Sigmund Freud skriver til sin venn Wilhelm Fliess i Berlin (her gjengitt i engelsk oversettelse -- originalen er på tysk):
"Today I learned that a colleague at the university declined to have me as a consultant, with the explanation that I could not be taken seriously; but I have been so fortified by my vacation that I felt nothing at all. Two months ago it would have made me miserable for two days. I have taken the wife of my friend Q. into treatment and it is a sheer joy to see once again how everything fits and tallies in hysteria...
My father seems to be on his deathbed; he is at times confused and is steadily shriveling up, moving toward pneumonia and a fateful date."
Freud, S., et al. (1985). The complete letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess : 1887-1904. Cambridge, Mass, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Utdrag gjengitt her: