Letter from Ernest Jones to Sigmund Freud, March 13, 1914

13 March 1914
69 Portland Court, London

Dear Professor Freud,

I am in the unusual position of having two of your letters to answer, and have much to talk about, so please prepare for a long epistle. The reason is that things have been thrown out of gear by my being ill. I have had a severe cellulitis starting at the back of the neck, and involving all the glands on both sides, deep and superficial, from the skull to the scapulae and to below the clavicles. I saw my patients except on one day, but have not been able to do anything else owing to the pain, etc.. It is now very much better and I shall soon be all right again.

I was on this account prevented from attending McDougall's paper on the sexual instinct, at the Royal Society of Medicine,1 but I dictated from bed a long contribution, which Hart read at the meeting.2 It was very crowded. In the discussion two psychologists spoke about instinct in general, and the four other speakers were psycho-analysts, so we had the best of the meeting. [No opposition.]3 I had beforehand organised our debate by dividing up the subject and delegating to each of our men what he could best deal with, so as to cover all the ground and make the maximum impression.4 This will do much to counteract the British Medical Journal onslaught, and we shall soon have other opportunities also. The Mercier attack had not dispirited any of us, and there need be no fear, while a Welshman and a Jew are president and secretary of the society,5 that such attacks may provoke what we have learned from Zurich to call an “Aryan reaction”; my ancestors were in Europe before the Aryans, which may be a contributory reason for my disbelief in the omniscient pride that “Aryans” vaunt.

Our society met last night, and Mrs. Eder read us a translation of your paper on the Dynamik der Übertragung.6 It was discussed with intelligence and keenness, showing that the men are learning fast; we are all good