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30 December 1925
Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19
Dear Jones,
I can only repeat what you said: Abr.'s death is perhaps the greatest loss that could have hit us, and it has hit us. In letters I jokingly called him my “rocher de bronze”; I felt safe in the absolute confidence he inspired in me, as in everyone else. In the brief obituary I wrote for him for the Zeitschrift (Heft 1, 1926)1—a full-length appreciation will doubtless come from another quarter; Heft 2 is being reserved for it2—I applied to him the line from Horace:
“Integer vitae scelerisque purus. “3
I have always found exaggerations at death particularly embarrassing and have taken care to avoid them, but with this quotation I feel I have been truthful.
Who would have thought, when we met that time in the Harz, that he would be the first to depart this irrational life. We must work on and keep together. No one can personally replace our loss, but then for our work no one can be indispensable. I shall soon depart; the others, I hope, not until much later, but our work must continue; in comparison with its greatness, all of us put together are insignificant.
I am certainly in favor of Eitingon as president; we have owed him this honor for a long time, but he does not intend to return till March; his ailing wife requires too much of his time. Of what use to us is an absent president ? I hope that you and he, together with Ferenczi and van Emden, have now arranged everything in Berlin for the best.
I clasp your hand with a deep feeling of fellowship.
Yours,
Freud