17 June 1915  69 Portland Court  London W

Dear Professor Freud,

I have not heard from you since Christmas ‑‑ the longest interval for some years ‑‑ but from other friends (Van Emden, Rank, etc.) I hear that things are going pretty well with you.  Letters from Rank, Sachs, and Ferenczi have come, and have been exceedingly welcome in this lonely time, which now promises to last longer than I had hoped.  Thank you for the reprints, which arrived safely.  The one on Übertragungsliebe^[1] interested me greatly, and I should have liked to discuss my experiences of it with you.  I have seen all the various outcomes of it that you describe, fortunate and unfortunate.  The last Zeitschrift I received was the January number; presumably others have since appeared.  I trust it will be possible to maintain it, even if Imago and the Jahrbuch are suspended.  Our society has not met since last autumn, owing to Eder's attitude.  He is now serving in Malta, and I hope to get him to resign his position so that we can meet without him in October.

My personal news is pretty good.  I am extremely well in health, and still busy in practice (8 hours).  At Easter I spent two days holiday in Cornwall, and send you two photographs as a souvernir of that.  There is a strong call for doctors to join the Army, but I conceive my first duty to be to keep the ψα flag flying.  Still I have offered my half‑time services to the War Office, and hope to get some appointment in a London Hospital, probably in mental work.  The shock cases in the war are highly interesting.  Have you seen any?  The war has almost paralysed my productivity ‑‑ only two articles this year; I have just finished one on War and Individual Psychology.^[2]  Spare time goes to reading the papers, magazines, and books on history, etc.  I should greatly like to hear from you on the subject of my Napoleon work, of which I wrote to you in my February letter.«FN1.××Letter missing.»  The secretary of the British Psychological Society, lecturer at University College, London, has come to me for analysis.  He was so impressed with the general importance of ψα that he wished to acquire the technique by being analysed, and he has proved an excellent worker as well as receiving help in his personal problems and inhibitions.  It is of course gratifying to me, because I think he will be a staunch and valuable adherent.

Loe is happy and pretty well on the whole; some sciatica and kidney attacks.  A skiagram shows a large stone in the left kidney, but there is no talk of operation.  She hopes to move to the new house in a month's time.  You can imagine her precautions against Zeppelin dangers, including a respirator for Trottie in case of gas.  She has become enormously fat, hardly to be recognised.  Of course she is bitterly anti‑German, as ever, especially as Herbert is so Francophil.  Still this does not extend to Austria!

It might interest Anna to know that her friend Mabel Pring is a nurse in the London Hospital since February, and seems pretty happy there.  Her sister Connie is doing Red Cross work at home.  Three of the brothers have joined the Army; one, Edward, fought at Neuve Chapelle.

I enclose the programme of the recent meeting of the Amer. Psychopathological Assoc.  The items marked with an asterisk are of ψα interest, and it would be well to notice them in the Zeitschrift.^[3]  So far I have had only partial reports of the meeting, but there seems to be much swinging from the true principles of ψα ‑‑ due to individual conceit.  You have probably received a copy of Putnam's book;^[4] I have not yet read it.  At the meeting Stanley Hall in a flattering speech proposed I should be made an honorary member, at which I am pleased.

It is encouraging to hear that you can proceed with productive work in these disturbing times.  You know how important that is to us all, and I trust that your increase of leisure will benefit us in that way.  A propos of your work on Narcissism: in a recent book by Shand I came across the following remark on »amour‑propre« quoted from La Rochefoucauld (Reflexions. 1. éd. 1665).  "On ne peut sonder la profondeur ni percer les ténèbres de ses abîmes".^[5]

I hope very much to get a letter from you soon.  Please give my kindest regards to all the members of your family and also of our committee

With all warm thoughts  from  Yours always  Ernest Jones.

^[1]    Freud (1915a).

^[2]    Jones (1915a, 1915c).

^[3]    For the program and discussions of the sixth annual meeting of the American Psychopathological Association, New York, 5 May 1915, see Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 10(1915):263‑292;  the program was also included in Zeitschrift, 3(1915):247.

^[4]    Putnam (1915).

^[5]    Alexander F. Shand, The Foundations of Character (London: MacMillan, 1914, p. 79).  Jones quotes from Shand's discussion of "self‑love;" the line actually reads: "On ne peut sonder la profondeur de ses projets, ni en percer les ténèbres...", see La Rochefoucauld, Oeuvres Complètes (Tours: Éditions Gallimard, 1964, p. 318).»