To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Grand Hotel,
Rome. February 18, 1941
I am in a soft mood, partly due to the long siege of my catarrh. I had a relapse and my heart seems to have become feebler; but I had no fever to speak of, even when the cough was at its worst, and later my pulse got down below 60 and my temperature down to 36; Sabbatucci has been attentive. I had a nurse for six nights. She talked a lot (I coughed less when I talked) and complained that there are troppi bambini: she had to work hard to give her two boys a start in life. I have been reading Terence, Latin with an Italian version on the opposite page. Lovely, lovely feeling, to bring tears to the eyes, but not much wit. If Shakespeare had taken up The Adelphi he would have made something exquisite out of it.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.