To Charles Augustus Strong
22 Beaumont St.
Oxford, England. April 2, 1919
Your philosophical letter shall be answered another day. I write now only to say that I am giving up my rooms here (where I have been for four years!) on April 24th and expect to go then for a few days to London. Please let me know when you are to be in Paris, and for how long. I hope very much to be able to join you—I don’t mean at the apartment; if you and Margaret are there there won’t be much space, and I could come for meals, etc, and sleep out—but I am not absolutely sure that it will be possible. Several things are in the air. The Y.M.C.A, although I am not young or a Christian, has asked me to go on a lecture tour at the front—either explaining America to the British troops or England to the Americans. I should give the same lecture everywhere, only one, so that I should learn it practically by heart and not have to read it. There are difficulties and anomalies involved, because the lecture ought to be illustrated with moving pictures or at least lantern-slides, and you can imagine my difficulties. On the other hand the idea of seeing the armies of occupation is rather tempting.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.