To George Sturgis
Hotel Bristol
Rome. November 27, 1927

Apparently, to judge by what you say in your letter of Nov. 15, it is a long time since I have written: I am sorry, and I can’t say it has been because I was too busy or because I had nothing to say, which are the grown-up and the childish excuses for such delinquences. In Paris I spent rather an exciting summer, being a party to a sort of run-away match. Don’t be alarmed; it isn’t I that was married, but Margaret Strong; only in the absence of her father I had to officiate as sponsor, or witness, or giver-away, or whatever you call it. There were two weddings,–a week apart–which was an absurdity in itself: after the first, one, at the mairie, I gave the party a breakfast: we were only six persons, and it went off very well. At the second wedding, which was in the American Episcopal Church, I had to lead the (married) bride up the aisle, in the conventional fashion. People said: Voilà le papa! but I felt like a fool and rather like a fraud. The Chilean chargé d’affaires gave a reception for us afterwards, and the bride was much admired with her “golden” eyes and her nun-like tulle veil. I ought to have said that the bridegroom is an impecunious but rather fashionable Chilean named Jorge Cuevas, who has knocked about Paris for ten years (he is about 35) and has a rather doubtful reputation. Margaret had seen a great deal of him for a year or more; but she is undecided and not quite normal; and she hid him as if their engagement or courtship had been something out of the way, until suddenly she announced that she was going to marry him in four days. The Rockefellers (John D. Jr. was then in France) were up in arms and did all they could to prevent the marriage, while poor Strong in Switzerland was left out in the cold, except for my letters. He finally telegraphed his consent and blessing at the very last moment: and now, having seen his son-in-law, he is quite reconciled or rather positively pleased. In fact, the young man is not a bad sort, it is she that is the problem. They are at Luxor in Egypt for the winter, so that all here is peace for the present.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA