«IP7,0»3O July 1912  13 Princes St  Cavendish Sq  London

«IP0,0»Dear Professor Freud,

«IP4,0»Thank you for your letter, which arrived safely.  My wife was delayed a week in Bonn owing to some severe gastro‑intestinal poisoning (supposed to be due to decomposition of the morphia), but got here two days ago quite recovered.  She travelled alone, the first night she has been alone for 2 1/2 years, and was very happy to see London.  The day she arrived she did not take her usual morning dose of morphia till 5 p.m., and then only half of it.  Altogether she has reduced the daily dose by one fifth, which is already substantial.  We are having a very happy time, seing old friends and so on.

«IP4,0»I have been sounding the situation in London and am still optimistic about it.  Last night I spent a pleasant evening with Hart.  Circumstances have for the moment made him less jealous of my competition.  He has just been made superintendent of a private asylum in London, «FN1«MDNM».××Medical Superintendent, Northumberland House Asylum, London.

» with permission and time to do private practice.  He is marrying in a month's time.  He seems more reasonable about the respectability question, perhaps because he is now permanently settled as to position, and remarked that to be respectable in psychopathology means to make no progress.  In the past year he has been very occupied with taking higher examinations, routine work, etc., and has done practically no reading.  He says that he cannot call himself a frank adherent of the |×/×movement, but is enormously impressed by it, and definitely means to practice it openly with his private patients.  He accepts the principles but does not yet identify himself with the cause.  Perhaps he will do that later, but I am afraid he will find it hard to make any personal sacrifices for an interest outside himself.  Still his general attitude is much freer and better than when I last saw him.

Eder, of whom I also spoke to you, has much improved, being less pugnacious and rebellious against all the world, partly I think because he is now happily married.  I treated his first wife four years ago.  She committed suicide when he left her and ran off with another man's wife, whom he married after her divorce.  This one is especially intelligent and well‑educated.  She has recently been treated by Jung, who agrees with her wish to take up treatment of children.  I am treating Eder himself at present, for a few symptoms and so that he may get further into the work.  He intended going to Jung for this, but took advantage of my being in England.  (Also he is an old pupil of mine medically, although he is 13 years older).  His general attitude is splendid and he will surely make a valuable adherent.  Perhaps he will be able to influence B. Shaw and H. G. Wells, Zangwill, etc., all of whom are close friends of his.«FN1.××Israel Zangwill (1864‑1926), novelist, playwright, and Zionist leader; author of play, «MDUL»The Melting Pot«MDNM» (1908).»

The Psycho‑medical society has mostly hypnotists for members, though to my surprise Hart has joined it (out of politeness to MacDougall, the Oxford psychologist,«FN1«MDNM».××William McDougall (1871‑1938), British psychologist, head of psychological laboratory at Oxford; in 1920 left for the United States, and worked at Harvard and Duke.

» who invited him to).  I do not yet know if it will be useful, but fancy it will be better to confine ourselves to a proper |×/×Verein on the one hand and the Psychiatric Society (branch of the Royal Soc. of Medicine) on the other.

So much for news.  I sincerely trust that you will be able to keep to your plan of coming to London on Sept. 1Oth.  We shall enjoy your visit enormously, and Hart and Eder are also extremely eager to meet you.  If you have heard from Ferenczi and Rank, and are in a position to decide, perhaps you will let me know your requirements in the way of rooms, and then I can arrange suitable ones in good time.

About Jung I do not know what to say except that I am very sorry, the reason being that his whole conduct is a complete puzzle to me, altogether inexplicable.  As we would put it colloquially, "he has the game in his own hands, and refuses to play it".  The following passage from a recent letter of Putnam's is perhaps to the point; it is à propos of some remarks of mine defending Stekel.  "It makes me a little uncomfortable to find any virtues lacking in any prominent psycho‑analyst.  I feel as if we ought to be something superhuman, to justify our doctrines.  Defects and weaknesses of character are surely to be looked upon as 'symptoms', and we ought all to be angels capable, doubtless, of seeing our shortcomings, but only slightly influenced by them." «FN1«MDNM».××This passage from Putnam's letter is not to be found in Hale (1971a).

» |×/×certainly forces one to see one's defects, and should help us to overcome them.  I believe the central difficulty is that relatively few men really identify themselves completely with the cause, nothing like the extent that you do; so many put their own private personality first, in the foreground of importance, and relegate the cause to a subordinate position.  What a woefully distorted perspective of the transitoriness of the individual compared with the permanent gain in progress that they might merge themselves into!

I get a little pessimistic at times when I look around at the men who must lead for the next thiry years.  Jung abdicates from his throne, Stekel is obviously impossible, even Rank may be hindered by material considerations unless something can be done for him, Ferenczi is running a big risk with the Gedankenübertragung ‑‑ true or false ‑‑ and so on.  Perhaps I am wrong to talk like this, but I can't help wishing that things at the top, gathered around you, were more satisfactory.  Still there are counter‑balancing signs, and no doubt things will improve in a year or two.  Ferenczi, Rank and I had a little talk on these general matters in Vienna.  They were rather disappointed with the whole Zurich attitude at the moment, and even thought that their faith in the cause was not what it should be.  We all agreed on one thing, that salvation could only lie in a restless self‑analysis, carried to the farthest possible limit, thus purging personal reactions away so far as can be done.  One of them, I think it was Ferenczi, expressed the wish that a small group of men could be thoroughly analysed by you, so that they could represent the pure theory unadultered by personal complexes, and thus build an unofficial inner circle in the Verein and serve as centres where others (beginners) could come and learn the work.  If that were only possible it would be an ideal solution.

Let me turn for a moment to one or two scientific matters.  I hope that in one of your next «MDUL»Imago«MDNM» papers you will touch on the difficult problem of the Ursprung der Verdrängung überhaupt.«FN1.××"Origin of repression in general."

»  Although this may have different sources, it seems to hang so closely with the subject of incest that perhaps it would form an appropriate section in one of your present series of papers.  If we go back to a matriarchal era, or at all events to a time when the fatherhood was unknown, perhaps one great factor may have been the jealousy of older, grown men against boys who would be naturally attached to their mother. I hope that you are dealing with the problem in relation to that of tabu.

Your telling me of the «MDUL»Stumm‑Tod«MDNM» [mute ‑‑ death] symbolism had an interesting «MDUL»Nachklang«MDNM» [reverberation].  I dreamed that I was walking from the house of my old family doctor to the house where I was born (and lived for three years).  With me was a female dog, one that the doctor gave me at the age of eight, and a frequent dream‑figure for my mother.  The dog spoke, to my great astonishment, and debated whether it could go with me («MDUL»coire«MDNM») in that direction.

Here there is the opposite of the «MDUL»Stumm‑Tod«MDNM» motive.  My mother died three years ago, and in the dream speaks, is alive, against all natural expectations. «FN1«MDNM».××Jones's mother died in the spring of 1909.

»

The birthplace symbolism is amusingly determined by a witticism made by a London comedian at a fancy dress ball.  An actress appeared with very little clothing on, and in reply to his question told him that she represented the World (Mother Earth).  He stared for a while, and when she asked him what he was gazing at, he answered "I was looking for the place where I was born".

And so I end up in a light vein, which perhaps is always best.

With all kind wishes  from  Yours affectionately  Ernest Jones.