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Burghölzli-Zürich, 19 August 1907
Dear Professor Freud,
As usual you have hit the nail on the head with your accusation that my ambition is the agent provocateur of my fits of despair. But this I must say in my own defence: it is my honest enthusiasm for the truth that impels me to find some way of presenting your teachings that would best bring about a breakthrough. Otherwise my unconditional devotion to the defence and propagation of your ideas, as well as my equally unconditional veneration of your personality, would be bound to appear in an extremely peculiar light—something I would gladly avoid even though the element of self-interest could be denied only by the very obtuse. All the same I have unpleasant presentiments, for it is no small thing to be defending such a position before such a public. I have now finished my lecture and see that I have taken the general stance which you deem the best: intransigence. If one wants to be honest one can't do anything else. Luckily I have just brought an analysis of hysteria in an uneducated person to a successful conclusion and this has given me heart.
In one of your earlier letters you asked for my views about Dr. Abraham.1 I admit at once that I am “jealous” of him because he corresponds with you. (Forgive me this candour, however tasteless it may seem!) There are no objections to A. Only, he isn't quite my type. For instance, I once suggested that he collaborate on my writings, but he declined. Now he pricks up his ears whenever Bleuler and I talk about what we are investigating, etc. He then comes up with a publication. Of all our assistants he is the one who always holds a little aloof from the main work and then suddenly steps into the limelight with a publication, as a loner. Not only I but the other assistants too have found this rather unpleasant. He is intelligent but not original, highly adaptable, but totally lacking in psychological empathy, for which reason he is usually very unpopular with the patients.