Letter from Wilfred Bion to Francesca, July 29, 1967. The Other Side of Genius: Family Letters

To Wells Rise

My darling,

The journey down was so awful for Nicola that the only thing to do is to tell her now that she and Julian will go home by train; otherwise she cannot but dread it. No sooner had I diverged to go by Ely, in the hope that all would be well, than she started again and even a short stop in Cambridge, another for breakfast outside Ely, a long one this, another in Ely to go over the Cathedral and quite a walk around as well, made no difference. She was really ill all the time: and of course she kept apologizing for the stops although I kept telling her it did not matter in the least except that she was having a rotten time. Of course the journey was very slow so we didn't get in till about 2.30. We all went and had a bathe then.

… I suppose it is a sign of age, but I would like our children to marry and live happily ever afterwards. I gather it just does not happen. Whether it is the private affair, or international, from Rhodesia to Vietnam, Russia to Mao Tse Tung, nothing seems to go right ever; extraordinary isn't it? And if it does go right one suspects it is only for some people and they are just beastly. What are psychoanalysts supposed to cure? I really do wonder.

I am beginning to feel restive and that it is time I had some ‘thoughts’, but I realize it is only the third day of the holiday. It's a bore your not being here …

In the course of my gloomy feelings I could not help thinking what the original Pilgrim Fathers must have felt like when they set out for America.1 At first it seems a bit far-fetched, to say the least, but I am not so sure that it is. I do regret leaving England; I do feel anything but confident about the kind of reception one will get there. Yet I am not sure that the stories told us are quite as easily explained as people think. There is much pessimism in the U.S. about psychoanalysis: there ought to be more pessimism about it here. But I feel doubtful about what can be done, not least by myself, either here or