To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Hotel Danieli
Venice. October 2, 1933
Dear Cory,
Strong has arrived here today and tells me he can’t send you any more cheques for the present. His London account is reduced to £2, and he can’t count on more than $5000 income altogether for next year. Margaret & George are to live with him this winter,–they have a grand apartment in Florence as well,–and will pay all his house expenses, except of course Aldo and the motor. So it is agreed that I will look after you for the present. As I explained in a recent letter, it is still possible for me to do so; but the future is uncertain, and you ought to consider what you can do to support yourself. Is life in London promising, or would it be better to try New York? When this “crisis” has passed, if things return somewhat to their old status, I may be able to invite you to come and live with me, or near me, to keep me company in my old age; nothing would please me better, than if you were willing to do so; but as yet, I can’t propose that plan, because I don’t know whether I shall be in a position to carry it out. I am sorry S. didn’t give you a longer and clearer notice of his default; but the result has its advantages. You needn’t now do any more work that goes against the grain: do just what the spirit moves you to do, and I will help you along as long and as well as I can. Probably I can send you £40 a month all this coming winter: for longer I don’t dare promise, since my London bank account will sink to nothing, like S’s, and I don’t know how much I shall have available in America. Stay in London if you prefer; in the summer, if all goes normally, I rather expect to go to London myself, with the complete M.S. of The Last Puritan; and then we can make new and I hope pleasanter plans for the future
Yours affly,
G.S.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY