3O April 1911  4O7 Brunswick Avenue  Toronto

Dear Professor Freud,

«IP4,0»My last letter, sent a week after the previous one, really answered in part your latest one,«FN1.××Letter missing.» for it stated what I had decided to do.  Since then my plans are not much changed.  I am told I shall probably get my professorship next month, so shall stay here through next winter to lecture.  After that I may get an appointment in the States or go back to London.  The hint you gave me about the unconscious seizing on wandering habits was very useful.  Still I think it will be compensated by another complex ‑‑ the wish to succeed in London.

As to your general advice to stay here, I hardly know what to say to you.  I am immensely grateful for the concern you show in my affairs, and for the advice.  I don't think I need to say that there is no one whose opinion I respect so much, or whose advice I would more gladly follow than yours.  But the whole matter is so enormously complicated ‑‑ in ways I cannot describe in a letter ‑‑ that I feel it is not fair to expect you to judge.  Perhaps I may have the opportunity of having a talk with you when I am over in September.  By the way I hear from Ferenczi that the meeting‑place of the Congress is changed to Weimar.  Is that definite?

Next week are all the Baltimore meetings.  It will be rather a critical time in the history of American |×/×for the future society‑organisations will be discussed.  I wish Putnam and Hoch were as fervid as Brill and myself.  Your footnote in the «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM» had a great effect on Putnam,«FN1.××Putnam (1910b) was anonymously translated by Freud, who added a footnote about Putnam's highly regarded status as a neurologist in America and his "unimpeachable character and high moral standards," see «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM», 1(1911):137 n. 1, and «MDUL»S.E.«MDNM» 17:271‑272 n. 2.  Moreover, Freud added the phrase "Although he [Putnam] has left his youth far behind him ...," in response to Putnam's remark about Freud's age, see note 9 to letter 24.» but lately he has been off again on all sorts of philosophic tracks.  Fortunately, there are a number of younger men who are taking up the work very seriously, and who should soon become proficient at it.

I have had a dreadful pressure of work of different kinds in the past few weeks.  Next week I have five papers to read, one on organic neurology, the rest on different aspects of |×/.  None of them is of any note, except one on the Pathology of Angst, which I hope may interest you.«FN1.××In May he read four papers, see Jones (1911a, 1911e, 1911f, 1911g).»

I have just read Stekel's dream book.«FN1.××Stekel (1911).

»  What a prolific worker he is!  I suppose you agree that it will be of service to psycho‑analysts, but will not convert many outsiders.  I was greatly shocked at his talk about telepathy; the evidence he produces is no better than any spook‑hunter.  He must have an unconscious vein of religious superstition that he hasn't opened up.  Isn't that so?

Your last dream paper in the «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM»«FN1.××Freud (1911a).

» is surely enough to convince anyone.  Regarding the hat symbol, it is extremely common out here; the ordinary hard felt "bowler" hat is generally called a "Christie «MDUL»stiff«MDNM»"  (Christie being the name of the original maker).  I have also found it as a female symbol.  In England the soft indented felt hat is generally called by young men a "cunt" hat; (cunt is a very vulgar expression for cunnus, from which I suppose it is derived. ~ Trotter told me the following amusing self‑analysis about the word.  You know that the Norman aristocratic names Montgomery, Montmoren[c]ie,«FN1.××It is interesting, and perhaps revealing, that Jones dropped the "c" here.» etc. are pronounced as if spelt Munt.  This he had always disliked, preferring to say Mont; recently he traced this repugnance to the rhyme with the other, objectionable word.).

I was surprised not long ago to find a snake in a dream as a female symbol.  Have you seen that?  It shows how the most exquisitely male symbols can be bisexual, just as well as easier ones like telephone, and supports your view of primitive bisexuality.  The symbolism in question arose through the resemblance of the snake with the posterior hole, and snake‑skin, to a condom, which the pt. had used when masturbating to heighten an illusion of being in a vagina ("sheathed").

I hope the Vienna trouble is subsiding.  It is a pity that Adler and Stekel are not the men Jung and Ferenczi are.  It is too bad that you should be bothered in that way.

As to myself, be assured that however things may seem at a distance I shall devote myself whole‑heartedly to helping forward the movement in the way I feel I can best do it.  I will write again in a fortnight after getting back from the States (I am going to Washington and Detroit as well as Baltimore, and am taking my wife with me).

With Kindest Regards,  Yours always  Ernest Jones.