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Noordwijk, 10 August 1910 Pension Noordzee
Dear friend,
Thus far I have respected your holiday, but yesterday you broke the peace, so now I feel free to write. I am sitting here by the most beautiful beach, watching a fabulous sunset, but I miss various things, and I can't think of anything much to do on a flat beach. Besides, I have no little corner to be alone in and collect my thoughts. On the 29th of the month I am supposed—nothing has
been settled yet—to board ship at Antwerp for Genoa with Ferenczi; we are planning to spend September in Sicily. Tomorrow the geographically most distant of our friends is expected here in Noordwijk, where a relative of his owns a villa: Jones from Toronto. He has risen a good deal in my affections this past year.
From the outside world I have received all sorts of news, which combine with what you tell me to give me the impression that we are going through a critical period, a negative fluctuation, in the history of ΨA. My suspicion is confirmed by the behaviour of men with instinct and flair like Marcinowski and Strohmayer (who, Stekel writes, does not wish to be named on the title-page of the Zentralblatt). Maybe I am to blame, but it is easy to find explanations after the event, and the outcome could not have been foreseen. All the same, when I look at the situation objectively, I believe I went ahead too fast. I overestimated the public's understanding of the significance of ΨA, I shouldn't have been in such a hurry about founding the I. A. My impatience to see you in the right place and my chafing under the pressure of my own responsibility also had something to do with it. To tell the truth, we should have done nothing at all. As it is, the first months of your reign, my dear son and successor, have not turned out brilliantly. Sometimes I have the impression that you yourself have not taken your functions seriously enough and have not yet begun to act in a manner appropriate to your new dignity. Probably all this comes