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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
January 1, 1929
Dear Jones
As an enemy of all celebrations and formalities, I am writing to you on your fiftieth birthday rather than for it. Since I cannot postpone the letter I have to apologize for it because I am suffering from an (unfeverish) influenza, feel rather weak and helpless, and the increased narcissism of this condition will have betrayed itself to you by my having relapsed into the Gothic script at the beginning of this letter.
Thus many things that I could have said to you in response to your letter must remain unwritten. Not, however, the assurance that I have always looked upon you as a member of my intimate family circle and will continue to do so, which points (beyond all disagreements that are rarely absent within a family and also have not been lacking between us) towards a fount of affection from which one can always draw again. I think it began on the occasion when I once accompanied you to the station (in Worcester?). It is not in my nature to give expression to my feelings of affection, with the result that I often appear indifferent but my family knows better.
No, I am not going to write about youth and age. Perhaps I won't write anything at all, for the ease of conceiving ideas, which once I could count on, has deserted me in old age, and I am sensible enough not to try to force anything out of myself. I willingly admit the great improvement1 in my existence since Berlin, but something in me longs for further improvement and I hope this will soon take place….
With my best wishes for your next decade
Your faithful
Freud
Thanks to the dentist's work.