To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Victoria
Glion, Switzerland. June 20, 1929
I enclose a cheque which I hope you won’t have any difficulty in cashing. In making it out, I have had a vague feeling that perhaps life on the Lido involves new expenses, and that you may be hard up. If so, tell me frankly, because you know that, while I don’t want to spoil you for a good hard-working American life, yet for the present I feel responsible for looking after you decently: and a few pounds more or less make absolutely no difference to my own income, as they come out of the dead fund in London, and not out of my pocket. Here, by the way, I am economizing —involuntarily, but not unwillingly — half of what I used to spend monthly in Rome. My pension costs 18 Swiss francs, or about $4 a day; with all extras it doesn’t exceed $5. They had nothing to give me but a single room without a bath, but with hot and cold water, space enough for my things, and a balcony overlooking the lake from a great height. So I have fallen back into my old habit of living like a monk in his cell, and rather like it. I don’t bathe at all, but wash myself with a nice new sponge. This I am ready to keep up all summer, having once fallen into the pace; and it may be necessary, as poor Strong has developed a new trouble, and is rather shaky.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928-1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY