ABSTRACT
Although 1928 to 1932 were years of major intellectual achievement and burgeoning reputation for Santayana, they also brought personal loss and increasing scepticism about the ways of the world. Aged sixty-five in 1928, he made a will and prepared to die, even while his humor and serenity contributed vigor to a life that had another quarter century to run. The year 1929 did not appear to be fateful until 1931, when Santayana looked back upon what had happened to the world's and to his own finances. His year was dominated not by concern for the stock markets but by the writing of The Realm of Matter and, for amusement, by work on his novel and on a book to be called Persons and Places. Santayana's description of the psyche provides for the free play of spirit, while avoiding theology or any other metaphysics.
