Letter from Sigmund Freud to Ernest Jones, December 22, 1922

7 January [1923]1
Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19

Dear Jones,

I am sorry you should still be suffering and as I felt rather ill myself these two weeks I am full of sympathy for you.

This last year brought a disappointment not easy to bear. I had to find out that you had less control of your moods and passions, were less consistent, sincere and reliable than I had a right to expect of you and than was required by your conspicuous position. And although you yourself had proposed the committee you did not refrain from endangering its intimacy by unjust susceptibilities. You know it is not my habit to suppress my true judgment in relations of friendship and I am always prepared to run the risk attaching to that behaviour.

You are quite right in asking that friends should not treat each other as unrelentingly as fate does, but just imagine how much more satisfactory it is to a friend to acknowledge, to praise or to admire the other man than [you]2 to forgive him.

I cannot understand, why you should have waited impatiently for Rank's decision. You know by my Rundbriefe what the general situation is and Rank's opinions and advise you could have learned from Hiller, with whom he had it all talked over before he left. If the matter was considered so urgent with you, Hiller could have discussed it before he went to see his family and not hereafter.