To John Hall Wheelock
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome, August 4, 1950
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[ination] & P[owers], 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. [….] As to war and Dr. Cardiff, non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa.1
1.Dante, Inferno, Canto III, line 51: “Let us not talk of them, but look and pass.”
Translated by Allen Mandelbaum (Bantam Books, 1982), 22.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries, Princeton NJ