Category: LETTERS Page 1 of 274

To Charles Augustus Strong
Rome. June 3, 1937

Dear Strong

Cory also wrote me that you had told him about the Fellowship, but without enlarging on his own feelings about it. He is not a Harvard man, and his philosophical friends in America–Edman and the rest–are at Columbia. His father, brother, and beloved aunt (a very important influence, I suspect) are New Yorkers. And academic shades, if such can be attributed to Harvard now, leave him indifferent. I can never get him to go, even for a day, to see Oxford or Cambridge. All this makes me think, a priori, that if his Fellowship involved residence at Harvard, he might not like it very much; and even if it does not involve residence, the Harvard authorities might expect some sort of co-operation or insertion (as Bergson would call it) of his work in theirs, something that Cory, with his independence, might not supply. I mention these circumstances, because I feel that perhaps the working out of your plan might encounter obstacles. It is not so clear a favour done to Cory as a direct legacy would be, although it may conceivably be better for him to have to meet these possible obstacles to the free enjoyment of the Fellowship.

I have been reading old American authors, and about them, Poe, Thoreau, Emerson. I find Emerson more definite than my memory painted him, also more human and almost light, but philosophically feeble. He is a fanatic faded white, but not really emancipated.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937–1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. June 2, 1952

It is quite true that I am a materialist in cosmology: my taste need not be materialistic on that account. Every naturalist must assume that spirit has arisen naturally in the world of nature and astronomy; and I have settled convictions, and have had them since I was 20, on that point. But religions have always appealed to me as myths more or less expressing the fortunes of spirit in the world that generates it, as in theology the Holy Ghost “proceeds” from the Father (Matter) and from the Son (Form) but suffers a good deal (as Christ did by being incarnate.) Cf. my book on The Idea of Christ. It is only through having roots in the natural world that such ideas have, for me, any truth or beauty.

As to Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper.” It is evidently a sentimental tale, perfectly false, set at a moment when England was being debauched by Henry V and all the bishops but one, and when Mark Twain could not possibly feel what was at stake. I could never bring myself to read it. Shall I send it back?

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948–1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC.

To Conrad Hensler Slade
Colonial Club Cambridge
Cambridge, Massachusetts. June 1, 1911

Dear Conrad,

I can’t say I am very sorry, nor even very much surprised, that you are “still free”. There was something a bit exotic about your proposed marriage, and your attachment was hardly violent enough to justify the step. Nevertheless, I am sorry there is to be no house to visit you in at Arles, and no little “nephews”. This summer, for a change, I am going to California! The University of California at Berkeley, has invited me to teach there for six weeks, and offered me $500, which will almost cover my expenses. It seemed a good chance to see the Pacific, like Cortes, before I die, and probably the last chance I should have, so I have accepted. So I shall not be in Oxford, or anywhere else within reach this summer, for which I am sorry. On the other hand, I have made an arrangement with the College here, by which in future I shall be here only for the first half of each year, from October 1st to the end of January. This arrangement begins at once, so that next February I shall turn up in Paris (or in Italy), and perhaps see you at once; or, in any case, before long, as I shall remain in Europe the whole of the following year, which is my “sabbatical”, not needing to return to Harvard until September, 1913, and then only for four months. Whether I shall ever return after that is very doubtful; but I thought it wiser to make this arrangement than to insist at once on resigning altogether, especially during the life-time of my mother.

My friend Strong has taken an apartment in the Avenue de l’Observatoire, and has kindly invited me to stay there whenever I am in Paris. In fact, I am to have a room in his house with a place in which to keep my books and other belongings—almost a home! This will make it pleasant and economical for me to be often in Paris, and I count on seeing you constantly, for whatever your temporary impatience with the Parisian scene may be, you (like Strong) will never find another place in which you can really settle.

. . . Your idea of coming to Oxford when I am there must be carried out some day—possibly next Spring. May and the early part of June are the best months there, unless you like, as I do, the place without the inhabitants. In mid-summer, however, you have the tourists instead, which is worse.

Yours ever

G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910–1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript:  Unknown.

To George Washburne Howgate
C/o Brown Shipley & Co. 123, Pall Mall
London, S.W.1
Rome. May 31, 1933

[M]an is an animal before he is a spirit, and can be a spirit only because he is alive, i.e. an animal. The nature of the human animal, however, is to be intelligent, to be speculative; and hence the vocation to transcend the conditions of his existence in his thought and worship.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Mrs. George W. Howgate.