Letter from Sigmund Freud to Eduard Silberstein, April 11, 1875

Vienna, April 11, 1875

Dear Friend,

So as not to delay a much delayed letter even further, I am today using ordinary paper instead of the writing paper which alone is socially acceptable but which I cannot fetch from the adjoining room because my father is asleep. You will understand why I am in such a hurry to reply to you when I tell you that I started writing two letters but had to put each aside uncompleted, being interrupted each time by some business or other. For we are on the threshold of the second semester, of a new life in which I shall appear for the first time as philosopher and zoologist, attending psychology, logic, and two zoology courses. Never before have I enjoyed that pleasant sensation which may be called academic happiness, and which mostly derives from the realization that one is close to the source from which science springs at its purest and from which one will be taking a good long drink. The dark side of my present good fortune is something I shall try to portray on another occasion.

With you, too, signs and wonders never seem to cease. You seem to be waging a struggle with yourself, one, that is, of a much more serious nature than were your previous Werther and Lotte conflicts. You are searching for truth in life with the same urgency as I try to seek [it] in science. The big question you must be asking yourself daily is, Third or Fourth Estate? Republican or Social Democrat—for me it is theist or materialist, causality or skepticism. Still, you must find it more pleasant than I do; you are about to become a neophyte while I am almost a convert.

For the time being, I have to confess that I badly mistook the basic questions that agitate me, and that I was completely lacking in philosophical insight. The rueful confession of a former swashbuckling, stubborn materialist! But even in my new coat I feel anything but comfortable, and have thought it best to defer a final decision until