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Vienna, October 23, 1898
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
This letter is meant to reach you on your most important date of all and across the distance to bring good wishes for your happiness from me and my family. This wish which — as its nature and not human misuse requires — relates to the future has as its content: the preservation and development of present possessions as well as the acquisition of new gains in children and insights; finally, the avoidance of every vestige of suffering and illness other than that which a man urgently needs to spur on his powers and to contrast with the good.
These are no doubt fine times for you, about which little needs to be said. It would be the same for me if during the last influenza epidemic I had not been left with an infection that deprives me of my good mood, makes breathing through the nose difficult, and the aftereffects of which I no doubt have to fear.
Martha is doing very well; Mathilde is tolerating and enjoying school better than we had hoped. My resources are no longer taxed by work lasting from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M.; indeed, when there is a free hour I feel unoccupied. Once again there is a glimmer of light on the horizon, as though this year I shall be in a position to find my way back to the truth from grave errors.1 But as yet there is no light —