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.
Reichenau1
August 1, 1890
Dear Friend
I am writing to you today to tell you very reluctantly that I cannot come to Berlin; it is not that I care so much for Berlin or the Congress, but I am disappointed that I won't be able to see you there. My decision has been upset not by one big reason but by a combination of smaller ones, which so easily arise in the life of a doctor and father of a family. I just cannot manage it from any point of view-not professionally, since my most important patient is just going through a kind of nervous crisis … and not with the family because all sorts of things have gone wrong with the children (I now have a daughter and a son). My wife, moreover, who as a rule has no objections to my taking a short trip, is very much against my leaving here just now. And so on and so forth. In short, I just cannot manage it, and as I have looked upon this trip as a great luxury that I was granting myself, I feel obliged to abandon it.
Very reluctantly, for I had expected so much from this meeting with you. Although quite satisfied, even happy if you like, I nevertheless feel very isolated, scientifically stagnant, lazy and resigned. When I talked to you and realized that you think something of me, I actually began to think something of myself, and the picture