The letters of C. G. Jung to Sabina Spielrein

My dear Miss Spielrein,

You have managed well and truly to grasp my unconscious with your sharp letter. Such a thing could only happen to me.

On Monday I am engaged all day with Dr Jones.1 However, I am coming into town on Tuesday morning and would like to meet you at 11 o’clock at the steamer landing stage on the Bahnhofstrasse. So that we can be alone and able to speak undisturbed, we’ll take a boat out on to the lake. In the sunshine, and out on the open water, it will be easier to find a clear direction out of this turmoil of feelings.

With affectionate greetings from your friend.

Zürich, 30.6.08

My dear friend, I must tell you briefly what a lovely impression I received of you today. Your image has changed completely, and I want to tell you how very, very happy it makes me to be able to hope that there are people who are like me, people in whom living and thinking are one; good people who do not misuse the power of their mind to dream up fetters but rather to create freedoms. As a result there awakens in me a feeling of beauty and freedom which has once more bathed the world and its objects in a fresh lustre. You can't believe how much it means to me to hope I can love someone whom I do not have to condemn, and who does not condemn herself either, to suffocate in the banality of habit.

How great would be my happiness to find that person in you, that ‘esprit fort’2 who never descends into sentimentality, but whose essential and innermost prerequisite for life is her own freedom and independence.

I look forward to seeing you again on Friday. With warmest greetings, your friend.