The Works of George Santayana

Category: LETTERS

Letters in Limbo ~ November 7, 1946

Bertrand_Russell_transparent_bgTo Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. November 7, 1946

I have . . . Bertie Russell’s “Amberley Papers”, the biography letters and journals of his parents, Lord and Lady Amberley. Amberley was a soft sentimental ultra-consciencious youth, but egotistic and even cruel on occasion. The way he carried on and then abandoned a very nice middleclass girl, saying he “trusted that time would make her stronger” and that they “parted with the same trust, clinging to one another, the same pure loyalty to our sacred friendship”—she died a year or two later, while he married another girl–reminded me of my friend his son with his various lady-loves. But of course the book is rich in pungent foot-notes in the Voltarian or Gibbons-like tone that Bertie delights in: yet I feel how inhuman these high-principled self-righteous people are, and how troubled was their life in spite of their advantages—the greatest of which they didn’t appreciate. I have finished—that is, I have got to the end—of Sitwell’s book, after being cloyed with too much landscape and too much absurdity in the way of living described. This aristocracy deserved to disappear more than did the French, which didn’t go in so much for nominal virtue and superior judgement. Sitwell is an extreme example of the rich liberal who despises everything in his world except himself and the scent of flowers. But as you say they often write very well.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Seven, 1941-1947.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY

Letters in Limbo ~ July 25, 1926

ibernan001p1To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Cristallo
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. July 25, 1926

Dear Strong,

I have just finished “Sous le Soleil de Satan”. Is the author a young man? If so, I think he may do very good things. I like his ideas (when they are ideas) and his prejudices: the portrait of Anatole France at the end is excellent. So the other minor characters: even the Devil is plausible, if you fall back on mediaeval ways of conceiving him. But there is a lot of rant and confusion: I had some difficulty in following the thread of events or emotions in places, and felt like skipping, or dropping the book altogether. Neither the hero nor the heroine is intelligible. It looks as if the author himself didn’t know exactly what was up. That the world is given over to the devil and that there are shady sides and bitter dregs in every life is perfectly true: but we must distinguish the part which is inseparable from existence of any sort—from flux and finitude—in this evil, and the part that is remediable. No doubt a very exacting spirit might rebel against existence itself: but I don’t know what he could find to substitute for it. Certainly this book suggests nothing: it does not represent religion as offering any real refuge: even there all seems to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why so tense, little Sir?

The Drakes are gone after staying five days—I am writing an article about Platonism and “Spiritual religion” apropos of a book of Dean Inge’s on that subject. It is an interruption, but I have definitely dropped the reins on the neck of my weary old Pegasus, and am letting him amble as he will. I shouldn’t accomplish any thing better by applying the bit and spurs.

And you?

Yours ever, G.S.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY

Letters in Limbo ~ July 12, 1934

Tgeorge-santayanao Charles Earle Funk
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123, Pall Mall, London, S.W.11
Fiesole, Italy. July 12, 1934

My name in Spanish is pronounced San-ta-ya´-na, all the a’s being ah’s. But I think my English-speaking friends regard the y as a vowel (it is a consonant here in the Spanish, often confused with ll) and so sound the second syllable like ay in hay. I have no objection, but it is not Spanish.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

 

 

Letters in Limbo ~ May 31, 1933

f73e626cb2853e3c959c0993641a2bd0To 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: Mrs. George W. Howgate

Letters in Limbo ~ April 15, 1905

3a44522rTo Charles Scribner’s Sons
C/o Brown Shipley & Co London.
Athens. April 15, 1905

Gentlemen: I have your note of March 24—in which you tell me you sent me one copy of “The Life of Reason”, for which I beg to thank you although it has not yet reached my hands. I have sent you today, in two packages, the M.S. of the rest of “Reason in Art”, which I hope will arrive safely. “Reason in Science” is not quite copied out, as I have been making a general revision of that volume, but it will doubtless be ready by the time your printers have finished the other parts. If there should be any special hurry about it, I could at any moment send you the earlier chapters, which are ready. As I have no great confidence in South-European post-offices (knowing the perfidious character of the Spanish one) I prefer to wait till I get to England—about June 1—if there is no urgency in the matter.
Yours very truly, G Santayana

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]-1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University, Princeton NJ

 

 

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