocktail Party (Eliot), 239, 239n, 249 Codman, John Sturgis identified, 338n mentioned, 335 Cohen, Arthur Allen identified, 21n letter(s) to, 20 Cohen, Morris and Santayana’s philosophy, lxii Colman, George identified, 435n and Terrence’s plays, 434, 435n Columbia University, lvii, 328, 348, 406, 470, 479n Columbus, Christopher, 437 Comintern, 294, 295n Communism, lxix, 7, 167 Communists, 87, 314, 364, 434, 443 The Complete Poems of George Santayana (Holzberger), lxxii, lxviii, 461n Comte, Isidore Auguste Marie François identified, 213n and positivism, 213, 213n mentioned, 228 Conger, George Perrigo identified, 226n letter(s) to, 226 visits Santayana, 226

610

The Letters of George Santayana

Conservatism Revisited (Viereck), 198, 199n, 225, 225n Constable and Company Ltd. (publisher) and Dominations and Powers, 352–53, 359–60, 360n and Kyllmann, 16n and The Middle Span, 44, 44n and Platonism and the Spiritual Life, 436, 437n, 449 and Santayana’s works, 175, 184, 267 mentioned, li, 25, 205, 245, 350, 367 Corman, Clemens, 50 Cory, Daniel MacGhie allowance from Santayana, lviii allowance from Strong, lviii and Columbia University, lvii death of, 470 and Dominations and Powers, 24, 98, 114, 120, 141, 150, 174, 208, 216, 217, 221, 226–27, 234, 240, 246, 248, 249n, 250, 251, 254–55, 260, 262, 265, 267–68, 271, 273, 280, 282, 282n, 304–5, 308, 311–12, 312, 325, 334, 359, 360 his finances, lviii his health, 191, 217 identified, 6n International Philosophical Fellowship Fund, receives, 95, 96n, 425 letter(s) to, 6, 27, 43, 48, 61, 63, 70, 84, 87, 91, 100, 108, 109, 124, 141, 149, 173, 176, 191, 200, 207, 238, 245, 248, 254, 256, 260, 267, 271, 275, 282, 289, 290, 293, 347, 352, 366, 380, 446, 457, 460, 461, 469 and The Life of Reason, 382–83, 391, 392, 396, 401, 409, 411, 416, 417, 421, 423, 425, 434 “Michael” (unpublished), lix and Mind, 28 his philosophy studies, 43 and Poet’s Testament, 412 publications The Birth of Reason and Other Essays, edited, 25n The Letters of George Santayana, 469–70, 471, 472 “On the False Steps in Philosophy,” 25n Russell, article on, 28, 29n Santayana’s philosophy, articles on,

lviii Santayana: The Later Years, A Portrait with Letters, 476, 478, 479n and The Realm of Matter, lviii and The Realm of Spirit, xlviii Santayana, relationship with, li, lvii–lix Santayana on, lix, lxix, 216, 221–22, 296, 402 Santayana’s beneficiary, 9, 24, 124, 222, 227n, 251, 461, 461n and Santayana’s correspondence, lxvii, lxviii, 469, 470, 471, 476, 479n and Santayana’s death, li Santayana sends gift to, 89, 190, 191, 248–49 Santayana’s literary executor, 258, 470 and Santayana’s philosophy, lviii–lix, 280, 298 and Santayana’s royalties, lviii, 25, 227n Santayana’s secretary, lviii, lxix, 469–70 and Santayana’s works, lvii–lviii, 24, 48, 98, 109, 216–17, 268, 382-83, 418, 470 and “Some Developments of Materialism,” 6, 6n, 192 Strong’s secretary, lviii and transcription, 472 his travels, 85, 87–88, 142, 163, 173–74 visits Santayana, 149–50, 153, 158, 208, 217, 221–22, 226, 234, 236, 250, 273, 275, 294, 295, 304, 380, 461 his wife, 100, 101n, 381 mentioned, xlvi, lxv, lxvii, lxix, 52, 155, 172, 193, 234n, 240, 247, 280, 323, 326, 338, 339, 350, 388, 389, 395, 404, 435, 436, 454, 455, 456, 471, 475, 479n Cory, Margaret “Margot” Degen Batten (Mrs. Daniel Cory) identified, 101n and Santayana’s correspondence, 479n Santayana’s literary executor, 470 and transcription, 472 mentioned, 100, 109, 342, 381, 461 Crane, Stephen Townley identified, 322n Santayana on, 321, 324 and Stephen Crane, 321, 322n his writing, 324 The Creative Experiment (Bowra), 155–56, 156n, 163, 170 The Criterion ( journal), lix

Index Crito (Plato), lxiii Croce, Benedetto identified, 56n mentioned, 55, 227 Crónica del Patronato Nacional de San Pablo, 404n Crossman, Richard Howard Stafford “Demokratisher Realismus,” 198, 199n identified, 199n Cuevas, George identified, 162n mentioned, 162 Cuevas, Margaret Strong (Mrs. George Cuevas) her father, lii identified, 162n her house, 317, 317n mentioned, 162, 317 Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, 167, 167–68n Cushing, Howard Gardiner identified, 251n mentioned, 251 Cynics, 298, 299n

Dante (Alighieri) and Beatrice, 208n and “Dante: Paradiso XXVI (25–78),” 207, 208n, 213 The Divine Comedy, 261 The Divine Comedy, translation of, 231–32, 232–33n Inferno, 11, 13n, 280, 281n Paradiso, 207 Santayana on, 261 and Three Philosophical Poets, 437 his verse scheme, 231–32, 233n mentioned, xlv, 195, 400 “Dante: Paradiso XXVI (25–78)” (trans. Ramsey), 207, 208n, 213 Darnley, Jim (Puritan), 238, 238n David (Bible), 420 The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or the Wonderful One-Hoss-Shay: A Logical Story (Holmes), 457, 458n De Anima (Aristotle), 361, 363n Delarue, Allison identified, 162n letter(s) to, 162 Del Noce, Augusto

611

identified, 44n and Marx, 43 and materialism, 43 and matter, 43 Delphic Club. See The Delta Phi Club The Delta Phi Club, 18, 19n, 90, 144, 227, 237, 335, 431 Democracy, lxx, 130, 228, 311, 404n Democritus identified, 26n his philosophy, 25 mentioned, liii, 58, 80, 98, 132, 278 “Demokratisher Realismus” (Crossman), 198, 199n Denson, Alan G. W. Russell (Æ) 1867–1935, 281, 281n identified, 241n Letters from Æ, 436, 437n letter(s) to, 240, 281, 436, 449, 451 his poetry, 281, 281n mentioned, 438 Der Monat ( journal), 187, 188n, 189, 192, 198, 199n, 212–13, 213n Descartes, René identified, 117n Les Passions de l’âme, 338, 340n his philosophy, xlvi, 147, 148n, 186 and spirit, 180 mentioned, 116, 205, 338, 395, 430 Dewey, John and “Dewey, The Greek,” 212, 213n identified, 86n and the John Dewey 90th Birthday Celebration, 206, 207n and “On Philosophical Synthesis” (Dewey, Radhakrishnan, Santayana), 287, 287n Santayana on, 212 and Santayana’s philosophy, 86 and “Vom Ursprung des Philosophierens,” 212–13, 213n mentioned, 182, 228, 320, 320n, 328 “Dewey, The Greek” ( Johnson), 212, 213n Dialogue on George Santayana (ed. Lamont), lxviii Dialogues in Limbo (Santayana), 6, 9, 12, 24–25, 28, 49–50, 55, 60, 61, 63, 64n, 81–82, 89, 90, 91, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 119, 122, 132, 143, 153, 163, 205, 277, 278n, 284, 285, 316, 361, 417 Diana (goddess), 427

612

The Letters of George Santayana

Dickens, Charles identified, 33n mentioned, 32 Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes, li Dictionary of American Biography, 474 Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Nietzsche), 279, 279n “Die Vierte Republik” (Lüthy), 198, 199n Dionysius II, 81, 82n Dionysus, 437, 438n Disraeli, Benjamin identified, 199n mentioned, 198 The Divine Comedy (Dante), 261 The Divine Comedy (trans. Cary), 232, 233n The Divine Comedy (trans. White), 231–32, 232–33n D.K.E. (Harvard), 237, 238n Dominaciones y potestades (Fontanilla), 350, 351n Dominations and Powers (Santayana), 6, 7n, 14–15, 24, 25, 26n, 27, 29, 42n, 45, 49, 52, 61, 84–85, 87, 96, 98, 101, 108, 109n, 109, 114, 120, 122, 125, 127, 130, 141, 142, 143, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 165–66, 169, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180, 188–89, 192, 195, 208, 213, 215–16, 216n, 216–17, 217–18, 221–22, 226–27, 227n, 233, 236, 239, 239n, 240, 242, 243 245, 246, 247, 248, 249n, 250, 251, 254–55, 256, 260, 260n, 262, 265, 267–68, 270, 270n, 271, 273, 274, 275, 276, 276n, 278–79, 280, 282, 282n, 283, 285, 287, 289, 290, 291, 293, 295–96, 303, 304, 304–5, 305n, 306n, 307, 308, 309, 309–10, 311–12, 312, 314, 316, 317n, 323, 325, 326, 327, 333, 333n, 334, 335, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 346, 347–48, 349, 350, 351, 351–52, 352–53, 354, 355, 357, 358, 358n, 359–60, 360n, 360, 366, 367, 368, 369n, 369, 370, 371, 373, 377, 379, 384 “Dominations and Powers: Two Chapters from a Work in Progress” (Santayana), 215–16, 216n, 218, 222, 227 Domus Spinozana, lxiii Don Juan (Byron), 133n, 211, 211n Don Quixote (Cervantes), 332, 333, 349, 387 Don Quixote (Don Quixote), 421

Doré, Paul Gustave identified, 232n his illustrations, 231 Doric (dialect of ancient Greek), 298, 299n D’Ors, Eugenio identified, 338n mentioned, 337 Dos Passos, John Roderigo identified, 329n mentioned, 328 The Double Axe and Other Poems ( Jeffers), 367, 367n, 369 Doumic, Max identified, 74n on nationalities, 74 Doumic, René identified, 74n on nationalities, 74 Drew, Fraser Bragg identified, 277n letter(s) to, 276 Droysen, Johann Gustav Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen, 285, 286n, 291 identified, 286n Dulles, Avery Robert identified, 171n mentioned, 170 Dulles, John Foster, 171n Duron, Jacques identified, 50n La Pensée de George Santayana: Santayana en Amérique, 246, 247n, 297 Santayana on, 246–47 and Santayana’s philosophy, 246 and Santayana’s works, 50 mentioned, 306, 336

Dutton, Ralph The Age of Wren, 444 identified, 444n Dyer, Louis identified, 277n Santayana studied under, 276, 277n

Eastman, Max Forrester identified, 166n letter(s) to, 414 “Philosopher in a Convent,” 414, 415n, 445

Index Santayana on, 445 “Sex and Santayana,” 414, 415n, 445 visits Santayana, 166 his writing, Santayana on, 414–15 Ecclesiastes, 405, 405n, 408, 410 “The Editing of Historical Documents” (Tanselle), 479n Edman, Irwin identified, 202n The Philosophy of Santayana, 383, 383n Santayana, review of, 396 on Santayana’s philosophy, lxii, 202 and Santayana’s works, 383 mentioned, lxi, lxii, 335 Edward VII (king of England) identified, 80n mentioned, 79 Edward VIII (duke of Windsor) identified, 354n A King’s Story: The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor, 354, 354n Edwards, Jonathan identified, 170n mentioned, 169 Egotism in German Philosophy (Santayana), 185, 186, 267, 399 Einstein, Albert identified, 125n mentioned, 125, 137, 151 El Cid. See Bivar, Ruy Díaz de Eldredge, Arthur Sr., 124n Eldredge, Arthur Jr. (Santayana’s great nephew) and architecture, 10 his health, 273 identified, 5n Santayana sends gift, 263, 272, 273 Santayana’s will, 123 his wife, 274, 274n mentioned, 5, 124n Eldredge, Roselle Marie “RM” Rice identified, 274n mentioned, 272 “El gran Poder” (Iris), 393, 394n El Greco identified, 253n mentioned, 253 Eliot, Charles William Harvard, president of, 72 identified, 72n

613

Eliot, George. See Evans, Mary Ann identified, 223n Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, 222, 223n The Mill on the Floss, 222, 223n Romola, 222, 223n Eliot, T[homas] S[tearns] The Cocktail Party, 239, 239n, 249 and The Criterion, lviii–lix The Family Reunion, 132, 133n Four Quartets, 153, 153n, 155 identified, 46n and Poems 1938–1949, 126, 127, 128n, 132 his poetry, 45, 158 and Pound, 313, 313n Santayana on, 126, 132, 195 mentioned, 92, 170, 216 Elizabeth and her German Garden (M. Russell), 64n, 222 Elliott and Fry (photography firm), 194, 194n “Empiricism Old and New,” 455, 455n Encyclopedia Britannica, 365 Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 478 England and government, lxx and Magdalen College, 27, 29n philosophy in, 297 Salisbury Cathedral, 183, 184n Santayana lectures in, 92, 92n Santayana on, 77, 264, 370, 439 Trumpington grind, 439, 440n Victoria, Queen, 8 Westminster, statute of, 8 mentioned, 7 Epicureanism, 170, 171n, 298 Epicurus, 33n, 171n “Epilogue: My Host the World” (Santayana), 85, 85n, 143 Epstein, Jacob identfied, 173n mentioned, 172 Escalera, Mercedes de la her allowance, 124 identified, 112n letter(s) to, 318, 402 Santayana, sends gift to, 319n mentioned, 111, 236 Esquiline (seven hills of Rome, one of), 388, 388n

614

The Letters of George Santayana

Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal (Leibniz), 395, 395n An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 43, 44n Essays on Human Evolution (Keith), 84, 85n, 96 Essence, xlvi, 20, 36, 37, 43, 97, 146, 147, 210, 228, 270, 288, 289n, 361, 400–401, 430, 450 “Esteemed Knight of Mark Twain” (honorary title), 72, 73n, 78 Ethics (Spinoza), 39n, 357, 358n Euripides Bacchae, 23, 23n, 35, 276, 437 identified, 23n Europe, 47, 77, 84, 92, 110, 136 The European Recovery Plan, 7, 8n “Evangeline” (Longfellow), 325, 326n Evans, Mary Ann. (pseud. George Eliot) identified, 223n Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, 222, 223n The Mill on the Floss, 222, 223n Romola, 222, 223n Existence, 26 Existentialism, 20, 21, 146, 185, 186, 242 Existentialists and Angst, 179, 180 French, 73 Santayana on, 186 mentioned, 185 Expeditus, Saint identified, 158n mentioned, 158, 393

Façade (Sitwell and Sitwell), 176, 177n Falconi, Carlo identified, 338n mentioned, 337 “Falling Asleep over the Aeneid” (Lowell), 12, 13n, 19, 28, 45 The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (Brandon), 398, 399n, 409 Falstaff, John (Shakespeare character), 281, 281n The Family Reunion (Eliot), 132, 133n Fascism, 310 Fascists, lx, lxvii Fauerbach, Mrs. Walter F.

letter(s) to, 209 Faust (Goethe), 399–400n, 400n, 408 Faust (Faust), 399 Feast day of St. John the Baptist, 76, 76n Feast of the Ascension, 162, 164n Ferm, Vergilius (Ture Anselm) identified, 329n Religion in the Twentieth Century, 328, 329n Ferrari, Dino identified, 448n “Santayana’s Lucid Rationalism,” 448, 448n Fichte, Johann Gottlieb identified, 148n his philosophy, xlvi, 146 mentioned, 147, 157 Ficke, Arthur Davison, lxiii Filosofia (review), 346, 346n Fisch, Max Harold Classic American Philosophers, 320, 320n, 347 identified, 320n letter(s) to, 320, 347 Fisher, John, 448, 449n Fiske, Arthur Irving and the Boston Latin School, 234, 235n identified, 235n Fitzgerald, Robert Stuart identified, 121n letter(s) to, 167 mentioned, 119, 128, 168, 174, 220, 221, 224 Fitzgerald, Sarah “Sally,” 119, 121n, 224 Flair (magazine), 295, 296, 296n, 297n Flandrau, Charles Macomb The Diary of a Freshman, 237, 238n Harvard Episodes, 237, 238n identified, 238n Fontaine, Jean de la identified, 181n mentioned, 180 Ford, Anne McDonnell identified, 294n letter(s) to, 292 Santayana, sends gift to, 292, 344 Four Quartets (Eliot), 153, 153n, 155 France French Revolution, 94, 94n, 253, 295, 434 language, 180

Index Santayana on, 180 sophists, 180 mentioned, 110, 188 Francesca (The Divine Comedy), 231, 232–33n Fraser, George Sutherland identified, 192n News from South America, 192, 192n, 193 his writing, Santayana on, 192, 193 Fraser, Henry Edward identified, 148n Santayana on, 148 Freeman, Kathleen The Greek Way, An Anthology, 32–33, 33n identified, 33n The French Revolution, 94, 94n, 253, 295, 434 Freud, Sigmund and Abnormal eroticism, 163 identified, 164n Freyer, Grattan, lxviii Fromm, Erich identified, 329n mentioned, 328 Fuller, Benjamin Apthorp Gould “Bags,” lxiv Fullerton, William Morton, lii

Gabriel (archangel) identified, 443n mentioned, 443 Garrick, David identified, 145n and The Letters of David Garrick, 145n mentioned, 144 Gashouse. See The Delta Phi Club “A General Confession” (Santayana), 89, 91n Genetic text edition, 473 The Genteel Tradition at Bay (Santayana), 267 “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy” (Santayana), 77, 77n “A Gentle Warning in Place of a Preface” (Lind), 458, 459n, 461 George Santayana (Howgate), lxviii, 140–41, 141n, 229, 297 “George Santayana” (Shippen), 451, 451n, 455 George Santayana: A Biography (McCormick), xlix, lxviii

615

George Santayana: Metaphysical Musician (Munson), 36, 38, 38n George Santayana’s Marginalia: A Critical Selection (McCormick, forthcoming), 467 Gerber, William identified, 15n letter(s) to, 14 his writing, Santayana on, 14 Germany Berlin blockade, 155, 156n German Idealism, 146 and Santayana, xxxi, xxxv, 47, 269 mentioned, 84, 189, 273 Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen (Droysen), 285, 286n, 291 Gestalt, 369, 370n “The Gettysburg Address” (Lincoln), 109n, 122, 125 “The Ghost” (Lowell), 33, 33n The Giardino del Lago (Rome), 88, 89n, 165 Gide, André identified, 164n mentioned, 163 Gilberti, Gilberto, 458, 458n, 462 “Gli occhi miei vaghi delle cose belle” (Santayana), 23, 23n Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Faust, 399, 400n, 408 identified, 329n and naturalism, 328 Santayana on, 399 and Three Philosophical Poets, 399–400, 437 The Golden Day (Mumford), lxv, lxix Gordon, Hirsch Loeb identified, 365n letter(s) to, 363 The Maggid of Caro, 363 Government(s), 47, 295, 301, 310, 364, 440, 442, 443 Grady, George letter(s) to, 181 his poetry, 181 his proposed American philosophy, 182 Gray, Hugh Barr identified, 338n mentioned, 337 Great Britain, 447 Great Morning! (Sitwell), 70, 71n

616

The Letters of George Santayana

Greek(s), 94, 170, 259, 264, 386 The Greek Way, An Anthology (Freeman), 32–33, 33n Green, Frederick Charles identified, 289n and “In Search of Proust,” 288, 289n The Mind of Proust, 288, 289n Grundy, Mrs. (Speed the Plough), 45, 46n Guillén, Jorge identified, 392n letter(s) to, 392 visits Santayana, 392 Guzzo, Augusto Filosofia, 346, 346n and The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, 27, 30, 53, 56–57 identified, 15n letter(s) to, 15, 17, 26, 30, 53, 56, 62, 68, 96, 177 L’Idea di Cristo nei Vangeli o Dio nell’uomo, 15n, 17, 29, 31, 34, 53, 56–57, 62, 63n, 68, 96–97, 177, 177–78, 202, 242, 243, 256 L’io e la ragione, 26, 27, 27n his philosophy, 27 his religion, 31 Santayana on, 31 his writing, Santayana on, 26–27, 56–57 mentioned, 98 Guzzo, Cordelia L’Idea di Cristo nei Vangeli o Dio nell’uomo, 15n, 17, 29, 31, 34, 53, 63n, 178, 202, 242, 243 Guzzo, Orlando, 96, 97n

Hadrian, 407, 408n Hagia Sophia (Istanbul), 346, 346n Hahnel, Robert C. (pseud. Bruno Lind) Bohemian of the Infinite (unpublished), 459n, 460 “A Gentle Warning in Place of a Preface,” 458, 459n, 460 Dominations and Powers, review of, 367, 368n identified, 299n letter(s) to, 297, 305, 331, 368, 389, 400, 412, 419, 432, 450, 455, 458 on Santayana, 450–51, 451n Santayana on, 435–36 Vagabond Scholar, 298, 299n, 389, 413,

414n, 433 “Via Crucis,” 413, 419, 420n, 433 visits Santayana, 331 his writing, Santayana on, 458 mentioned, lxxviii, 336, 367, 380, 413n Hamlet (Shakespeare), 68, 69n, 205 Hamlet (Hamlet ), lvi, 68, 68n, 204, 284, 284n Harvard Episodes (Flandrau), 237, 238n The Harvard Monthly, 72, 72n Harvard University Abbot, student at, xlix, liv Adams House, 144, 145n, 190 Apthorp House, 144, 145n and Bowen, 423, 423n and Bronson, 47 clubs at, 306 Delta Phi Club, 18, 19n, 90, 144, 227, 237, 335, 431 D.K.E., 237, 238n Eliot, president of, 72, 72n, 301n Harvard Bulletin, 372, 373n The Harvard Lampoon, xxxvi The Harvard Monthly, 72, 72n Hasty Pudding, xxxvi, 9, 10 and Houghton, 47 Houghton Library, lviii, lxiv Kallen, student at, lxiii and The Last Puritan, 237 Loeser, student at, lxiii Lowell, president of, l, 306, 306n Med. Fac., 237, 238n Philosophical Club, l the Porcellian, 306, 306n Santayana, student at, lv and Santayana, xlv, lxv, 23, 47, 149, 317, 412, 429, 431 Santayana’s fellowship for, 123, 124n Santayana’s retirement from, lxii, lxiii, lxv and Shippen, 451 Stoughton Hall, 126 and Stillman, Charles, 431, 432n R. Sturgis, student at, lvii The Widener Library, 90, 335 mentioned, 11, 19, 74, 104, 123, 137, 203, 237, 267, 296, 388 Harvard University Press, 436, 438 Harvard Yard in the Golden Age (Brown), 173, 173n Hasty Pudding

Index Lady Papillonetta, 9, 9n and Santayana, 9, 9n, 10 show(s), 9, 10 mentioned, xxxvi Hawthorne, Nathaniel, xxxvi Hazlitt, Henry identified, 329n mentioned, 328 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich identified, 158n mentioned, 157, 186, 399 Heidegger, Martin and death, 21 identified, 22–23n and nothing, 21, 22–23n his philosophy, Santayana on, xxxii, 21, 186 Heinemann, F[rederick] H[enry] identified, 209n mentioned, 209 Hellenism, 108, 108n, 444 Hellenistic Civilisation (Tarn), 423, 423n Henry VIII (king of England) identified, 449n mentioned, 97n, 448 Heraclitus identified, 103n mentioned, 103 Hermes, 259, 259n Hexner, Ervin Paul identified, 144n letter(s) to, 143 “The Hidden Soul” (Santayana), 10n, 28, 48 Hinduism, 154 Hippolyte (Phèdre), 313, 313n, 325 History, 157, 363–64, 367, 404n, 409, 432 A History of the Crusades (Runciman), 370, 370n Hobbes, Thomas identified, 206n mentioned, 205 Hodgson, Shadworth Holloway and the Aristotelian Society for Systematic Study of Philosophy, 36, 38n identified, 38n Holme, Vincent. See Iris, Scharmel Holmes, Donald C., 413n Holmes, Oliver Wendell The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or the Wonderful One-Hoss-Shay: A Logical Story, 457,

617

458n Holzberger, William G. The Complete Poems of George Santayana, lxxii, lxviii, 461n and Persons and Places, lxviii and Santayana’s correspondence, 470, 471 and transcription, 472 Homer identified, 133n and The Odyssey, 321, 322n quoted, 301 mentioned, 131, 445 Hook, Sidney identified, 108n “Liberty, Society and Mr. Santayana,” 348, 348n, 349, 350, 352, 353 Santayana on, 348, 350 Toynbee, review of, 106, 107n mentioned, lxi, lxx Hooker, Richard identified, 376n mentioned, 375 Hopkins, Gerard Manley identified, 93n mentioned, 92 Houghton, Alanson Bigelow and Germany, 47 and Harvard, 47 and The Harvard Monthly, 72n identified, 48n Santayana on, 47 Housman, [A]lfred [E]dward, liv, lvi, lxviii Hovde, Byrnjolf Jakob identified, 207n and the John Dewey 90th Birthday Celebration, 206, 207n letter(s) to, 206 Howard, John Galen, l Howgate, George Washburne George Santayana, lxviii, 140–41, 141n, 228, 297 mentioned, 435 Hudson Review (quarterly), 436, 436n Hulme, Thomas Ernest identified, 173n Speculations: Essays on Humanism and the Philosophy of Art, 172, 173n Humanism, 227–28, 310, 328 Humanism as a Philosophy (Lamont), 226, 227, 229n, 309

618

The Letters of George Santayana

Humanities Research Center (University of Texas at Austin), lxviii, 470 Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits (Russell), 142, 143n, 150, 151n Hume, David identified, 148n and Kant, 146 his philosophy, 426 Santayana on, 426 and skepticism, 430 mentioned, 147, 395, 406, 407 Huntington, Susan Butler, 110, 111n, 134n Huntington, William identified, 134n mentioned, 133 Husserl, Edmund Gustav Albrecht and existentialism, 20 identified, 22n and phenomenology, 20–21, 22n his philosophy, Santayana on, 21 and pure phenomenon, 209 Huxley, Julian [Sorell] identified, 329n mentioned, 328 Huxley, Michael Heathorn identified, 448n The Root of Europe, 448n

Idealism, German, 146 The Idea of Christ in the Gospels (Santayana), 15, 15n, 16n, 16, 17, 25, 27, 29, 30, 30n, 31, 34, 50, 53, 56–57, 117, 155, 163, 202, 219, 221, 242, 256, 267, 277, 328–29, 350, 412, 420, 433, 448 I Fight to Live (Boothby), 62, 62n, 73 If I Had My Time Again (Marchant), 348, 349n “I Like to Be a Stranger” (Santayana), 435, 436n The Illusion of Immortality (Lamont), 230, 231n, 261, 286 Il Tempo (newspaper), 273, 274n, 275, 422 The Impact of Science on Society (B. Russell), 451, 451n Inches, Susan Brimmer identified, 301n mentioned, 300 India, lxix Industrialism, lxx Inferno (Dante), 11, 13n, 280, 281n

Inge, William Ralph identified, 449n The Philosophy of Plotinus, 449, 449n “In Memoriam: Santayana” (Lengyel), 214–15, 215n “In Search of Proust,” 288, 289n International Philosophical Fellowship Fund, 95, 96n Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (Santayana), 182, 183n, 219, 414, 459 “Intimations of Immortality” (Wordsworth), 61, 61n An Introduction of the History of England ( Jerrold), 157, 158n Introduzione ad una fenomenologia della nostra epoca (Castelli), 91, 91n, 93 Intuition, xlvi Ionian philosophers, 328, 330n Iris, Scharmel “El gran Poder,” 393, 394n identified, 394n letter(s) to, 393 his poetry, 393 Spanish Earth, 393n Isherwood, Christopher William Bradshaw identified, 376n “The Smile of Santayana,” 376, 376n, 381, 391 Islam, 363, 364, 442, 443 Italian Institute (Geneva), 90 Italy Capri, etching of, 330, 330n fascists, lxvii Hotel Danieli (Venice), 184 Italian Institute (Geneva), 90 and Mussolini, lxvii, 310 and politics, 310, 447 Rome atmosphere in, 87, 92 Banco di Napoli, 150 Banco di Roma, 150, 248, 266, 348, 458n, 462 Baths of Caracalla, 285, 286n Caelius, 285, 286n Celio, 388, 388n the circolare interna, 149, 150n the Colosseum, 149, 331, 332n and elections, 47, 52 Esquiline, 388, 388n Forum, 125 The Giardino del Lago, 88, 89n, 165

Index Grand Hotel, 165 Hotel Bristol, 102, 102n, 112, 139, 165, 187, 217, 343 Il Tempo (newspaper), 273, 274n, 275, 422 the Lateran, 149, 150n L’Osservatore Romano, 273, 274n, 423 Navicella, 331, 332n Pantheon, 125 Philosophical Congress, 43 Piazza Barberini, 88 Piazza di Spagna, 88, 179 The Pincio, 59, 59n, 140, 179 and politics, 5, 10, 47, 52, 84, 87, 312, 313, 391 Pontifical Beda College, 113, 113n Porta Pinciana, 149, 150n, 153 Saint Peter’s Church, 78, 80n, 92 San Pietro in Vincoli, 387, 388n Santa Sabina, 388, 388n Santayana’s residence, xlv, lxv Spanish Consulate, 450, 452n, 453, 454 trade in, 5 and the United States Army, 268, 410 Via Sistina, 67, 88 Villa Borghese, 59, 59n, 165 and World War II, lvii zoo, 125 mentioned, li, lxix, 134 St. Giorgio Maggiore (Venice), 184, 184n St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Vienna), 183, 184n and World War II, lvii mentioned, 47 “It is not wisdom to be only wise” (Santayana), 23, 23n

Jacobins, 253, 254n James, Henry identified, 279n and Santayana, liii his sexual orientation, lvi mentioned, li, lxviii, 279 James, William identified, 38n and momentary feelings, 36

619

Santayana’s professor, 36, 38n The Varieties of Religious Experience, 260, 262n mentioned, 305, 320, 320n, 347 Jaques (As You Like It), 205, 206n Jaspers, Karl identified, 148n his philosophy, 242 mentioned, 146, 242 Jeffers, Robinson The Double Axe and Other Poems, 367, 367n, 369 identified, 367n The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, 367, 367n, 369 Jefferson, Thomas and Jefferson the Virginian, 211, 212, 212n, 229, 230n and “Master of Monticello,” 229, 230n quoted, 254 and Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom, Advocate of Christian Morals, 229, 230n and Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, 253–54, 254n, 308 mentioned, 295 Jefferson Memorial, 229, 230n Jefferson the Virginian (Malone), 211, 212, 212n, 229, 230n Jerusalem, 398 Jesus, 57, 105, 169, 230, 328–29, 393, 420, 448 J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. (publisher), 185, 185n, 245, 267 John, Saint, 207, 208n John Dewey 90th Birthday Celebration, 206, 207n The John Erskine Library, 397 John of the Cross, Saint, 261, 262n Johnson, Lionel Pigot identified, 71n mentioned, 70 The Journal of Philosophy (Columbia), 440, 441n Judaism, lxi–lxii, 74, 107, 169, 259, 261, 325–26, 363–64, 380, 384, 390, 420, 442 Jury, Charles Rischbeith identified, 356n mentioned, 356

620

The Letters of George Santayana

Kallen, Horace Meyer Harvard University, student at, lxii identified, 337n letter(s) to, 424 Patterns of Progress, 424, 425n his philosophy, 424 and the Sacco and Vanzetti case, lx Santayana on, lxii mentioned, li, lxix, 335, 341 Kant, Immanuel and Hume, 146 identified, 22n his philosophy, xlvi mentioned, 21, 36, 55 Keith, Arthur Essays on Human Evolution, 84–85, 85n, 96 identified, 85n Kenyon College, 11, 13n, 19 Kenyon Review ( journal), 87, 88n Kierkegaard, Søren identified, 21–22n his philosophy, xlvi mentioned, 20, 21, 146, 179, 339 King James Bible, 106n King’s Chapel, 11, 13n, 220–21 King’s College, 204n, 237, 412 “King’s College Chapel” (Santayana), 159, 159n A King’s Story: The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII), 354, 354n Kirkwood, William Alexander identified, 446n letter(s) to, 445 Kirschten, Ernest Dominations and Powers, review of, 374, 375n Knowledge, 26, 36–37, 146, 170, 424, 426, 430 Knox, John, liii Korea (North and South), 268, 268n, 275 Krutch, Joseph Wood identified, 329n Santayana, article on, 348, 348n, 349, 350, 352, 353 Santayana on, 348 mentioned, 328 Kyllmann, Otto

and Constable Publishers, 16n, 350 identified, 16n letter(s) to, 16 mentioned, li

La Chartreuse de Parme (Stendhal), 63, 64n La filosofia dell’esistenza e Carlo Jaspers (Pareyson), 240, 241n La Fontaine, Jean de identified, 379n “Le Corbeau et le Renard,” 378, 379n La idea de Cristo en los evangelios (trans. Náñez), 15, 16n, 16 Lamentations on Christmas (Schilpp), 105, 106n Lamont, Corliss Humanism as a Philosophy, 226, 227, 228n, 309 identified, 206n The Illusion of Immortality, 229, 230n, 261, 287 letter(s) to, 227, 230, 260, 268, 309, 399, 408 and naturalism, 309 and the Resurrection, 262 visits Santayana, 269, 287 mentioned, 204, 335 Lane, Alexander (unidentified), 409 Lane, Philip identified, 90n Santayana on, 343 visits Santayana, 381 mentioned, 90, 336, 359, 360, 366, 369 Langstaff, John Brett identified, 356n letter(s) to, 356 Lao Tse identified, 159 mentioned, 159n, 187 La Pensée de George Santayana: Santayana en Amérique (Duron), 245, 246n, 298 Lapsley, Gaillard Thomas identified, 440n mentioned, 439 L’Art poétique (Boileau-Despréaux), 180, 181n Lasswell, Harold Dwight The Analysis of Political Behavior, 73, 73n identified, 73n

Index Power and Personality, 137, 137n The Last Puritan (Santayana), xlv, liv, lxviii, 18, 19n, 49n, 50, 51, 52n, 62, 63, 70, 88, 99, 114, 119, 154, 164, 189, 205, 216, 219, 220, 236–37, 260, 261n, 263, 268, 278, 321, 361, 362, 396, 400–401, 415n, 433 Laughter in the Next Room (Sitwell), 173, 174n, 176 Lauro (“Ambra”), 427 Lawrence, Saint identified, 106n mentioned, 106 League of Nations, 301, 301n Le Balze (Strong’s villa), lviii, lxvii, 317, 317n “Le Corbeau et le Renard” (La Fontaine), 378, 378n Le Dernier Puritain (trans. Sémeziès), 62, 62n, 63 Left Hand, Right Hand! (Sitwell), 60, 60n, 72 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal, 394, 395n identified, 39n Santayana influenced by, 36 Santayana on, 180 mentioned, 38, 394, 407 Le Malade imaginaire (Molière), 38, 41n Le Misanthrope (Molière), 53, 53n Lengyel, Cornel Adam identified, 214n “In Memoriam: Santayana,” 215, 215n letter(s) to, 214 his poetry, 213–14 Santayana, sends sonnets to, 213, 214n his writing, Santayana on, 213–14 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (Ulyanov) identified, 44n mentioned, lxix, 43 Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion (Bergson), 169, 171n “Les Faux pas de la philosophie” (Santayana, unpublished), 24, 25n, 84, 86, 95, 357 L’esistenzialismo (Castelli), 21, 23n Leslie, Shane identified, 71n The Oppidan, 70, 70n Les Passions de l’âme (Decartes), 338, 339n

621

Les Sentences dans la poésie grecque: d’Homère à Euripide (Stickney), 446, 446n Letters from Æ (Denson), 436, 437n The Letters of David Garrick (ed. Little and Kahrl), 145n The Letters of George Santayana (ed. Cory), lxxi, lxxii, lxxiii, lxxiv, lxxviii The Letters of George Santayana (MIT), lxix, lxxi, lxxiii, lxxiv Lettres à quelques-uns (Valéry), 447, 448n The Levant, 363, 365n L’Évolution créatrice (Bergson), 289, 290n Lewis, C[live] S[taples] identified, 29n and Magdalen College, 27 Santayana on, 27–28 Lewis, [Harry] Sinclair identified, 329n mentioned, 328 “The Libertine” (Santayana), 9n, 28, 48, 49 Liberty, empty and vital, 27 “Liberty, Society and Mr. Santayana” (Hook), 348, 348n, 349, 350, 352, 353 L’Idea di Cristo nei Vangeli o Dio nell’uomo (trans. Guzzo and Guzzo), 15, 15n, 17, 29, 31, 34, 53, 56–57, 62, 62n, 67–68, 96–97, 176–77, 177–78, 201, 240–41, 242, 257 Life (magazine) and Lady Papillonetta, 9, 9n Santayana, photo of, 9 mentioned, 87, 203 Life is a Dream (de la Barca), 385, 385–86n Life of reason, Santayana on, xlvi, 311 The Life of Reason (Santayana) one-volume abridged edition, 382–383, 383n, 392, 396, 401, 409, 411, 416, 417, 421, 423, 425, 434 volume I: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense, 396, 397n, 401 volume II: Reason in Society, 236, 236n, 396, 397n, 401 volume III: Reason in Religion, 100, 396, 397n, 401 volume IV: Reason in Art, 396, 397n, 409 volume V: Reason in Science, 60, 396, 397n, 421 mentioned, lxv, 26, 26n, 100, 106, 108n, 246, 259, 267, 269, 297, 334, 382–383, 396, 401, 421, 434

622

The Letters of George Santayana

Lincoln, Abraham and Dominations and Powers, 108, 108n, 125, 141, 245,256 and “The Gettysburg Address,” 109n, 122, 125 Lind, Bruno. See Hahnel, Robert C. L’io e la ragione (Guzzo), 26, 27, 27n Lipinsky de Orlov, Lino S. Capril, etching of, 330, 330n identified, 126n letter(s) to, 126, 274, 319, 330, 382 Rodzinski, drawing of, 330, 330n Santayana, drawing of, 126, 126n, 275, 276n, 319–20, 330, 330n, 334, 381, 450n his wife, 381 his work, Santayana on, 330, 334 Lippmann, Walter, lxi Literary criticism, 195–96 Little, David M. his children, 145 and Garrick, 144 and Harvard, 190 The Letters of David Garrick, 145n his marriage, 144, 145n, 190 portrait of, 264 mentioned, 203 The Little Company of Mary (Rome), liii, lxiii, 46, 69, 75, 87, 110, 126n, 128, 134, 151, 154, 162, 186, 187, 207, 223, 235, 269, 270n, 299–300, 316, 317n, 319n, 331, 343, 414, 415, 418, 453, 454, 455 Little Essays Drawn from the Writings of George Santayana (Smith), 280, 280n A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry, English & American (ed. Williams), 92, 92n Locke, Alain Leroy identified, 397n “Santayana,” 396, 397n Locke, John An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 43, 44n identified, 41n and “Locke and the Frontiers of Common Sense,” 115, 117n Santayana on, 394 mentioned, 37, 376n, 406, 407 “Locke and the Frontiers of Common Sense” (Santayana), 115, 117n Loeser, Charles Alexander

Harvard University, student at, lxiii identified, 413–14n Santayana on, lxiii mentioned, 412 Logical positivism, 242, 425, 426n Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth “Evangeline,” 325, 326n identified, 233n mentioned, 231, 300 Lord Weary’s Castle (Lowell), 12, 13n, 33, 54 Loring, Lee, 424, 425n L’Osservatore Romano, 274, 275n Louis XV (king of France) identified, 66n mentioned, 65 Louise Marguerite identified, 293n mentioned, 293 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence and Harvard, lxiv, 306 identified, 306n Lowell, Elizabeth Bruce Hardwick (Mrs. Robert Lowell Jr.) identified, 222n mentioned, 221, 307, 324 Lowell, Robert Traill Spence Jr. and Baldpate, Inc., 166, 167n, 173 and Catholicism, 11, 12, 28, 92, 127, 167, 168n, 168, 169, 174, 220, 321, 339 a conscientious objector, 11, 19, 28 “Falling Asleep over the Aeneid,” 12, 13n, 19, 28, 45 “The Ghost,” 33, 33n and Greek, 32 and Harvard, 11, 19, 28 his health, 166–67, 169–70, 222 identified, 13n and Kenyon College, 11, 19, 28 and King’s Chapel, 11, 13n, 219–20 and Latin poetry, 33 letter(s) to, 11, 31, 45, 54, 76, 78, 92, 119, 126, 131, 168, 220, 282, 299, 312, 324, 333, 338, 345, 426 and the Library of Congress, 28 Lord Weary’s Castle, 12, 13n, 33, 54 The Mills of the Kavanaughs, 31, 121n “The Mills of the Kavanaughs,” 120, 121n, 127, 128, 131, 220, 307, 313, 392, 427, 428 “Mother Marie Thérèse,” 12, 13n, 19, 28, 45

Index and paganism, 12 and philosophy, 338 Poems 1938–1949, 126, 127, 128n, 132, 283, 284n, 300 his poetry, 54, 72, 313 and Protestantism, 11 and religion, 220, 339 Santayana, friendship with, li, 32, 54 Santayana, sends gifts to, 55, 75, 91 Santayana on, 11, 119–20, 128, 167, 199, 219–20, 283, 321, 327, 338–39, 356 Santayana’s correspondence, lxviii Santayana sends gift to, 222 and “A Scrupulous Muse,” 282, 283n “Thanksgiving’s Over,” 31, 42, 45, 53–54 his travels, 77–79, 91, 128, 131, 158, 283–84, 295, 299, 345–46 and Vergil, 12 visits Santayana, 307, 313, 327, 332, 339, 348 his wife, 221, 222n, 307 and World War II, 11 his writing, Santayana on, 12, 28, 31–32, 53–54, 55, 313, 324 and Yaddo, 167, 167n, 168, 169, 173–74 mentioned, 42n, 45, 90, 97, 177, 182, 302 Lubbock, Percy identified, 71n mentioned, 70 Lucifer, 259, 259n Lucifer; or, the Heavenly Truce; A Theological Tragedy (Santayana), 257, 257n, 258, 266, 329 Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) De Rerum Natura, 61, 62n identified, 33n and Three Philosophical Poets, 437 mentioned, 33, 114, 114n, 211, 212n, 233 Luke 23:39–23:43, 393, 393n Lüthy, Herbert “Die Vierte Republik,” 198, 199n identified, 199n Lutoslawski, Wincenty identified, 155n letter(s) to, 154 The Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic, 156, 156n and religion, 154

623

and Santayana’s works, 156 Lycidas (Milton), 265, 266n Lycurgus, lxix Lyman, Herbert and the Delta Phi Club, 18, 19n identified, 20n mentioned, lv Lyon, Arline Denny McTee (Mrs. Richard Lyon) identified, 440n visits Santayana, 457 mentioned, 439 Lyon, Richard C. and Clare College, 394, 395n, 402, 457 and England, 76 identified, 59n letter(s) to, 58, 66, 76, 88, 102, 115, 136, 145, 157, 179, 185, 210, 246, 265, 277, 283, 288, 394, 402, 407, 418, 425, 430, 439, 454, 456 his marriage, 439 his mother, 136 his philosophy, 157, 430 his philosophy of religion, 157 Santayana, sends gifts to, 136 Santayana on, 145–46, 157 Santayana on America, 277, 278n, 316 Santayana sends gift to, 408 scholarship, receives, 103, 283, 283n his studies, 288, 395, 439 travels, 407–8, 426, 439 and The University of Texas at Austin, 67, 68n visits Santayana, 58–59, 67, 77, 92, 102–3, 454, 457 and The Works of George Santayana, 103, 114 mentioned, xlvi, 90, 266n, 336, 447

Macbeth (Shakespeare), 83, 83n, 205, 206n MacCarthy, Desmond identified, 71n his review, 70, 71n Magdalen College (Oxford University), 27, 29n The Maggid of Caro (Gordon), 363, 365n Maimonides identified, 365n mentioned, 364

624

The Letters of George Santayana

“Manifesto of the Two Lions” (Viereck), 82, 83n Mann, [Paul] Thomas identified, 329n mentioned, 328 “Many Nations in One Empire” (Santayana), 155, 171, 175, 244, 245n Maraini, Fosco identified, 344n Segreto Tibet, 343, 344n, 376 Marchant, James identified, 289n If I Had My Time Again, 348, 349n What I Believe, 289, 289n, 291, 292, 303, 346, 348, 406, 431 mentioned, 293, 336 Marcus Aurelius identified, 178n mentioned, 178 Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (Melville), 198, 199n Maria (housemaid), 5, 134, 323, 418, 425 Maritain, Jacques identified, 356–57n Vatican, ambassador to, 356, 357n visited Santayana, 356 Mark (book of Bible), 420, 420n Mark Twain Quarterly, 73n, 317n, 332, 333n, 374, 421 Mark Twain’s Letters (eds. Branch, Frank, and Sanderson), 473, 479n Mark Twain Society, 73n, 308 The Marriage of Venus (Santayana), 142, 143n Marsal, Conde de letter(s) to, 404 Marshall Plan. See The European Recovery Plan Martin, Bernard identified, 47n The Little Company of Mary, 46, 236, 319n Martin, Norah Margaret. See Martin, Bernard Marx, Karl identified, 44n Santayana on, lxx mentioned, 43 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 10 “Master of Monticello” (Morpurgo), 229, 230n

Materialism, 36, 43, 51, 105 Matière et mémoire (Bergson), 288, 289n Matter, xlvi, 42, 148, 362, 430, 448 Matthew (book of Bible), 420, 420n Matthews, Herbert L. Santayana, interviewed, 294, 295n “Talk With Mr. Santayana,” 294, 295n Maugham, William Somerset The Brothers Karamazov, review of, 55, 56n identified, 56n Pride and Prejudice, review of, 63, 64n The Red and the Black, review of, 55, 56n Maya Explorer (Von Hagen), 243, 244n Mayflower (ship), 74, 74n McCormick, John George Santayana: A Biography, xlix, lxviii George Santayana’s Marginalia: A Critical Selection (McCormick, forthcoming), 467 McKnight, John P[roctor] identified, 220n letter(s) to, 219 The Papacy: A New Appraisal, 219, 220n Mead, George Herbert identified, 137n mentioned, 136, 137 Medea, 324, 325n Med. Fac. (Harvard), 237, 238n Medici, Lorenzo de’ “Ambra,” 427, 428n, 457, 460 identified, 425n Poemettì, 427, 428n Santayana reads, 224 his writing, Santayana on, 428 The Meeting of East and West (Northrop), 353, 353n, 367, 369, 375 Melville, Herman identified, 199n Mardi: And a Voyage Thither, 198, 199n Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas, 198, 199n Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, 198, 199n mentioned, 198 Mephistopheles, 259, 259n Mercer, Martha identified, 337n mentioned, 335, 447, 457 The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), 363, 365n Merriam, John McKinstry

Index identified, 8n letter(s) to, 7, 149, 235 Santayana, sends gifts to, 235, 236 mentioned, 335 Merrill, Moses, l Messieres, Rene de (unidentified), 397 “Metanoia” (Santayana), 48, 49n, 91 Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind (Viereck), 112–13, 113n, 118 Metternich, Klemens von identified, 199n mentioned, 198, 225 “Michael” (Cory, unpublished), lix Michel, Rimsa her essay, 202n, 269–70 identified, 202n letter(s) to, 201, 269 her philosophy, Santayana on, 201–2 and Santayana’s philosophy, 270 her writing, Santayana on, 270 Michelangelo his Moses sculpture, 388, 388n the Pietà, 388, 388n mentioned, xlv Mid-Century American Poets (Ciardi et al.), 326, 327n Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (Eliot), 222, 223n The Middle Span (Santayana), 44, 44n, 50, 64, 70, 154, 156, 187, 194, 230, 267, 332, 435, 436, 436n Miller, Mrs. J. N. (unidentified), 409 The Mill on the Floss (Eliot), 222, 223n The Mills of the Kavanaughs (Lowell), 13n, 31, 33n, 122n “The Mills of the Kavanaughs” (Lowell), 120, 122n, 127, 128, 131, 221, 307, 313, 392, 426, 428 Milton, John identified, 266n Lycidas, 265, 266n Paradise Lost, 265–66, 266n his writing, Santayana on, 265–66 Mind ( journal), 28, 29n, 381, 395 The Mind of Proust (Green), 288, 289, 289n The Mind of Santayana (R. Butler), 447, 448n, 459, 460 Mohammed identified, 443n mentioned, 443

625

Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin identified, 41n Le Malade imaginaire, 38, 41n Le Misanthrope, 53, 53n mentioned, 115, 180 Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich identified, 102n mentioned, 101 Monmouthshire Houses (Fox and Raglan), 378, 379n, 387, 415 Monmouthshire Houses, Part II (Fox and Raglan), 387, 387n Monmouthshire Houses, Part III (Fox and Raglan), 387, 387n Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de identified, 181n mentioned, 180 Moore, Charles A. identified, 288n Philosophy East and West, editor of, 287, 287n, 290, 292 Moore, G[eorge] E[dward] identified, 41n Santayana influenced by, 36 Santayana on, lxiii Moors, 285, 291, 364 “Morality and Religion” (Santayana), 218, 218n, 222, 227 Moral relativism, xlix, lxviii More, Paul Elmer identified, 225n Santayana on, 225 Morgan, John Pierpont Jr. and the Delta Phi Club, 18 identified, 20n Morison, Samuel Eliot identified, 19n mentioned, 18, 237 Morpurgo, Jack Eric identified, 230n “Master of Monticello,” 229, 229n Mortimer, Charles Raymond Bell identified, 338n his works, 356, 356n mentioned, 336 Morton, Thomas identified, 46n and Mrs. Grundy, 45, 45n Speed the Plough, 45, 46n Moses (sculpture), 388, 388n

626

The Letters of George Santayana

“Mother Marie Thérèse” (Lowell), 12, 13n, 19, 28, 45 Mumford, Lewis The Golden Day, lxv, lxix identified, 329n mentioned, 328 Munson, Thomas Nolan identified, 38n George Santayana: Metaphysical Musician, 35, 38, 38n letter(s) to, 35 and the psyche, 37 and Santayana’s philosophy, 35–37 Murchie, Guy identified, 35n Saint Croix, 34–35 Murphy, Mr. (unidentified), 263, 458 Musset, Alfred de identified, 181n mentioned, 180 Mussolini, Benito his dictatorship, 310 identified, 133n writings of, 29n mentioned, lxvii, 132, 285 My Host the World (Santayana), 109, 120, 122, 194, 271, 275n, 280, 297, 305–6, 412, 415, 435 “My Kind of Poetry” (Viereck), 213, 214n

Napoleonic Wars, 7, 8n Náñez, Demetrio La idea de Cristo en los evangelios, 15, 16n, 16 Santayana on, 16 Naso, Publius Ovidius. See Ovid Naturalism, 169, 233, 247, 255, 259, 309, 328, 353, 390 Naturalistic humanism, 328, 329n Nature, 25, 35, 115, 219, 233, 328–29 Neuschüler (unidentified), 235 New Frontier ( journal), 155, 156n, 171 New Jerusalem, 261 The New Republic ( journal), 212, 213n “The New Satyricon” (Page, unpublished), 244, 245n News from South America (Fraser), 192, 192n, 193 Newsweek (magazine), 354, 354n New Yorker (magazine), 396, 397n

New York Review of Books, 471 New York Times (newspaper), 42n New York Times Book Review, 471 Nicene Creed, 230, 231n Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 279, 279n identified, 206n Santayana quotes, 390, 390n and women, liv mentioned, 205, 399 Nikhilananda (Swami) identified, 143n visits Santayana, 142 NINE ( journal), 191, 192, 193, 207, 213–14, 222, 239, 239n Noble Essences (Sitwell), 298, 299n “Normal Madness” (Santayana), 58, 59n, 80, 81, 95, 146, 277, 316 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 152, 152n Northrop, Filmer Stuart Cockow identified, 353n letter(s) to, 375 The Meeting of East and West, 353, 353n, 367, 369, 375 Santayana on, 375–76 mentioned, 394 Northrop, Stuart Johnston his father, 353, 353n identified, 353n letter(s) to, 353 Northwestern University, lxix Norton, Charles Eliot and Harvard, 300 identified, 301n and Three Philosophical Poets, 399 “Notes on Santayana’s The Last Puritan” (Yolton), 361, 362n

Oakeshott, Michael Joseph Santayana, review of, 396, 397n, 398 Obiter Scripta (ed. Buchler and Schwartz), 129, 130n, 267, 406 O’Brien, Frank letter(s) to, 42 and Lowell, 42 and the New York Times, 42n Santayana, story about, 42, 42n, 45 Santayana corrects, 42, 42n, 45 his writing, Santayana on, 42, 45

Index Ochoa, José Luis letter(s) to, 452 O’Connor, Terence, 35, 38n “Ode V” (Santayana), 113n O’Donnell, Mary Ambrose letter(s) to, 257 mentioned, 388, 411, 456 Odyssey (Homer), 321, 322n Oedipus, 132, 133n “Of all with whom I shared a common sky […].” See “In Memoriam: Santayana” O.K. Society, 71, 72n Old Colony Trust Company, 9n, 53, 69, 95, 124, 161, 235, 257 Olivetti, Adriano Editions of Comunità, 17, 17n identified, 17n “Ombron and Ambra” (Santayana), 428n, 457, 458, 460, 461n Ombrone (“Ambra”), 427–28 Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (Melville), 198, 199n Onderdonk, Andrew Joseph identified, 166n letter(s) to, 165, 212, 239, 278 his mother, 239 and Santayana’s works, 341 visited Santayana, 239 mentioned, lx, 335 105 Greatest Living Authors Present the World’s Best Stories, Humor, Drama, Biography, History, Essays, Poetry (Burnett), 81, 82n “On Philosophical Synthesis” (Dewey, Radhakrishnan, Santayana), 287, 287n, 290 “On the False Steps in Philosophy” (Santayana), 24, 25n The Oppidan (Leslie), 70, 71n The Order of Cistercians of Strict Order, 388, 389n Organizzazione Nazione Uniti. See United Nations Organization The Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic (Lutoslawski), 156, 156n Origo, Iris Margaret Cutting identified, 447n visits Santayana, 447 mentioned, 457 Otis, Brooks identified, 156n

627

letter(s) to, 171 and “Many Nations in One Empire,” 155, 171, 175 and New Frontier, 155, 171 Overholser, Winfred identified, 437n letter(s) to, 437 his wife, 437 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) identified, 114n mentioned, 114, 211, 212n, 427 “O world, thou choosest not the better part!” (Santayana), 35, 38n The Oxford Companion to American Literature, 478 The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 478

Pacelli, Eugenio Maria Giuseppi Giovanni. See Pius XII Padover, Saul Kussiel identified, 254n Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, 253, 254, 254n Paganism, 12 Page, David his death, 244 identified, 245n “The New Satyricon” (unpublished), 244, 245n Santayana on, lxix Paine, Thomas identified, 257n Santayana compared to, 256, 263, 264, 277 Palmer, George Herbert, lxiii Paolo (The Divine Comedy), 231, 232–33n The Papacy: A New Appraisal (McKnight), 219, 220n Paradise Lost (Milton), 265–66, 266n Paradiso (Dante), 206 Pareyson, Luigi identified, 242n La filosofia dell’esistenza e Carlo Jaspers, 242, 242n Parker, De Witt Henry identified, 101n mentioned, 100 Parkman, George

628

The Letters of George Santayana

identified, 19n mentioned, 18 Parkman, Susan identified, 373n mentioned, 373 Parmenides identified, 40n mentioned, 36 Parmenides (Plato), 36, 40n Parsons, Eric C. letter(s) to, 83 Partisan Review (magazine), 87, 88n Pascal, Blaise and existence, 180 identified, 181n mentioned, 205 Pasini, Dino (unidentified), 17 Pater, Walter Horatio identified, 296n mentioned, 296 Paterson (Williams), 127, 128n Patterns of Progress (Kallen), 424, 425n Patti, Adelina identified, 375n mentioned, 374 Paul, Saint, 169, 171n Paul Valéry: The Mind in the Mirror (Sewell), 457–58, 458n Peirce, Charles identified, 347n and signs, 347 his works, 347 mentioned, 320, 320n Peloponnesian War, 107, 108n Penelope (Odyssey), 188, 189n Persons and Places (Santayana), xlix, lvi, lxix, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 63, 64, 64–65n, 77n, 89, 100, 101n, 154, 156, 164, 187, 216, 230, 267, 280, 297, 300, 305–6, 317, 317n, 385, 389 Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography (ed. Holzberger and Saatkamp), lxviii Petrone, Michele identified, 58n requests books, 175, 175–76n visits Santayana, 175 mentioned, 57, 90, 103, 122–23, 177, 336, 340, 390 Petronius identified, 164n

mentioned, 163 Phaedo, 261, 262n Phèdre (Phèdre), 313, 313n, 325 Phèdre y Hippolyte (Racine), 313, 313n Phelps, Mrs. William Lyon, lii Phelps, William Lyon identified, 363n travel plans, lii mentioned, lxvi, 362 Phenomenology, 20–21, 22n Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Wolfson), 142, 143n “Philosopher at 87 Still Impish, Busy” (Weller), 316–17, 317n “Philosopher in a Convent” (Eastman), 414, 415n, 445 Philosophers at Court (Santayana), 142, 143n “Philosopher’s Stone” (review), 150, 151n Philosophical Congress (Rome), 43 The Philosophical Library (publisher), 184, 191, 197, 204, 385, 386n Philosophy, 314, 357, 395, 430 Philosophy East and West ( journal), 287, 287n, 290, 292 The Philosophy of George Santayana (ed. Schilpp), 86, 86n, 89, 91n, 230, 287, 287n, 292 The Philosophy of Plotinus (Inge), 449, 449n The Philosophy of Santayana (ed. Edman), 382, 383n Piazza Barberini (Rome), 88 Piazza di Spagna (Rome), 88, 179 The Pietà, 388, 388n Pietro, 248, 249n The Pillars of Hercules, 79, 80n, 131, 132 The Pincio (Rome), 59, 59n, 140, 179 The Pisan Cantos (Pound), 222, 223n Pius XII identified, 220n mentioned, 219–20, 254, 387 Plain-text edition, 473 Plank (Santayana’s tailor), 84, 85n Plato Crito, lxiii identified, 29n Parmenides, 36, 40n his philosophy, xlvi, 311 Platonic Ideas, 36, 147 and Santayana’s essences, xlvi and spirit, xlvi

Index mentioned, 28, 37, 103, 146, 170, 205, 210, 230, 357, 364 Platonic Ideas, 36, 147 Platonic love, 115 Platonism, 51, 154, 261, 380 Platonism and the Spiritual Life (Santayana), 436, 437n, 438, 449 Poema del Cid (unknown), 131, 133n Poemettì (Medici), 427, 428n Poems 1938–1949 (Lowell), 126, 127, 128n, 132, 282–83, 283n, 300 Poems: North & South (Bishop), 93, 93n Poems: Revised and Selected by the Author (Santayana), lii, 267, 276 Poetry, 45, 120, 121, 127, 138, 158, 181–82, 201–2, 205, 213, 286, 296, 326, 447 “The Poetry of Life” (review), 155–56, 156n The Poet’s Testament: Poems and Two Plays (Santayana), 52, 52n, 129–30, 407, 408n, 412 Poisson, Jeanne-Antoinette identified, 66n mentioned, 65 Politics, 7–8, 10, 135–36, 152, 219, 273, 275, 301, 307, 310, 314, 319, 345, 373, 404n, 442 Pompadour, Madame de. See Poisson, Jeanne-Antoinette Pontifical Beda College (Rome), 113, 113n Porcellian (Harvard), 306, 306n Portugal, 447 Positivism and Comte, 213, 213n logical postitivism, 242, 425, 426n positivists, 385–386 in Santayana’s works, 52, 191, 302, 434 mentioned, 259 Potter, Elizabeth “Lily” Stephens Clare Fish identified, 335 Santayana, friend of, liv mentioned, li, 337n Potter, Robert Burnside, li Pound, Ezra Loomis identified, 33n and “intelligence,” 233 letter(s) to, 233 The Pisan Cantos, 222, 223n his poetry, 313 and Propertius, 33 Santayana, correspondence with, 222

629

Santayana on, 195, 356 and Santayana’s philosophy, 234n and Santayana’s works, 342, 346 mentioned, 93, 208, 208n, 214, 216, 227, 229, 265, 313n, 333, 339 Power and Personality (Lasswell), 137, 137n Prescott, Orville “Books of the Times,” 348, 348n, 350, 351n, 352, 353 identified, 348n Pride and Prejudice (Austen), 63, 64n The Prince and the Pauper (Twain), 448, 448n Princeton University Library, 479 Prometheus, 424, 425n The Proper Bostonians (Amory), 18, 19n Propertius, Sextus and “The Ghost,” 33, 33n identified, 33n mentioned, 54, 212 Prospero (The Tempest ), 205, 206n Protestantism, 11, 20, 169, 221, 261, 325, 339, 425 Protestant Reformation, 357, 358n Proust, Marcel À la recherche du temps perdu, 289, 289n identified, 164n and The Mind of Proust, 288, 289n Santayana on, 288 and time, 288 and truth, 288 mentioned, 163, 288, 296 Pryce-Jones, Alan Payan identified, 360n The Times Literary Supplement, editor of, 359, 360n, 366 Psalm 90:10, 234, 235n Psyche, 37, 196, 198–99, 201, 219, 338, 361, 362, 440 “The Psyche as Social Determinant” (Yolton), 440, 441n Punch (magazine), 139, 140n Puritanism, 326, 339 Pyramus and Thisbe, 114, 114n Pythagoras identified, 234n mentioned, lxix, 233

Queen Anne’s Bounty, 97, 97n Quinn, Father (unidentified), 355

630

The Letters of George Santayana

Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University, 1636–1925, 478

Rabelaisian, lii Racine, Jean identified, 181n Phèdre, 313, 313n, 324–25 mentioned, 180, 215, 298 Ramsay, Patricia identified, 293n mentioned, 293 Rationalism, 263, 263n Rauh, George (unidentified) letter(s) to, 231, 294, 322, 390 mentioned, 184, 323, 388, 411 Realms of Being (Santayana) volume I: The Realm of Essence, xlvi, 155, 288, 289n volume II: The Realm of Matter, lviii, 155, 240, 241n volume III: The Realm of Truth, xlvi, 89, 155 volume IV: The Realm of Spirit, xlviii, 89, 155, 385 mentioned, xlvi–xlvii, 25, 26n, 50, 119, 155, 247, 269, 270, 302n, 333, 351 “Reason in Politics” (Blanshard), 358, 358n Recollections of Logan Pearsall Smith (Gathorne-Hardy), 279, 279n The Red and the Black (Stendhal), 55, 56n, 63, 64n Religion, xlviii, 140, 154–55, 157–58, 182, 196, 202, 205, 220, 221, 228, 256, 286–87, 301, 305, 343, 363–65, 368, 385, 419, 425, 440, 448 Religion in the Twentieth Century (Ferm), 328, 329n Renaissance, 357, 358n, 363 Rhodes Scholarship, 288, 289, 289n Rice, Philip Blair, 320, 320n Richards, Miriam Thayer identified, 418n letter(s) to, 417 Rigacci, Dino (Strong’s chauffeur), 476 Rimbaud, Arthur identified, 327n Santayana on, 327 Roades, Mary Teresa “Cervantes and Mark Twain,” 421, 422n

identified, 422n Roback, Abraham Aaron identified, 338n mentioned, 336 Robbins, J. Albert, 479 Roberts (unidentified), 389, 390n Roberts, Thornton Delano identified, 390n Santayana on, 389 Robertson, Thomas H. B. letter(s) to, 359 and Santayana’s writings, 359 Rockefeller, John D., lxviii Rockefeller Archive Center, lxvii Rodrigo. See Bivar, Ruy Díaz de Rodzinski, Artur etching of, 330 identified, 330n Roman Empire, 444 The Rome Daily American, 3, 4n Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 114 Romola (Eliot), 222, 223n Roosevelt, Franklin identified, 29n mentioned, 29 The Root of Europe (M. Huxley), 447, 448n Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg (law firm), 95, 96n Rosary, 433, 433n Rossini, Giacchino Antonio Barber of Seville, 374, 375n identified, 375n Stabat Mater, 419, 420n Rousseau, Jacques identified, 181n mentioned, 180, 205 Royce, Josiah identified, 55n mentioned, 54, 305, 320, 320n Ruggiero, Guido de The History of European Liberalism, 17, 17–18n identified, 17n Santayana on, 17 Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford (Hart), 475 Runciman, [James Cochran] Steven[son] A History of the Crusades, 370, 370n identified, 370n Runes, Dagobert David and Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of

Index Thoughts from George Santayana, 231, 231n identified, 231n letter(s) to, 255 Santayana on, 257 mentioned, 309 Russell, Bertrand Arthur William his brother, 435–36 Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits, 142, 143n, 150, 151n identified, 40n The Impact of Science on Society, 451, 451n and inference, 150 and My Host the World, 435 his philosophy, xlvi, liii, 451 Santayana influenced by, 36 Santayana on, liii, lxiii Smith, Alys, married to, 279, 279n and social activism, lx his writing, Santayana on, 150 mentioned, xlvi, li, lix, lxvi, 43, 128, 146, 194, 222, 228, 259, 298, 317, 426 Russell, George William and G. W. Russell (Æ) 1867–1935, 281, 281n identified, 241n and Letters from Æ, 436, 437n his poetry, 240–41 Santayana, correspondence with, 281, 281n Russell, [Irwin] Peter “An Afternoon with George Santayana,” 216, 216n, 227 and Dialogues in Limbo, 153 identified, 153n letter(s) to, 172, 193 NINE, 191, 192, 193, 207, 213–14, 222, 239 Santayana on, 216 mentioned, 192, 200, 208 Russell, John Francis Stanley identified, 101n and The Last Puritan, 433 Mary Annette, his third wife, lxix, 222, 433, 433n and The Middle Span, 435 photograph of, 100, 101n Santayana, friends with, 40n, 128 Santayana, relationship with, lv, lvi, lvii Santayana on, liii, lv, lvi

631

and scandal, 64–64, 193, 194n, 388 mentioned, li, lxvi, 298, 299 Russell, Mabel Edith, 194n Russell, Mary Annette Beauchamp von Arnim “Elizabeth” Elizabeth and her German Garden, 64n, 222 identified, 64n Russell, John, marriage to, lxix, 433 Santayana on, 222–23 Vera, 433, 433n mentioned, lvi, 64, 362, 363n Russia(n), lxix, 7, 8n, 11, 47, 85, 88, 99, 110, 111, 136, 152, 273, 275, 294, 350, 373, 387, 404n, 441, 443 Ryle, Gilbert and Cory’s article, 27 identified, 29n his writing, Santayana on, 28

Sabbatucci, Luigi (Santayana’s doctor) identified, 344n mentioned, lxii, 343, 381, 425, 454n, 462 Saint Croix (Murchie), 34 St. Giorgio Maggiore (Venice), 184, 184n Saint Peter’s Church (Rome), 78, 80n, 92, 387 St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Vienna), 183, 184n Salerno, George identified, 428n mentioned, 427 Salisbury Cathedral (England), 183, 184n Sancho Panza (Don Quixote), 388 Saner, Reg[inald] [Anthony] identified, 316n mentioned, 315 San Pietro in Vincoli (Rome), 388, 388n Santa Sabina (Rome), 388, 388n “Santayana” (A. Locke), 396, 397n Santayana, Agustín Ruiz de (Santayana’s father) his books, 243 identified, 125n Santayana on, 401 mentioned, 125, 259, 342, 346, 414 Santayana, George his accident, 450, 451, 452n, 453, 454n, 454–55, 456, 457

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Santayana, George (continued) on “agreeing to differ,” 120 America about, xlv, 12, 23, 74, 182, 203, 212, 255–56, 325–26, 373 as an American, 205, 314 does not return to, xlv his American education, 361 his Americanism, 264 lives in, 74, 77, 306, 325 and anti-semitism, lxi–lxii and architecture, lvii, 10, 121, 183 and art, 420, 446 artists, 459 The Aryan Society, turns down presidency of, lxii and the Blue Sisters, liii, lxiii his bohemianism, 298 on Bolsheviks, lx, lxix, lxx and Bolshevism, lxvii and books, 4–5 on Boston, 18, 74 and the Boston Latin School, l, 75, 75n, 149, 222, 234, 283, 283n, 432 and Byzantium, 285, 291, 370 on capitalism, lxvii, lxx his career, 264–65, 429, 432, 443 and charity, lxi, 111–12 his citizenship, xlv, xlvii, 23, 118, 205, 414 and civilization, 343, 404n, 424, 441 on copyright, 60, 184, 266–67 his correspondence, lxxii–lxxiii, xlv–xlvi, xlvii, xlviii–xlix, lxvi–lxvii, lxviii, 4, 468–69 and Cory literary executor, 470 secretary, lviii, lxix, 469–470 relationship with, li, lvii–lix and criticism, xlviii and critics, xlvi, 350, 385, 398, 444, 446 on culture, 270 death of, li, lviii, 461n, 470 and the Delta Phi Club, 18, 19–20n and democracy, lxx, 130, 228, 311, 404n and dictatorships, 310 his doctor, lxii, 3–4, 226, 342, 343, 344, 347, 429 drawings of, 126, 126n, 194, 238, 251,

274, 275n 319–20, 330, 330n, 334, 382, 412, 449, 449n Dyer, studied under, 276, 277n and economic science, 442 and education, xlviii and England, 77, 264, 279, 356, 439 on the English language, 231 as an “Esteemed Knight of Mark Twain,” 72, 73n, 78 and Fascism, lx, 310 feminists on, liv on fictions, 365 finances his accounts, 89, 95, 101–2, 190, 191, 223, 235, 377, 381 his affairs, 257–58 his bills, 46, 120, 235 and Blackwell, 114, 118 and Brown Shipley and Company, 67, 193, 207, 227, 235, 249, 274, 377, 381, 461 and Cory, lviii, 89, 109, 149–50, 190, 200, 461 Cory, his beneficiary, 9, 24, 25, 124, 227n, 251, 460, 461n gift taxes, 9 his income, 102, 111, 161, 248, 348 his inheritance, 124n and Mercedes, 124 Old Colony Trust Company, 9, 53, 161, 235, 257 royalties, lii, lviii, 9, 25, 31, 34, 43, 104, 123, 185, 227n, 285, 421, 436, 438 and Salmon, 9 and Sturgis, Rosamond, 89, 123 mentioned, lxvii, 4–5, 83 and forms of address, l–li friends Abbot, li American, lxv Bayley, 414, 415n Beal, li, 18 Cory, li, lviii, 52 European, lxv Harvard, xlv, l, li Lowell, li, 11, 32, 54 Lyman, 18 Potter, li Potter, Mrs. liv Russell, John, 40n

Index Strong, lviii Sturgis, Rosamond, 218 Thoron, 18 Toy, liv Winslow, Mrs., liv women, li mentioned, lxv–lxvi on friendship, 83 on his generation, 32 Germany, student in, xlv, xlix gives advice, xlix–l on government(s), 47, 294, 301, 310, 364, 440, 442, 443 and Greek, 32, 259, 264, 369 and Harvard, l, 10, 18, 23, 47, 74, 144, 149, 236, 237, 238, 276, 300, 317, 429, 431 Harvard, professor at, xlv, lxv Harvard, retirement from, lxii, lxiii, lxv his Harvard fellowship, 123, 124n Harvard Lampoon, draws cartoons for, l and Hasty Pudding, l, 9, 10 his Herbert Spencer Lecture, lvi and history, 157, 363–64, 367, 404n, 409, 432 his humor, li–liii on industrialism, lxx international affairs, view on, lix–lx, lxvi–lxvii James, William, his professor, 36, 38n and King’s College, 237, 412 and Lady Papillonetta, 9, 9n and language(s), xlv, li, 326, 370, 476, 478 lectures, gives, 77, 77n, 92, 92n on his life, 216, 405, 414–15, 418 on literary criticism, 195–96 and martyrs, 19 and mathematics, 37, 450 and Moors, 285, 291 and music, 451 his name, 431 his nationality, 259 and opera, 139 painting of, 238, 239n, 249, 251, 252–53, 334 his personality and character, xlix, liii, lxvi–lxvii, lxviii and “petering out,” 18, 19n Philosophical Club, president of, l

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philosophy and religion and aesthetic, xlviii, 459 and Angst, 20, 179, 180, 185, 186 and animal faith, 150, 276, 303 animal psyche, 21 and anticlericalism, 255, 256, 258, 259 and argument, 441 and his baroque philosophy, 302–3, 303n and beliefs, 430 his beliefs, 170, 182, 286, 315, 321 Berkeley, influenced by, 36 Brahman, 20, 21, 142, 143 and Calvinism, 266 Carra de Vaux, influenced by, 36 and Catholicism, xlvii, lxix, 11, 12, 28, 57, 93, 182, 196, 202, 255, 256, 259, 261, 264, 296, 321, 324, 325, 338, 386, 390, 407, 419 and Christianity, lxi, 20, 21, 57, 106, 107, 154, 202, 219, 230, 259, 261, 285, 291, 363–64, 398, 420, 457 circumstances, 14–15, 21 and classical humanism, 328 “club-spirit,” 368 common sense, 303 and compromise, 199 and consciousness, 234n and a datum, 37 and death, 186 and duty, 278 East and West, civilizations and philosophies of, 285, 287, 290–91, 442, 443, 444 economic arts, 27 and egotism, 219 empty liberty, 27 and essence, xlvi, 20, 36, 37, 43, 97, 146, 147, 210, 228, 269, 270, 288, 289n, 361, 400–401, 430, 451 and the eternal, 310–11 and eternity, 315 and ethics, xlviii, 54, 227, 459 and ethos, 182 evidence, 27 existence, 26, 146, 185 and existentialism, 20, 21, 146, 185, 186, 242 and faith, 94, 256, 276 on friendship, 111, 211

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Santayana, George (continued) philosophy and religion (continued) and Gestalt, 369, 370n and God, 21, 38, 57 the Gospels, 57 and Greek philosophy, xlvi and Hinduism, 154 on Humanism, 201, 227–28, 310, 328 as a humanist, 201 and human nature, 169 idealism, modern, 94 and idea(s), xlvi, 51, 115, 146, 150, 219, 315 and ideologies, 253, 443 Indian philosophy, 128, 142, 146, 259, 261 integrity, 15 and “intelligence,” 233 and interpretations, 36 and intuition, xlvi, 43, 146, 147 and intuition of essence, 37 and “irrelevant excitements,” 57 and Jesus, 57, 106, 169, 230, 328–29, 393, 419, 420, 448 and Judaism, lxi–lxii, lxvii, 74, 107, 169, 259, 261, 325–26, 363–64, 380, 384, 390, 420, 431, 444 knowledge, 26, 36–37, 146, 170, 424, 426, 430 Leibniz, influenced by, 36 liberal arts, 27, 368 on liberty, 198 on life, 420 life of reason, xlvi, 311 and Logical positivism, 242, 425, 426n on love, 111, 121, 210 mankind, 26 and materialism, xlviii, 36, 43, 51, 105 as a materialist, 228, 265, 448 and matter, xlvi, 43, 148, 362, 430, 449 and the mind, 298, 310, 328, 361–62 Moore, influenced by, 36 on morality, 105, 379, 384 moral passions, 443 moral principle, 15 and moral relativism, xlix, lxviii “moral societies,” 368, 440, 441,

442, 443 and a “moral system,” 384 “moral units,” 368 and mother nature, 436 and myth, 57 and music, 228 and naturalism, xlvii, 170, 233, 247, 255, 259, 309, 328, 353, 390, 444 as a naturalist, 36, 228, 310, 424, 425, 448 and naturalistic humanism, 328, 329n nature, xlviii, 25, 35, 115, 219, 233, 328, 371, 384 and New England, 11–12, 77, 325 and object(s), 37, 115 as a pagan, 415 and paganism, 12, 128, 259 passion, 338 and perception, 147 and percepts, 150 as a philosopher, lxiv–lxv, 66 and philosophers, xlvii, lxiii, lxiv, lxv his philosophical system, xlvi his philosophy, xlvi, xlvii his philosophy, others on, lviii, 51, 86, 154, 228, 246–47, 255, 257, 258, 259, 264, 278, 296, 315, 371n, 379–80, 383, 384, 398, 440–41, 459 on his philosophy, 35–37, 51, 120, 127, 143, 147, 154, 170, 302–3, 328, 358, 361–62, 367, 379–80, 424 on philosophy, 357, 395, 430 and Platonic Ideas, 36 and Platonic love, 115 and Platonism, 51, 154, 261, 380 and positivism, 259, 385–386 and prehistoric blocks, 302, 303, 303n primal will, 14–15, 196, 384 and Protestantism, 11, 20, 169, 261, 325, 339, 426 and psyche, 37, 196, 198, 201, 219, 338, 361, 362, 440 and psychologism, 94 and Puritanism, 326, 339 and reality, 58

Index “a recollected moment,” 62 on relations, 97 and relativism, xlviii and religion, xlvii, xlviii, lxix, 140, 154–55, 157–58, 182, 196, 202, 205, 219, 220, 228, 255, 256, 286, 301, 305, 343, 358, 363–65, 368, 385, 420, 424, 440, 448 and the Resurrection, 261 Russell, Bertrand, influenced by, 36 the self, xlvi, 20, 26, 146, 147 and solipsism, 116, 117, 209 Spinoza, influenced by, 36, 74 and spirit, xlvi–xlvii, xlviii, 21, 43, 117, 121, 127, 146, 168, 228, 270, 305, 329, 338, 390, 430, 448 and subjectivism, 425 teaching, lxiv and transcendental, 115, 116 and truth, 51, 288, 310, 384, 420, 450 and Unitarianism, 437 and verbal atomism, 395, 395n vital liberty, 27 will, 15, 143, 146, 219, 250, 365, 384 and wind, 430 photograph(s) of, liii, lxviii, 194, 216, 217n, 227, 263, 285, 320, 449 on poetry, 45, 121, 127, 138, 157, 181–82, 201, 205, 214, 286, 447 on poets, 170, 213 on politics, lix, lxi, lxvi–lxvii, lxx, 7–8, 10, 135–36, 151–52, 219, 273, 275–76, 301, 307, 310, 314, 319n, 345, 373, 404n portrait(s) of, liii, lxviii and positivism in his works, 52, 191, 302, 434 publications “Arts Liberate the Spirit,” 218, 218n, 222, 227 “At Arles,” 407, 408n, 412, 413n and Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts from George Santayana, 50–51, 52n, 59–60, 74–75, 104–5, 129, 130, 184, 190, 196–97, 200, 204–5, 205n, 206n, 231, 231n, 245, 255, 256–57, 258–59, 263, 264, 277, 286, 302–3, 315–16, 366

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“Aus den Erinnerungen eines Philosophen” (trans. of Santayana), 187, 187n “Bishop Berkeley (1685–1753),” 116, 117n, 406, 407n, 426 on book design, 312, 351–52 characters in, 51, 52n, 64, 70, 115, 220, 221, 237–38, 238n, 259, 260n, 277, 321, 361, 362, 401, 415n, 433 and Classic American Philosophers, 320, 320n corrections for and errors in, 30, 30n, 48, 82, 122–23, 177, 178, 204–5, 352, 352–53, 355, 359–60, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 376, 377 Dialogues in Limbo, 6, 9, 12, 24–25, 28, 49–50, 55, 60, 61, 63, 64n, 81–82, 89, 90, 91, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 119, 122, 132, 143, 153, 163, 205, 277, 278n, 284, 285, 316, 361, 417 and Dominaciones y potestades, 350, 351n Dominations and Powers, 6, 7n, 14–15, 24, 25, 26n, 27, 29, 42n, 45, 49, 52, 61, 84–85, 87, 96, 98, 101, 108, 109n, 109, 114, 120, 122, 125, 127, 130, 141, 142, 143, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 165–66, 169, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180, 188–89, 192, 195, 208, 213, 215–16, 216n, 216–17, 217–18, 221–22, 226–27, 227n, 233, 236, 239, 239n, 240, 242, 243 245, 246, 247, 248, 249n, 250, 251, 254–55, 256, 260, 260n, 262, 265, 267–68, 270, 270n, 271, 273, 274, 275, 276, 276n, 278–79, 280, 282, 282n, 283, 285, 287, 289, 290, 291, 293, 295–96, 303, 304, 304–5, 305n, 306n, 307, 308, 309, 309–10, 311–12, 312, 314, 316, 317n, 323, 325, 326, 327, 333, 333n, 334, 335, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 346, 347–48, 349, 350, 351, 351–52, 352–53, 354, 355, 357, 358, 358n, 359–60, 360n, 360, 366, 367, 368, 369n, 369, 370, 371, 373,

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Santayana, George (continued) publications (continued) 377, 379, 384 “Dominations and Powers: Two Chapters from a Work in Progress,” 215–16, 216n, 218, 222, 227 Egotism in German Philosophy, 185, 186, 267, 399 “Epilogue: My Host the World,” 85, 85n, 143 “A General Confession,” 89, 91n The Genteel Tradition at Bay, 267 “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” 77, 77n and George Santayana, lxviii, 140–41, 141n, 229, 297 “Gli occhi miei vaghi delle cose belle,” 23, 23n “The Hidden Soul,” 10n, 28, 48 The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, 15, 15n, 16n, 16, 17, 25, 27, 29, 30, 30n, 31, 34, 50, 53, 56–57, 117, 155, 163, 202, 219, 221, 242, 256, 267, 277, 328–29, 350, 412, 420, 433, 448 “I Like to Be a Stranger,” 435, 436n Interpretations of Poetry and Religion, 182, 183n, 219, 414, 459 “It is not wisdom to be only wise,” 23, 23n “King’s College Chapel,” 159, 159n and La idea de Cristo en los evangelios, 15, 16n, 16 and La Pensée de George Santayana: Santayana en Amérique, 245, 246n, 298 The Last Puritan, xlv, liv, lxviii, 18, 19n, 49n, 50, 51, 52n, 62, 63, 70, 88, 99, 114, 119, 154, 164, 189, 205, 216, 219, 220, 236–37, 260, 261n, 263, 268, 278, 321, 361, 362, 396, 400–401, 415n, 433 and Le Dernier Puritain, 62, 62n, 63 “Les Faux Pas de la Philosophie” (unpublished), 24, 25n, 84, 86, 95, 357 “The Libertine,” 9n, 28, 48, 49 and L’Idea di Cristo nei Vangeli o Dio nell’uomo, 15, 15n, 17, 29, 31, 34, 53, 56–57, 62, 62n, 67–68, 96–97

176–77, 177–78, 201, 240–41, 242, 257 The Life of Reason one-volume abridged edition, 382–383, 383n, 392, 396, 401, 409, 411, 416, 417, 421, 423, 425, 434 volume I: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense, 396, 397n, 401 volume II: Reason in Society, 236, 236n, 396, 397n, 401 volume III: Reason in Religion, 100, 396, 397n, 401 volume IV: Reason in Art, 396, 397n, 409 volume V: Reason in Science, 60, 396, 397n, 421 mentioned, lxv, 26, 26n, 100, 106, 108n, 246, 259, 267, 269, 297, 334, 382–383, 396, 401, 421, 434 and Little Essays Drawn from the Writings of George Santayana, 279, 279n “Locke and the Frontiers of Common Sense,” 115, 117n Lucifer; or, the Heavenly Truce; A Theological Tragedy, 257, 257n, 258, 266, 329 “Many Nations in One Frontier,” 155, 171, 175, 244, 245n The Marriage of Venus, 142, 143n “Metanoia,” 48, 49n, 91 The Middle Span, 44, 44n, 50, 64, 70, 154, 156, 187, 194, 230, 267, 332, 435, 436, 436n “Morality and Religion,” 218, 218n, 222, 227 My Host the World, 109, 120, 122, 194, 271, 275n, 280, 297, 305–6, 412, 415, 435 “Normal Madness,” 58, 59n, 80, 81, 95, 146, 277, 316 and Obiter Scripta, 129, 130n, 267, 406 “Ode V,” 113n “Ombron and Ambra,” 428n, 457, 458, 460, 461n and “On Philosophical Synthesis,” 287, 287n, 290

Index “On the False Steps in Philosophy,” 24, 25n “O world, thou choosest not the better part!” 35, 38n Persons and Places, xlix, lvi, lxix, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 63, 64, 64–65n, 77n, 89, 100, 101n, 154, 156, 164, 187, 216, 230, 267, 280, 297, 300, 305–6, 317, 317n, 385, 389 Philosophers at Court, 142, 143n and The Philosophy of George Santayana, 86, 86n, 89, 91n, 230, 287, 287n, 292 and the Philosophy of Santayana, 382, 383n Platonism and the Spiritual Life, 436, 437n, 438, 449 Poems: Revised and Selected by the Author, lii, 267, 276 The Poet’s Testament: Poems and Two Plays, 52, 52n, 129–30, 407, 408n, 412 press release(s), 340, 340n, 341, 373 Realms of Being, xlvi–xlvii, 25, 26n, 50, 119, 155, 247, 269, 270, 302n, 333, 351 Realms of Being: The Realm of Essence, xlvi, 155, 288, 289n Realms of Being: The Realm of Matter, lviii, 155, 240, 241n Realms of Being: The Realm of Spirit, xlviii, 89, 155, 385 Realms of Being: The Realm of Truth, xlvi, 90, 155 reviews of, 348, 348n, 349, 350, 352, 354, 358, 366, 374, 396, 440, 444 and Santayana on America, 277, 278n, 316 Scepticism and Animal Faith, 267, 289n, 296 The Sense of Beauty, 190, 302n, 377, 381, 417, 421 Soliloquies in England, 159, 175n, 184, 205, 331n, 459 and “Soliloquies in Rome: George Santayana’s Latest Work,” 396–97, 397n, 436, 437n “Some Corollaries to Materialism,” 43, 44n “Some Developments of

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Materialism,” 6, 6n, 192, 192n Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays, 116, 117n, 267 Sonnet I, 437, 438n Sonnet II, 23, 23n, 35, 38n, 276, 437, 438n Sonnet III, 437, 438n Sonnet XIV, 417, 418n Sonnets and Other Verses, lxviii, 266 “Ten Letters and a Foreword,” 62, 63n, 68, 69n Three Philosophical Poets, 109, 200, 267, 399, 436, 437n, 438 “Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote” 332, 333n, 349, 354, 374, 374n, 376, 392, 410, 421 “Tragic Philosophy,” 406, 406n his translations, 166, 172, 191, 192, 199, 201, 221 translation(s) of, 15, 16, 17, 25, 27, 29, 31, 34, 53, 56–57, 62, 63–64, 68, 350 and Vagabond Scholar, lxviii, 9n, 297, 298n, 299n, 390, 412, 413n, 433 “The Vortex of Dialectic,” 9, 10n “The Wind and the Spirit,” 289, 289n, 291, 292, 293, 303, 346, 348, 406, 431 Winds of Doctrine, 185, 267 The Works of George Santayana (Triton Edition), 25, 26n, 81, 90, 103, 114, 116, 122, 159, 175, 186, 194, 396 and publicity, 140, 152 on race, lxii reads Cavalcanti, xlv Dante, xlv Italian Platonizing poets, xlv Michelangelo, xlv his relationships, liv Rome, his residence in, xlv J. Russell, relationship with, lv, lvi, lvii and the Sacco and Vanzetti case, lx and science, 51, 56 scientific universal economy, 440 his sexual orientation, liv–lv, lvi, lxviii, lxix his signature, 477–78 on socialism, lxx, 310

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Santayana, George (continued) on society, lxx, 160, 167, 196, 217, 343–44, 345, 362, 371, 404n, 408, 434, 441, 442, 444 solitude, prefers, lxiii Spain, born in, xlv Strong, relationship with, lix, lxix Susan, relationship with, liv on teaching, lxiv and Tibullus, 33, 34n on translating, 27, 207, 231–32 his travels, 346n travels and Germany, 47, 269 Greece, 32 The Hague, lxiii Switzerland, 314, 315n and Trinity College, 203, 204n and University of Cambridge, 159 on war, lix, lx his will, 25, 111, 123 on women, lii, liv–lv and World War I, lix–lx and World War II, lx, 11 his writing his final intentions, 465 his manuscripts, 470 mechanics of, 468–69, 475–76 his spelling, 465, 468, 469, 475 his technique, xlviii and The Works of George Santayana (MIT), 465, 468, 470 on his writing, xlviii, 6, 51, 100, 142, 154, 188, 204, 208–9, 280, 382, 412 mentioned, xlv his youth, lxiii, 11–12 Santayana, Josefina Borrás y Carbonell de (Santayana’s mother) identified, 71n Santayana on, 401 mentioned, 70, 429 “Santayana at the Convent of the Blue Nuns” (Wilson), 217, 218n Santayana on America (Lyon), 277, 278n, 316 “Santayana’s Lucid Rationalism” (Ferrari), 448, 448n “Santayana’s Summing-Up,” 354, 354n Santayana: The Later Years, A Portrait with Letters (Cory), li, lxviii, lxix, 476, 478, 479n

Salmon, T. P. and Old Colony Trust Company, 9, 69 mentioned, 102, 111, 124 Sartre, Jean-Paul, lx Sastre, Celedonio his children, 145 identified, 145n mentioned, 401, 402n, 476 Sastre, Susan Parkman Sturgis (Mrs. Celedonio Sastre) death of, liv identified, 145n, 237n Santayana, relationship with, liv and Santayana’s correspondence, 471 her step children, 145 mentioned, l, lxiii, 236, 300, 326, 373, 476 Sastre family, 476 The Saturday Review of Literature, lix Saved by the Enemy (Sinclair), 345, 345n Scepticism and Animal Faith (Santayana), 267, 289n, 296 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von identified, 158n mentioned, 157 Schiller, Ferdinand Canning Scott identified, 229n mentioned, 228 Schilpp, Paul Arthur identified, 86n Lamentations on Christmas, 106, 106n letter(s) to, 86, 106, 242, 287, 290, 292 and philosophers, lxix The Philosophy of George Santayana, 86, 86n, 89, 91n, 230, 287, 287n, 292 his writing, Santayana on, 106 mentioned, 360 Schimanski, Stefan identified, 216n letter(s) to, 215 Scholastics, 150, 151n Schopenhauer, Arthur identified, 13n mentioned, liv, 12, 202, 205, 266, 385 Schroeder (or Schroederer, unidentified), 249, 252 Schwartz, Benjamin P. identified, 130n Obiter Scripta, 129, 130n, 406 Scott, Maria Selina Burney

Index identified, 194n and Russell, John 194, 389 Scribner, Charles (1890–1952) death of, 420 identified, 421n mentioned, li “A Scrupulous Muse,” 282, 283n Scylla (Odyssey), 321, 322n Seaux, Elie (unidentified), 337 Segreto Tibet (Maraini), 343, 344n, 376 The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers ( Jeffers), 367, 367n, 369 Self, 20, 26 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus identified, 16n quoted, 16, 16n The Sense of Beauty (Santayana), 190, 302n, 377, 381, 417, 421 Sermon on the Mount, 229 Sewell, Elizabeth identified, 458n Paul Valéry: The Mind in the Mirror, 457–58, 458n “Sex and Santayana” (Eastman), 414, 415n, 445 Shakespeare, William Antony and Cleopatra, 446 and Falstaff, John, 281, 281n Hamlet, 68, 69n, 205 MacBeth, 83, 83n, 205, 206n The Merchant of Venice, 363, 365n his philosophy, 399 Sonnet 73, 399, 400n The Tempest, 399, 400n mentioned, 127, 195, 214, 215, 229, 232, 386, 428 Shelby, C. L. letter(s) to, 351 mentioned, 351 Shelley, Percy Bysshe identified, 330n “To a Skylark,” 330, 331n Sherry, Louis identified, 293n mentioned, 292, 293 Shippen, Eugene Rodman “George Santayana,” 451, 451n, 455 identified, 451n Verses Grave and Gay, 455, 456n Shylock (The Merchant of Venice), 363, 365n

639

Sibille, Luciano identified, 302n letter(s) to, 302 mentioned, 337 Siegfried (Wagner), 129, 130n Sinclair, Gregg M. identified, 287n University of Hawai’i, president of, 287 Sinclair, Upton Beall Another Pamela; or, Virtue Still Rewarded, 345, 345n identified, 345n letter(s) to, 345 Saved by the Enemy, 345, 345n Sitwell, Edith Façade, 176, 177n identified, 177n mentioned, 298, 299n, 333 Sitwell, (Francis) Osbert (Sacheverell) Façade, 176, 177n Great Morning!, 70, 71n identified, 61n Laughter in the Next Room, 173, 174n, 176 Left Hand, Right Hand!, 60, 61n, 73 Noble Essences, 298, 299n his writing, Santayana on, 177 mentioned, 174n, 246, 246n “Six Theological Cradle-Songs” (Viereck), 82, 83n Skeptic philosophy, 298, 299n Slow Advance (Cholmeley-Jones), 301, 301n “The Smile of Santayana” (Isherwood), 376, 376n, 381, 391 Smink, Robert T. (unidentified), 119 Smith, Alys Pearsall identified, 279n Russell, Bertrand, married to, 279, 279n Smith, [Charles] Page identified, 72n letter(s) to, 71 and the O.K. Society, 71, 72n Smith, Logan Pearsall identified, 279n Little Essays Drawn from the Writings of George Santayana, 279, 279n and Recollections of Logan Pearsall Smith, 279, 279n and “Story of a Friendship,” 279, 279n mentioned, li Smith, Mary Whitall. See Berenson, Mary Whitall Smith

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The Letters of George Santayana

Smith, Warren Allen identified, 329n letter(s) to, 328 Smith, Willie Haines, 70, 71n Smith College, 80 Socialism, lxx, 310 Society, 193, 196, 199, 228, 362, 364, 371, 404n, 434, 441, 442, 444 Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, 470 Socrates identified, 14n his philosophy, 13, 25 mentioned, lxiii, 98, 99, 123, 132, 170, 196, 261, 357, 371 Soliloquies in England (Santayana), 159, 175n, 184, 205, 331n, 459 “Soliloquies in Rome: George Santayana’s Latest Work” (Barker), 396–97, 397n, 436, 437n Solomon, King, lxi “Some Corollaries to Materialism” (Santayana), 43, 44n “Some Developments of Materialism” (Santayana), 6, 6n, 192, 192n Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy: Five Essays (Santayana), 116, 117n, 267 Sommer, Melvin L. identified, 74n letter(s) to, 74, 107 Sonnet I (Santayana), 437, 438n Sonnet II (Santayana), 23, 23n, 35, 38n, 276, 437, 438n Sonnet III (Santayana), 437, 438n Sonnet XIV (Santayana), 417, 418n Sonnet 73 (Shakespeare), 399, 400n Sonnets and Other Verses (Santayana), lxviii, 266 Spain Andalusia, 393, 394n civil war, 478 fascists, lxvii Santayana on, lii, 393 Spanish song, liv mentioned, xlv, 47, 314, 364, 447 The Spectator (periodical), 396, 397n, 398 Speculations: Essays on Humanism and the Philosophy of Art (Hulme), 172, 173n Speed the Plough (Morton), 45, 46n Spencer, Herbert, lvi

Spinoza, Baruch (or Benedict) Ethics, 39n, 357, 358n identified, 38–39n his philosophy, lxv, 311 Santayana influenced by, lxii, 36, 74 Santayana lectures on, 92, 92n Santayana on, 357 mentioned, 233, 364, 395, 407 Spirit, xlvi–xlvii, xlviii, 21, 43, 117, 121, 127, 146, 147, 168, 228, 270, 304, 329, 338, 390, 430, 448 Stabat Mater (Rossini), 419, 420n Stabat mater dolorosa (Benedictis), 419, 420n Stalin, Joseph identified, 111n mentioned, 110 Stein, William Bysshe identified, 197n letter(s) to, 195 mentioned, xlviii Stendhal. See Beyle, Marie Henri Stephen Crane (Berryman), 321, 322n, 324 Stickney, Joseph Trumbull Les Sentences dans la poésie grecque: d’Homère à Euripide, 446, 446n identified, 322n Santayana on, 321, 445 mentioned, 324 Stillman, Charles Chauncey and Harvard, 431 identified, 432n Stillman, Chauncey Devereux identified, 432n letter(s) to, 431 Stoicism, 16, 17n Story (magazine), 81, 82n “Story of a Friendship” (Connolly), 279, 279n Strong, Charles Augustus on America, lii and Cory, lxix, lviii his daughter, lii, 162, 317 his granddaughter, lxviii identified, 44n his International Philosophical Fellowship Fund, 95, 96n, 425 Le Balze, lviii, lxvii, 317, 317n his Paris apartment, lii, lviii Santayana, relationship with, lix, lxix and Santayana’s correspondence, xlvi,

Index lxvii his wife, lxvii–lxviii mentioned, 43, 84, 400, 402 Strong, Elizabeth “Bessie” Rockefeller (Mrs. C. A. Strong), lxvii–lxviii Strong, Margaret. See Cuevas, Margaret Strong-Cuevas, Elizabeth, lxviii Stuart y Falcó, Jacobo Fitz-James identified, 402n mentioned, 401 A Study of History (Toynbee), 8, 8n, 73, 94 A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes I–VI (Somervell), 107, 108n Sturgis, George (Santayana’s mother’s first husband), 373n Sturgis, George (Santayana’s nephew) his divorce, lxix identified, 4n Santayana, visted, 102, 102n Santayana on, lvii, lxix and Santayana’s finances, lvii, lxi, lxiv his sister, 5n his sons, 123 mentioned, l, lii, liii, lxii, lxx, 124n, 190, 217, 415 Sturgis, Howard, 70, 71n Sturgis, Joan “Chiquita” Eleanor (Mrs. Robert Sturgis) her daughter, 372, 373n, 379 identified, 66n picture of, 65 her wedding dress, 65 mentioned, 160, 161 Sturgis, Josephine Borrás (Santayana’s half sister) identified, 237n and Santayana’s correspondence, 471 mentioned, 236, 429 Sturgis, Nathaniel (Santayana’s great nephew) Santayana’s will, 123 mentioned, 124n, 160, 236, 258, 272 Sturgis, Neville (Santayana’s great nephew) Santayana’s will, 123 mentioned, 124n, 160, 236, 258, 272, 273 Sturgis, Richard Clipston identified, 80n mentioned, 80 Sturgis, Robert (1859–1900) identified, 301n

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mentioned, 300 Sturgis, Robert Shaw (1824–76) identified, 301n, 373n mentioned, 373 Sturgis, Robert Shaw (Santayana’s half brother) his daughter, 5n identified, 4n Santayana on, lvii and Santayana’s finances, lvii mentioned, lxix, 123, 124n, 308 Sturgis, Robert Shaw (Santayana’s great nephew) and architecture, lvii, 378, 416 his daughter, 372, 373n, 379 Harvard, student at, lvii identified, 66n letter(s) to, 378, 387 Santayana on, lvii, 378 Santayana’s will, 123 his studies, 65 and the U.S. Air Force, lvii mentioned, 124n, 160, 236, 258, 272, 444 Sturgis, Rosamond Thomas Bennett and charity, lxi her divorce, lxix her granddaughter, 372, 373n identified, 4n letter(s) to, 3, 18, 46, 65, 101, 111, 123, 135, 144, 159, 161, 187, 203, 217, 262, 272, 295, 307, 314, 342, 372, 398, 416, 422, 429, 434, 443, 453, 460 Little, marriage to, 144, 145n, 160, 161, 190 Santayana, friendship with, 218 Santayana, visited, 102, 102n Santayana on, lvii her sons, 123 mentioned, xlviii, lxix, lxx, 124n, 336, 447 Sturgis, Russell (1831–99), 80n Sturgis, Susanna Jordan identified, 373n mentioned, 372, 379 Sturgis, William C., l Sturgis family, 123, 124n, 300, 378 Subjectivism, 425 Swinburne, Algernon Charles “Chorus,” 422, 422n identified, 422n

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Switzerland, 314, 315n Syriac civilization, 107, 108n

Tacitus, Cornelius identified, 140n mentioned, 139 “Talk With Mr. Santayana” (Matthews), 294, 295n Tarn, William Woodthorpe Alexander the Great, 248, 249n, 260 identified, 249n Tasso, Torquato identified, 346n mentioned, 346 The Tempest (Shakespeare), 399, 400n “Ten Letters and a Foreword,” 62, 63n, 68, 69n Térèse de Lisieux, Saint, 284, 284n Terrance and Colman, 434, 435n identified, 435n his plays, 434, 435n Terror and Decorum: Poems 1940–1948 (Viereck), 113, 113n “Terror Versus Decorum” (Poore and Schlesinger Jr.), 225, 225n “Thanksgiving’s Over” (Lowell), 31, 42, 45, 54 Thales identified, 148n mentioned, 148 Theosophists, 269, 270n Theotocopoulos, Domenicos. See El Greco Theresa, Saint, 261, 262n, 284 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 263, 263n, 264, 277, 415, 459 Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom, Advocate of Christian Morals (Foote), 229, 230n Thomas Jefferson on Democracy (Padover), 253, 254n, 308 Thoron, Ward and the Delta Phi Club, 18, 19n and Harvard, 144 identified, 20n Thousand and One Nights, lii Three Philosophical Poets (Santayana), 109, 200, 267, 399, 436, 437n, 438 Thucydides identified, 133n

mentioned, 132 Tiber, 285, 286n Tibet, 343 Tibullus, Albius Albi Tibulli Carmina, 33, 34n identified, 34n Santayana on, 33 Santayana’s translation of, 166, 172, 192, 193, 200, 202, 222 mentioned, 212, 212n, 239 Time (magazine), 203, 348, 349, 349n, 352 Times Literary Supplement (magazine) “American Poetry To-Day,” 326, 327n “The Boy and the River,” 308, 309n “Empiricism Old and New,” 455, 455n “In Search of Proust,” 288, 289n “Master of Monticello,” 229, 230n “Philosopher’s Stone,” 150, 151n “Poetry of Life,” 155–56, 156n Pryce-Jones, editor of, 359, 360n, 366 “A Scrupulous Muse,” 282, 283n “Story of a Friendship,” 279, 279n “A Version of Browning,” 229, 230n mentioned, 73, 73n, 163, 278, 326, 447, 471 Tindall, Evelyn her bill, 104, 195, 240, 274, 340, 415, 419 and Dominations and Powers, 49, 85, 101, 141, 208, 217–18, 226, 240, 247, 248, 256, 262, 267, 271, 274, 275, 276, 312 identified, 49n and The Last Puritan, 49n, 218, 262 letter(s) to, 49, 104, 141, 195, 240, 247, 250, 256, 274, 291, 304, 340, 415, 419 and Santayana’s works, 49n, 108, 217–18, 262 mentioned, 125, 290, 455 Tisch, Arthur identified, 56n letter(s) to, 56 Tito, Josip Broz identified, 111n mentioned, 110 “To a Skylark” (Shelley), 330, 331n Togliatti, Palmiro identified, 176n mentioned, 175 Tomorrow (review), 376n, 381, 381n, 391 Tom Saywer, 421 Tom Sawyer Abroad (Twain), 421, 422n

Index “Tom Sawyer and Don Quixote” (Santayana), 332, 333n, 349, 354, 374, 374n, 376, 392, 410, 420 Tom Sawyer, Detective (Twain), 421, 422n “A Tory Radical,” 73n Toward a General Theory of Human Judgment (Buchler), 406, 407n Tower, Miss (unidentified), 344, 344n Toy, Nancy Saunders and anti-Semitism, lxi identified, 418n Santayana, friend of, liv mentioned, li, lxi, lxiii, 417 Toynbee, Arnold Joseph Civitas Dei, theory of, 107 Hook’s review of, 107, 108n identified, 8n A Study of History, 8, 8n, 73, 94 and A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes I–VI, 107, 108n the “Universal State,” 70, 96 mentioned, 82 “Tragic Philosophy” (Santayana), 406, 406n Trappist. See The Order of Cistercians of Strict Order Trask, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, 121n Trinity College, 203, 204n Triple Tiara, 388, 389n Tristia (Ovid), 12, 13n Truman, Harry S., 114, 114n, 136 Truth, 51, 288, 310, 384, 419, 450 Tuccio, Joseph identified, 337n mentioned, 335 Twain, Mark. See Clemens, Samuel Langhorne Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Melville), 198, 199n

Ulysses (Odyssey), 321, 322n Unamuno, Miguel de, 476 Unitarianism, 437 United Nations, 152, 273, 444 United Nations Organization, 275, 276n, 294–95 University of Hawai’i, 287, 287n The University of Texas at Austin, lxviii, 67, 68n, 470 University of Virginia, 470 Upanishads, 385, 385n

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Vagabond Scholar (Lind), lxviii, 9n, 298n, 299n, 390, 412, 413n, 433 Valenti, Cesare identified, 338n mentioned, 337 Valéry, Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules death of, 126 identified, 128n Lettres à quelques-uns, 447, 447n and Paul Valéry: The Mind in the Mirror, 457–58, 458n The Varieties of Religious Experience ( James), 260, 262n Vendôme Table Delicacies, 3, 4n, 95, 99, 118, 119, 235, 421 Venus, 12, 13n Vera (M. Russell), 433, 433n Verbal atomism, 395, 395n Vergil Aeneid, 12, 13n identified, 13n Verne, Jules identified, 422n mentioned, 421 Verses Grave and Gay (Shippen), 455, 456n “A Version of Browning,” 229, 230n Via Crucis, 419 “Via Crucis” (Lind), 413, 419, 420n, 432 Via Sistina (Rome), 67, 88 Victoria (queen of England) identified, 8n mentioned, 8, 404n Viereck, Peter Robert Edwin “Ballad of the Jollie Gleeman,” 82, 83n Conservatism Revisited, 198, 199n, 225, 225n identified, 83n letter(s) to, 82, 112, 198, 213, 225 “Manifesto of the Two Lions,” 82, 83n Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind, 112–13, 113n, 118 “My Kind of Poetry,” 213, 214n Santayana on, 113, 118 “Six Theological Cradle-Songs,” 82, 83n Terror and Decorum: Poems 1940–1948, 113, 113n visits Santayana, 213, 225 his writing, Santayana on, 198–99 Villa Borghese (Rome), 59, 59n, 89n, 165

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Virgin Mary, 393 Vivas, Eliseo identified, 363n mentioned, 361 Vogelweide, Walther von der identified, 299n mentioned, 298 Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de Candide, 38, 41n identified, 41n mentioned, 180, 205 “Vom Ursprung des Philosophierens” (Der Monat), 212–13, 213n Von Hagen, Victor Wolfgang identified, 244n letter(s) to, 243 Maya Explorer, 243, 244n “The Vortex of Dialectic” (Santayana), 9, 10n

Warren, Peter identified, 356n mentioned, 356 Weeks, Edward A. Jr. and Atlantic Monthly, 28, 29n and Dominations and Powers, 245, 255, 256 identified, 29n and Santayana’s works, 48, 49, 63, 141, 177 visits Santayana, 245 his wife, 245 mentioned, 87, 249 Weller, George [Anthony] identified, 317n “Philosopher at 87 Still Impish, Busy,” 316, 317n What I Believe (ed. Marchant), 289, 289n, 291, 292, 303, 346, 348, 406, 431 Wheelock, John Hall and Dialogues in Limbo, 61, 63 and Dominations and Powers, 6, 24, 155, 208, 226, 246, 248, 249n, 250, 282, 348, 350, 351, 366 and The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, 31 identified, 4n and The Letters of George Santayana (ed. Cory), 469, 471 letter(s) to, 23, 24, 31, 34, 49, 89, 95, 98, 103, 114, 118, 119, 122, 153, 155, 162,

175, 190, 216, 223, 226, 250, 280, 284, 285, 304, 307, 311, 325, 326, 334, 341, 342, 351, 355, 359, 360, 369, 377, 382, 396, 409, 420, 435, 438, 456 and The Life of Reason, 176n, 334, 382–383, 396, 401, 416 and My Host the World, 122 and Santayana’s correspondence, 469, 471 and Santayana’s portrait, 252–53 his wife, 216, 308 mentioned, li, lxviii, lxxxi, 124, 171, 191, 223, 307, 381, 398, 449, 457, 460, 474 White, Lawrence Grant The Divine Comedy, translation of, 231–32, 232–33n identified, 232–33n Whitehead, Alfred North identified, 204n his philosophy, 203 mentioned, 320, 320n The Widener Library (Harvard), 90, 335 Wiemer, Horst identified, 26n and Santayana’s works, 25 mentioned, 336 Wigglesworth, Thomas identified, 19n mentioned, 18 Wilson, Edmund identified, 218n “Santayana at the Convent of the Blue Nuns,” 217, 218n mentioned, 269, 269n Wilson, Woodrow identified, 301n mentioned, 301 Williams, Kate, 64, 64–65n Williams, Nelly, 64, 64–65n Williams, Oscar identified, 93n A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry, English & American, 92, 93n Williamson, Benedict identified, 29n mentioned, 27 Wimborne, Alice [Grosvenor] identified, 177n mentioned, 176 Wimborne, Ivor [Guest]

Index identified, 177n mentioned, 176 “The Wind and the Spirit” (Santayana), 289, 289n, 292, 293, 303, 346, 348, 406, 431 Winds of Doctrine (Santayana), 185, 267 Winslow, Mary Williams Santayana, friend of, liv mentioned, li, lxix Wolfson, Harry Austryn identified, 143n Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 142, 143n mentioned, lxv Wood, Harry Emsley Jr. identified, 239n letter(s) to, 252 Santayana, portrait of, 238, 239n, 249, 251, 253–54, 334, 449n Santayana on, 251, 252 Wordsworth, William identified, 61n “Intimations of Immortality,” 60–61, 61n The Works of George Santayana (Triton Edition), 25, 26n, 81, 90, 103, 114, 116, 122, 159, 175, 186, 194, 396 The Works of George Santayana (MIT) and annotations, 478 as critical scholarly editions, 467, 470 and destroyed or unlocated letters, 470 471, 473 editorial policy, 467–68, 470–79 and emendations, 468, 472, 473, 475 letters, chronology of, 471–72 The Letters of George Santayana, Volume V, 469 and library resources, 470 and MIT Press, 468 a “plain-text” edition, 473–74 publication, history of, 468–69 and QuarkXPress, 467–68 research for, 470–71 and Robbins, J. Albert, 479n and Santayana’s correspondence, 468, 470, 471 and Santayana’s writing, 473, 475–76 and textual notes, 473, 474, 475 transcription of, 468–69, 472–74 typesetting of, 468

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“unmodernized,” 467 World Review (periodical), 172, 173n, 215–16, 218, 222, 227 World War I, lix–lx, 478 World War II, lviii, lx, lxvii, 11, 478 Wren, Christopher identified, 440n mentioned, 439 Wu Jingxiong Holy See, ambassador to, 284, 284n identified, 284n Wu, John C. H. See Wu, Jingxiong.

Yaddo (writer’s retreat), 119, 120, 121n, 167, 168n, 168, 169, 174 Yarrell (unidentified), 338 Yolton, John W[illiam] identified, 362n letter(s) to, 361, 371, 379, 384, 440, 441 “Notes on Santayana’s ‘The Last Puritan’,” 361, 362n “The Psyche as Social Determinant,” 440, 441n and Santayana’s philosophy, 371n, 379, 384 mentioned, 381, 395

Zabel, Morton Dauwen identified, 372n letter(s) to, 372 Zeus, 259, 259n

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