April 1, 1922.

Dear Friends:

I sympathise with Ferenczi’s sufferings about the interval between letters, being  
like him an isolated member, and wish to propose a slight modification, namely that we  
write every second Sunday. Would Rank be able to manage this?  

My spare time of the past fortnight has been taken up with the complications of 45  
New Cavendish St., where we had left our furniture in return for using it as a postal add-  
ress. The tenant is now leaving and claimed the furniture as his own. He practised every  
form of chicanery and bluff, but we managed to get the furniture, though it meant many int-
erviews with agents, lawyers, caretakers, removers, etc. Such things seem part of the  
lot of a psycho-analyst nowadays, and certainly diversifies his work. At present the Post  
Office forwards the letters to me, but we must soon get a new registered address.  

It looks as if the British Association is going to accept the programme I suggested for  
the September meeting at Hull and it has a chance of being a highly important event for  
Psa in this country. The plan is that there be four speakers, the subject being infantile  
sexuality, and the aim being to concentrate on the one question of proving this. I am to  
open with a general exposition, summarising all the reasons and arguments why we adhere  
to this conception, and then the others will produce the evidence in detail; Bryan on the  
clinical side (neuroses and infantile sexuality), Barbara Low direct observation of child-  
ren, choosing the best examples from the literature, and Flügel on the comparative side,  
atavistic aspects of inf. sex., primitive man, savage theories, biology (cloaca, etc.).  
The total ought be make some impression and might be worth while reproducing in book form  
 

if only it is carried out well.  
London is at present in the grip of a Coué craze, of autosuggestion. He is the  
lion of society, his meetings are too crowded to get into, there are literally thous-  
ands of patients, and they have started a Coué Institute. I do not know whether this  
is the reason, but practice is at present extremely poor; I have not had a consultat-  
ion for over a month and have two or three vacant hours for treatment. I wonder if  
it is also the experience of other members that the greatest practice is in January;  
if so that might be due to the New Year resolutions of that time.  
A good practical joke has been carried out at Oxford, of which I enclose an acc-  
ount. Students dressed up and announced a lecture by Dr Busch of Frankfurt, the friend  
and colleague of Dr Freud. He gave a quite nonsensical lecture, which was not detected  
and led to a discussion. It shews the state of ignorance at Oxford, for several profes-  
sors were also present and were also taken in.  

Knight Dunlap, the Prof. of Exper. Psychology at Baltimore, has written a book to  
prove that Psa is a surviving remnant of mysticism and the greatest foe of scientific  
psychology; I have reviewed it at length. Incidentally, we can also learn interpretat-  
ions from our critics (cp. Claparède and steps in dreams). Dunlap says that psa inter-  
pretations are almost as absurd as to connect the tendency most people to sing while  
bathing with the cry of the infant on being born. It sounds plausible.  

From Havelock Ellis on romanticism: "in our own century Swiss physicians have made  
a romantic religion out of psa, much to the disgust of its founder".  

So far I have sent Congress invitations to Dr Mourgue, France, Delgado, Peru, and  
Bose, Calcutta. Will any member suggest any other names.  

Berlin. In principle I don’t think that a local Society should be put to any expense a  
at a Congress, beyond the individual housing of friends. The Zentralkasse would of  
course, for instance, pay for the expenses of the reception evening, etc. As to the  
banquet I quite agree with your excellent proposal that the members should all pay,  
 

and that you should arrange the price according to the varying Valuta in the different  
countries, the English, for instance, paying proportionately much more. But I don’t  
think we can make the participation at the banquet necessarily compulsory, though doubt-  
less nearly everyone would attend. The question might be asked each visitor to the  
Congress when their accomodation is being arranged, either directly or through the  
local secretaries; then you would have beforehand some idea of how many to provide for
Perhaps Rank will kindly attend to your need for notepaper, which Hiller had  
printed in Vienna. Many thanks for the interesting note on the island symbolism.  
Budapest. I enclose a private letter to you.

Vienna. I enclose a mass of correspondence Unwin sent me on the Gradiva question; as  
the copy of my letter to him shews, I regard the matter as closed, for we can use the  
Gradiva in the Collected Edition and there is no more to be done since they are legally  
in the right. I quite share your horror over the reproduction of the book technically.  

What manuscript have I promised you? I do not understand the reference.  
I have no one here who can undertake to review Sadger’s book, as we have so many to do  
in English, and am relying on a review in the Z which I can translate.  

Re the Sammlungen. I would not propose, unless you insist, to take away any of the  
Krankengeschichten from Strachey, who must have done a great part already. I think that  
that volume (nr 3) and the first volume (Einleitungsartikeln und Technik) will prob-  
ably be ready about the same time, and believe that we ought to print them simultan-  
eously at two separate printers. About a third of Vol. I is already translated. Will you  
please answer the following questions. From the Bd I the first two papers were not in  
 

cluded in the list you sent me, and I think they should be. Of the first one, on Char-  
cot, a translation was recently sent me, excellently done, I suspect by Frl. Anna. The  
second one, by Breuer and Freud, has been translated by Brill and ought also to appear;  
we have the rights to it. The individual order in the Einleitungsartikeln is not the  
same as in the Bd I, but I suppose this was intentional and is to stand? Why not take  
the article on Triebumsetzungen out of the Theoretische collection and insert it as the  
first one of the metapsychology series, as it is often referred to in the latter and  
really forms the introduction to them. The present list on metapsychology includes more  
than the list Professor once intended for the book on metapsychology, e.g. the one on  
Bemerkungen über das Unbewusste, which also is a good introduction to the fuller paper  
on the unconscious.  

I am glad to hear that the typing difficulties are being overcome, but should like  
to see some results of the success. I have had no proofs of the Jenseits since early in  
December, though I hoped for some soon after Hiller’s return. One Bogen alone would be 
a very cheering sight to see.  

Many thanks for the information about Miss Harburn; we shall doubtless accept her.  
I have passed on your excellent proposal to Flügel, that the groups send in duplicate  
copies of the reports, one for the J and one for the Z, so as to save time in translat-  
ion. I don’t see that we can refer to William Brown’s discovery in the J, for he could  
always deny that the newspaper report was accurate. In England and America one gets a  
little hardened to this sort of thing. Besides we have opportunity enough, which I make  
full use of, to correct such people in reviews of books and articles. There is no quest-  
ion about ignoring Eros and Psyche, which I am abstracting myself. I have now some 70  
abstracts ready, but we begin with current abstracts only in Part 3, for we first wished  
to finish with the Sammelberichte; during this time the general current abstracting  
has been organised and much work done (all in England; I can get nothing but promises  
from America).                           

With best thanks for the congratulations. Mervyn is flourishing.  
                                                                                                     Cordially  
                                                                                                 Ernest Jones