8 February 1911  4O7 Brunswick Avenue  Toronto

Dear Professor Freud,

Thank you very much for your letter, which arrived two days ago.  That was most unfortunate news about your son Martin.  Please convey to him my condolences with most cordial wishes for a speedy and thorough recovery.  The only consolation I find in such experiences is that they afford one an opportunity to read literature, novels, etc., which otherwise one reads with only a guilty conscience at stealing the time.  I also most warmly hope that you yourself are again quite well.  Though we must not overwork you, we cannot afford to have you lose any time at all by illness.  Besides you have had enough of the hard things of life, and have fully earned a happier time for the future.

That was excellent news about Bleuler; it would be a thousand pities were we to lose such a prominent man, besides being a handle for our opponents.  As you well put it to me once; "of what use is |×/ if it cannot help us to overcome our personal complexes, and work together".  I got the «MDUL»Jahrbuch«MDNM» two days ago, and at once devoured Bleuler's article.  (I had previously read your article and Rank's, both of which Rank kindly sent me last week.)«FN1.××Bleuler (1910), Rank (1910), and Freud (1910h).

»  It is certainly an excellent one, and very admirable in its generosity, honesty and moral courage.  It is to be hoped that it will do some good.  It provides further an interesting study of Bleuler's personality.  I do not suppose my impressions are of any value, but I will give you a few which may perhaps amuse you.  Most interesting is his constant dread of generalising, of "going too far", which seems to be a wide‑spread complex among scientific men. I sometimes think more harm is done by this fear than by the opposite tendency of too hasty generalisations.  Of course it all depends on the man; some should never be allowed to generalise at all.  But when a man has the judgement and capacity for it then it is fine when he also has the intellectual courage not to [be] afraid of doing it.  One sees further what a drawback it has been to Bleuler to have had no experience with the psycho‑neuroses.  If he had had he perhaps would not have been so pessimistic about what |×/ can do in determining nosological questions, and would have clearer views about the aetiology of dementia praecox, etc.  Also he would certainly have no doubt as to the essentially infantile and sexual character of the unconscious.  Put in a very exaggerated way, he seems to have had more experience of the Vorbewusste of adults, and the Bewusste of children.  Hence he misses the feeling of dynamic continuity we have about the Unbewusste, from childhood to adult life.  His numerous personal examples, which like those given in his former writings, lie near the surface, I should partly interpret as a compensation against secrecy.  The weakest part of his paper is surely his remark (S. 725) about sleep and dreams.  Fancy his quoting the fear some patients have of dreams as a proof that these do not guard against sleep.«FN1.××Bleuler (1910, p. 725).  See the extensive critique of Bleuler's paper in Jones (1911‑12).

»  I don't understand how he can fail to grasp what you so clearly discussed in the «MDUL»Traumdeutung«MDNM».«FN1.××For Freud the notion that "Dreams are the GUARDIANS of sleep and not its disturbers" is fundamental, see Freud (1900a, 233‑4, 564, 580).

»  Lastly, I see a personal complex (suppressed jealousy) in relation to you, but perhaps it is not agreeable to discuss that.«FN1.××On the relationship between Bleuler and Freud, see Alexander and Selesnick (1965).»

Your last two papers were very enjoyable.  The Wilde |×/«FN1.××Freud (1910k).

» was so appropriate to the local situation in Toronto, that I feel like asking you and Brill for permission to translate it, or part of it, for one of the journals here (that have no circulation outside Toronto).  Would you mind?  I hope we are to have a series of Liebesbedingung articles.«FN1.××Liebeslebens (Papers on Psychology of Love), see Freud (1910h, 1912d).

»  Could you conveniently coin a term to describe each type.  I have not yet seen a pure case of the type you describe, but I am familiar with the indivual traits.  The «MDUL»Dirnenliebe«MDNM» [predilection for prostitutes] complex has specially interested me in several patients.

Rank's dream paper was also very delightful.«FN1.××Rank (1910).

»  I greatly admire the clear way in which he put his material synthetically together so as to bring out the Zusammenhang [connection] after dissecting it.  What a beautiful dream, besides.  As to Silberer I don't know what to make of him.  He seems to be badly infected by the philosophic virus.«FN1«MDNM».××See H. Silberer, "Phantasie und Mythos," «MDUL»Jahrbuch«MDNM», 2(1910):541‑622.

»  I like Sadger's writings much more than I used to, and do not know whether the change is in him or in me, probably the latter.«FN1.××J. Isidor Sadger (b. 1867), one of the first followers of Freud, published (widely) pathographies, articles on degeneration and genius, as well as on psychoanalytical topics.

»

I have a good deal of news to give; like yours, partly good, partly bad.  Let me finish with the latter first, which is personal, and which I will try to put shortly.  The atmosphere is very unhealthy here for |×/, owing chiefly to an incredibly developed prudery, a total ignorance of and misunderstanding of your writings, and perhaps partly to some jealousy of me in certain circles.  Stupid rumours keep spreading about my mode of treatment. I recommend masturbation (an old story I told you about), I send young men to prostitutes, and advise debauchery to young women.  Two of the latter have become pregnant in consequence ‑‑ they were three last May, but one seems to have disappeared!  I stimulate sexual feeling by showing patients obscene postcards!! etc. etc.  But most annoying is some trouble that has been going on for over a month.  A severe hysteric whom I saw only a couple of times last September went to a woman doctor (Gordon),«FN1.××Emma Leila (née Skinner) Gordon (1859‑1949), one of Canada's first female medical doctors, was very religious, held strict views on alcohol consumption and loose living, and was a member of the Women's Christian Temperence Union.  In telling James Jackson Putnam about this incident Jones does not mention Dr. Gordon by name, see Jones to Putnam, 13 January 1911, and 5 February 1911, in Hale (1971a, pp. 252‑253, 255‑256).

» and after much pressing declared that I had had sexual relations with her "to do her good".  Unfortunately Dr. Gordon had greatly interested herself in the other stories, being the secretary of the local Purity League, so she went with the full batch to the President of the University and asked him to dismiss me, so that I should no longer pervert and deprave the youth of Toronto.  The President took the matter very sensibly, although he is a parson,«FN1.××Robert Alexander Falconer (1867‑1943), respected academic, author, minister of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, and President of the University of Toronto (1907‑1932).

» and referred it to Dr. Clarke, the Dean of the Medical Faculty, Professor of Psychiatry, and a close friend of mine.  He investigated it as far as he [good]«FN1.××Crossed out in the original.» could, naturally declared the stories a tissue of nonsense and gave his opinion that the patient was a paranoiac (I think he is wrong there).  I had a most sympathetic interview with the President, who was very curious about your work, and also got hold of the best lawyer in the town.  There the business still rests, and I am debating whether it is wise to bring a slander action ‑‑ with more publicity ‑‑ against the doctor.  The patient attempted to shoot me, but her revolver was taken away, and she was sent to a private sanatorium.  That alarmed my wife ‑‑ aided perhaps by some unconscious motive, the nature of which you will have no difficulty in discerning ‑‑ and she has insisted on the house and myself being guarded by detectives.  I even had to take one with me on my trip to Chicago.  We have also had extensive investigations made into the patient's past (she is a divorcée, a morphine‑maniac, has attempted suicide, etc.), and in all probability she will be deported from the country as an "undesirable character", with which description of her I quite agree.  It has therefore been an anxious and also expensive time for me (so far it has cost me over a thousand dollars).

Now to pleasanter things.  My trip to Chicago was very successful and enjoyable.  I found two men, one from St. Louis, working very earnestly at |×/, and already in possession of the main principles ‑‑ both most enthusiastic.  Many others were very sympathetic, and were trying the work.  Dr. Patrick, the chief neurologist there, who opposed us at Washington last May, is practically converted,«FN1.××Hugh T. Patrick (1860‑1939), M. D. 1884 Bellevue Hospital Medical College, N. Y.; later Professor of Neurology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago; President of the American Neurological Association (1907).

» thanks, so he says, to the talks he had with me then, and has an assistant in his private practice who devotes all his time to it.  My address was well received, except by Sidney Kuh who made a very aggressive onslaught.«FN1.××Sidney Kuh (1866‑1934), M. D. 1890 University of Heidelberg, Germany; Chicago neurologist.

»  It was extremely stupid. "He couldn't agree with [Freud]«FN1.××Crossed out in the original.» the logic of Freud's argument that because Frauenzimmer in German = Frau, therefore to dream of a room means something sexual".  I was in bad need of some Abreagieren after my Toronto experiences, and as he fortunately laid himself open in most obvious ways, I let myself go at him in a way I have never done in my life (as a rule I am rather a man of peace).  Luckily he is very unpopular, so the others greatly enjoyed it.

I could write a great deal about Chicago, but will spare you this time.  It is the most hideous excrescence on God's earth.  Strangely enough, there are many charming men there, though.

You will be glad to hear that Baltimore promises to become a stronghold of |×/ in a little time.  There is a man there, whom Jung may have mentioned to you, Burrow, who seems to be an excellent fellow.  I correspond regularly with him and with a student [J. MacCurdy] who spent two months with me here, and who is taking up the work well.  They both say that Adolf Meyer is working hard at |×/, having a polyclinic for psycho‑neuroses, and is stimulating them all in that direction.  He seems to have behaved splendidly to us of late, and as he is rather a weathercock that is a good sign.  Thomas, the Professor of Neurology there, is also taking up the work very seriously, as are some others.  Harvey Cushing, the famous brain‑surgeon, of Baltimore, has been staying with me during the past few days, and confirms all these reports.«FN1.××Trigant Burrow (b. 1875), M. D. 1899 University of Virginia, Department of Medicine, Charlotsville, in analysis with Jung (1909), and charter member of the American Psychoanalytic Association (9 May 1911), as was John T. MacCurdy (b. 1886), B. Sc. 1908 University of Toronto, M. D. 1911 Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md..  Both Burrow and MacCurdy later turned away from psychoanalysis, see especially Burrow (1958).  Henry M. Thomas (b. 1861), M. D. 1895 University of Maryland School of Medicine, Clinical Professor of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore; and Harvey Cushing (1869‑1939), M. D. 1895 Harvard Medical School, Moseley Professor of Surgery, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (Harvard), leading American neurosurgeon, as well as noted biographer of Sir William Osler.

»

I refused to go to Philadelphia, and advised them to postpone their discussion of the subject for a year's time.  We are looking forward to the May meeting of the |×/ Ortsverein, of which there are already twenty members.«FN1.××The American Psychoanalytic Association was founded on 9 May 1911 in Baltimore.

»  I am very optimistic about the spread of the work in America.

Your advice to me not to be so restless was very welcome.  There is no fear that I shall go to the other extreme and get lazy.  I am glad you give me more time for the nightmare, which has been badly interrupted of late.  When you see the amount of work in it I feel sure you will forgive my apparent slowness.  I hope my telegram on Tuesday was in time, for I surely cannot use a title I have no legitimate claim to.  It is good news that the «MDSU»«MDUL»Schriften«MDNM» are so "besetzt".  It shows how much material there is to publish, the «MDUL»Schriften«MDNM», «MDUL»Jahrbuch«MDNM» and «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM» certainly were very much needed.

Did you like the "Janet" paper I sent you last week?  I have just sent Adler for the «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM» a little prose counterpart to Rank's Mitteilung (S. 1O9), i.e. a pretty Versprechen out of Meredith.«FN1.××Jones (1910‑11a); Rank (1911b); a few excerpts from Meredith on dreams and forgetting were included in «MDUL»Zentralblatt«MDNM», 3(1913):54‑55.

»

My most interesting case at present is one of an "over‑work breakdown from business" in a very intelligent man of 4O.  He came with symptoms of neurasthenia, and at first I could get no history of somatic sexual disturbances.  Then he told me that in coitus his wife took the upper position and "did all the work".  "It always reminded him of previous experiences of being masturbated".  It is instructive to note how he has linked his psycho‑sexual complexes with his business, which has become a mirror of them.

I had no idea when I began that I should be so long, and trust I have not over‑wearied you.

With my most affectionate respects  I am  Yours always  Ernest Jones.