October 21, 1921

Dear Friends:

From London I am glad to say there is only good news. At the business meeting of the 
Society last week we solved all our difficulties amicably. Dr Cole consented to give up 
her little group meetings and we decided instead to hold Society meetings fortnightly 
instead of monthly, in spite of the extra call on one’s time. The succession to For-
syth was dealt with by having none, by reducing the Council to one member (Flügel) 
apart from the three officers. No associate members were promoted, Mitchell and Wright 
being outvoted on this point. Four new Associate Members were elected, Dr Bose of Cal-
cutta, Dr Herford, Mrs. Brierley, and Miss Sharp. There are now 13 members and 27 ass-
ociate members, forty in all, in spite of our being fairly strict. At the first General 
meeting this week the attendance of members was 22, and great keenness was evinced.
Bryan read a valuable paper which should appear in the Journal on The Psycho-Analyst, 
i.e. on the qualifications and special difficulties touching the analyst. The debate, 
which will be continued next time, threatens to be rather personal, owing to Bryan being 
strongly disliked by Dr. Cole and Miss Low on quite neurotic grounds, but brought out 
some useful points. The finances of the Society are sound, as we have a balance in hand 
of 25 pounds. Rickman has just sent 100 pounds as a donation to the Press, which will be 
welcome when we consider the question of accommodation in London, which is becoming urg-
ent since New Cavendish St is proving unworkable.

Last week I was invited to be the guest of the evening and deliver an address at the 
First Anniversary of the Birmingham Medico-Psychological Society and was received 
in almost flattering way. There are 35 in the Society and three or four promise to 

become good analysts. The importance of Psa was properly recognised, as denoting a 
”new era in human thought”, etc. Afterwards the Professor of Medicine asked me if I 
would accept the Lectureship in the University if it were formally 
offered to me, a post McDougall held till he went to America. It would mean ten half 
days every summer.

Hesnard of Bordeaux has written to me about subscribing to the Journal and added the 
enigmatic remark: ”Je suis, contrairement à ce que vous pensecz, en relations avec M. 
Maeder et avec Dr. S. E. Jelliffe.” Which reminds me that Jelliffe called last week and 
was very cordial, though he carefully said nothing of the proposal he told Rank he was 
going to make me about dividing the translations of the Vorlesungen. He was much 
concerned about the amazing ideas current in Europe about his being rascally publisher 
and begged me to contradict them! He assured me that he had paid Deuticke for the 
translation rights of some of the Vorlesungen (I refrained from asking him which) and 
had made young Deuticke produce the old receipt in his books. So may I suggest that 
Professor, who knows nothing of this and denies that Deuticke ever had any English 
rights to sell, inquire of Deuticke of the true situation, which it is essential for us 
to be correctly informed about. The latest publishing news is that an American firm 
has stolen the Hitschmann book from Jelliffe, has privated it and sold the English 
rights to Kegan Paul in London, a scoundrelly firm.

Now something less satisfying. Ames, the President of the New York group, has written 
for my advice about a prominent analyst there, married, who has committed adultery with 
one of his patients and wishes her to get a divorce from her husband and marry him. The 
husband demanded of Ames that the analyst be dismissed from the Society and threatens 
to make a public scandal of the whole affair and work up a press campaign against the 
immorality of psa. The analyst also wrote to me about it frankly; though it was in con-
fidence I think that our Commit- tee is discreet enough for me to be able to repeat his 
name, especially as he concerns our work, being one of the assistant editors of the 
Journal, Frink. You will realise that such a situation is much more grave in America

and England than on the Continent, both in the medical profession and among the public. 
As soon as I have further news I will communicate it.

Can anyone give me any information about a selfstyled psychoanalyst called Adolf 
François Hartman, a Belgian, who wrote a book in German called Amor und Psyche? He is 
now on the Gold Coast and has given my name as a reference.

I enclose a number of press cuttings for the Vienna museum. Flügel will send next week 
the official announcements about the Congress and requests for society reports and lists 
of members.

Berlin. I read that Mrs McCormick is making enormous propaganda for Jung in Chicago.

Budapest. I am glad to hear that political conditions allow you to be in free communication 
with the outer world. I am not yet convinced of your new idea about identification, for I 
can think of hysterical cases where the basis of identification (resulting in apparent pro-
jection) was just on the basis of the repressed pregenital tendencies, but will test it 
further. Many thanks for the stimulation.

Vienna. Re the Sammlungen: Fivesixths of the whole have been allotted to excellent trans-
lators, i.e. enough to occupy myself and the Press for two or three years, so that there is 
no urgent need for further translators at present. I suppose everyone wants to translate 
only Professor’s works, from obvious complex, but very few can do it well enough, so 
that it would be better to divert the energies of theses new translators into help for the 
Journal where it is always welcome. With regard to the grouping of the volumes my suggest-
ion is that the first volume be constituted by the first volume of your grouping plus the 
technique articles (otherwise the first volume won’t sell well), the second remain as it 
is, the third be formed by coalescing your third and fourth (all the Krankengeschichten; 
this volume will be the first to be published), and the fourth by the metapsychologie and 
angewandte. The respective pages of the four volumes would then be 318, 287, 542, 321.

With cordial greetings to all

Ernest Jones