The Letters of George Santayana Book Two, 1910—1920 To Josephine Preston Peabody Marks [1910 or 1911] • Cambridge, Massachusetts (MS: Houghton) COLONIAL CLUB CAMBRIDGE Dear Mrs Marks1 Do you believe in this “Poetry Society”? Poetry = solitude, Society = prose, witness my friend Mr. Reginald Robbins!2 I may still go to the dinner, if it comes during the holidays. In that case, I shall hope to see you there. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1Josephine Preston Peabody (1874–1922) was a poet and dramatist whose plays kept alive the tradition of poetic drama in America. Her play, The Piper, was produced in 1909. She was married to Lionel Simeon Marks, a Harvard mechanical engineering professor. 2Reginald Chauncey Robbins (1871–1955) was a writer who took his A.B. from Harvard in 1892 and then did graduate work there. To William Bayard Cutting Sr. [January 1910] • [Cambridge, Massachusetts] (MS: Unknown) His intellectual life was, without question, the most intense, many-sided and sane that I have ever known in any young man,1 and his talk, when he was in college, brought out whatever corresponding vivacity there was in me in those days, before the routine of teaching had had time to dull it as much as it has now … I always felt I got more from him than I had to give, not only in enthu- siasm—which goes without saying—but also in a sort of multitudinousness and quickness of ideas. [Unsigned] 1William Bayard Cutting Jr. (1878–1910) was a member of the Harvard class of 1900. He served as secretary of the vice consul in the American consulate in Milan (1908–9) and Secretary of the American Legation, Tangier, Morocco (1909). He died of tuberculosis in Egypt on board a boat on the Nile in January 1910. His father was William Bayard Cutting Sr. (d. 1912), a wealthy New Yorke r, patron of the arts, and railroad magnate. 2:4 The Letters of George Santayana To Charles Scribner’s Sons 18 January 1910 • Cambridge, Massachusetts (MS: Princeton) 3 Prescott Hall Cambridge Jan. 18, 1910 Messrs Charles Scribner’s Sons New York Gentlemen: My colleague Professor Schofield,1 who had more or less to do with my taking up the subject of my forth-coming lectures at Columbia, is going to edit a series of volumes on comparative literature and has asked me to let him have the MS. of these lectures for one of the series—I think it is to be the first. Under the circumstances I could not very well refuse, although I know the dis- advantage of having different publishers for different books—it happens to me now, in a certain measure—and would gladly not enter into relations with any house but yours, which I have found invariably generous and obliging. But as Professor Schofield is to take all negotiations out of my hands, and promises me various advantages connected with publication in a series that will be kept continually before the public, I have agreed to let him have my new book.2 I am very sorry that you are not to be the publishers of the series, and that I cannot follow up your suggestion of adding this little book—it will be unpretentious— to those you have published of mine hitherto, so much to my satisfaction. By the way, if there is ever a reprint of my Life of Reason or Interpretations of Poetry & Religion, I should like to send a list of corrections—merely of misprints. There are, I am sorry to [across] say, a good many; but I don’t desire to make any great changes in the text. Yours very truly ^ ^ GSantayana. 1William Henry Schofield (1870–1920) was a Canadian who received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895 and who, as a member of the faculty, introduced courses in the Scandinavian languages and originated the Department of Comparative Literature (Harvard, 374). 2Poets is volume I of Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, founded by William H. Schofield, general editor. 1910–1920 2:5 To Wendell T. Bush 17 February 1910 • Cambridge, Massachusetts (MS: Columbia) Feb. 17. 1910 3 Prescott Hall COLONIAL CLUB CAMBRIDGE Dear Mr Bush1 In thanking you for your kind letter of the other day, I have to make a con- fession and an apology. The pamphlet of Heinze is lost, and unread!2 I left in it in the hotel at N.Y. and, although I have written for it, it has not been returned. Do you remember in what publication it appeared? Perhaps it is to be found in the library here, and I can then read and review it, as I promised. Yours sincerely GSantayana 1Wendell T. Bush (1867–1941) received an M.A. from Harvard (1908) and a Ph.D. from Columbia. He was professor of philosophy at Columbia University and cofounder (with Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge) and editor of The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods. 2Probably Max Heinze (1865–1909), who wrote a history of philosophy titled Gundriss der Geschicte der Philosophie (1886) with Friedrich Uberwegs. Philosophy announced Heinze’s pamphlet “Ethische Werthebei Aristotles” in its 3 Feb 1909 number. (His death was announced in the same journal, on 28 Oct 1909.) Santayana never reviewed this work, nor did any other writer for Philosophy. To William Morton Payne 23 February 1910 • Cambridge, Massachusetts (MS: Virginia) 3 Prescott Hall Cambridge Mass Feb. 23, 1910 Dear Mr Payne1 I have a half-written paper on “American Ethics” out of which I might make a lecture for your club. It would be academic, but intelligible. And April 13, a Wednesday, would be a possible date, as I suppose I could get to Madison that evening or the next morning in time for my first lecture there, which is to be on Thursday, April 14.—I will write to the Wisconsin 2:6 The Letters of George Santayana authorities to make quite sure, as I do not know whether my discourses are to be in the afternoon or evening. At what hour does your club meet? It would be well for me to know that, so as not to steer too close to the wind. If my engagements in Madison are in the afternoon, I might be in Chicago again on Thursday evening, April 21, and could address your club on Friday the 22–nd if you prefer this date to Wednesday the 13–th It will be a real pleasure to see in Chicago more than streets and buildings, and to have a chance to exchange impressions with you and other members of the Century Club. It is a great compliment to me that you should wish me to address you. Yours very truly GSantayana 1William Morton Payne (1858–1919) was a teacher, translator, and literary critic. He taught at the University of Chicago and until 1915 was editor of The Dial. Payne served as secretary-treasurer of the Twentieth Century Club. To Susan Sturgis de Sastre 1 March 1910 • Cambridge, Massachusetts (MS: Virginia) March 1, 1910 COLONIAL CLUB CAMBRIDGE Dear Susie:1 Yesterday Josephine2 showed me a letter of yours in which you say you want me to give you news of “high life” in New York. My visit there this year, though longer than last, wasn’t so interesting, as I hardly saw any new people. Mrs. Astor (who has got a divorce from her husband) was not there, being in London presumably looking for a new spouse. I came across Jack Astor, however, at the Opera, and he did not assassinate me.3 My six lec- tures4 took up a good deal of my time and energy, and the lunches and dinners I went to were rather conventional. At Mrs. Clarence Mackay’s,5 however, the food was wonderful, and also the service. We were six people, four men and two ladies (no husband present) and we had a butler and four footmen, in red breeches and white silk stockings, pulled up very tight, to wait on us. Mrs. Mackay is a pronounced radical, weeps for the poor, and has a stamp with “Votes for Women” stuck on the back of her lavender and white note-paper. Her hair is disarranged and poetical, and she affects a lace mantle or shawl. I suspect she writes poetry.—The 1910–1920 2:7 Potters6 were in town, in a hired house, looking for a place in the country in which to settle down, with all their ancestral belongings. I saw them a good deal. Also Mrs Ralph Ellis (sister-in-law of Ward Thoron)7 who is very gay and jolly, and rather handsome. Her husband also is a nice person.—Moncure Robinson8 was kind and friendly, getting me a great many invitations, and hav- ing me to breakfast, as all his lunches and dinners were taken up. He also talked of a motor-trip in France this summer, but that is very problematical.—In April I am going to repeat my six lectures (they are all written out and all I have to do is to read them) at the University of Wisconsin in Madison; and on the way I am going to read another lecture in Chicago. Madison will be a great contrast to New York, as it is a small place of 30 000 inhabitants (although the capital of Wisconsin) with a co-educational college. I shall be there about ten days, and it will be dull unless I can occasionally escape the attentions of the academic circle. In Chicago I may see amusing things, as the people who are to have me in tow seem to be semi-Bohemian, semi-rich, and semi-literary.