You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
16 May 1933
81 Harley Street, London
Dear Professor,
Thank you very warmly for your kind greetings to the new arrival. I am glad to say that both mother and child are doing very well.
I was very much interested in your discovery about the longing for rest, which I hope you will publish. It appeals to me as being much more humanly comprehensible than a naked, unexplained, wish for death itself. I can also give a slight confirmation from a minor sphere. It is this. Periodically I have had the same wish to retire from work as I remember your having at my age, and I have always noticed that these moods coincide with a feeling of inadequacy in respect of one's work. Instead of [its]1 work being a positive expression of one's wishes, it has for the time being reverted to the sense of obligation and duty no doubt originating in the need to assuage primal guilt.