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

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The Baron, born in 1879 in Hamburg, was the son of a banker («originally perhaps Jewish») and of the daughter of a Bürgermeister (mayor) of that city («with the most pronounced Hanseatic Lutheran traditions»).²⁵ Westenholz spent his apprenticeship at the London branch of the bank where his father was a partner, and learned to speak English, «perfectly» according to Santayana. However, he was never appointed by the firm, for, as the reader of Santayana’s letters is soon made aware, Westenholz’s mental health «was far from good; he suffered from various forms of mental or half-mental derangement, sleeplessness, and obsessions.»²⁶

Around 1900, Westenholz turned up at Harvard. Santayana recounts the beginnings of their friendship as follows:

I was then, in 1900-1905, living at No. 60 Brattle Street, and had my walls covered with Arundel prints.²⁷ These were the starting-point of our first warm conversations. I saw at once that he was immensely educated and enthusiastic, and at the same time innocence personified; and he found me sufficiently responsive to his ardent views of history, poetry, religion, and politics. He was very respectful, on account of my age and my professorship; and always continued to call me lieber Professor or Professorchen; but he would have made a much better professor than I, being far more assiduous in reading up all sorts of subjects and consulting expert authorities.²⁸