To Alejandro Tapia
Rome. March 28, 1928
Although at my great age, I read very few verses, and almost never books in Spanish, “La Sataniada” has interested me in such a way that I have read the entire work, without skipping one stanza, carried by the harmony and easiness of the verses. Your father was a true poet, and he demonstrates that every time that he pauses to describe any beautiful or kind thing. But in my judgment, he did not hit the mark either in the selection of the subject matter, or in wanting to follow the example of Byron, or more properly, the Italian poets that Byron imitated, composing an allegorical-political-burlesque poem. Such compositions cannot hold more than an ephemeral interest, and between the confusion of the disguised characters and the barely intelligible allusions, not to mention the political passions and criteria of epochs already long gone, the inspired bits are lost. Poetry is at odds with journalism. I have said this to you because you invited me to be frank, and because I have to be to reciprocate the true gift that you have made me, sending me so curious and interesting a work.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Four, 1928–1932. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown