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.
Hotel Annenheim und Seehof am Ossiacher See (Kärnten),
Annenheim, 2 September 19071
Dear colleague,
I know you are now in Amsterdam, just before or after your perilous lecture, engaged in the defence of my cause, and it strikes me as almost cowardly that I should meanwhile be looking for mushrooms in the woods or bathing in this peaceful Carinthian lake instead of fighting for my own cause or at least standing by your side. I take comfort by telling myself that it is better for the cause this way, that you as the other, the second, will be spared at least a part of the opposition that would have been in store for me, that for me to say the same thing over and over would be mere useless repetition, and that you are better fitted for propaganda, for I have always felt that there is something about my personality, my ideas and manner of speaking, that people find strange and repellent, whereas all hearts open to you. If a healthy man like you regards himself as an hysterical type, I can only claim for myself the “obsessional” type, each specimen of which vegetates in a sealed-off world of his own.
Whether you have been or will be lucky or unlucky, I do not know; but now of all times I wish I were with you, taking pleasure in no longer being alone and, if you are in need of encouragement, telling you about my long years of honourable but painful solitude, which began after I cast my first glance into the new world, about the indifference and incomprehension of my closest friends, about the terrifying moments when I myself thought I had gone astray and was wondering how I might still make my misled life useful to my family, about my slowly growing conviction, which fastened itself to the interpretation of dreams as to a rock in a stormy sea, and about the serene certainty which finally took possession of me and bade me wait until a voice from the unknown multitude should answer mine. That voice was yours; for I know now that Bleuler also came to me through you. Thank you