To Rosamond Thomas Bennett Sturgis
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. April 22, 1946
Since I last wrote another package from S. S. Pierce has arrived with the usual ingredients, and now I have your letter of April 16, only a week ago, announcing another box, with the exciting foundation of Bob’s literary works. I am delighted that he has been elected President of the Crimson. That proves two things that I daresay were well known, but which I hadn’t been told about. One is that he is given to writing for the public. That is excellent, if the public consents; otherwise far from keeping one’s mind sane and in sympathy with the age, it confirms one’s irritability. The other thing that being elected President of anything proves is that a man is able to recommend himself to others and to take practical responsibilities. I was never elected President of anything, and never learned to write for the public, although so many of my things, written to make myself conscious of my own opinions, have been thrust before the public on spec. This is what is called the producer’s economy in literature: but now it is the consumer’s economy that is desirable. Better then begin by writing for the newspapers. Write something people will read!
If Bob devotes himself to both literary composition and architectural design he will have two strings to his bow easy to play together to advantage. It is an old maxim that you shouldn’t choose your first or best love for a wife, but rather your number two, after mature consideration or even experience: like David Coperfield chosing first silly Dora and afterwards wise Agnes, who was the right one. So an architect may have a legitimate second profession in literature: he may even write about architecture, so that his second wife will only prove his greater fidelity to his first one.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Seven, 1941-1947. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.