Category: LETTERS Page 3 of 274

To Charles Scribner’s Sons
Messrs Charles Scribner’s Sons
New York
Kasr-el-Doubarah
Cairo. January 25, 1905

Gentlemen:

Your letter of the 6th has just reached me here. I am rather sorry that the publication of the “Life of Reason” has been put off so long, although I quite understand that the trouble came from my being so far away. As to the independent title of each volume, that is not of any consequence from my point of view. Apart from the common heading “The Life of Reason” which I understand you have retained, the volumes will be kept together well enough by their individual titles, which are obviously meant to go together—“Reason in Common Sense”, “in Society” etc. Merely leaving out the number of the volume or of the book will make no difference in the continuity of the work, especially as in the three later books I am still able to put in a phrase or two pointing to the next one in order. This reference forward happens to exist already in the first two books. That each book may be read apart from the others, as you say, was part of my original plan and I am glad you are taking steps to bring this result about.

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 Libraries, Princeton NJ.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Rome. January 24, 1935

Certainly you should see this new Hamlet. When I saw the portrait—there is no name to it—I said to myself: “This is Hamlet himself. Where did they get the picture?” Then after a moment I wondered if it could be you: the face is very like yours: only the hair looked too natural for a wig. Then I read reasonably and learned the facts. I am quite ready to believe that he is better than Forbes Robertson, who was simply inoffensive, not an actor of any native power. He is also likely to be better than Irving, who was fundamentally absurd, although with a certain suggestion of poetry à la Merideth: affected, pre-Raphaelite and Bohemian. John Gielgud seems to be natural, young, pensive, and deep: but there is one thing he probably is not, namely, princely. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is princely: in those days it was a quality people had before their eyes, and understood inwardly; but now we all live intellectually in Bloomsbury.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Five, 1933-1936.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6,
Rome. January 23, 1947.

I am not in the least short of things to read . . . But send me anything you read that you think would enlighten or amuse me. I have just received a modern art book from Birnbaum in New York, édition de grand luxe. And Sitwell awaits me. Moreover I think I have not told you of the lovely present a young American (half Italian & half Spanish) in the army here made me some time ago: The Amberley Papers, “by Bertrand and Patricia Russell.” It is the history, letters, journals, etc. of Bertie’s father and mother; and I found interesting things about his brother also, in his first years. It is a curious document to the explanation of British liberalism with its shifts and its obstinacies. Now that you are going to see the Russell’s social circle in London, you must store your impressions. I never had the patience to study them in the life, e.g. at Lady Ottoline Morrell’s, near Oxford. It was too great a strain. But I like to know about it, if only I can avoid the personal shamming involved.

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.

To George Sturgis
Rome. January 22, 1927

Dear George

I have received your two letters, the new letter of credit for $4000, and my yearly account, for all of which many thanks. Reduced to the terms which ultimately interest me, the account amounts to this: that my last year’s income was about $7000, of which I spent one half; and that the other half, together with the non-recurring extra “income” of another $7000, was added to my capital, which is now about $140,000. This, according to my standards, is a vast sum, and I am naturally highly pleased at being so comfortably off in my old age. I am following your advice in not being too economical, and have had guests here–a very easy way of amusing myself–in the persons of two of the Chetwynd children, nephew and niece of my late friend Moncure Robinson. Betty Chetwynd, aged 19, has now returned home to London, but Randolph, aged 23, is staying on, and is excellent company, without interfering at all with my habits or being, I hope, too much bored, as he does what sightseeing he likes in the morning and goes to teas, dinners, and dances when he is asked by his other friends in Rome, of which he has a good many.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Three, 1921-1927.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.

To Cyril Coniston Clemens
C/o Brown Shipley & Co.
123, Pall Mall, London.
Rome. January 21, 1930.

Rashly assuming that the books in your Society Library are going to be read, and not merely to be a beautiful monument to the truth that of making many books there is no end, I will send you two of my productions, “Soliloquies in England”, because I think it is the least unworthy to be offered in homage to the Shade of Mark Twain, and “Character & Opinion in the U.S.”. because the title is the most likely to tempt the casual hand to take it from the shelf.

You needn’t have sent a cheque with your request; an inscribed book ought not to be paid for: but I send you the extra one gratis to satisfy my conscience on this point.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Four, 1928-1932.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript:William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC.