To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Bristol
Rome. March 21, 1929
I have been reading—mostly in bed, in the depths of night—“Elizabeth’s latest book, called “Expiation”, which is not very amusing (for her) but rather dramatic. It might make a good play.
Cory has developed a great admiration for Proust, whom he reads in the English translation: simply carried off his feet by the description of an asparagus. The moral turpitudes described leave him indifferent—vieux jeu! I suppose this is the attitude (in both respects) of the young men of the hour.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928–1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY