January 15, 1924  

Dear Friends:  

For reasons given in my last letter, I did not write on Jan. 1. The last letters  
I have received are dated Wien Jan. 4, Berlin December 17, and Budapest December 2.  
Nor have I had any answer to the private letter I sent Sándor on Dec. 15 (enclosing  
a draft letter which, following Karl’s suggestion, could be sent to Mitchell’s  
Journal).  

The gratifying news has reached me of Professor’s resumption of work on Jan. 2,  
but on the other hand also a rumour of Max being ill and travelling. I hope the  
latter illness is not serious, and that Max will follow the example set by the other  
members of the Committee in the past few years, of achieving complete restoration.  
I am glad to say that my neuritis, and also my health in every way, has been far  
better in the past few months, doubtless because of my operation last summer and  
the vaccines administered in consequence of it.  

I wish to thank Otto warmly for sending his remarkable book on birth traumas  
and hope also to see the book he wrote with Sándor (of which there are several  
copies in England). Without pretending to have assimilated all its contents as  
yet, I am sure that we could all corroborate many of his views at once, e.g. the  
close connection between psa treatment and repetition of pregnancy and birth.  
Knowing the importance of “zum Beispiel”, we will remember Professor’s analogy of  
cure and birth (Samml. IV, 422).  

A propos. In carefully working through Professor’s earlier works for translat-  
ion purposes, it is interesting to come across many passages which contain the
 

the germs of later works. For instance, 17 years ago (Samml. II, 127) he speaks of  
“unbewußten Schuldbewußtseins” (Cp. Das Ich und das Es).  

It is good news to hear that after all Imago can be saved. We all know that  
nothing but extreme necessity would have allowed Otto to sacrifice his darling  
child, and so can rejoice with him now. On the other hand, the news of the Press  
is progressively dark. The delay of the past four months, which still continues, in  
getting a definite answer from the Verlag about the books we have translated has  
had the effect of making the publishers, who then gave us splendid offers, with-  
draw more and more when they see we have nothing definite to offer them, and there  
is no knowing now whether we shall be able to re-capture them.  

From here there is not much news otherwise. Jung is in London, in contact with 
the Archbishop of Canterbury! Moxon was here recently, attended a meeting and had 
dinner with me. He made a good impression and I should think he ought to succeed in 
California. For Otto and the analysis he had only the highest praise (possibly 
overdetermined by my giving him the cue in this direction), but on the other side 
he was very critical of some of the Berlin courses. Karl’s and Hanns’ he found 
most excellent, performances of genius, but the others, including even Radó’s, were 
according to him nothing but the reading aloud of the Vorlesungen (Professor’s), 
which the audience already knew.  

The only reason why I sent a polite letter to Laforgue before asking the Comm-
ittee was that Max, the only member who knows him, had strongly recommended him to  
me, both personally and by letter. I may also correct a misunderstanding. There was  
no question of my inviting him to become a member of the Association. He asked me  
if it was possible, and I simply told him, as I would anyone else, that no one could  
become a member except by joining a branch society; I added that the ones he would  
proba­bly most think of applying to would be Berlin, London, Vienna or Swit­zerland.
 

Vienna. Are covers available for binding Zeitsch. and Imago? If so, I should like  
to have covers for both for 1922 and 1923.  

Last summer, when the stock of my Essays were still in Vienna, I asked you,  
my dear Otto, to be kind enough to distribute copies among the members of the Com­m-
ittee (to save double postage). Were you able to do this? I ask because I have  
had only one acknowledgement, namely from Professor.  

With the best wishes to all for the New Year,  

Ernest Jones.