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Burghölzli-Zürich, 8 November 1907
Dear Professor Freud,
Heartiest thanks for your letter,1 which worked wonders for me. You are absolutely right to extol humour as the only decent reaction
to the inevitable. This was also my principle until the repressed material got the better of me, luckily only at odd moments. My old religiosity had secretly found in you a compensating factor which I had to come to terms with eventually, and I was able to do so only by telling you about it. In this way I hoped to prevent it from interfering with my behaviour in general. In any case I am confident that my humour will not desert me in difficult situations. The goal of our common endeavours provides a salutary and considerably heavier counterweight.
It would be nice if you could pick on Christmas—that is, from the 26th on—for your visit to Zürich. No need at all to think you might inconvenience my chief in any way; he will be “affairé” as always, and will treat you to a grand display of dedicated, unassuming scientific interest which always bowls the uninitiated over. My chief is the most notable example of a brilliantly successful pseudo-personality, a problem worthy of the sweat of the noble.2
Unfortunately Easter is rather far off—my one cogent reason for preferring Christmas.
As to the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft,3 a lot depends on the editorship. If the “175-ers”4 are in charge, that will hardly be a guarantee of its scientific attitude. It is fishy to begin with that you haven't been invited to be a regular contributor. I don't think there is any opening for your ideas there. I believe they will have a smoother passage via psychiatry. The progress of your cause in Switzerland has followed this path, and given the shortness of the time the results have been good. I have now been asked to speak on the significance of your teachings at the Cantonal Medical Society. Right now the 2nd physician of the Préfargier Asylum5 is here to get himself initiated. Dr. Jones of London