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30 May 1916
69 Portland Court, London
Dear Professor Freud,
First let me congratulate you and send you my warmest wishes on your birthday, which I believe falls this month, though I do not know the exact date. We must have a Festschrift after the war, e.g. 25th anniversary of the “psychischen Mechanismus”1 or some such suitable date.
It was a great treat to have your letter, especially after so long an interval. I owe a great deal to Van Emden's kindly offices, who makes easy the maintaining of contact. I wish, however, that you had given me more personal news of yourself, about your health, your moods for work, etc..
I cannot understand where the difficulty arises about my getting the Zeitschrift, for I get all the other German periodicals with ease. Jelliffe also writes to complain that his exchange copies no longer arrive, or only irregularly. Holt's book I have heard of, but not yet got. Trotter's book was sent you by Loe, and I hope arrived safely. It will interest you, and you will I am sure be amused by the evidences of subjectivity in it (e.g. the sadism he projects on to you, etc.).2 The alternations between the tone of a detached scientist and the prophet Micah are very startling. The war has quite upset him.
Herbert Jones is better. Loe has had all her teeth taken out, which is an affair of many months, so I have not seen her lately, but hear by telephone. The proofs of Ferenczi's book have come at last,3 and I am just correcting them. A patient of excellent literary capacity is translating for a book a selection of Rank's papers (on dreams chiefly) under my supervision. At present I am doing no original work, for the first time in 14 years, and I feel rather ashamed. But I am busy reading, writing reviews, etc., and also have 11 analyses a day. So much sedentary work I feel tiring, and bad for my rheumatism, so I have been developing the hedonic side of life more. I have bought an auto-cycle with side-car and take off Saturday afternoons for the summer, whi