  In 1893, Santayana experienced a metanoia, a change of heart. Gradually he altered his style of life from that of an active student turned professor to one focused on the imaginative celebration of life. In doing so, he began planning for his early retirement, finding university life increasingly less conducive to intellectual pursuits and delight in living. Three events preceded his metanoia: the unexpected death of a young student, witnessing his father’s death, and the marriage of his sister Susana. Santayana’s reflections on these events led to the ancient wisdom that acceptance of the tragic leads to a lyrical release. “Cultivate imagination, love it, give it endless forms, but do not let it deceive you. Enjoy the world, travel over it, and learn its ways, but do not let it hold you … . To possess things and persons in idea is the only pure good to be got out of them; to possess them physically or legally is a burden and a snare (Persons and Places, 427–28).”