[ 19 36 -1 (^939) ]^24
Most people unconsciously associate it with vegetarianism. With a few
simplifications it would have a better chance. If this book is taken I hope
you'll let Charakteranalyse be the next one to be translated. It is a
lovely book, full of the most important things to any analyst.
I am writing Lane now warning him that he must not ask any
Freudian for an opinion on your book. The biggest medical publisher,
Kegan Paul, has Freudian readers who refuse to pass books that aren't
according to the V erein [Society]. *
About myself ... I am always depressed. I want only Helga but that
is impossible. She has now got a sense of loyalty to her husband and
child. Nichts zu machen, aber das Leben fur mich ist sehr sehr leer
[Nothing to be done, but life for me is very, very empty].
- I •
Oslo, Norway
November 29, 1938
My dear Neill,
I am answering your letter immediately to prevent great
mishaps. Those "scientific" chaps are as you say: without any interest
in science and, I would add, without responsibility. Your Wright will
now perhaps run around saying that he has "controlled" my cancer
work and that it was nothing but "infection." Among the slides which
I sent you are three which have as much to do with infection as I with
Hitler. It's all nonsense. But with their "authority" they can spoil every
thing for me perhaps for ever.
Your depression is apparently not completely irrational. Your real
situation has to make for depression. The question is only how much
support it gets from irrational things and how far you succeed in fighting
real situations without disturbing your work. Don't please forget that we
cannot give certainty of pleasure, only the ability to enjoy it when it
happens to offer itself.
- I •
- The British Psycho-Analytical Society, and orthodox Freudian psychoanalysts
in general, whom Neill sees as forming a closed society.