ABSTRACT
In the years immediately after the war, Santayana's choice of places to work in and people to know was probably narrower than he realized. In spite of his complaints about duty, Avila had been a refuge from Harvard and New England and his mothers cheerless household. He admired its austerity, its remoteness from modernity, and its medieval and Catholic associations. George and Rosamond Sturgis's visit in winter 1926 marked the beginning of a long, spontaneous friendship between Santayana and the beautiful Rosamond. The philosophical differences between Santayana and Strong were not so great as their tortuous personal relationship of the later years might seem to indicate. Although a biography of Santayana is not the place for a review of Strong's theories, it is essential to register aspects of his work that either stimulated Santayana to reply, or caused him to sharpen his own perceptions by way of explicit or implied negation.
