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Zürich,
4.2.30
… Please forgive me for having delayed so long acknowledging your kindness in sending me your book on civilisation and its discontents. You will certainly have attributed this to my discontent with it, but I must add that I have also derived from it a great deal of pleasure. I recall that nearly twenty years ago (if I am not mistaken) you wrote to me that you looked forward with dread to the time when your mental powers would fade. Now you have left seventy well behind, and your freshness is enriching and invigorating. You would live on a lonely height if you were only a thinker, for who would there be to compare you with? But you live in the midst of a circle of living, venerating, grateful men because, in spite of your pessimism, you are full of kindness and benevolence.
I gladly make use of the opportunity freely to criticise your book. Years ago I read in text-book of psychology: ‘The analysis of love-life leads to nothing but trivialities’ (Vol. II, p. 346).