Читать книгу Recently Discovered Letters of George Santayana. Cartas recién descubiertas de George Santayana онлайн

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We reached Rome rather late at night. It had been raining, and the wet streets and puddles reflected the lights fantastically. Loeser had a hobby that architecture is best seen and admired at night. He proposed that we should walk to our hotel. […]. We walked by the Quattro Fontane and the Piazza di Spagna – a long walk.²⁰

In the autobiography, Santayana does not tell us in what year he and Loeser undertook a walking tour of the Apennines, from Urbino to San Sepolcro; but one of the newly found letters (June 8th, 1897) allows us to date the trip. As promised, I will not dwell on Santayana’s stereotyping reflections that accompany his account of this excursion (they concern «the modern Jew» and his purported inability to «apprehend pure spirit»²¹), and I will limit myself to quoting the memorable exchange the two friends had when they reached the top of the pass:

… after deliciously drinking, like beats on all fours, at a brook that ran down by the road, we looked about at the surrounding hill-tops. They were little above our own level, but numerous, and suggested the top of the world. «What are you thinking of?» Loeser asked. I said: «Geography». «I», he retorted, «was thinking of God.