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THE POSSIBLE PROFESSION
The Possible Profession: The Analytic Process of Change takes a fresh look at the
many forms of unconscious communication that take place in the analytic
situation. Bringing together two decades of the author’s previous writing as
well as a considerable amount of new material, this book addresses a major
contemporary issue in the field of psychoanalysis.
Unconscious communication in the analytic situation takes many forms.
This book explores a number of these pathways as the author has encountered
them in clinical work. Including numerous clinical examples, chapters cover a
variety of topics with a central focus on:
• the relationship between the inner worlds of patient and analyst
• the interplay between these intrapsychic forces
• how this interaction affects the analytic process and, more specifically,
the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis.
Written in a clear and concise way, this book contributes to a new under-
standing of familiar material in a way that will be welcomed by teachers, stu-
dents, and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It will also be
of interest to dynamic therapists of all persuasions and academics in various
fields interested in psychoanalytic thinking.
Theodore J. Jacobs, M.D., is a child and adolescent psychoanalyst as well
as an adult analyst in private practice. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
(Emeritus) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a Training and
Supervising Analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Institute
for Psychoanalytic Education. Dr. Jacobs is also a past president of The As-
sociation for Child Psychoanalysis.

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THE POSSIBLE
PROFESSION
The Analytic Process of Change
Theodore J. Jacobs

First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Theodore J. Jacobs to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jacobs, Theodore J.
The possible profession : the analytic process and the process of change / by
Theodore J. Jacobs.
pages cm
1. Psychoanalysis. I. Title.
RC506.J327 2013
616.89'17—dc23 2012043137
ISBN: 978-0-415-62953-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-62954-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-49527-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Garamond
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

v
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Finding a Point of View: An Introduction 1
SECTION I
Interaction and the Inner World
1 On Beginnings: The Concept of the Therapeutic Alliance
and the Interplay of Transferences in the Opening Phase 23
2 The Inner Experiences of the Analyst: Their Contribution
to the Analytic Process 35
3 On Misreading and Misleading Patients: Some Reflections
on Communications, Miscommunications and
Countertransference Enactments 47
4 Imaginary Gardens, Real Toads: On Memory and its Uses
in the Analytic Process 68
5 On Unconscious Communications and Covert Enactments:
Some Reflections on Their Role in the Analytic Situation 83
6 Patients as Instruments of Change in the Analyst:
Their Role in the Analytic Process 96
7 On Courage: A Fragment of an Analysis 105

CONTENTS
vi
SECTION II
Questions, Controversies, Explorations
8 On the Status of Nonverbal Communications: Some Reflections
on Their Role in the Analytic Process and Analytic Education 115
9 Reflections on the Goals of Analysis and the Process of Change 130
10 On the Question of Self-Disclosure: Error or Advance
in Treatment 144
11 Listening, Dreaming, Sharing: On the Uses of the Analyst’s
Inner Experiences 166
12 Some Reflections on Slippery Slopes and an Approach to Those
on the Edge 179
SECTION III
Reflections, Extensions, Historical Perspectives
13 Countertransference Past and Present: A Review of the Concept 189
14 In Search of the Mind of the Analyst: A Progress Report 211
15 Hans Loewald: An Appreciation 230
16 On the Adolescent Neurosis 237
17 Travels with Charlie: On My Longstanding Affair with Theory 255
18 Insights, Epiphanies, and Working Through: On Healing,
Self-Healing, and Creativity in the Writer and the Analyst 266
19 On Hope in Analysis and for Analysis 285
References 301
Index 311

vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thenumberofpeople—includingteachers,colleagues,students,andpatients—
I have been privileged to work with, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude, is
far too numerous to record here. From them I have learned all I know about
analysis, and especially what in the analysis process truly helps patients make
significant changes in their lives.
There are some individuals, however, whom I specifically wish to men-
tion because they have been so important to me and have had an enduring
influence on my way of thinking and working. I am speaking of Drs. Milton
Horowitz and Charles Brenner, now deceased, and Dr. Warren Poland, who
is very much alive and who as a punster has reached new heights. My study
group at the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Training has been a consis-
tent source of stimulation and thoughtful critiques, as was the original peer
group—consisting of Sander Abend, Martin Willick, Michael Porder, and
Albert Sacks—that I joined some four decades ago.
This book could not have been written without the devoted assistance of
my secretary, Marie Mele. Marie’s intelligence, skill, loyalty, and incredible
ability to decipher my all but illegible handwriting, have been absolutely in-
valuable. I cannot thank her enough. Last, but by no means least, I want to
thank my wife, Mickey, for her unwavering support and encouragement of
all of my writings.
In Chapter 4, the extract from Long Day’s Journey into Night is reproduced
with kind permission from Susan Sawyer at Yale University.
Chapter 9, “Reflections on the Goals of Analysis, and the Process of
Change,” was first published in © Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2007, Psychoana-
lytic Quarterly 70(1):149–181. Reproduced with kind permission.
Chapter 10, “On the Question of Self-Disclosure: Error or Advance in
Treatment,” was first published in © Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2001, Psycho-
analytic Quarterly 68(2):159–183. Reproduced with kind permission.
Chapter 11, “Listening, Sharing, Dreaming: On the Uses of the Analyst’s
Inner Experiences,” is republished with kind permission from Jason Aronson,
Inc.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
viii
Chapter 16, “On the Adolescent Neurosis,” was first published in © Psy-
choanalytic Quarterly, 2011, Psychoanalytic Quarterly 76(2):487–513. Repro-
duced with kind permission.
In Chapter 16, “Portrait of Girl with Comic Book,” © 1952 by Phyllis
McGinley, from Times Three, by Phyllis McGinley. Used by permission of
Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Chapter 18, “Insights, Epiphanies, and Working Through: On Healing,
Self-Healing, and Creativity in the Writer and the Analyst,” was first published
in © Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2011, Psychoanalytic Quarterly 80(4):961–986.
Reproduced with kind permission.

1
FINDING A POINT OF VIEW
An Introduction
This volume brings together much of my writing on psychoanalysis pub-
lished during the past two decades as well as some new work.
Although the chapters that follow cover a variety of topics, many are linked
by an issue with which I have long been concerned: the role played in analysis
by the unconscious transactions between patient and analyst that continually
flow beneath the surface of the analytic dialogue.
As we know, unconscious communication in the analytic situation takes
many forms and in these pages I attempt to explore a number of these path-
ways as I have encountered them in clinical work.
Section I, “Interaction and the Inner World,” focuses on transference-
countertransference issues and their effects on the therapeutic action of psy-
choanalysis. I take up such matters as the beginning interactions of patient
and analyst, the impact on treatment of the analyst’s subjective experiences,
the analyst’s errors and the handling of them, and the way in which mutual
enactments affect the analytic process.
Section II, “Questions, Controversies, Explorations,” takes up certain ongoing
questions and controversies in analysis. Here I discuss the goals of analysis, the
role of nonverbal communication, the issue of self-disclosure, and the question
of the sharing of the analyst’s subjective experiences. I also offer some thoughts
on the thorny issue of boundary violations and make some suggestions con-
cerning techniques that may be of use in the early detection and prevention of
such problems.
Section III, “Reflections, Extensions, Historical Perspectives,” contains
reflections on a number of issues that include, but also extend beyond, the
clinical matters. Here I discuss the history of the concept of countertrans-
ference, the problem of theory and its use in treatment, and the enduring
impact of adolescent experiences. I also discuss a matter of special interest to
me—a comparison of creativity in the writer and the analyst. I conclude with
comments on an issue not much discussed in the literature—the role of hope
in treatment and for the future of psychoanalysis.
In all of this I write from a point of view that has evolved over the many
years that I have been in practice. It is, however, just one man’s point of view

2
and as such it contains all the limitations, biases, and misperceptions that
inevitably become incorporated into a perspective that is highly subjective.
I thought, therefore, that it would be of some interest to the reader, and
perhaps enhance her understanding of this perspective, if in this introduction
I said something about how I became the analyst that I am now.
In this account, I will put particular emphasis on the influences, both per-
sonal and professional, that most shaped my views and how, over the years,
these ideas have developed and changed.
Let me start with a vignette from my years as a candidate.
One of my teachers at the New York Institute in the early 1960s was Bert
Lewin, a short, plump man with a wry smile and a puckish sense of humor
who wrote extensively on dreams and dreamlike phenomena. One day in
class, Lewin was speaking about the work of various authors in our field and
he offered the idea that it is not rational choices that determine what issues an
analyst chooses to write about, but key aspects of his psychology.
“Take Franz Alexander, for instance,” Lewin explained, “Alexander is a
big man, an athlete who likes to box. In his papers he writes about ac-
tion, about manipulating the transference, about the analyst playing roles
in treatment.”
“As for me,” Lewin added with an impish smile, “I like to sleep.”
Long before Renik (1993) and Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood (1983)
emphasized the role of subjectivity in clinical work, Lewin understood its im-
portance in all of the analyst’s activities, including the training he chooses, the
ideas he embraces, and the work he produces. Just as a novelist and the story
he tells have a special affinity for one another, so the analyst and his theories
are linked by forces beyond his awareness. Although not necessarily a match
made in heaven, it is a union that represents a fit, highly resistant to change,
between idea and disposition, man and belief, that has its origins long before
formal analytic training begins.
Not that learning and experience are unimportant. As we know, they are
highly influential in an analyst’s development. In fact, unconscious identifica-
tions operating through enduring transferences to one’s analyst and teachers
are, for better or worse, the prime vehicle for the transmission of knowledge
in our field.
Inevitably, however, such transferences have had their predecessors in
influential figures of childhood and adolescence. Thus, the teachers and men-
tors that the candidate chooses as models, the particular traits and quali-
ties that he identifies with, the intensity and fixity of those identifications,
and their ultimate fate—these features of the young analyst’s psychology are
strongly influenced, if not preset, by his history and by the unique qualities
that he brings to his training.
Although my primary focus in this introduction will be on the professional
influences that shaped my thinking and how, over time, I found it neces-
sary to modify what I had been taught, with the indulgence of the reader I

3
will offer a few words about the individual that I was—and to great extent
remain—prior to undertaking analytic training. Certain personality traits,
I believe, led me to experience that training in the way that I did, fostered
certain enduring identifications, and contributed significantly to my way of
thinking and working as an analyst.
Perhaps the first thing to say about myself is that I was a quiet child, pain-
fully shy, as was my mother, and that I had a difficult time speaking in public,
especially to adults. As a result I did a lot of listening, and from early on be-
came a listener to the stories of others.
The stories that I most enjoyed hearing, marveling at their sheer in-
ventiveness, were those that my father spun at the dinner table. Himself a
very private man—in the many years of listening to him hold forth I heard
nothing about his private life, nothing about his hopes or dreams—when
recounting an episode from his youth or giving a history lesson (invented
history was his specialty), he became a comic performer.
Transfixing his audience with a spellbinding, if long-winded, narrative,
he created both a remarkable cast of characters—his depiction of Jesus of
Nazareth, or Rabbi Joshua as my father insisted on calling him, was like no
other in the annals of history—and a dramatic storyline involving a series of
intriguing, if highly improbable, events.
I identified with both sides of my father, the very private man and the per-
former (or, in my case, the would-be performer). I dreamed as an adolescent
of being a radio personality or a stand-up comic, and also with that part of
him that was expressed through the characters he invented: the iconoclast
who challenged accepted ways, and who had a novel and original, if some-
times eccentric, take on life.
In grammar school, for the most part, I was a good and obedient student,
although from time to time the covert rebelliousness that I took over from
my father—in the 6th grade I masterminded a daring escape from a deadly
dull field trip to the Museum of Natural History—got me in a fair amount
of trouble.
In high school, though, I mended my ways. Attending a formal and tra-
ditional, or, more accurately, educationally challenged institution where tie,
jacket, and endless memorization were the scholarly requirements and the
headmaster was affectionately known to all the boys as “Sir,” I quickly adapted
to the system, limited my rebellious impulses to private satire of the super-
annuated faculty—a collection of some of the finest minds of the thirteenth
century—and won praise for my studiousness and seriousness of purpose.
Actually, the school atmosphere, with its emphasis on formality, propriety,
responsibility, and hard work, fit me rather well, as I was a pretty formal and
inhibited youngster myself, drawn by an unsparing superego to long hours of
diligent study. Fortunately, one of my school’s few strengths was its English
department and in time I became engrossed in the study of literature and the
creative process.

4
My particular interest was in literary creativity. I wanted better to under-
stand how it happens; that is, by what means a writer’s experiences and imagi-
nation are transmuted into works that touch us all. Among other things, this
interest was clearly related to my longstanding wish to understand what, for
me, remained a mystery: what was it in my father, basically a retiring, often
depressed man, that propelled him at times to come alive and to become the
performer and creative storyteller that he could be? Perhaps in listening to the
stories of others—and in writing some myself—I have been seeking still to
solve that perplexing riddle.
My mother, too, was a strong influence on me. A teacher of Latin before
that calling became an anachronism, and a book reviewer and lecturer for
women’s groups, she had a strong interest in psychology. Stimulated by many
long conversations with her about books, and partly in identification with her
interests, I found myself wanting to explore both the classical roots and the
psychological aspects of literature.
About that time—I was perhaps 17—I simultaneously became a patient,
seeking help in finding out just what in the world I was to do with my life,
and, in the process of self-exploration, began to read Freud.
For me, as for so many others, Freud’s intriguing case histories and the
unique combination of talents that he displayed in those works—depth psy-
chologist and gifted writer—awed me and immediately made him my ego ideal.
To emulate Freud, to be a psychoanalyst who could write like a novelist—
this was an ambition that developed rather early in life, one that over the years
I have retained, not always consciously, as an idealized goal.
Perhaps it is partly due to an identification with the Freud of my imagi-
nation, as well as the resonance that I felt with his ideas, that I have al-
ways attempted to work within the classical tradition and regard myself,
fundamentally, as a Freudian analyst. Unlike a number of my Freudian
colleagues, however, I have viewed the intersubjective perspective not as a
threat to our traditional ideas, but as a stimulus to, and a means of explor-
ing, the phenomenon of unconscious transmission between patient and
analyst and its impact on the inner world of imagination and fantasy. From
that perspective, intersubjectivity, I believe, can be viewed as enhancing,
rather than detracting from, traditional analysis. Properly understood and
utilized as a unique pathway to aspects of unconscious phenomena that
often cannot be grasped as effectively by other routes, intersubjectivity
has the potential to expand and enhance our knowledge of the analytic
process.
When it came time for me to enter training, my wish to enroll in a clas-
sical institute dedicated to the perpetuation of Freud’s legacy, and one that
could boast a number of faculty members who knew and were personally
close to him, seemed entirely natural. Despite the fact that excellent training
was available elsewhere, I never really considered a choice other than the New
York Psychoanalytic Institute. In those days that was the Mecca—the home

5
of Ernst Kris, Rudolph Loewenstein, Ernest Hartmann, Edith Jacobson, Kurt
Eissler, and Leo Stone, the greatest, the most illustrious names in the analytic
world.
In fact, there was no shortage of fascinating personalities at the New York
Institute in those years. Particularly intriguing to me were Otto Isakower,
Bertram Lewin, and Lillian Malcove, remarkable personalities who shared
an interest in the question of unconscious transmission and its application
both in analysis and in the field of art. To work with these gifted individuals
and to observe the unusual feeling that they had for the unconscious and its
manifestations, both in analytic material and in artistic productions, was a
rare and stimulating experience.
Shortly after I began training, however, and after I had been in analysis
for a couple of years, I found myself having some questions—and nagging
doubts—about the therapeutic efficacy of traditional analysis.
Much of this confusion was the result of my own treatment experiences.
By that time I had been in two quite different analytic treatments and a third,
not very effective, psychotherapy as well.
As I mentioned, my checkered career as a patient began in late adoles-
cence. Feeling confused and anxious about a choice of vocation as well as
other matters, I began treatment with an analyst recommended by a relative.
No doubt today we would regard Dr. E as an ersatz analyst or, more likely,
no analyst at all. This was a man trained in a small, prestigeless institute
which few people had heard of and whose name, if recognized at all by tra-
ditional analysts, would evoke looks of unmitigated contempt. Had I been
aware at the time of this attitude toward my analyst and his training, doubt-
less I would have fled the treatment. Fortunately, however, I was blissfully
ignorant of status issues in our field and, as a result, had a deeply gratifying—
even life-changing—therapeutic experience.
Thoroughly unorthodox in style, Dr. E often interpreted by means of
story, parable, metaphor, and analogy. He found that this method allowed
interpretations to be heard and understood without immediately arousing
resistance. He could, however, be quite direct and, in fact, was quick to con-
front me with my evasions and rationalizations as well as certain counterpro-
ductive patterns of behavior. Combining toughness with empathy, Dr. E had
the rare ability both to confront resistances head on and, with sensitivity, to
explore the underlying conflicts that fed them. This approach, along with
his understanding of the confused and often chaotic world of the adolescent,
made it possible for Dr. E to work effectively with the inhibited 17-year-old
who was his patient. So helpful, in fact, did I find the work that we did that
I returned for additional analysis with Dr. E as a resident in psychiatry when,
presumably, I should have known better.
As I look back on that early treatment from the vantage point of many
years of practice, I realize that Dr. E’s approach and the values that informed
it had a considerable effect on my thinking and way of working as an analyst.

6
For Dr. E, psychoanalysis was a method devised to help patients free
themselves from the enduring, and often distorting, impact of past psycho-
logical experiences. While for the most part he embraced our traditional
techniques, he did not believe them to be sacrosanct. Rather, he attempted
to adapt them to the particular requirement of individual cases. He believed
that when standard technique fails to be effective, it behooves the analyst to
find a way of working that reaches the patient and proves helpful to him. To
do otherwise, he maintained, is to enter into a collusion with the patient,
one that avoids hard truths and that serves defensive purposes for both pa-
tient and analyst.
More than most analysts I have encountered, Dr. E believed in, and made
frequent use of, the technique of confrontation. Believing that the very
analytic situation itself is often used defensively as a kind of shield against
recognizing unacceptable parts of the self, and that interpretation alone is
often insufficient to effect this hard-wired defensive system, from time to
time Dr. E asked me to sit up on the couch and face him, a maneuver that
left me no possibility of my escaping into reverie, fantasy, or the safe haven
of free association.
Although in my practice I have never employed this strategy, over time
I have come to share Dr. E’s view concerning the value of confrontation as
a useful and underutilized technique. Often mistakenly thought to involve
harshness or aggression on the part of the analyst, confrontation has gotten a
rather bad name in our field. Thoughtfully and tactfully employed, however,
this approach often proves to be the most effective method of defense analy-
sis, especially for patients like myself who had learned how to hide behind the
analytic method itself. This lesson, which I learned on the couch and which
Dr. E taught me through the approach he used, is one I have found extremely
useful in my own work with patients.
My second and next to last experience in analysis was my training analysis.
This time around my analyst was, in many respects, the opposite of the first.
A prominent and highly regarded figure at the New York Institute, he was
known as much for his elegant lifestyle and unabashed elitism as he was for
his work with quite disturbed patients. (This latter fact troubled me not a
little as, in those days, candidates were assigned—presumably in an effort to
match pathology with experience—to a training analyst.)
My assignment was to Dr. B, a big, powerfully built man with a reso-
nant voice, an authoritarian manner, and seemingly endless self-assurance.
He appeared to lack the barest shred, the slightest hint, of self-doubt. Con-
fronted with this awesome figure, a Hungarian version of Paul Bunyan, I was
terrified.
Over time, however, and with understanding of my largely oedipal-based
fears, I recognized that Dr. B was a kind-hearted, generous man devoted to
analysis and to helping his patients by means of the analytic method as he
understood it.

7
The problem was, I believe, that the approach Dr. B utilized was rooted in
early Freud and, especially, in the older topographic theory. Guided by this
view, the analyst functions quite exclusively as an interpreter of the uncon-
scious. His job is to listen patiently for murmurings from the unconscious
and to interpret derivatives of unconscious conflict and fantasy as they rise
to the surface. (In my case, this was an endless and, no doubt, thankless job.)
Analysts working in this way were not as much interested in defense and re-
sistance as they were in the repressed unconscious, and there was little defense
analysis in my treatment. Resistances were dealt with, it seemed, primarily by
waiting them out.
By today’s standards, this approach seems anachronistic, and even in the
1960s it was rather old-fashioned, more in keeping with the early years of
analysis than with the prevailing ego psychology.
It was, however, a technique based on the view that it is the creations of
the mind, the core fantasies developed in childhood and persisting in the
unconscious, that lie at the root of our troubles. To reach these, the analyst
must allow the patient to regress and to enter into a slightly altered state of
unconsciousness. It is this regressive shift, allowing access to the unconscious,
that the analyst seeks to foster. This was an idea, perhaps more European than
American, that was favored by a group of analysts including Lewin, Isakower,
Malcove, and Bak, who had a strong interest in creativity, who viewed ana-
lytic sessions as having much in common with the creative process, and who
were convinced of the necessity in analytic work of tapping into primitive,
primary process thinking.
Although, clearly, this approach had its shortcomings, it also reached areas
of the mind that today’s techniques, with their emphasis on interaction and
intersubjectivity, may not access in the same way. I learned, for instance, a
great deal about the workings of my imagination and its impact on my daily
experience; a great deal about dreams and daydreams, early childhood fan-
tasies, and adolescent ideation, and appreciated, really for the first time, the
power of memory to shape my thinking and behavior.
Despite its limitations—due in large measure, I believe, to the use of the
topographic approach—this second analysis, then, proved valuable in a num-
ber of respects. Not only did it help me to integrate aspects of my mind that
had been split and warded off, but proved to be enormously useful in my
work with patients. It gave me, as a candidate, a deep appreciation both of the
enduring effect that early, quite primitive fantasies can have on the mind, and
of the important role that regression plays in reaching them.
As one can imagine, a complex and strongly experienced father-son trans-
ference took hold immediately in this analysis (with Dr. E, the transference
was primarily an idealized one), and through this means I was able to en-
gage and work through a number of issues concerning my relationship with
my father—and the father who lived within me—that I had not confronted
before. It is such experiences, and only such experiences, I believe, that can

8
produce conviction in the analyst concerning the power of oedipal conflicts
to shape our lives.
On the negative side, I accomplished little in understanding either my early
relationship with my mother—preoedipal issues were largely overlooked at
that time—or my relationships with my siblings. I also did not deal very well
with certain aspects of my character, especially those traits that represented
defensive identifications with my parents’ irrational fears and self-punitive
qualities. In the absence of consistent defense analysis, these traits could re-
main well concealed behind a network of rationalizations, diversions, and
other protective maneuvers. It remained for yet another analyst to confront
them—and me—more directly.
Overall, I came away from my training analysis with the feeling that, while
a good deal had been accomplished, much also was left undone. Most trou-
bling in my view was the fact that throughout the treatment I experienced
a certain lack of affective contact with my analyst. This was due, I believe,
partly to his technique—there is something inherently distancing in an analyst
listening primarily, if not exclusively, for whisperings from the unconscious—
and partly to some unresolved transference issues.
Not as effective or rewarding in some respects as my treatment with the
unknown, unorthodox Dr. E, my training analysis suffered mostly, I be-
lieve, from the application of a method that stood apart from, and failed
to engage, the interactional dimension—the degree of contact, or lack
of it—between Dr. B and myself. This element was not something that
Dr. B focused on. Although he was clearly interested in, and interpreted,
transference as it arose, his focus was solely on my perception of him, not
on the vicissitudes of our relationship, and its impact on my inner world of
imagination and fantasy. This perspective was not part of Dr. B’s thinking,
not part of his way of working. Its absence, I believe, has had an indirect,
although substantial, effect on my style as an analyst. Knowing from the
patient’s side the feelings of incompleteness that occur when the full range
of the relationship between patient and analyst is not explored as an essen-
tial part of the analytic work, I have come to understand the importance
of paying close attention to the interpersonal, as well as the intrapsychic,
dimension of the analytic experience.
For some colleagues the word “interpersonal” raises a red flag. For them it
refers to the interpersonal psychology of Sullivan, with its emphasis on rela-
tionship issues at the expense of intrapsychic conflict. For myself, and other
Freudian colleagues today, the word means something quite different: It refers
to the complex transaction that takes place between individuals, the psychol-
ogy behind such transactions, and their effect on individual psyches. Its focus
is on exploring communication processes in all their dimensions, conscious
and unconscious, verbal and nonverbal, overt and concealed. Looked at
from this perspective, the exploration of interpersonal transactions opens an

9
additional, and often invaluable, pathway to understanding the unconscious
and, especially, the phenomenon of unconscious communication.
While, as I noted previously, in my training analysis the interpersonal
dimension of the work was largely ignored—and perhaps it was for this rea-
son that my analyst often seemed removed—this surely was not the case in
my third and last experience as an analytic patient.
This treatment, as it happened, occurred at a time of personal crisis. I was
out of analysis for some years when I and my family suffered a sudden and
profound loss, one that caused me to become quite depressed for some time.
Often distracted, unable to concentrate well on my work, and feeling less
invested in it, I knew that I needed additional help.
This time I turned for further analysis to a former and much admired
teacher, Edith Jacobson. In addition to her other attributes, Jacobson was
highly knowledgeable in the area of depression. To say that this experience
in analysis was enormously helpful to me would be a vast understatement.
Dr. Jacobson was almost literally a lifesaver. Already quite elderly and
suffering from diabetes, she nonetheless displayed remarkable energy, keen
insight, and a kind of investment in the treatment that produced a feel-
ing, not formulated in our theories, that one was truly cared about. This
intangible factor, conveyed by dedicated analysts largely through the qual-
ity of their listening and the affect that they communicate, is, in my view,
a therapeutic agent of the greatest importance. It may, in fact, prove to be
one of the key factors that cuts across schools of thought—I think here of
the energy and dedication of such colleagues as Betty Joseph, Jacob Arlow,
and Paul Ornstein, analysts with widely divergent points of view—and very
possibly may be the one essential quality that is shared by the most effective
and valued practitioners in our field.
Surprising to me was Edith Jacobson’s way of working. The approach of
this world-class analyst had a great deal in common with that of my first
analyst, the little-known figure from a second-rate institute. Direct, active,
and confrontational, Jacobson minced no words. She called things as she
saw them, had no trouble pointing out, often sharply, rationalizations, avoid-
ances, and other defensive maneuvers, and in her interventions got quickly to
the heart of the matter.
Often casting aside anonymity and abstinence, she would offer thoughts,
ideas, explanations of her thinking, and, sometimes, suggestions. While, at
times, I found her comments a bit overbearing—she was nothing if not a
forceful personality—for the most part they proved extremely useful.
Helping me to come in touch with old conflicts newly reactivated, she
also helped me to recognize, and to work through, certain pathological
identifications—ones that I thought I had long abandoned—which had re-
asserted themselves and which were both fueling my state of regression and
being fueled by it.

10
Each of my treatments, then, contributed a good deal, although not neces-
sarily in ways that are clearly definable, to whom I have become as analyst.
Without consciously seeking to do so, I believe that I have attempted to
synthesize the best and the most useful elements in each experience. In prac-
tice this has meant placing high value on engaged listening—listening that
conveys contact, on active and persistent interpretation of defense and resis-
tance, on awareness and early interpretation of transference-countertransfer-
ence developments (but without focusing exclusively on the transference),
on listening and watching for those covert communications, including non-
verbal ones, that take place in and around the overt exchanges of patient and
analyst, and on efforts to monitor at least some of my subjective responses,
especially those countertransference reactions which have the potential to be
harmful to patients.
At the same time—and this aspect of my approach I learned mostly
in my training analysis—I have found it important to employ enough
quiet, unobtrusive listening so that regressive movements can develop in
the minds of both patient and analyst and with them greater access to the
inner world of fantasy and memory. All too often I find in today’s analytic
environment—with its focus on interaction, intersubjectivity, and active
dialogue between patient and analyst—that this critical element in treat-
ment, providing the opportunity for the minds of patient and analyst to
open up to memory, to preconscious streams of thought, and to emerging
fantasy, is slighted.
Certain key experiences in my training, both as a resident in psychia-
try and as a candidate, also helped shape my thinking about the analytic
process.
In those years, the residency at Albert Einstein was a rich educational expe-
rience. The chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Milton Rosenbaum,
had a talent for attracting some of the most interesting and original individu-
als in the field. One of these was Albert Scheflen, an expert on nonverbal
behavior, who joined us one year as visiting professor.
Scheflen’s interest at the time was in studying the range of nonverbal com-
munications that take place in psychotherapy sessions and in relating this
material to the verbal exchanges between patient and therapist. As a teaching
exercise, he organized a seminar featuring a unique kind of one-way screen
observation of a psychotherapy session.
With Scheflin sitting among us as our teacher and guide, the residents
viewed a psychotherapy session from behind the screen but with the sound
system turned off. Our task was to attempt to decipher what was transpiring
in the hour from the nonverbal behavior that we observed.
It was amazing, after just a few hours of training, to see how much one
could understand from posture, gesture, and movement alone and from the
kind of nonverbal exchanges, almost like a choreographed dance, that would
often take place between patient and therapist.

11
This experience sharpened my interest both in the nonverbal dimension of
analytic work and, in general, in the complex, multidimensional communica-
tive process that takes place between patient and analyst. As a result of this in-
terest, I began to observe more closely the nonverbal element in analysis and
the way in which specific nonverbal behaviors in patients were related to, and
often anticipated, certain themes of the hour. Such observations, I discovered,
had been made years before by Felix Deutsch (1952), who was one of the
few analysts at the time—there are equally few now—who was interested in
exploring the nonverbal world and its relation to our patients’ verbalizations.
My interest in communication in the analytic hour was further stimulated
by two analytic supervisors. I had the great good fortune to be assigned to
Annie Reich and Charles Fisher, both remarkable teachers and gifted observ-
ers of aspects of the analytic process that were little mentioned in coursework
or in other, more traditional supervisions.
Influenced no doubt by her long association with Wilhelm Reich, who was
interested in bodily expressions of conflict and especially the way in which
defense and resistance are manifest in muscular tensions, Annie Reich em-
phasized the value and importance of the analyst using his eyes as well as his
ears. Specifically, she advocated positioning the analyst’s chair so that he had
a full view of the patient’s body during the analytic hour. Her own chair was
placed close to a right angle to the couch.
In my own work I have taken up this idea and, although I prefer to sit
at a less extreme angle, make an effort to observe a patient’s body language
as I listen. I have found that if one uses the visual pathway in a way that is
analogous to evenly hovering attention; that is, if one observes the patient’s
behavior but does not attempt to focus on any one aspect of it, the stream of
information taken in visually fuses with, but also expands and augments, that
which registers via the listening process.
My work with Charles Fisher, too, focused on an aspect of communication
in analysis that is often overlooked.
A noted researcher in the area of sleep studies, as well as a skilled analyst,
Fisher was also interested in the phenomenon of subliminal perception. Ex-
perimental work that he had done some years earlier had demonstrated that
we regularly take in and lay down in memory much more of our surround-
ings, including the people in them, than registers in consciousness. Although
operating outside of awareness, these subliminal perceptions exert an ongo-
ing, and often powerful, effect on our thinking and behavior.
Fisher was interested in the application of these findings to the analytic
situation. In our work together, for instance, he would point out how much
more of me the patient had perceived and “knew” than appeared in the trans-
ference material. These perceptions could be detected through hints and clues
in the patient’s associations, daydreams and fantasies, and especially in night
dreams, where aspects of the patient’s subliminal perceptions not infrequently
appeared in disguised form.

12
This kind of material fascinated me, and, together with the work that I
did with Albert Scheflen and Annie Reich in the area of nonverbal behav-
ior, led to a longstanding interest in communication and especially in the
multiple channels through which communication takes place in the analytic
situation.
My own efforts to explore this terrain, which I still view as a frontier in
psychoanalysis, have focused on the way in which covert communications,
whether expressed through enactments, via body language, or through meta-
communications concealed within the manifest exchanges of the analytic
hour, affect the ongoing analytic process. These very informal studies, done
entirely in the analytic setting, have, for me, confirmed Fisher’s contention that
the information that we draw on to interpret transference-countertransference
interactions represents only a small fraction and, in some sense, only the sur-
face aspect of what each participant in the analytic situation has registered
about the other. I anticipate that, as our knowledge in this area expands, our
appreciation of the complex, multitiered, communicative processes that take
place and that form the essence of the analytic situation will grow in equal
measure.
A third teacher who had a strong influence on my thinking was Otto
Isakower. A small, slight man in appearance, Isakower struck terror into
the hearts of his students. In his class on dream analysis he was often sharp,
ascerbic, and cutting. Not suffering fools or foolish dream interpretations
gladly, he spared no one’s feelings as he let any presenter who misunderstood
a dream know that his interpretation was not only wrong, but thoroughly
wrong-headed.
Despite his ferocity and the fear that I felt in his presence, I liked and
admired Isakower. He had a remarkable, almost magical, ear and could hear
the music of an hour—its rhythm, tones, and leitmotifs—as no one I have
ever encountered.
Isakower’s notion of the analytic instrument (1963/1992), with its em-
phasis on the coming together of two minds to create one instrument, the
unconscious transmission of thought and feeling that takes place between
patient and analyst, and the shift in levels of consciousness in both that
makes possible the grasping of the unconscious, appealed to me as one of
the most imaginative and creative ways of conceptualizing the kinds of com-
munication that take place between patient and analyst. In his formulations,
Isakower made an effort to extend and develop Freud’s seminal idea that un-
conscious communication between the minds of patient and analyst is an
inherent feature of analytic sessions.
In my own work I have sought to expand on Isakower’s notion of the ana-
lytic instrument by suggesting that it include data not only from the auditory
pathway, but from the visual and somatic ones as well; that it include, in other
words, not only what the analyst hears and imagines, but what he perceives
and experiences through his body.

13
Noteworthy in light of today’s emphasis on intersubjectivity and the
interpersonal dimension of analysis is the fact that Isakower’s original idea,
articulated more than half a century ago, contains the fundamental idea of a
union between the minds of patient and analyst. He believed, in other words,
that in sessions in which regression takes place, the two minds temporarily
fuse, the borders between them become porous, and a continuous stream of
thoughts and affects flows between them. This conceptualization, involving
the ad hoc assembly in analytic hours of an entity shared by both participants,
rather like a mother-infant unit, has important implications for our under-
standing of communicative processes in analysis and, indeed, for the entire
analytic situation. It is an idea that has yet to be fully explored.
Another powerful and enduring influence on me as a candidate and young
graduate was my observation of the way that certain senior colleagues func-
tioned with patients.
I have already mentioned Edith Jacobson’s warm and caring attitude, but
she was not alone in this regard. My work with Marianne Kris, Mary O’Neill
Hawkins, Rudolph Loewenstein, Leo Stone, Jay Shore, Milton Jucovy, and
others, demonstrated time and again a quality that is nowhere written about,
appears in no publication, and runs contrary to the popular idea of Freudian
analysts—perhaps especially New York Institute analysts—as cold, removed,
and authoritarian.
There were, of course, a number of individuals who fit that description
and not a few patients suffered at their hands. Many of the colleagues I en-
countered, however—particularly some of the older Europeans—displayed
a truly impressive warmth and devotion to their patients. To my surprise—
I expected the opposite—this quality was combined with a flexible, undog-
matic, and responsive style that was an essential part of the way that they
worked clinically. Classical in theory, believers in the idea that neutrality and
abstinence were integral and valued parts of technique, these analysts were
unselfconsciously interpersonalists in the way that they related to and made
contact with their patients.
Etched in my memory is Marianne Kris’s typical way of responding when
I presented a troubled new patient. Sitting perched on the edge of her chair,
her head cocked characteristically to one side, totally attentive, missing not a
detail of the history, she became slightly agitated when I finished my report.
“Oh my goodness,” she would say, her voice reflecting her concern for this
new patient, “this man is really suffering. We have to do something about
that. We have to find a way to jump in there and help him,” or something
like that. Her caring attitude, her humanity, her ability to be thoroughly
analytic and supportive at the same time: these were aspects of Marianne
Kris’ approach—and the approach of the best analysts of that day—that were
never recorded in papers on technique, but were passed on to generations of
students as an unspoken, but vitally important, part of classical technique.
Fierce protectors of Freud’s theories, in practice these colleagues seemed to

14
emulate, not Freud the theoretician, but Freud the actively engaged clinician
whose work with patients did not always correspond to his theories. While,
clearly, the style of these analysts—direct, open, often suggestive—contained
more than a little countertransference, countertransference as such was rarely
mentioned. It was, in fact, almost a taboo subject, the elephant in the room,
that both teachers and students pretended not to, and often did not, see.
Although the subject of countertransference was included in our courses
on technique, it was not covered in any depth, and frank discussion of the
countertransference experience of students or teachers was conspicuously
avoided. In supervision, too, the issue of countertransference—if it came up
at all—was handled mostly by deflection and avoidance. If a student was
brave enough to acknowledge a countertransference response, he was usu-
ally advised with tact, but without further exploration of the issue, to take
this matter up with his analyst. At the time, in fact, countertransference was
regarded as a personal problem that was to be dealt with privately, preferably
in analysis but, at the very least, through one’s self-reflective efforts.
The idea of countertransference as an interference in analytic work origi-
nated with Freud (it was one—but only one—view that he had of the issue).
In a letter to Jones (Freud, 1909), he also spoke of the possible advantage that
could occur from understanding one’s countertransference.
In the early 1950s, the prevailing view of countertransference as an im-
pediment in analytic work was challenged by Heimann (1950) in England.
She contended that countertransference could best be understood as a pro-
jection of the patient’s inner world. It could serve, therefore, as a means of
understanding the patient’s unconscious, and, far from being an obstacle in
analysis, it was, in fact, one of its most valuable tools.
Objecting to what she and others in this country viewed as an effort,
rooted in Kleinian theory, to idealize countertransference, to distort its es-
sence, and to elevate it to an unwarranted place in analysis, Reich (1951,
1960, 1966) wrote a series of papers that delineated a variety of counter-
transference difficulties, both acute and chronic. While she acknowledged
that countertransference was inevitable and necessary in analytic work, the
emphasis in Reich’s papers was on countertransference as an interference with
the analyst’s ability to understand and to respond correctly to the patient’s
communications.
For a quarter century, from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, Reich’s posi-
tion was the view of countertransference that prevailed in this country. Among
traditional analysts countertransference was seen, essentially, as a problem
that needed to be, and could be, removed through analysis. The idea that
countertransference also represented an opportunity to understand aspects
of the patient’s psychology—particularly split, warded off, and projected
parts of the patient’s inner world, while inherent in the writings of Arlow
(1979, 1995), Isakower (1963a, 1963b), Loewald (1960), and others—did
not take hold for some time. It took the passing of the old guard in America

15
with their antagonism to the Kleinians, a fresh appreciation of Winnicott and
the British object relations school, a shift away from the older positivist to a
relativist view of truth in the allied fields of philosophy, history, and literature,
and greater openness to the intersubjective dimension of analysis for this to
happen.
Personally I had great difficulty reconciling the prevailing attitude towards
countertransference with my clinical experience. Every day, if not every hour,
I struggled with strong, sometimes quite disruptive, countertransference re-
sponses and knew that they, along with a host of other subjective reactions,
were playing a major role in every aspect of my analytic work.
Some of these reactions were clearly induced by patients and provided
useful clues to aspects of their psychology. Other countertransference re-
sponses, however, represented the stirring of old ghosts newly aroused by
the patient’s material. While in these latter instances the burden was on me
to attempt to engage and work through my conflicts, understanding what
in the patient’s material aroused these ghosts also proved enormously useful.
Thus, even when, as Reich maintained, the countertransference represented
an unresolved personal issue, exploring its genesis in the interaction of patient
and analyst helped clarify what was transpiring in the analytic process.
My experiences in case conferences also confirmed my idea that, because
of the shadow that had long been cast over the issue of countertransference,
open and honest discussion of this vitally important issue could not take
place. Impressed by the excellent analytic work often reported in postgradu-
ate seminars and by the understanding and technical skill of the presenting
analysts, I was puzzled by the fact that, not infrequently, patients showed
little clinical improvement.
In my own experience, although I could not claim such expertise, I often
encountered situations in which what I thought to be reasonably accurate
analytic work—work that had gained the approval of supervisors or seminar
leaders—failed to achieve satisfactory results.
Largely through discussions with a small group of trusted colleagues, as
well as whatever self-scrutiny I could manage, I came in time to understand
that the problem lay not in the manifest content of the work—“the ana-
lytic material”—but in its covert aspects; in the messages, often containing
centrally important transference-countertransference issues, that for defen-
sive reasons were transmitted sub-rosa. Conveyed through posture, gesture,
and movement; in tone, rhythm, syntax; and through metaphor, symbol,
and allusion, it was this element: what was not obvious in the exchanges of
patient and analyst, but what was communicated beneath the surface of these
exchange, that was the source of the difficulty.
Increasingly interested in this phenomenon and also feeling that it was
imperative for me to better understand this crucially important dimension
of analysis, I began to take notes in sessions and to record as much as I could
of what I experienced in those hours. I would then compare these subjective

16
experiences with the overt material of the hour and, using Fisher’s methods,
would scrutinize the dreams, daydreams, and associations for hints and clues
as to the covert communications taking place in sessions.
In time I published a number of papers and a book (Jacobs, 1991) de-
tailing my findings and discussing the issue of countertransference and
communication in the analytic situation. Although greeted with interest
among colleagues in other centers, this work was not well received at my own
institute. Among many of the traditionally minded analysts I was regarded
as an exhibitionist or a masochist, and usually as both. The implication was
that I suffered from a good deal of pathology; otherwise, I would never have
written such a book.
While it troubled me to be pathologized in this manner—such comments
simply dismissed anything that I had to say—what bothered me a good deal
more was the accusation that I was not a real analyst. (This is a familiar refrain
at our institute.)
This criticism was primarily directed at the fact that a good deal of what
I wrote about had to do with transactions between patient and analyst. This
focus was interpreted as representing an object relations point of view—or,
worse, an interpersonal one—at the expense of depth psychology.
What I have found difficult, and sometimes impossible, to get across to
certain colleagues (mostly of the older school of thought) is that my interest—
and the interest of colleagues such as Warren Poland, Judith Chused, James
McLaughlin, and Henry Smith who have explored similar matters—is not
primarily in the relationship level or the level of interaction (as important
as these may be), but in the way in which aspects of the inner world of the
patient are represented, and at times can only be apprehended, through the
subjective experience of another person. With the sole goal, in other words,
of expanding our tools for understanding the unconscious of the patient, we
have sought to explore the remarkable phenomenon of unconscious commu-
nication. The first to mark this terrain, Freud did not have an opportunity to
further investigate it. While work in this area, I believe, has expanded our un-
derstanding of transference-countertransference interactions and of the way
that unconscious conflict may be represented in the unconscious of another,
much remains unchartered, and much has yet to be explored.
In this regard, I have been interested recently in an area that has long
been controversial in analysis: the sharing with patients of some of the ana-
lyst’s inner experiences. To speak of such an idea is immediately to encoun-
ter the taboo against self-disclosure. This taboo, of course, exists for a good
reason. The danger of the analyst using the patient for his own reason—to
release tension, to relieve guilt, to obtain solace, to seek forgiveness for errors
committed, for instance—is very great. Analysts who employ any degree of
self-disclosure (Jacobs, 1999) must be on the alert for such countertransfer-
ence enactments.

17
What I am referring to in discussing the idea of sharing is not self-disclosure
in the sense of revealing aspects of the analyst’s personal life, history, or ex-
periences outside of the analytic hour. I refer only to the question of sharing
some of the analyst’s thoughts, perceptions, or imaginations in response to,
and only in response to, the patient’s material.
Following Bollas (1987), who has made a cogent case for such selective sharing,
I have come to believe, in some cases, not only that certain split, warded-off
aspects of the patient’s inner world can only—or best—be understood if re-
flected back to him through the experience of another person, but that the
very process of conveying, with appropriate affect, the analyst’s experience of
such projections constitutes a kind of interpretation that is different from—
and at times is more effective than—our usual interventions that omit the
analyst’s experience.
Why this is so remains an area for further investigation. It may be that
in some cases our usual interpretive mode, quite familiar to patients after a
time, carries within it, and automatically evokes, subtle defenses on the part
of both patient and analyst; defenses that vitiate the impact that such inter-
ventions might have. Perhaps, more simply, affective sharing of the analyst’s
responses carries a covert message regarding his concern for the patient that
may not have been perceived—or could not be adequately conveyed—by his
usual interventions. In any case, this is an aspect of our work, relatively unex-
plored due to realistic concerns as well as convention, that, I believe, requires
thoughtful and careful investigation.
I want to end these comments with a few words about certain develop-
ments in our field. I am referring to the question of countertransferences and
to the current focus on intersubjectivity and the here-and-now relationship
of patient and analyst.
With regard to countertransference, it seems that the wheel has come full
circle. While for close to three decades in America countertransference was
seen quite exclusively as a liability and an interference with proper analytic
work, now, due to our more sophisticated understanding of the issue, as
well as the influences of intersubjectivity and the Kleinian and British object
relations schools, it is viewed as a royal road, if not the royal road, to the
patient’s unconscious.
While in this introduction and elsewhere I have argued that point of
view, I have also been concerned that we not lose sight of the other face of
countertransference: its darker side. It would, I think, be shortsighted not
to recognize the validity of much of what Anne Reich (1951) had to say
about countertransference. Always reflecting some aspects of the analyst’s
subjectivity and frequently containing old conflicts newly aroused, the idea
that countertransference reflects only the patient’s projections does not do
justice to our understanding of compromise formation and the complexity
of the mind.

18
Countertransference reactions not only can block understanding, but,
covertly, can convey unrecognized and unprocessed attitudes towards patients.
Some of these may be detrimental to the treatment. Others may advance it.
While many countertransference enactments can be analyzed after the fact
and turned to good use (Renik, 1993), some enactments are so disruptive
and hurtful and have so enduring an effect on the patient that, in essence,
the treatment is seriously undermined. At other times, persistent character
problems in the analyst, leading to significant scotoma or to unconscious col-
lusions, leave important areas of the patient’s psychology unexplored.
The idea recently articulated (Smith, 1999), that every instance of coun-
tertransference both advances and retards the analysis, while theoretically
appealing, has yet to be demonstrated. Moreover, this notion says little about
the extent, or proportion, of positive and negative effects that result from a
countertransference response. My own experience has been that, while coun-
tertransference responses often do both—that is, affect the treatment in both
positive and negative ways—certain countertransference reactions can have
either so strongly positive an effect (remarkably advancing the analytic work)
or, when exerting a negative impact, can be so disruptive that, whatever other
effect is produced, they are, practically speaking, insignificant.
What I wish to convey, in short, is that our understanding of counter-
transference, a complex, multiply determined entity that has multiple and
complex effects on our patients, is still quite incomplete. At the present
time, I believe there is some danger, well understood by Anne Reich half
a century ago, that our interest in and enthusiasm for the positive uses
of countertransference—valuable as they are—may blind us to the elemental
fact that, having one foot in unresolved conflicts and character problems of
the analyst, countertransference can be a source of much trouble.
Another development in our field, one which in the last quarter century
has expanded to the extent that it now dominates technique, is the persistent
focus on transference and moment-to-moment experiences in the analytic
hour. Reaching back to Strachey’s (1934) seminal paper on the centrality of
transference interpretation, this focus in recent times was given much impetus
by Gill’s (1979) emphasis on the patient’s experience of the analyst, by Gray’s
(1994) work on the close analysis of defensive moves within sessions, by the
growing interest in the intersubjective and interpersonal dimensions of analy-
sis, and by increased clinical experience, which has led to the conviction—
now generally held—that understanding and interpretation of the here-and-
now, especially in the transference, is our most effective and most therapeutic
tool.
The genuine gains that we have made through understanding and mak-
ing effective use of this fact, however, have not come without a price, and in
recent years, it seems to me, that price has been high. Our focus on the here-
and-now has led, in some hands, to a deformation of the listening process
so that evenly hovering attention has been sacrificed to a process of listening

19
for—not to—the transference (Arlow, 1995). This perspective has also led to
the gradual neglect or abandonment of older techniques and ways of think-
ing about the analytic process that, in my view, are essential both to access-
ing the unconscious and, often, to obtaining enduring therapeutic results.
I am referring here to the importance of utilizing the analytic instrument
(Isakower, 1963/1992) in such a way that it both promotes and registers the
preconscious stream of thought, emerging fantasies, and those early creations
of the mind, condensed and contained in memories, that have long since
been forgotten.
For the mind to free itself of the tyranny of past beliefs and fantasies, these
elements, tightly bound and kept in darkness by layers of defense, must be
freed up to see the light of day. And, while the here-and-now of the transfer-
ence reflects the past in important ways, it is a phenomenon taking place in
the present in the mind of an adult patient. As a result of well-established
defenses built up over many years, the adult mind finds it difficult to ac-
cess primitive thinking. If, however, regressive movements take place in the
mind, along with a shift in the level of consciousness, it may be possible for
the patient to be in touch with primitive, primary process thinking. Thus
the patient may be able to gain awareness of, and re-experience, those origi-
nal creations of the mind, often encased in fantasy and memory, that have
decisively influenced his thinking and behavior.
To reach such material, the analyst must employ a technique that provides
sufficient quiet, reflective time so that the analytic instrument, the minds of
patient and analyst operating together in a condition of regression and with
altered consciousness, can tap into primary process thinking and other primi-
tive aspects of the patient’s imaginary world. I touch on these issues more
completely in Chapter 4.
Although not every patient can utilize this approach and, clearly, much
useful work can be achieved by engaging patients in other ways, those who
can make use of it often find it an invaluable technique. In fact, for many
individuals a technique that allows them access to the source of their troubled
thinking and relief from the bondage created by unconscious beliefs that have
long acted as unbreakable shackles is a precious gift—a gift that psychoanaly-
sis alone can offer.
While undoubtedly we have made enormous progress in analysis in the
last 30 years or so, progress that has come about, in large measure, through
greater understanding and appreciation of communicative processes, verbal
and nonverbal, in the analytic situation and the contribution of the analyst to
the analytic work, we need to remember that, in the exploration of the inner
world of the patient (the essential goal of analysis), some of the approaches
of the older generation of analysts—approaches that tapped into the mind’s
early imaginings—have proven to be of great value.
Progress in analysis requires not only new ways of understanding the mind,
but the effective integration of certain older ideas and techniques—creative

20
approaches to unlocking the secrets of the mind—that in today’s world of
action and interaction, enactment and dialogue, are rapidly being forgotten.
We need, in other words, to integrate into our current approaches a mode
of working and a way of thinking that gives the patient the space, the room,
and the time that he needs to come in touch with those unwanted parts of
himself that lie at the root of his troubles. He needs space, time, and a tech-
nique to match because, as Christopher Bollas (1987) has so aptly reminded
us, news from within comes on its own terms.
My effort in this introduction has been to give the reader some idea of how
I think and work as an analyst, and how, over the years, my way of thinking
and working has changed. I have also wanted to give the reader some idea of
who I am and how I got to be the person I have turned out to be. Who we are
as analysts; what we believe in, the ideas that we defend and those we advo-
cate; and, above all, how we think about our patients and our relationship to
them—all of these have as much to do with our formative experiences in life
as it does with the training of our later years. Of course, as analysts we know
this, but, caught up in our usual heated disputes over theory and technique,
it is a fact that all too often we manage to forget.

Section I
INTERACTION
AND THE INNER WORLD

23
1
ON BEGINNINGS
The Concept of the Therapeutic Alliance
and the Interplay of Transferences
in the Opening Phase
The opening phase is a crucial time in treatment. Attitudes that patient and
analyst develop towards each other in that early period, although colored by
initial transference feelings and fantasies, can have an enduring effect on the
treatment. While these first impressions can, and often do, undergo change
as patient and analyst learn more about each other and transferences deepen,
not infrequently the emotional tone set early on influences all that happens
thereafter.
The phrase “therapeutic alliance” has been used to designate a particular
attitude on the part of patient and analyst. It is one characterized by a spirit
of mutual regard and friendly feelings, together with a commitment on
the part of both participants to work together on a joint project; explor-
ing the inner world of one individual, the patient, in an effort to help him
overcome the emotional problems that have hampered him in his journey
through life.
The so-called therapeutic alliance, however, is far from a single entity. It is,
in fact, one highly complex phenomenon, composed of a variety of intersecting
and intertwining elements. Primarily for that reason, and because transfer-
ence inevitably plays a major role in its formation, a number of colleagues,
Abend (1997), Brenner (1979), and Hoffer (1997), maintain that it is a
term without meaning. For them, the therapeutic alliance is a compromise
formation composed primarily of the positive transference, to which other
elements of the personality make a contribution. From this perspective, then,
no new term is needed to designate this compromise formation. What is
needed, rather, is thorough analysis of it; a task that can be overlooked when
the therapeutic alliance is simply accepted as a reality-based nonconflictual
entity.
For Zetzel (1956), Stone (1961), and Greenson (1965), on the other
hand, the therapeutic alliance is more than a composite of forces that
require analyzing. It is a phenomenon that is based, in large measure, on

24
certain accurate and undistorted perceptions of the patient’s, as well as on
other aspects of his ego functioning that are relatively conflict-free. Thus,
the patient’s positive view of the analyst and his willingness to cooperate
with him represents more than the manifestations of positive transference.
While clearly containing such transference elements, they involve aspects
of judgment, thinking, and evaluation not primarily based on transference
distortions.
My own view is that the therapeutic alliance is, inevitably, a compromise
formation that involves a number of elements, including transference, fanta-
sies, memories, and projections of self and object representations. Included in
this mix, however, I believe—and to this extent I agree with Stone (1961) and
Greenson (1965)—are quite accurate perceptions of the analyst; perceptions
that exert a substantial influence on the patient’s responses. While, clearly,
these perceptions are not totally free of transference, often they are accurate
enough to give the patient an essentially undistorted reading of certain as-
pects of the analyst and of the treatment situation. That all of the patient’s
perceptions should, however, be the subject of analytic investigation goes
without saying.
Because the concept of the therapeutic alliance is so complex and con-
troversial an idea, and because in the crucible of the analytic encounter
analysts have little opportunity to sort out such niceties of theory, I have
developed, and offer the reader without cost or obligation, a quick, foolproof
method for determining whether, in any given treatment situation, the set
of attitudes and feelings commonly designated as a therapeutic alliance are,
in fact, present.
My method involves a test that is simplicity itself. For want of a better
name, I call it the gesundheit factor. It requires no extensive experience, no
knowledge of analytic theory, not even a personal analysis—only a handker-
chief and an occasional head cold or allergic episode. Let me illustrate with
an example from my practice.
Mr. K, an aspiring young comedian with whom I have been working, is
in a fit of pique. He is furious because I have not given him my opinion of
his manager and whether or not that individual is ripping him off. As a re-
sult, he maintains that I am putting him in jeopardy, allowing him to remain
in the hands of a con artist, and very likely causing him to lose a great deal
of money. What kind of analyst am I anyway? he demands. He knows that
I have no intention of being human, but he supposed that, once in a while,
under extreme circumstances, I might develop a few humanoid qualities.
Now he sees that this is impossible. Clearly, I am tied like a tethered goat
to my Freudian method, antiquated and out-of-date as it is. I am, in fact, a
phenomenon, a genuine anachronism. With a little pull, he could probably
get me a booth at Ripley’s Believe it or Not! museum.
Mr. K has said much the same thing before. He is, in fact, quite regularly
on the attack, chiding me, mocking me for my old-fashioned ways, trying

ON BEGINNINGS
25
to knock me off my analytic stance. In one session, after I had made what
I thought was a particularly meaningful interpretation, linking a particular
quality of his with certain long-forgotten attitudes of his mother’s, Mr. K
responded, not with insight, but with an observation.
“You have hit the mark again,” he said. “Your interpretations are uncan-
nily accurate. In fact, there is no question about it: you have one of the finest
minds of the thirteenth century.”
Today he is in high gear, launching an all-out attack. As I listen, flinching
a little inwardly and beginning to wonder if, in reality, I have become an old
fuddy-duddy, the analytic equivalent of the nearsighted Mr. Magoo, my nose
begins to itch. I try to stifle the approaching sneeze, but it is too late. I sneeze
rather loudly and the sudden sound breaks into Mr. K’s tirade. Scarcely miss-
ing a beat, he pauses, offers a hearty “God bless you,” and continues the
attack with a laundry list of my shortcomings.
What is happening here, I realize, has much to do with the therapeutic
alliance, at least as I understand what Stone (1961), and others who value the
concept, mean by it. Mr. K’s quixotic behavior clearly reflects certain impor-
tant underlying feelings that he has about me. His response to my sneeze is
a sign that there is a bond between us; a bond composed of accurate, as well
as transference perceptions, that helps carry the treatment forward and that
helps him weather my mulishness, his rages, and all the tensions and misun-
derstandings that our peculiar enterprise is bound to encounter.
Of course, it is more than Mr. K’s words that are important. Theoretically,
in offering his blessing, my patient could be speaking sarcastically or with
mockery, and secretly might be hoping that the sneeze would turn into a bad
case of the flu. In my experience, however, such hostility is rarely concealed
behind this particular expression of goodwill. Mr. K’s spontaneous offering
suggests, rather, the existence of a wellspring of positive feelings towards me;
feelings that are sustained despite the eruption, from time to time, of anger
and resentment.
The positive regard that my patient feels for me, of course, contains all the
elements that I have mentioned. In his case, the core of warm feelings that, as
an infant, he felt towards his mother is at the base of the positive transference.
Added to this are not only a mix of transferences displaced from early percep-
tions of his father and a sibling, but fantasies involving a wished-for self and
wished-for parents. Included, too, are a set of imaginations concerning my
relationship with him; imaginations that involve our being soulmates as well
as enduring friends.
Not all of Mr. K’s perceptions, however, are infused with fantasy. In this
treatment, as in many others, the therapeutic alliance derived much of its
intensity from the patient’s intuitive and accurate perceptions of his analyst.
From my tone and manner, as well as from nonverbal clues transmit-
ted to him, Mr. K knows that I like and admire him. He knows, too, that
I am on his side and senses that I share with him the wish that he better

26
resolve the conflicts that are at the root of his troubles. He has tested me and
knows that I won’t retaliate against him for his rages, nor will I drop him
because he is nasty, and even abusive, at times. He knows that I am in for the
long haul. He also knows that, in setting the fee I have tried (though in his
eyes not always successfully), to be fair to both of us. And, in the matter of
arrangements, paying for missed appointments and the like, he has seen that
I have attempted to take his reality, as well as my own, into consideration.
When, for instance, for compelling reasons having to do with the demands
of his career, Mr. K has had to miss sessions, I have made an effort to rear-
range his appointments. When this has not been possible, and his hours
have been filled by other patients, I have not charged him. I am well aware
of the problems inherent in this arrangement, including the potential for
acting out of fantasies and conflicts on both sides of the couch, but on bal-
ance I believe that it is more important, from the outset of treatment, for the
analyst to behave in a fair, reasonable, and considerate manner. When we
have occasion to refer someone close to us for analysis, we look not only for
a skilled and experienced person, but for someone who is a mensch, a mature
individual with sound values who can relate warmly and empathically to
another human being.
There are, of course, a number of factors that contribute to the devel-
opment of rapport between patient and analyst. Among these is the kind
of match of personalities and styles that takes place initially (Kantrowitz,
1986); the analyst’s theoretical orientation, his experience, skill, capacity for
empathy, and the nature of the transference-countertransference interactions
that unfold. As important as these factors are, however, in and by them-
selves, they do not fully account for the particular quality of an analytic
relationship. The character of the analyst—the mensch factor—operating as
an unspoken, but ever-present, factor in the mind of the patient, influences
all that transpires.
No matter what qualities we bring to analysis and no matter what approach
we use, our attitudes and behavior will stir memories and fantasies in the pa-
tient that are based on the inner world that he brings to treatment. These
are the transference reactions whose exploration forms the core of our work.
But patients also respond to certain realities about their analysts, including
the attitudes and values that they convey. Transferences take root from these
accurate perceptions, not only from distorted ones. The transferences that a
patient develops in different treatment situations, as we know from reanaly-
ses, are not identical. While, clearly, certain transference paradigms are the
same, or nearly so, others are not. Not all aspects of an individual’s psychol-
ogy are mobilized in a given treatment. What does appear is, to some extent,
determined by particular qualities in the analyst and his manner of interact-
ing with the patient, both of which the latter views through the lens of his
unique personal history.

ON BEGINNINGS
27
What, in short, I wish to convey is that, however we think of it and how-
ever we define it, the concept of the therapeutic alliance contains the funda-
mental idea of a bond between two people; a bond involving feelings of trust
on the part of the patient that, to a considerable degree, take root from his
accurate assessment of certain qualities and attitudes of his analyst’s.
In this connection, Roy Schafer (1983) raised an intriguing question in a
paper of his written some years ago. Every analyst, Schafer pointed out, puts
on the mantle of his working self when he steps into the office. In taking on
the role of the analyst, he keeps his more personal side under wraps. That
being so, Schafer wondered whether it would be possible for someone who
did not have a good character—who was, for instance, a small-minded or
nasty individual—to be a first-rate analyst.
I had the privilege of discussing this paper and I remember that my answer
was yes—and no. Yes, up to a point, I said, I thought that it was possible for
certain not very praiseworthy people to check their worst features at the door
and to function quite effectively in their offices. We all know some pretty
skilled analysts from whom we would not necessarily buy a used car. While in
these individuals the discrepancy between their working selves and the selves
that their friends and family know is greater than the norm, it is not so great
as to make them unsuitable as analysts.
There is a point, though, I thought, when the stretch becomes too great.
If someone is truly a mean-spirited person—self-involved, devious, greedy,
or lacking in empathy for others—sooner or later patients will know this.
They may not be fully conscious of what they sense and may not be able
to put their perceptions into words, but they will grasp the truth. Although
patients may not be privy to the facts of our lives, they come to know the
essence of ourselves. And, sensing the truth about such an analyst, patients
will be on guard. While on the surface they may seem quite open and
spontaneous in sessions, a core part of themselves will be withheld. Not
completely trusting the analyst, they will not allow themselves to become
wholly vulnerable.
Whether or not we endorse the concept of the therapeutic alliance, then,
one thing seems clear. Insofar as that term designates the existence of a res-
ervoir of positive feelings for, and trust in, the analyst, it points to an ele-
ment of the greatest importance in treatment. This is not to say that the
patient’s attitude towards his analyst must remain consistently positive for
the analytic work to be effective. Quite the opposite is the case. The surfac-
ing and working through both of negative transferences and negative feelings
based on other factors is indispensable to a successful outcome. Dr. Martin
Stein (1981), in his seminal paper on the unobjectionable positive transfer-
ence, pointed out that not infrequently a seemingly uncomplicated positive
attitude towards the analyst conceals and screens out covert negative feel-
ings that have the power to undermine the analysis. Access to such negative

28
transferences, however, is frequently difficult. The patient may dread the
confrontation and the threatened object loss that, in fantasy, accompanies
the exposure of such feelings. Often it is only after a basic attitude of trust
in, and positive regard for, the analyst has developed that patients can truly
expose their rivalry, rage, and other negative emotions. And as we know, ex-
posure of this kind is essential to progress in analysis, for it is only by means
of such openness that understanding and working through of these powerful
affects can take place.
It is not surprising, therefore, that at the outset of treatment, evaluation
of the analyst takes place alongside that of the patient. On the surface, this
may take the form of the patient asking questions about our background,
training, affiliations, and the like. While surely patients are interested in such
matters, their fundamental concern is with something else. They want to
know what kind of people we are. Are we honest, intelligent, reliable, and
trustworthy? Are we introspective enough to examine our own reactions as
well as theirs? Can we own up to our mistakes without being defensive and
attributing blame elsewhere? Can we tolerate aggression directed towards us,
as well as depression and despair in our patients? And do we have the capac-
ity to get outside our own skins and put ourselves in the shoes of another?
These are things patients want to know and when—on the basis of what
they have observed, the answer they obtain is a positive one—the therapeutic
alliance is born.
This is a good beginning, the kind of beginning that often launches an
effective analysis, but it is only a start. The opening phase of treatment, as
we know, is fraught with difficulties. It is a vitally important time, though,
because what happens early on often sets the tone for much of what is to
follow. It is true, of course, that some marriages—and some treatments—
that get off on the wrong foot right themselves and go on to become
productive and satisfying. But many do not. Often they carry the scars
of troubled beginnings throughout the relationship, and sometimes those
scars never heal.
Just as in air travel, it is the take-off and landing that are the most haz-
ardous parts of the flight and require most pilot skill, so for both patient
and analyst it is often the beginnings and endings that pose the greatest
challenge and that are the most difficult part of the journey to traverse. This
is because, for both participants, as for most of us, beginnings and endings
have special psychological significance. They have a way of evoking trouble-
some ghosts.
Every time we begin a treatment, a host of memories involving previous
beginnings that have been important in the lives of both patient and analyst
wait in the wings, ready to come on stage and to influence the action. These
memories involve the most diverse experiences: the first day of school, meet-
ing new friends, moving to a new neighborhood, first dates, first sexual expe-
riences, and so on. The range is infinite and, because endings are inevitably

ON BEGINNINGS
29
associated with memories and fantasies involving loss, separation, and death,
their evocative powers are equally great. Unconsciously, these memories, the
experiences that give rise to them, and the fantasies connected with them,
operate silently to set our expectations in a particular direction and to color
our vision.
Because it is pertinent to this point, I will relate again a story that I re-
counted in a previous communication (Jacobs, 1991). It concerns a very
short analyst, no more than 5 feet, 2 inches in height, who walked into his
waiting room to greet a new patient. There he encountered a Paul Bunyan of
a man standing fully 6 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing 280 pounds, and wearing
cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat. For a moment the analyst stared unbe-
lievingly at the newcomer. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Come on in
anyway,” he said.
As an illustration of the way in which the interplay of transference between
patient and analyst can affect not only their emerging relationship, but the
entire opening phase of treatment, I would like to cite a clinical example that,
in its essentials, will be familiar to many colleagues.
Some years ago, after I had finished my residency and had just entered
practice, I received a most welcome phone call. A highly respected and much
admired teacher of mine was on the line.
“I’ve got a great case for you,” he exclaimed in his typical enthusiastic,
high-energy manner. “Just up your alley. A remarkable lady—a poet, teacher,
scholar and wit. I’ve spent two delightful hours in consultation with her.
She’s fascinating, has neurotic hang-ups, and was in a bad treatment that
ended abruptly. She’s ready for something good this time around. I’ve told
her all about you and she’s anxious to meet you and to get started. She can’t
pay a whole lot, but listen: this is a terrific case. I’d take her myself if I had
time.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “Just happen to have a couple of openings at the
moment.”
“I thought you might,” my friend replied.
“Well, okay, I’d be interested. You say she’s neurotic? What problems is she
having?”
“Depression mostly. There’s a lot of repressed anger and some self-
destructive fantasies, but nothing that is unworkable. I have no doubt that
you can help her. In fact, you two should get on famously.”
You can imagine the excitement I felt when I hung up. I had gotten a great
referral and a vote of confidence from a highly valued teacher. I was walking
on air and was looking forward with high expectation to meeting this remark-
able woman—a patient who, incidentally, would constitute the first bona fide
neurotic case in my fledgling practice. My fantasies about the patient were
further aroused by my speaking to her on the phone. She had an attractive
voice, soft and resonant, and was clearly a cultured and intelligent person.
I had visions of meeting a young Mary McCarthy or, if it was true that she

30
suffered from longstanding depression, a Virginia Woolf-type whose tragic
fate I could prevent by means of my effective and deeply empathic treatment.
The patient whom I encountered in the waiting room resembled neither
of these literary ladies. Sighting the large and imposing figure perusing my
bookshelf with what I took to be an expression of amused disdain, I had
to fight off the flood of memories of disappointing blind dates that sud-
denly cascaded in on me. The patient turned, looked at me quizzically, and
waited for me to speak. I imagined the disappointment was mutual. Trying to
compose myself, I smiled and looked as welcoming as I could.
“Ms. S, I’m Dr. Jacobs,” I said pleasantly. Apparently my bright tone did
not conceal my true feelings.
“Who did you expect?” she asked. “Catherine Deneuve?”
Not being a foreign film buff at the time, I had only the vaguest idea of
whom she meant, but I covered up my ignorance.
“Actually, Dr. Y. told me a good deal about you.” I put in quickly. “Won’t
you come in?”
Slowly and quite reluctantly, she entered the office and sat on the edge of
the patient’s chair, looking distinctly unhappy.
“I thought that you’d be a good deal older,” she remarked. “Not someone
just out of school.”
“You had some idea of me in mind, then,” I replied, trying, as I had been
taught, to explore the inner world of fantasy.
“Actually, I did,” Ms. S said. “I imagined, since you were recommended
by Dr. Y, that you might look like one of Freud’s younger colleagues, perhaps
Rank or Abraham.”
I knew then that I was in big trouble. This lady knew more about Freud’s
inner circle than I did. Although I had heard the names of these early analysts,
at that point I knew very little about them. In fact, on that score, they were
pretty much in the same boat as Catherine Deneuve.
I looked at this new patient sitting across from me and I felt tense and
anxious. What was I to do with this formidable Freudian scholar who prom-
ised to be a lot more, as well as less, than I bargained for? Ms. S stared back at
me as though I still had a face full of acne. I imagined that she was thinking of
me as the analytic equivalent of Andy Hardy or Henry Aldrich, a disconcert-
ingly pubescent therapist.
Clearly Ms. S and I were unhappy with each other. Although there was a
good deal more to it, initially my disappointment had to do with the dispar-
ity between the patient whom I expected and the patient who arrived in my
office. Ms. S was not the ideal patient of my imagination, and it took some
time for me to sort out the personal elements concerning my wish for a par-
ticular kind of woman in my life that had suffused my initial perceptions of
her. Ms. S’s disappointment, I came to understand, was connected with cer-
tain experiences both of the recent and more remote past. Although for quite
some time she said nothing about it, the combination and sequence of recent

ON BEGINNINGS
31
events in Ms. S’s life, including the abrupt ending of her prior therapy, the
consultation with Dr. Y, and the referral to me, stirred up a host of memories
that colored her initial responses to me and nearly capsized the treatment.
Ms. S was the daughter of a ne’er-do-well father, a compulsive gambler,
who abandoned the family when the patient was 18 months old. Being mar-
ried and supporting a child, he decided, was not for him. Although there
were occasional postcards from places like Las Vegas and Tahoe, Ms. S saw
her father only once more. A brief visit was arranged when she was 8 years
old. In her mother’s eyes the father was a pariah, the devil incarnate, who had
wreaked havoc on the family. Ms. S was not to think about him or even to
mention his name.
Under these circumstances, the girl did as she was told. She suppressed all
thoughts about her father, including the wish that he return one day, and,
instead, turned for love and support to her stepfather, a clever, outgoing, and
successful businessman. Although he possessed much in the way of charm
and charisma, the stepfather was actually a vain, self-involved individual who
avoided intimacy and related to Ms. S in a cool, arm’s-length manner. Not
understanding his need to maintain distance, she experienced his behavior as
a painful rejection.
The one male with whom she had close ties, and highly ambivalent ones
at that, was a brother four years younger than herself. The product of her
mother’s second marriage, this boy was the golden child, the son who carried
the hopes of the family. He was designated to become a shining star, a noted
physician or scientist, perhaps, while Ms. S was regarded as a nice enough,
but undistinguished, girl from whom little could be expected. D, the brother,
was sent to a prestigious prep school and an Ivy League college, while Ms. S
went to the local high school and a nearby branch of the state university.
In childhood, and for years thereafter, Ms. S was consumed by feelings of
resentment towards, and envy of, her brother. There was little that she did in
life that she did not compare with his achievements. Listening to her, one had
the impression that she was obsessed by such comparisons.
From the first session on, it became clear that a brother transference would
be a central feature of the treatment. What I did not realize then was that
the sister-brother scenario that was to unfold was a multifaceted one that
involved not only aspects of Ms. S’s history, but of mine as well.
Ms. S’s therapist had decided to retire from practice on rather short no-
tice. For Ms. S, his abrupt departure stirred memories of her father’s sudden
abandonment of the family, and she handled the current loss as she did the
earlier one: by suppressing her loving feelings and focusing on the nega-
tive ones. Her therapist was dull, predictable, and not very intelligent, she
claimed. She had learned little from him and was not sorry to see him go.
The deep attachment that she had to this man, an attachment that surfaced
only gradually in treatment, was denied and initially was not available in
consciousness.

32
To Dr. Y, my old teacher, Ms. S reacted as she did to her stepfather. She
viewed him as the same kind of man: successful, personable, and outwardly
friendly, but ultimately rejecting. She felt hurt and put down by his sending
her away. In typical fashion, however, she kept those feelings to herself.
In Ms. S’s mind, I was immediately linked with her younger brother, the
golden boy who was Dr. Y’s protégé and his favorite son. I was the privi-
leged one who, given every advantage, had become a doctor, and believed
myself superior to her. From the opening gun she wanted to show me up,
to defeat me, and thereby to prove that she was not only my equal, but, in
fact, had more ability and a keener intelligence than I. At the same time,
she experienced guilt over these feelings and was plagued by the idea that
in our relationship her rightful place was to remain behind me and in my
shadow.
From the first, then, emotionally laden memories and predetermined pat-
terns of responses triggered by the ending of Ms. S’s treatment, the consulta-
tion with Dr. Y, and her referral to me dominated her thinking and behavior.
But she was not the only one who was influenced by such forces. I, too, was
under the sway of certain memories, expectations, and pre-set ideas.
To begin with, my reaction to Dr. Y, the referring analyst, was a compli-
cated one. As I mentioned, I had always admired him for his charisma, his
wide-ranging knowledge, and his remarkable energy. In that respect, he was
quite unlike my own father, who, often depressed, lacked this vibrant quality.
For me, Dr. Y became the father I had always wanted but did not have.
I wished, therefore, to please him, to do well with the patient he had sent
me, and to prove that I was worthy of his respect. On the other hand, I
found myself angry with Dr. Y for what I regarded as a misrepresentation of
Ms. S. He had, I thought, sold this patient to me and was not entirely honest
in doing so. As it happened, my father was also in sales and, when the spirit
moved him, he could be an effective salesman. On more than one occasion,
he made promises to take me places that he did not keep and, after a while,
I became suspect of such talk.
Dr. Y’s behavior in promising, but not delivering, the wonderful case that
he described must have played into memories of this aspect of my father’s
behavior and caused me to react, as I had done in childhood, with resentment
and a wish to strike back at the man who had deceived me. In this situation,
that meant an unconscious wish on my part not to please Dr. Y, and not to
do what he wanted. Since, clearly, his wish was for me to do a sterling job in
treating Ms. S, the mix of reactions that I had towards Dr. Y complicated the
response that I had to the patient he had sent me. How often does it happen
that our initial reactions to patients, and perhaps even our more enduring
ones, are colored by our relationship with the referring source? This is a fac-
tor, I believe, that can exert an important influence on the beginning phase
of treatment.

ON BEGINNINGS
33
It happens, too, that just as Ms. S was an older sister to a younger brother,
I am a younger brother who has an older sister. As was true in Ms. S’s family,
the boys in our family were given certain advantage. Like D, I went to a pri-
vate school and an Ivy League college, while my sister attended local schools.
And, as was true in Ms. S’s situation, more was expected of me and my brother
than of my sister. Thus Ms. S’s history reverberated in important ways with
my own and stirred reactions in me that I had kept at bay for some time.
As a result of old feelings of guilt newly aroused from the outset of treat-
ment, I found myself in quite total sympathy with my patient’s view of her
own life. She had gotten a raw deal, she believed, and her resentment and rage
were fully justified. She was the victim of discrimination, her life was deci-
sively affected by this fact, and her present unhappiness was directly traceable
to this state of affairs. She sought, and was entitled to, reparations.
While, of course, there was much truth in this view, it did not represent
the whole story. A great many other factors, including the way Ms. S re-
acted to her own wishes and fantasies, clearly played important roles in her
difficulties. Under the sway of unconscious guilt feelings aroused by Ms. S’s
story and a rapidly developing transference to her as my older sister, I initially
found myself identifying so closely (and defensively, I suspect) with her posi-
tion that it was difficult for me to assume a sufficiently objective stance in my
work with her.
At the same time, I found myself responding to my patient’s competitive
remarks, and especially to her put-downs, with a wish to join the fray and
to defeat her. Whenever my sister competed with me, my tendency was to
respond with a need to assert myself, win in the competition, and to maintain
the natural order of things—that is, with me, the first-born son, as the King
of the Walk. It took making some errors in Ms. S’s case, including my falling
into a couple of unproductive skirmishes with her, for me to get a handle on
the problem and to recognize how easily I could slip into enactments related
to an old scenario.
One might say that this was an extraordinary situation, that parallels
existed in the life circumstances of patient and analyst that do not often occur,
and that this coincidence put a particular spin on this treatment, stimulating
transferences in both participants that were unusually rapid and intense. No
doubt this is true.
It is also true, however, that this case is not quite as unique as it may seem.
Parallels in the lives of patient and analyst, especially in the sharing of certain
psychological experiences, are not so rare. In my work, at least, I find much
in the inner worlds of my patients that resonates meaningfully with what
I have known and experienced. Sometimes it is in our ways of thinking and
responding rather than in actual experiences that significant sharing occurs.
Unless our self-scanning efforts can pick up these less obvious similarities
between ourselves and our patients, they may lead to bits and pieces of acting

34
out based on unconscious identifications. Not infrequently, such behavior
occurs early in treatment before we can develop a fuller understanding of
our patients’ psychology and the way in which it resonates with our own.
While sometimes the analyst’s actions, being in tune with particular wishes
or needs of the patients, have the effect of strengthening the alliance, at other
times they unwittingly cause disruptions in it. In the case of Ms. S, if earlier
on I had been aware of the long-forgotten piece of my own history that was
being enacted with her, perhaps I would have been able to avoid the prob-
lems caused both by my initial disappointment in Ms. S and, later, by my
putting too much weight on the realities of her early life and, especially, on
the inequities that she suffered in childhood. While, assuredly, these were im-
portant in her development, equally important were the rivalrous and hostile
fantasies, as well as the guilt feelings, that she harbored for so long a time.
It sometimes happens that we encounter patients with whom we seem to
have little in common; whose attitudes, values, and life experiences seem, in
fact, quite alien to us. While on a fundamental level there is enough alike in
all of us, I believe, so that there is an ample basis for empathy even in such
cases, the initial feelings of strangeness and alienation may create a barrier to
the development of rapport.
In such situations, something more than a lack of familiarity is at work.
Our earliest fears of strangers, the unknown, the mystical, and the alien, are
aroused. Stimulated by these ancient fears, we often respond with anxiety
and a wish to return to the known and the familiar; in short, to patients with
whom we can more readily identify.
Whatever situations we encounter, however, whether they are ones in
which similarities between patient and analyst lead to rapid identifications or
ones in which feelings of unfamiliarity and distance initially predominate, the
development of a positive alliance or a good working relationship between
patient and analyst often depends on our capacity for self-examination. I am
not talking here about comprehensive and sustained self-analysis, if indeed
such an entity exists, but of a kind of self-awareness based on the ability to
scan one’s reactions as one begins work with a new patient. For it is this valu-
able tool, along with the mensch factor, a way of looking at the world that
respects the needs, rights, and realities of another person, that ultimately gives
rise to the gesundheit factor. And this phenomenon, we know, is the unmis-
takable sign, long awaited by analysts and therapists of every persuasion, that
treatment has gotten off on the right foot and that a good and solid alliance
is in place.

35
2
THE INNER EXPERIENCES
OF THE ANALYST
Their Contribution to the Analytic Process
This chapter will focus on some of my inner experiences during one ana-
lytic hour. My aim is to illustrate how one analyst uses himself in his work.
More specifically, I will try to illustrate how certain thoughts, feelings, fan-
tasies, and physical sensations that I became aware of during this session
arose in response to unconscious communications from my patient, illumi-
nated certain resistances in myself, and contributed to the form and sub-
stance of my interventions. The use of inner experiences, I believe, was an
essential element in my understanding the transactions that took place in
this hour and in my being able to help my patient take a small step forward
in his treatment. I will report all that I have recorded and can remember
of the phenomena that arose in my mind during this session and on how I
utilized what surfaced.
Confronted with such self-oriented material, the reader may well find her-
self in the position of the 10-year-old whose assignment it was to read a book
about Arctic polar bears. When the time came for the boy to give his report
in class, he had little to say.
“Did you read the book, John?” his teacher asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, did you like it?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And why not?”
“It told me more about Arctic polar bears than I care to know.”
My hope in this chapter is to illustrate a way of thinking about the
interactive aspect of the psychoanalytic situation that has come into focus
in recent years and that has made an important contribution to our field
(McLaughlin, 1958). Briefly summarized (Poland, 1996, Renik, 1993, Smith,
1999), this viewpoint stresses the following ideas: that the analytic process
inevitably involves the interplay of two psychologies, that the inner experi-
ences of the analyst often provide a valuable pathway to understanding the
inner experiences of the patient, and that not infrequently analytic progress
depends on the working through of resistances in the analyst as well as the

36
patient. And in this process of overcoming his own resistances, the analyst’s
utilization of his subjective experiences as they arise in the immediacy of the
analytic hour plays a central role.
It is 7:55 A.M. on a Monday. I am in the new office to which I have moved
over the weekend, waiting for Mr. V to arrive. He is 38, single, an attorney,
slim, handsome, and polished. He looks and acts like the quintessential yup-
pie. He has been in analysis for about 18 months because he dislikes his
work, has not achieved the professional and financial success that he craves,
has no friends, avoids his family, and cannot commit himself to marrying the
woman with whom he has lived for two years. He often speaks of himself
as a kind of impostor, someone who gives the impression of being far more
knowledgeable in his field than he actually is. He is terrified of being exposed
for his inadequacies. I, too, sometimes find myself thinking that I would not
be disposed to buy a used car from him. On the other hand, I am aware that
Mr. V has a need to picture himself as a charlatan and I wonder if he has
drawn me into a view of himself that he wishes me to share.
There is, however, something menacing about Mr. V. Sometimes when he
is on the couch, I picture a character from a Pinter play, the kind of individual
who seems innocuous enough on the surface but whose bland exterior con-
ceals a streak of violence. Mr. V is the only patient I have worked with who,
waiting for his session to begin, stands inches outside my office door. Then,
when I open it, he charges into the room sweeping past me like a bargain
hunter at a red tag sale.
As a child, Mr. V felt shut out by an indifferent older brother and self-
involved parents, and I’ve come to understand his behavior in my office as an
effort to assert himself and to claim his rightful place on my couch and in my
life. I’ve interpreted this wish to Mr. V, and he has acknowledged that it is so.
But this intervention has not altered his behavior. He still stands a couple of
inches outside my door, making me uncomfortable, and causing me to feel as
though my space is being invaded.
Today, as I wait for Mr. V, I am more tense than usual. I anticipate his
criticism of my new office and I am apprehensive about this. Mr. V attaches
a great deal of importance to appearances and, when displeased by surround-
ings that he regards as unattractive, he can be caustic. My anxiety also reflects
my own dissatisfaction with the office I have rented. Although located in
a good building on the fashionable East Side of Manhattan, somehow my
new office does not look very attractive to me. In these larger and unfamiliar
quarters it appears rather shabby and threadbare. I realize, in fact, that I am
rather self-conscious about the appearance of my new place and I am angry
with myself for not having anticipated the problem and invested in some new
furnishings.
Mr. V rings the bell. He is always on time, almost to the second. It is a thing
with him. He prides himself on his punctuality. I sometimes think of him as a
spit-and-polish top sergeant; tough, demanding, perfectionistic. Hearing him

THE INNER EXPERIENCES OF THE ANALYST
37
come in, I place a paper towel on the pillow and take a few seconds to arrange
it. As I do so, the image of a writer I have studied with suddenly appears in
my mind. On one occasion this man confessed to a daily ritual that he per-
forms. Before he can settle down to write, and as a way of avoiding this task,
he dutifully sharpens half a dozen pencils and lines them up, one by one, on
his desk. I realize that this thought has come to mind because I am delaying
going to the door. When I do so, I am about 30 seconds late.
Mr. V nods a curt nod and moves quickly into the room. He goes to the
couch, unbuttons his jacket, and stretches out on it. His shoes are smartly
polished and, as he enters the office, I notice his suit. It is blue, elegant, very
English, and obviously custom-tailored. I glance at my own clothes. They
are undistinguished by comparison, a jacket and trousers without panache
or flair. The name, Barney’s, springs to mind. This is a men’s store in New
York that is now quite fashionable and upmarket but that began in busi-
ness some years ago as a discount outlet. In its early radio commercials it
described itself as a no-frills operation whose merchandise hung from plain
pipe racks. Accompanied by a feeling of chagrin, the thought occurs to me
that for all these years I myself have been a plain pipe rack man, a ready-to-
wear fellow who has not outgrown the original Barney’s mentality and who
has not made the leap into the rarefied world of custom tailoring. By con-
trast, both my father and my analyst were more like Mr. V. Both aspired to
a certain elegance. Both had their clothes made to order. In this area I have
not competed.
I think of interpretations that my analyst made about my non-competi-
tiveness. He pointed out that I avoided conflict with other men by opting out
of any competition with them. Now I picture my analyst, a large imposing
man, and, momentarily, I re-experience the anxiety that, in analysis, I felt at
the thought that if I challenged him too directly he might turn his wrath on
me.
This brings me back to Mr. V. I look at him. He is lying silently on the
couch, surveying the room. His hands are sliding gently over both jacket
pockets as though to smooth out any wrinkles.
A phrase that I’d heard somewhere pops into mind: “Looks British, thinks
Yiddish.” I quickly realize that this is a put-down, in part in anticipation of
Mr. V’s criticism, in part an expression of my competition with, and envy of,
his sartorial splendor. It is also an expression of my awareness that, although
Jewish, Mr. V does not wish to be identified as such.
I think about our interaction and I realize that my transference to Mr. V
has drawn much from my relationship to my father and other male authori-
ties. Made anxious by the prospect of a clash with them, I avoided conflict. To
ensure peace, I let them be the winners, wore off-the-rack clothes, and sought
to conceal my feelings of rivalry and competition. This, I think, is what has
been happening with Mr. V. He has handled his fear of me by denying it and
becoming the aggressor. I have handled mine of him by repressing my rivalry

38
and aggression and consciously experiencing apprehension in his presence.
I realize, however, that my aggressive feelings have begun to slip out around
the edges in the form of the kind of thoughts I have just had. I remind myself
that I need to be aware of this reaction, just as I need to be aware of my old
pattern of avoiding conflict with a formidable man.
Then an image of my father appears in my mind. I picture him on the
telephone, shouting at one of his unproductive salesmen and hanging up on
him. As I imagine this, I feel the same kind of anxiety that, as a child, I ex-
perienced when, lying in bed, I overheard my father flying into a rage. I then
recall how, through my analysis, I was able, in large measure, to overcome my
fear of him. I am aware that I am having this thought as a way of saying that
I can deal with Mr. V and with whatever feelings he evokes in me.
Mr. V has completed his silent survey of my office.
“You are nothing if not consistent,” he says. “It’s amazing. Your Sears deco-
rator has done it again. She has duplicated the old place right down to the last
shabby detail.” He pauses and then goes on.
“Wasn’t it some philosopher who said that consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds?” A flash thought occurs to me, accompanied by a momentary
feeling of triumph. Mr. V has it wrong. The actual quote—I think it was
from Emerson—is “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
It is on the tip of my tongue to say this, but I know that in correcting my
patient I would merely be showing off and acting defensively. I refrain.
Mr. V is off on another topic. I listen for its connection with his opening
remarks. He is describing an event that took place a few evenings earlier. He
had been invited to have dinner at the home of Mr. K, a friend from childhood
who, over the years, has become quite close to Mr. V’s older brother. Mr. K
had, in fact, invited both brothers, but Mr. V’s sibling declined because he
himself was entertaining guests at the elegant condominium which he had
recently purchased.
My patient is saying that he has little liking for Mr. K, had no real interest
in having dinner with him, and had accepted the invitation both out of some
misguided feeling of loyalty to his brother and an irrational feeling of guilt at
the idea of turning his back on a friend from the old neighborhood.
“He’s a jerk,” Mr. V remarks. “A schlemiel who made a couple of bucks
with a chain of convenience stores, has gotten fancy notions, and has moved
to Park Avenue. I don’t know what my brother sees in him. They are two of
a kind. Both got lucky, made some money, and think they are God’s gift.”
As I listen, I feel tense. I notice some quickening of my pulse and that my
abdominal muscles feel tight. I am aware that my body is slightly rotated
away from Mr. V. I realize that I am reacting to a feeling, which I cannot
quite pinpoint, that indirectly I am being criticized. The thought occurs to
me that concealed within Mr. V’s disparaging remarks about Mr. K is also
disparagement of me.

39
Then I recall something from a session of some months ago. In pass-
ing, Mr. V had spoken of his wish to move to the East Side, where his
brother was buying a condominium and of his frustration at being unable
to afford an apartment in that location. This memory from an earlier hour
puts me in touch with the envy concealed behind Mr. V’s remarks. Partly
because I now understand that this is true, and partly because intuitively,
and through bodily feelings, I also sense some displacement to Mr. K from
feelings about me and the move I have made, I call my patient’s attention
to that fact. I point out that Mr. K is not the only person who has moved
to the East Side. I remind Mr. V that he himself had wanted to make such
a move and that his brother has recently purchased an expensive condo-
minium not far from my office. I suggest that my move into this area must
have stirred some strong feelings in him that, in part, surfaced in his at-
titude towards Mr. K.
Mr. V responds with bit of doggerel that suddenly appears in conscious-
ness: “The nouveau riche, the nouveau riche, / What are we to do with the
nouveau riche? / Why hang them, Sir. They are all sons of beetches.”
As I listen, my guts feel tight, my pulse quickens, and I realize that al-
though, consciously, I am amused by this ditty, I am not unaware of the
aggression contained in it. I point out this aspect of his poem to Mr. V and
I tell him that he must be envious of me, as well as of Mr. K and his brother,
for having the wherewithal to move to the East Side while he has been unable
to do so. I add that it must be difficult for Mr. V to experience envy. I point
out that this emotion does not come up directly but that, instead, he finds
himself feeling angry and critical of others.
Mr. V replies with a memory from his adolescence. He recalls envying his
brother’s stylish clothing and wanting to borrow some items to wear at par-
ties. If he made such a request, however, his brother would not only refuse it,
but would humiliate him by mocking his physical appearance. Mr. V recalls
swearing that he would never allow himself to be put in such a position
again.
As Mr. V recounts this story, I have a mental picture of his brother: tough,
mean-spirited, nasty, and I feel rage at this brutish fellow. Then suddenly I
recall my own childhood experiences of being bullied. Gangs of Irish youths
used to roam the streets of the neighborhood in which I grew up, corner any
Jewish kids they encountered, steal our possessions, and often beat us up. I
hated those bullies and I realize that I have associated Mr. V’s brother with
them. I warn myself to be alert to the dangers involved in doing so and iden-
tifying with my patient as the victim of brutality.
My patient has returned to criticism of Mr. K. What in particular he can’t
stand about the fellow is his newfound religion. Suddenly he has become
a pious Jew. In this decision he has no doubt been influenced by Mr. V’s
brother, who became similarly religious a few years ago. As far as Mr. V is

40
concerned, both are phonies. They are guys who, for two bucks, would rob
you blind. In Hebrew school they did nothing but throw spitballs at each
other. Now they are pillars of the synagogue, big contributors who have their
names on plaques in the sanctuary.
“On Friday night the Ks said prayers and lit Shabbos candles. It was a
farce. You should have seen the candleholder this guy has. An antique from
the Maccabees or something. It must be worth fifty grand. In fact, he’s got re-
ligious articles all over the apartment. He collects them: prayer shawls, Torah
covers, Stars of David, those little signs you put on doorposts, everything.
The place looks like a goddamn branch of the Jewish Museum.”
As Mr. V talks, a number of seemingly unconnected memories arise in my
mind. I recall an embarrassing incident that occurred in my practice some
years before. Early one winter morning, I arose early to see a patient. In order
not to waken my wife, I had dressed in semi-darkness. In doing so, however,
I made a mistake. Reaching into my closet, I took from a clothes hanger not
the jacket and trousers belonging to a single gray suit but the jacket from one
suit and the trousers from another, which was quite similar in color but differ-
ently patterned. In the ensuing analytic hour, my patient complained a good
deal about me. I was off base, he said. I was missing the mark. Somehow I was
not all there that day—I seemed at odds with myself. Only later did I realize
that his subliminal perception that something was amiss with my attire had
decisively influenced my patient’s associations.
Quickly following the emergence of this memory, an image of Dr. Charles
Fisher appears in my mind. A former supervisor of mine, Dr. Fisher did pio-
neering work in the area of subliminal perception and his studies stimulated
my own interest in such phenomena.
At that point, another puzzling memory surfaces. I recall my grandparents’
apartment, a small one-bedroom flat in a run-down section of town. I had
not thought about that apartment in perhaps 40 years, but now I picture its
front door. Clearly displayed on it is a mezuzah, the small symbolic object
that religious Jews attach to their doorposts to designate the presence within
of a Jewish home. Then another image arises. I picture the front door of my
present office. As I do, I recall that a mezuzah is also affixed to it, but one
that has been painted over many times and that, as a result, does not stand
out sharply from the doorframe. On my first visit to this office, I had noticed
this religious object and I’d had the passing thought that an observant family
must, at one time, have occupied these quarters. Then I forgot quite com-
pletely about the entire matter.
Now I think about it and wonder why these images are arising. As I do
so, I have a sudden conviction. Mr. V has seen the mezuzah on the door. On
some level—perhaps subliminally—it has registered in his brain and, through
his associations to the religious objects in Mr. K’s home (which included the
specific reference to a mezuzah), he has made reference to it.

41
On the basis of this hunch, which, I recall, was experienced with a sense of
conviction, I ask Mr. V if he noticed anything on the front door of the office
as he came in. In response, he is silent for a few seconds.
“You have something in mind,” he replies after a bit, “but I don’t know
what it is.”
I remain quiet again and Mr. V lapses into silence. Then, finally, he speaks.
“Hey wait a minute,” he says. “Do you have one of those Jewish things on
your door? I think you might. My eye caught something on the frame but
I didn’t really look at it [he laughs]. So is that why I’m talking about these
things? You would say so. I don’t know. But I do know that the whole business
of advertising oneself as a Jew is phony and pretentious. K is a phony through
and through. I hope that you are not like that. It would upset me a lot if I
knew you put that religious thing on your door. I’d put you in K’s category.
But I know you didn’t. Even if it is there, I’d bet it wasn’t you who put it there.
It’s probably from the previous tenant.”
At that point, I recall something that Mr. V has told me in one of our earli-
est sessions but that he has not brought up again. This is that in the business
world he attempts to conceal the fact that he is a Jew. Without being obvious
about it, he tries to give the impression that he is a WASP, as are many of his
associates. During his college years, in fact, Mr. V regularly attended church
services and passed himself off as a Protestant.
There is something important about Mr. V’s need to deny his Jewishness,
I think, but I do not understand this phenomenon very well. Nor do I under-
stand what it means to him that I am Jewish. Clearly the idea of my possibly
being an observant Jew is deeply troubling to him. But why? I realize that for
some reason the question of Jewishness—his and mine—has not been ex-
plored. Although clearly an important matter, it has, until now, remained in
the background, an issue dealt with by silence. Is this solely because of avoid-
ance on Mr. V’s part? I wonder. Is his resistance to looking into it particularly
strong because being Jewish touches on an area of great sensitivity for him?
Or is the avoidance mutual, a conspiracy of silence? As I puzzle over this di-
lemma, a memory from adolescence arises.
When I was about 16, I wanted to be a radio announcer, and often
at night I practiced reading commercials into a tape recorder. In fantasy
I imagined becoming a noted radio personality. But could I do so with the
name “Jacobs”? Would so obvious a Jewish name be a strike against me and
prevent my rise in the WASPy, button-down world of network radio? Per-
haps, I thought, I should change my name. Now I recall the one I chose. Ted
Jordan. This is Ted Jordan of CBS News. With a sense of chagrin I realize
that behind my failure to explore my patient’s feelings about his Jewishness
lie conflicts of my own, long dormant but activated by working with Mr. V
about that very issue. In rapid succession, two images now appear: a scene
from the recent Bat Mitzvah of one of my daughters, and the title of a book

Another Random Document on
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the Duke of Richmond. Meanwhile, I am Chargé des
affaires d'Angleterre à la cour de France, which is the title
under which you must write to me, if you favour me with
a letter.
"Lord Hertford had another additional project for my
advantage, in Ireland. The keeper of the black rod is a
very genteel office, which yields about £900 during the
session. He proposed, as I cannot be present on the
opening of the parliament, to give that office to another,
who would officiate, and would be content with £300. But
I declined this offer; not as unjust, but as savouring of
greediness and rapacity.[291:1]
"Please to write all these particulars to Katty, except the
last, and seal and send her the enclosed. I am charmed
with the accounts I hear of Josey, from all hands. Yours
sincerely.
"There was a kind of fray in London, as I am told, upon
Lord Hertford's declaring his intentions in my favour. The
Princess Amelia said, that she thought the affair might be
easily accommodated: why may not Lord Hertford give a
bishopric to Mr. Hume?"[292:1]
Writing an account of these transactions to Smith, in nearly the
same words, on 5th November, he commences his letter with the
observation, "I have been whirled about lately in a strange manner;
but, besides that none of the revolutions have ever threatened me
much, or been able to give me a moment's anxiety, all has ended
very happily, and to my mind." He concludes thus:—
"As a new vexation to temper my good fortune, I am
much in perplexity about fixing the place of my future
abode for life. Paris is the most agreeable town in Europe,
and suits me best; but it is a foreign country. London is

the capital of my own country; but it never pleased me
much. Letters are there held in no honour: Scotsmen are
hated: superstition and ignorance gain ground daily.
Edinburgh has many objections, and many allurements.
My present mind, this forenoon, the 5th of September, is
to return to France. I am much pressed here to accept of
offers, which would contribute to my agreeable living; but
might encroach on my independence, by making me enter
into engagements with princes, and great lords, and
ladies. Pray give me your judgment.
"I regret much I shall not see you. I have been looking for
you every day these three months. Your satisfaction in
your pupil gives me equal satisfaction."[293:1]
He writes to Blair, on 28th December:—
"Dear Doctor,—After great wavering and uncertainty,
between Paris and Edinburgh, (for I never allowed London
to enter into the question,) I have, at last, fixed my
resolution to remain some time longer in Paris. Perhaps I
may take a trip to Rome next autumn. Had I returned to
Edinburgh, I was sensible that I shut myself up, in a
manner, for life; and I imagine that I am, even yet, too
young and healthy, and in too good spirits, to come to
that determination. If you please, therefore, you may
continue in my house, which I am glad pleases you. If you
leave it, as you thought you would, Nairne may have it for
£35, as we agreed."[293:2]
We have now to return to Jean Jacques Rousseau, whom we left, in
1762, seeking protection from the Earl Marischal at Neufchâtel. He
finally took up his abode at Motiers Travers, a village on one of the
passes of the Jura; where, now that some offensive associations
connected with his character and writings have died away, the fame

of his genius still lives, and has been no unprofitable commodity to
the inhabitants. Here he had a wild rocky district to wander over,
where he was not liable to encounter those dangerous impediments
which beset the sojourners in the Alps. He had, at the same time,
what was more to his purpose, a zealous priesthood and an
intolerant populace surrounding him. That the outward
manifestations of a morality, odious to his new neighbours, might
not be wanting, he sent for his celebrated mistress, Thérèse la
Vasseur, with whom he continued openly to live; and that the
populace, thus exasperated, might be under no mistake as to the
proper person to throw stones at, he adopted the garb of an
Armenian.
It is much disputed whether he was really subjected to the attacks
of which he afterwards complained; and it is said, that whatever
tangible evidence of them was perceptible to other eyes than his
own, was the doing of Mademoiselle la Vasseur, to drive him from a
neighbourhood which she disliked. It will be found, however, that his
story, as reported by Hume in the letters which follow, substantially
coincides with the narrative in the "Confessions." This is in some
measure a testimony to the sincerity of Rousseau's own conviction,
that those hostile efforts were made against him; and indeed it
would be useless to question the sincerity of his belief in any thing
indicative of the malevolence of his fellow-beings. Having fled from
Motiers, he lived for some time on the island of St. Pierre, in the lake
of Bienne; and, driven from that asylum, he seems to have hesitated
between England and Prussia as a place of refuge. He left the State
of Bienne at the date at which his "Confessions" terminate, 29th
October, 1765. He proceeded to Strasburg, where, by wearing his
Armenian dress in the country where he had been proscribed, he
certainly excited a considerable sensation. He appears to have held a
sort of levée during his residence in that city, where his daily and
hourly proceedings have been recorded with the precision of a court
journal.[295:1]

It was here that he received Hume's letter, agreeing to aid him in
finding an asylum in England. The negotiation between them had
been brought to a conclusion by Madame de Verdelin, who had
spent some time with Rousseau at Motiers, and persuaded him to
take advantage of the impression which the Earl Marischal and
Madame de Boufflers had made in his favour.[295:2]
Hume's heart was farther softened by a letter, full of miseries, which
Rousseau had written to M. Clairaut. "I must own," says Hume, "I
felt on this occasion an emotion of pity, mixed with indignation, to
think a man of letters of such eminent merit, should be reduced, in
spite of the simplicity of his manner of living, to such extreme
indigence; and that this unhappy state should be rendered more
intolerable by sickness, by the approach of old age, and the
implacable rage of persecution." He was inclined even to sympathize
with Rousseau's petulant rejection of proferred kindness; conceiving
"that a noble pride, even though carried to excess, merited some
indulgence in a man of genius, who, borne up by a sense of his own
superiority, and a love of independence, should have braved the
storms of fortune and the insults of mankind."[296:1]
Leaving Strasburg, the wanderer proceeded to Paris, where he went
about in his Armenian dress; was mobbed and stared at to his
heart's content, wrote to his friends, complaining with bitter
eloquence that people would allow him neither solitude nor rest,
shut himself up, and went forth again to the world. Before he could
have ventured to appear so publicly, in the capital where a writ had
been issued for the seizure of his person, he must have received
very strong assurances of protection. The arrêt of the Parliament,
however, was not recalled; and his friends must have felt somewhat
provoked by his pertinacious courtship of popular notice,
accompanied by the pretence of a desire to avoid it, by adopting
only what was simple and natural—by wearing, for instance, so
simple a dress as the fur cap, caaftan, and vest of an Armenian, in
the streets of Paris! Hume, who seems really to have had faith in his
modesty, must still have felt it awkward that the representative of

Britain should be closely allied with a person so conducting himself;
and was anxious, whenever the state of public business might
permit him, to see his charge safely across the Channel. It was
thought, in the meantime, expedient to find for Rousseau an asylum
within the privileged area of the Temple, of which his friend, the
Prince of Conti, was Grand Prior. We must now allow Hume himself
to describe his new companion, and their intercourse.
In continuation of the letter to Blair, of 20th December, above cited,
he says:
Hume to Dr. Blair.
"I must, however, be in London very soon, in order to give
an account of my commission; to thank the King for his
goodness to me, and to settle the celebrated Rousseau,
who has rejected invitations from half of the kings and
princes of Europe, in order to put himself under my
protection. He has been at Paris about twelve days; and
lives in an apartment prepared for him by the Prince of
Conti, which, he says, gives him uneasiness, by reason of
its magnificence. As he was outlawed by the Parliament, it
behoved him to have the King's passport, which was at
first offered him under a feigned name; but his friends
refused it, because they knew that he would not submit
even to that falsehood. You have heard that he was
banished from Neufchâtel by preachers, who excited the
mob to stone him.
"He told me that a trap was laid for him, with as much art
as ever was employed against a fox or a polecat. In the
night-time a great enormous stone was suspended above
the door, in such a manner, that on opening it in the
morning, the stone must have fallen and have crushed
him to death.[297:1] A man passing by early, perceived it,
and called in to him at the window to be on his guard. He
also told me, that last spring, when he went about the

mountains amusing himself with botany, he came to a
village at some distance from his own: a woman met him,
who, surprised at his Armenian dress—for he wears, and
is resolved to wear that habit during life—asked him what
he was, and what was his name. On hearing it she
exclaimed, 'Are you that impious rascal, Rousseau? Had I
known it, I should have waited for you at the end of the
wood, with a pistol, in order to blow out your brains.' He
added, that all the women in Switzerland were in the
same disposition, because the preachers had told them
that he had wrote books to prove that women had no
souls. He then turned to Madame de Boufflers, who was
present, and said,—Is it not strange that I, who have
wrote so much to decry the morals and conduct of the
Parisian ladies, should yet be beloved by them; while the
Swiss women, whom I have so much extolled, would
willingly cut my throat? 'We are fond of you,' replied she,
'because we know that, however you might rail, you are at
bottom fond of us to distraction. But the Swiss women
hate you, because they are conscious that they have not
merit to deserve your attention.'
"On leaving Neufchâtel, he took shelter in a little island
about half a league in circumference, in the midst of a
lake near Berne. There lived in it only one German
peasant, with his wife and sister. The council of Berne,
frightened for his neighbourhood, on account of his
democratic more than his religious principles, ordered him
immediately to withdraw from their state. He wrote the
letter of which I send you a copy, as it is very curious. The
council, in answer, reiterated their orders for him to
begone. He then applied to me. I have made an
agreement with a French gardener in Fulham for boarding
him. We set out together in a few days.
"It is impossible to express or imagine the enthusiasm of
this nation in his favour. As I am supposed to have him in

my custody, all the world, especially the great ladies,
tease me to be introduced to him. I have had rouleaus
thrust into my hand, with earnest applications that I
would prevail on him to accept of them. I am persuaded
that, were I to open here a subscription with his consent,
I should receive £50,000 in a fortnight. The second day
after his arrival, he slipped out early in the morning to
take a walk in the Luxembourg gardens. The thing was
known soon after. I am strongly solicited to prevail on him
to take another walk, and then to give warning to my
friends. Were the public to be informed, he could not fail
to have many thousand spectators. People may talk of
ancient Greece as they please; but no nation was ever so
fond of genius as this, and no person ever so much
engaged their attention as Rousseau. Voltaire and every
body else are quite eclipsed by him.
"I am sensible that my connexions with him add to my
importance at present. Even his maid La Vasseur, who is
very homely and very awkward, is more talked of than the
Princess of Morocco or the Countess of Egmont, on
account of her fidelity and attachment towards him. His
very dog, who is no better than a collie, has a name and
reputation in the world. As to my intercourse with him, I
find him mild, and gentle, and modest, and good
humoured; and he has more the behaviour of a man of
the world, than any of the learned here, except M. de
Buffon; who, in his figure, and air, and deportment,
answers your idea of a marechal of France, rather than
that of a philosopher. M. Rousseau is of a small stature,
and would rather be ugly, had he not the finest
physiognomy in the world: I mean the most expressive
countenance. His modesty seems not to be good
manners, but ignorance of his own excellence. As he
writes, and speaks, and acts, from the impulse of genius,
more than from the use of his ordinary faculties, it is very

likely that he forgets its force whenever it is laid asleep. I
am well assured that at times he believes he has
inspirations from an immediate communication with the
Divinity. He falls sometimes into ecstasies, which retain
him in the same posture for hours together. Does not this
example solve the difficulty of Socrates' genius, and of his
ecstasies? I think Rousseau in many things very much
resembles Socrates. The philosopher of Geneva seems
only to have more genius than he of Athens, who never
wrote any thing, and less sociableness and temper. Both
of them were of very amorous complexions; but a
comparison in this particular, turns out much to the
advantage of my friend. I call him such, for I hear, from all
hands, that his judgment and affections are as strongly
biassed in my favour as mine are in his. I shall much
regret leaving him in England; but even if a pardon could
be procured for him here, he is resolved, as he tells me,
never to return; because he never will again be in the
power of any man. I wish he may live unmolested in
England. I dread the bigotry and barbarism which prevail
there.
"When he came to Paris, he seemed resolved to stay till
the 6th or 7th of next month. But at present the
concourse about him gives him so much uneasiness that
he expresses the utmost impatience to be gone. Many
people here will have it that this solitary humour is all
affectation, in order to be more sought after; but I am
sure that it is natural and unsurmountable:[301:1] I know
that two very agreeable ladies breaking in upon him,
discomposed him so much that he was not able to eat his
dinner afterwards. He is short-sighted; and I have often
observed, that while he was conversing with me in the
utmost good-humour, (for he is naturally gay,) if he heard
the door open, the greatest agony appeared on his
countenance, from the apprehension of a visit; and his

distress did not leave him, unless the person was a
particular friend. His Armenian dress is not affectation. He
has had an infirmity from his infancy, which makes
breeches inconvenient for him; and he told me, that when
he was chased into the mountains of Switzerland, he took
up this new dress, as it seemed indifferent what habit he
there wore. I could fill a volume with curious anecdotes
regarding him, as I live in the same society which he
frequented while in Paris. But I must not exhaust your
patience. My kind compliments to Ferguson, Robertson,
and all the brethren. I am," &c.
"Paris, 28th Dec. 1765."
"P.S.—Be not surprised that I am going to say in my
postscript, the direct contrary to what I said in my letter.
There are four days of interval between my writing the
one and the other; and on this subject of my future
abode, I have not these four months risen and gone to
bed in the same mind. When I meet with proofs of regard
and affection from those I love and esteem here, I swear
to myself that I shall never quit this place. An hour after, it
occurs to me that I have then for ever renounced my
native country and all my ancient friends, and I start with
affright. I never yet left any place but with regret: judge
what it is natural for me to feel on leaving Paris, and so
many amiable people with whom I am intimately
connected, while it is in my power to pass my life in the
midst of them. Were I not indispensably obliged to go to
London, I know that it would be impossible for me to
leave this place. But it is very probable that being once
there, and fairly escaped from the cave of Circe, I may
reconcile myself again to the abode of Ithaca. I left
Edinburgh with great reluctance. To return to it, after
having tripled my revenue in less than three years, can be
no hardship. I must, therefore, fairly warn you to remove
from my house at Whitsunday. I have taken a house at

Paris; but I will have one also in Edinburgh, and shall
deliberate in London which of them I shall occupy. I shall
not go to Ireland. The arrival of the Duke of Richmond
was late; and this engagement with M. Rousseau protracts
my return so long, that it will not be worth while to go to
Dublin. Lord Hertford has been so good as to excuse me.
You have heard of the great fortune of Trail, who is, I
believe, your acquaintance, and a very honest fellow.
Nothing is so agreeable to an irresolute man, says the
Cardinal de Retz, as a measure which dispenses him from
taking an immediate resolution. I am exactly in the case. I
hope your resigning my house will be no hardship to you."
[303:1]
Hume, Rousseau, and M. de Luze of Geneva, a friend of the fugitive,
left France early in January 1766. We have no account of their
arrival, except Rousseau's statement in a letter to Malesherbes, that
whenever he set foot on the land of liberty, he leaped on his
illustrious friend's neck, embraced him without uttering a word, and
covered his face with kisses and tears; a ceremony with which Hume
would probably have dispensed, in the presence of "the barbarians
who inhabit the banks of the Thames." The first notice of their
sojourn in Britain, is in a bulletin by Hume to Madame de Boufflers,
dated London, 19th January, 1766. He says,—
My companion is very amiable, always polite, gay often, commonly
sociable. He does not know himself when he thinks he is made for
entire solitude. I exhorted him on the road to write his memoirs. He
told me, that he had already done it with an intention of publishing
them.
At present, says he, it may be affirmed, that nobody knows me
perfectly, any more than himself; but I shall describe myself in such
plain colours, that henceforth every one may boast that he knows
himself, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. I believe, that he intends
seriously to draw his own picture in its true colours: but I believe, at
the same time, that nobody knows himself less. For instance, even

with regard to his health, a point in which few people can be
mistaken, he is very fanciful. He imagines himself very infirm. He is
one of the most robust men I have ever known. He passed ten hours
in the night-time, above deck, during the most severe weather, when
all the seamen were almost frozen to death, and he caught no harm.
He says that his infirmity always increases upon a journey; yet was it
almost imperceptible on the road from Paris to London.
His wearing the Armenian dress is a pure whim; which, however, he is
resolved never to abandon. He has an excellent warm heart; and, in
conversation, kindles often to a degree of heat which looks like
inspiration. I love him much, and hope that I have some share in his
affections.
I find that we shall have many ways of settling him to his satisfaction;
and as he is learning the English very fast,[304:1] he will afterwards
be able to choose for himself. There is a gentleman of the name of
Townsend, a man of four or five thousand a-year, who lives very
privately, within fifteen miles of London, and is a great admirer of our
philosopher, as is also his wife. He has desired him to live with him,
and offers to take any board he pleases. M. Rousseau was much
pleased with this proposal, and is inclined to accept of it. The only
difficulty is, that he insists positively on his gouvernante's sitting at
table,—a proposal which is not to be made to Mr. and Mrs. Townsend.
This woman forms the chief encumbrance to his settlement. M. de
Luze, our companion, says, that she passes for wicked and
quarrelsome, and tattling; and is thought to be the chief cause of his
quitting Neufchâtel. He himself owns her to be so dull, that she never
knows in what year of the Lord she is, nor in what month of the year,
nor in what day of the month or week; and that she can never learn
the different value of the pieces of money in any country. Yet she
governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence his
dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is
beyond all expression or conception.
I have as yet scarce seen any body except Mr. Conway and Lady
Aylesbury.[305:1] Both of them told me, they would visit Jean Jacques,
if I thought their company would not be disagreeable. I encouraged
them to show him that mark of distinction.[305:2] Here I must also tell
you of a good action which I did; not but that it is better to conceal
our good actions. But I consider not my seeking your approbation as
an effect of vanity: your suffrage is to me something like the
satisfaction of my own conscience. While we were at Calais, I asked

him whether, in case the King of England thought proper to gratify
him with a pension, he would accept of it. I told him, that the case
was widely different from that of the King of Prussia; and I
endeavoured to point out to him the difference, particularly in this
circumstance, that a gratuity from the King of England could never in
the least endanger his independence. He replied: "But would it not be
using ill the King of Prussia, to whom I have since been much
obliged? However, on this head (added he,) in case the offer be made
me, I shall consult my father;" meaning Lord Marischal.[306:1] I told
this story to General Conway, who seemed to embrace with zeal the
notion of giving him a pension, as honourable both to the king and
nation. I shall suggest the same idea to other men in power whom I
may meet with, and I do not despair of succeeding.
P. S.—Since I wrote the above, I have received your obliging letter,
directed to Calais. M. Rousseau says, the letter of the King of Prussia
is a forgery; and he suspects it to come from M. de Voltaire.[306:2]
The project of Mr. Townsend, to my great mortification, has totally
vanished, on account of Mademoiselle Le Vasseur. Send all his letters
under my cover.[307:1]
Hume writes again on the 12th, to state that he has succeeded in
obtaining the promise of a pension from the king: "You know," he
says, "that our sovereign is extremely prudent and decent, and
careful not to give offence. For which reason, he requires that this
act of generosity may be an entire secret." He states, that this
information must be kept to herself and the Prince of Conti: and she
in her answer, admires Hume's generous and delicate conduct, and
promises to keep the secret. In his postscript Hume announces the
important fact, that Mademoiselle le Vasseur had arrived, and had
found a companion to whom such a rag of celebrity was no small
acquisition.
"P.S.—Since I wrote the above, I have seen General
Conway, who tells me that the king has spoke to him on
the same subject, and that the sum intended is a hundred
pounds a-year: a mighty accession to our friend's slender
revenue.

"A letter has also come to me open from Guy the
bookseller, by which I learn that Mademoiselle sets out
post, in company with a friend of mine, a young
gentleman, very good-humoured, very agreeable—and
very mad! He visited Rousseau in his mountains, who
gave him a recommendation to Paoli, the King of Corsica;
where this gentleman, whose name is Boswell, went last
summer, in search of adventures. He has such a rage for
literature, that I dread some event fatal to our friend's
honour. You remember the story of Terentia, who was first
married to Cicero, then to Sallust, and at last, in her old
age, married a young nobleman, who imagined that she
must possess some secret, which would convey to him
eloquence and genius."[308:1]
Soon after, we find Hume writing as follows:—
Hume to his Brother.
"London, 2d February, 1766.
"As you know that I never left any place without regret,
you may imagine that I did not leave Paris altogether
willingly, after having been so long accustomed to it. I do
not find this new scene near so much to my taste; and I
shall be long ere I am reconciled to it. Perhaps Edinburgh
may please me better; I promise myself at least some
satisfaction in my nephews, of whom I hear a very good
account; and it is surely more suitable to one of my years
to seek a retreat in my native country, than to pass the
dregs of life among the great, and among people who,
though they seem to have a friendship for me, are still
strangers. I accustom myself, therefore, to this idea
without reluctance; and since I have crossed the seas, I
find my regret for the good company I left behind me, less
pungent and uneasy. . . . .

"You will have heard by this time, that I have brought over
with me the famous Rousseau, the most singular man,
surely, in the world. He applied to me last summer to take
him under my protection in England, as he called it; but in
the meanwhile, he was chased out of Switzerland, and
came to Strasburg, with an intention of going to the King
of Prussia, who pressed him earnestly to live with him. At
Strasburg my letter reached him, making him an offer of
all my services; upon which he turned short, and having
obtained the King of France's passport, came and joined
me at Paris. I have lived with him ever since. He is a very
modest, mild, well-bred, gentle-spirited, and warm-
hearted man, as ever I knew in my life. He is also to
appearance very sociable. I never saw a man who seems
better calculated for good company, nor who seems to
take more pleasure in it. Yet is he absolutely determined
to retire and board himself in a farmer's house among the
mountains of Wales, for the sake of solitude. He has
refused a pension from the King of Prussia, and presents
from hundreds. I have been offered great sums for him, if
I could have prevailed on him to accept of them. Yet, till
within these three months, he was in absolute beggary.
He has now about £70 a-year?[309:1] which he has
acquired by a bargain for his works. It is incredible the
enthusiasm for him in Paris, and the curiosity in London. I
prevailed on him to go to the play-house in order to see
Garrick, who placed him in a box opposite the king and
queen. I observed their majesties to look at him more
than at the players.[309:2] I should desire no better
fortune than to have the privilege of showing him to all I
please. The hereditary prince paid him a visit a few days
ago; and I imagine the Duke of York called on him one
evening when he was abroad. I love him much, and shall
separate from him with much regret."[310:1]

Hume writes to Dr. Blair on 11th February:—
"You have seen in the newspapers enow of particulars concerning
my pupil, who has now left me and retired to Chiswick. He is
impatient to get into the mountains of Wales. He is a very agreeable
amiable man, but a great humorist.[310:2] The philosophers of Paris
foretold to me that I could not conduct him to Calais without a
quarrel; but I think I could live with him all my life in mutual
friendship and esteem. I am very sorry that the matter is not likely
to be put to a trial! I believe one great source of our concord is, that
neither he nor I are disputatious, which is not the case with any of
them. They are also displeased with him because they think he
overabounds in religion; and it is indeed remarkable, that the
philosopher of this age who has been most persecuted, is by far the
most devout. I do not comprehend such philosophers as are
invested with the sacerdotal character. I am, dear doctor, yours
usque ad aras."[310:3]
The first attempt to find a settlement for Rousseau, was with the
French gardener at Fulham, already alluded to. The arrangement
proposed by Hume was, that the gardener was to receive from fifty
to sixty pounds a-year, as the consideration for boarding Rousseau
and Mademoiselle, but that he was only to draw twenty-five pounds
from Rousseau, from whom he was to keep the arrangement secret.
[311:1] Rousseau rejected this arrangement with disgust; and various
other efforts to find him a suitable home were equally unsuccessful.
Hume, who, as Rousseau himself tells Madame de Boufflers, was
more anxious about his welfare than he was himself, appears to
have spent week after week, in the vain pursuit of a resting place for
the wanderer—no sooner framing a hopeful scheme than it was
contemptuously rejected. It does not appear, however, that the
inquiries were conducted precisely in the sphere in which Rousseau
liked to act. It is clear that he had not come to Britain to negotiate
with farmers at Chiswick, or French gardeners at Fulham. He
undoubtedly expected much more distinguished titles to be mixed up
with his arrangements; and we find that it was not till a rich man's

well kept country mansion was put at his disposal, that he deigned
to be for a moment satisfied. A letter to Blair, contains a very full
narrative of the subsequent proceedings.
Hume to Dr. Blair.[312:1]
Lisle Street, Leicester Fields,
25th March, 1766.
Dear Doctor,—I had asked M. Rousseau the question you propose to
me: He answered, that the story of his "Héloise" had some general
and distant resemblance to reality; such as was sufficient to warm his
imagination and assist his invention: but that all the chief
circumstances were fictitious. I have heard in France, that he had
been employed to teach music to a young lady, a boarder in a convent
at Lyons; and that the master and scholar fell mutually in love with
each other; but the affair was not attended with any consequences. I
think this work his masterpiece; though he himself told me, that he
valued most his Contrat Social ; which is as preposterous a judgment
as that of Milton, who preferred the Paradise Regained to all his other
performances.
This man, the most singular of all human beings, has at last left me;
and I have very little hopes of ever being able, for the future, to enjoy
much of his company, though he says, that if I settle either in London
or Edinburgh, he will take a journey on foot every year to visit me. Mr.
Davenport, a gentleman of £5000 or £6000 a-year, in the north of
England, and a man of great humanity and of a good understanding,
has taken the charge of him. He has a house called Wooton, in the
Peake of Derby, situated amidst mountains and rocks and streams and
forests, which pleases the wild imagination and solitary humour of
Rousseau; and as the master seldom inhabited it, and only kept there
a plain table for some servants, he offered me to give it up to my
friend. I accepted, on condition that he would take from him £30 a-
year of board for himself and his gouvernante, which he was so good-
natured as to agree to. Rousseau has about £80 a-year, which he has
acquired by contracts with his booksellers, and by a liferent annuity of
£25 a-year, which he accepted from Lord Marischal. This is the only
man who has yet been able to make him accept of money.
He was desperately resolved to rush into this solitude,
notwithstanding all my remonstrances; and I foresee, that he will be
unhappy in that situation, as he has indeed been always in all

situations. He will be entirely without occupation, without company,
and almost without amusement of any kind. He has read very little
during the course of his life, and has now totally renounced all
reading: He has seen very little; and has no manner of curiosity to see
or remark: He has reflected, properly speaking, and studied very little;
and has not indeed much knowledge: He has only felt, during the
whole course of his life; and in this respect, his sensibility rises to a
pitch beyond what I have seen any example of: but it still gives him a
more acute feeling of pain than of pleasure. He is like a man who
were stript not only of his clothes, but of his skin, and turned out in
that situation to combat with the rude and boisterous elements, such
as perpetually disturb this lower world. I shall give you a remarkable
instance of his turn of character in this respect: It passed in my room,
the evening before his departure.
He had resolved to set out with his gouvernante in a post-chaise; but
Davenport, willing to cheat him and save him some money, told him
that he had found a retour chaise for the place, which he might have
for a trifle, and that luckily it set out the very day in which Rousseau
intended to depart. His purpose was to hire a chaise, and make him
believe this story. He succeeded at first, but Rousseau afterwards
ruminating on the circumstances, began to entertain a suspicion of
the trick. He communicated his doubts to me, complaining that he
was treated like a child; that though he was poor, he chose rather to
conform himself to his circumstances, than live like a beggar on alms;
and that he was very unhappy in not speaking the language familiarly,
so as to guard himself against these impositions. I told him that I was
ignorant of the matter, and knew nothing more of it, than I was told
by Mr. Davenport, but if he pleased I should make inquiry about it.
"Never tell me that," replied he, "if this be really a contrivance of
Davenport's, you are acquainted with it, and consenting to it; and you
could not possibly have done me a greater displeasure." Upon which
he sat down very sullen and silent; and all my attempts were in vain
to revive the conversation, and to turn it on other subjects; he still
answered me very drily and coldly. At last, after passing near an hour
in this ill-humour, he rose up and took a turn about the room. But
judge of my surprise, when he sat down suddenly on my knee, threw
his hands about my neck, kissed me with the greatest warmth, and
bedewing all my face with tears, exclaimed, "Is it possible you can
ever forgive me, my dear friend? After all the testimonies of affection
I have received from you, I reward you at last with this folly and ill
behaviour: but I have notwithstanding a heart worthy of your
friendship; I love you, I esteem you, and not an instance of your

kindness is thrown away upon me." I hope you have not so bad an
opinion of me as to think I was not melted on this occasion; I assure
you I kissed him and embraced him twenty times, with a plentiful
effusion of tears. I think no scene of my life was ever more affecting.
[315:1]
I now understand perfectly his aversion to company; which appears
so surprising in a man well qualified for the entertainment of
company, and which the greater part of the world takes for
affectation. He has frequent and long fits of the spleen, from the state
of his mind or body, call it which you please; and from his extreme
sensibility of temper, during that disposition, company is a torment to
him. When his spirits and health and good humour return, his fancy
affords him so much and such agreeable occupation, that to call him
off from it gives him uneasiness; and even the writing of books, he
tells me, as it limits and restrains his fancy to one subject, is not an
agreeable entertainment. He never will write any more; and never
should have wrote at all, could he have slept a-nights. But he lies
awake commonly; and to keep himself from tiring, he usually
composed something, which he wrote down when he arose. He
assures me, that he composes very slowly, and with great labour and
difficulty.
He is naturally very modest, and even ignorant of his own superiority.
His fire, which frequently rises in conversation, is gentle and
temperate; he is never in the least arrogant and domineering, and is,
indeed, one of the best bred men I ever knew. I shall give you such
an instance of his modesty as must necessarily be sincere. When we
were on the road, I recommended to him the learning of English,
without which, I told him, he would never enjoy entire liberty, nor be
fully independent, and at his own disposal. He was sensible I was in
the right, and said, that he heard there were two English translations
of his "Emile, or Treatise on Education;" he would get them as soon
as he arrived in London; and as he knew the subject, he would have
no other trouble, than to learn or guess the words: this would save
him some pains in consulting the dictionary; and as he improved, it
would amuse him to compare the translations and judge which was
the best. Accordingly, soon after our arrival, I procured him the books,
but he returned them in a few days, saying that they could be of no
use to him. "What is the matter?" replied I. "I cannot endure them,"
said he, "they are my own work; and ever since I delivered my books
to the press, I never could open them, or read a page of them
without disgust." "That is strange," said I, "I wonder the good
reception they have met with from the world has not put you more in

conceit with them." "Why," said he, "if I were to count suffrages,
there are perhaps more against them than for them." "But," rejoined
I, "it is impossible but the style, and eloquence, and ornaments must
please you." "To tell the truth," said he, "I am not displeased with
myself in that particular: but I still dread, that my writings are good
for nothing at the bottom, and that all my theories are full of
extravagance. Je crains toujours que je pèche par le fond, et que tous
mes systèmes ne sont que des extravagances." You see that this is
judging of himself with the utmost severity, and censuring his writings
on the side where they are most exposed to criticism. No feigned
modesty is ever capable of this courage. I never heard —— reproach
himself with the ——: nobody ever heard you express any remorse,
for having put Ossian on the same footing with Homer!
Have I tired you, or will you have any more anecdotes of this singular
personage? I think I hear you desire me to go on. He attempted once
to justify to me the moral of his New Heloisa, which, he knew, was
blamed, as instructing young people in the art of gratifying their
passions, under the cover of virtue, and noble refined sentiments.
"You may observe," said he "that my Julia is faithful to her husband's
bed, though she is seduced from her duty during her single state; but
this last circumstance can be of no consequence in France, where all
the young ladies are shut up in convents, and have it not in their
power to transgress: it might, indeed, have a bad effect in a
Protestant country." But notwithstanding this reflection, he told me,
that he has wrote a continuation of his "Emilius," which may soon be
published. He there attempts to show the effect of his plan of
education, by representing Emilius in all the most trying situations,
and still extricating himself with courage and virtue. Among the rest,
he discovers that Sophia, the amiable, the virtuous, the estimable
Sophia, is unfaithful to his bed, which fatal accident he bears with a
manly superior spirit. "In this work," added he, "I have endeavoured
to represent Sophia in such a light that she will appear equally
amiable, equally virtuous, and equally estimable, as if she had no
such frailty." "You take a pleasure, I see," said I, "to combat with
difficulties in all your works." "Yes," said he, "I hate marvellous and
supernatural events in novels. The only thing that can give pleasure in
such performances is to place the personages in situations difficult
and singular." Thus, you see, nothing remains for him but to write a
book for the instruction of widows! unless perhaps he imagines that
they can learn their lesson without instruction. Adieu, dear doctor;
you say that you sometimes read my letters to our common friends;
but you must read this only to the initiated.[317:1]

Almost the only other matter which appears conspicuously in Hume's
correspondence during his intercourse with Rousseau, is the death
of a dear friend, often mentioned in his previous letters—Dr. Jardine.
He was a man of strong judgment, and much sarcastic wit; but his
articles in The Edinburgh Review of 1755, are almost the only
specimens of his ability which he has left to posterity. He was born in
Dumfries-shire on 3d January, 1716, and he was minister of the Tron
Church parish when he died. The death was sudden; and Hume,
overlooking the calamitous consequences of such events to surviving
relatives, and in harmony with the opinions he had expressed on
death in a still more appalling form, seems to have considered its
suddenness as fortunate. He thus writes to Blair, on 5th June.
"I cannot begin my letter without lamenting most sincerely the death
of our friend Dr. Jardine. I do not aggravate it by the circumstance of
its being sudden, for that is very desirable. But surely we shall ever
regret the loss of a very pleasant companion, and of a very friendly
honest man. It makes a blank which you must all feel, and which I in
particular will sensibly feel, when I come amongst you. I need not
ask you whether the miscreants of the opposite party do not rejoice,
for I take it for granted they do."[318:1]

[264:1] MS. R.S.E.
[265:1] MS. R.S.E. In answer, Millar tells him that the prejudice is
not against the Scots, but against Lord Bute; that matters have
now, however, been all put right, for "it is generally believed that
Mr. Greenville is a good manager of the finances, and in general
means well: as a proof of it, our stocks have been creeping up
daily, and it is now generally believed that 3 per cent will soon
come to par if affairs continue peaceable!" One possessed of
better opportunities of judging, and more capable of using them,
joins in these anticipations of success with which Grenville's
disastrous career as a financier opened. Elliot says, on 25th March,
1765: "To-morrow Mr. Grenville opens the budget, as it is usually
called, and I believe our revenue will appear to be on a better
footing than is usually believed. I hope we shall have discharged
as much debt without breach of faith as you have done in a politer
way. Not that I pretend to censure your method. You borrow at a
high interest during time of war, and it is understood you are to
take your own method in peace. Our mode of proceeding is the
very reverse of this. . . . Your negotiation with regard to the
French prisoners you must have heard, met with all the
approbation it so well deserved." (MS. R.S.E.)
[268:1] Probably Vallière. The Duc de Vallière was supposed to be
the author of some anonymous theatrical pieces.
[270:1] MS. R.S.E.
[270:2] This gentleman is the same who afterwards distinguished
himself as a diplomatist, and who was so well known by the title of
Sir Robert Liston.
[272:1] Minto MSS.
[273:1] Mallet died on 21st April, 1765.
[273:2] MS. R.S.E.
[275:1] On account of his taxation system having caused the
American Revolution, Grenville is now generally ranked with
statesmen of despotic principles. He was, however, an avowed
admirer of the democratic portions of the constitution; and it was
in truth his ill-directed advocacy of popular rights, not an
intentional departure from his avowed principles, that made his
administration so disastrous. His zeal for the independent authority
of Parliament, and for the curtailment of the prerogatives of the
Crown, induced him to struggle for the exercise by parliament, in

the colonies, of a power with which the crown could not compete,
—that of taxation.
[275:2] Minto MSS.
[276:1] Evidently the Abbé Morellet, who afterwards corresponded
with Hume on these subjects. He was born in 1727, and died in
1819. From his great age and the cheerful social habits of his
latter years, he was one of the few members of the school of the
Encyclopædiasts, whom men of the present generation have been
accustomed to meet in general society. Morellet possessed two
distinct titles to fame. He had written some grave and valuable
books on political economy and statistics; while in lighter
literature, and in Madame Geoffrin's circle, he enjoyed a high
reputation for playful and pungent wit. His friends likened him to
Swift; but as he sought to avoid malice in his sarcasms, and to
make them subservient to good principles in morals and religion,
he might, in this part of his character, be more aptly compared
with Sydney Smith. He had a great partiality for Scottish music;
but it may be doubted if this taste was either created or fostered
by his intercourse with Hume. In his very amusing Memoires, he
describes a dinner with a musical party near Plymouth, in the open
air. Some young ladies, with their father and mother, approached
near enough to hear the music. The Abbé gallantly carried them a
basket of cherries. "Je les prie en même temps de vouloir bien
chanter some Scotish song, dont, moi Français, j'étais very fond.
Elles se regardent un moment: et dès que nous fûmes retournés à
nos places, comme si notre plus grand éloignement les eût
rassurées, elles se mettent à chanter toutes les trois à l'unisson,
avec des voix d'une extrême douceur, The lass of Peatie's Mill. Le
temps, le lieu, la singularité de la rencontre ajoutèrent quelques
charmes à ce petit concert." Vol. i. p. 209.
[277:1] Memorials of Oswald, p. 81.
[278:1] Mr. Elliot, in answer to the letter printed above, (p. 189,)
says, "So, my dear sir, you have at last, with no small reluctance,
and after many struggles, prevailed with yourself to acquaint some
of your friends that Lord Hertford means to desire that
government would be graciously pleased to bestow the character
and emoluments of the secretaryship upon the person who
actually performs the functions of it. At your time of life, with so
much independency about you, and so unlike all your former
conduct, indeed I am not at all surprised that it cost you near two
pages of apology and explanation before you would even intrust
me with the secret. Were you less deep in the study of human

nature, and somewhat more an adept in the ways of men, I am
apt to think you would rather have filled your letter with excuses
for not having sooner made this application."
He goes on to state, that he has been exerting himself in the
matter, but that on all occasions he had found himself anticipated
by Lord Hertford. He continues:
"As to ingrata patria ne ossa quidem habebis, don't be at all
uneasy. Here I can speak more peremptorily; and notwithstanding
all your errors, mistakes, and heresies in religion, morals, and
government, I undertake you shall have at least Christian burial,
and perhaps we may find for you a niche in Westminster Abbey
besides. Your Lockes, Newtons, and Bacons had no great matter to
boast of during their lives; and yet they were the most orthodox of
men; they required no godfather to answer for them; while, on the
other hand, did not Lord Hertford spread his sevenfold shield over
all your transgressions? Pray, what pretensions have you, either in
church or state; for you well know you have offended both?"—MS.
R.S.E.
[279:1] MS. R.S.E.
[280:1] Private Correspondence, p. 121.
[281:1] Mrs. Elliot, who as an heiress preserved the name of
Murray Kynynmond.
[282:1] Minto MSS.
[282:2] Walpole, Memoirs of George III. i. 391. Walpole pretends
that Conway's dismissal was partly caused by revenge against Lord
Hertford for his conduct on this occasion, (ib. 402.) But from his
own account of it, the resolution to dismiss Conway had been
taken before Hume's appointment.
[284:1] Lives of Men of Letters, &c. p. 225.
[284:2] He was Lady Hertford's nephew.
[286:1] MS. R.S.E.
[286:2] See above, p. 172.
[286:3] The Dauphin was then far advanced in the disease of
which he died. According to the ordinary French historians, he was
at the same time so completely subjected to the priestly influence
of the Molinists, as to justify the supposition, that the decay of his
mind kept pace with that of his body. Others give a totally different
account of him, and Walpole says, "To please his family, the prince

went through all the ceremonies of the church, but showed to his
attendants after they were over, how vain and ridiculous he
thought them. Many expressions he dropped in his last hours that
spoke the freedom of his opinions; and to the Duc de Nivernois he
said, he was glad to leave behind him such a book as 'Hume's
Essays.'" Memoirs of George III. vol. ii. p. 242. The Dauphin died
on 20th December, 1765.
[287:1] MS. R.S.E.
[288:1] A general officer of reputation, making such an
application, on behalf of a friend, says:—
"The divine in question has a very good living, but in a quarter of
the world where he has not a creature to converse with. If his
excellency would enrol him among that million of the tribe of Levi,
that attend at the Castle of Dublin, who are called his chaplains, it
would excuse his attendance at quarters: And his general,—I
mean, his bishop, would be under the necessity of permitting him
to be absent whilst he had the honour to be about the
commander-in-chief at headquarters."—MS. R.S.E.
[289:1] Lord Hertford, writing to Hume, on 5th August, says:—
"Dear Sir,—You will see, in the papers, that Barré is to be my
secretary; but it has no other foundation. If I had been at liberty, I
should have desired to continue with him whose abilities and ease
in business I have so long experienced; but the world will have it
otherwise, and it must be my son. He is popular in Ireland; and I
am invited, on all hands, to name him; at the same time that I am
told the great danger of indulging my own inclinations, that if I
named you, with the particular additional prejudice that prevails,
at present, against the Scotch, that I should condemn my own
administration. I have, therefore, made it the condition of my
acceptance of the lieutenancy, that you are immediately provided
for in a manner less likely to subject you to the inconvenience of
party changes. I have explained, both to the King and the
ministers, how essential I thought it to my honour and ease of
mind; and it is resolved. I flatter myself I shall soon be able to
acquaint you, that I have been a good solicitor; and, as my private
friend, I beg leave to assure you that I shall always be most happy
in receiving you in Dublin, and every other part of the world, let
the prejudices and follies of mankind be what they will. I hope you
will consider me as your friend; and I will desire no other return
for all the services I may be able to do you, than such a portion of
your time as you can bestow upon me, consistently with your

inclination. The Duke of Richmond goes to France: I do not yet
know upon what plan, having not seen him. He is a pretty figure;
is easy in his behaviour; and does not want parts. I wish he may
have temper, experience, and knowledge of men for that place. I
have talked to my brother, as it became a wellwisher to peace,
upon this occasion. You will receive, by the messenger which
carries this letter to France, an official one from my brother, drawn
by himself, by which you will be able to judge of his style. I need
not add any thing to it. Every thing which passed, in a very long
conference we had together with Guerchy, is fully stated in it; but,
when you talk to the Duke of Praslin upon it, you will, if you
please, take an opportunity of recommending from me, in a
particular manner, the indulgence required for the holders of the
Canada bills. This point may be essential to the good
understanding between the two courts."—MS. R.S.E.
[290:1] MS. R.S.E.
[291:1] Lord Hertford writes Hume, on 16th August;—
"The usher of the black rod, in Ireland, is in my disposal. It
produces, in the course of a session, from £800 to £900, as I am
informed. If you approve it, my intention is to give it to a
gentleman who will be extremely satisfied to accept of £300 a-year
for his trouble, at most, and the rest will be placed to your
account, without interrupting the benefit of the pension."
And again, on September 5, after Hume's refusal:—
"The black rod you will give me leave to dispose of as I intended.
You shall, at the end of the session, refuse the emoluments I
propose to reserve out of it, if you see sufficient reason. £300 for
doing the duty of it should satisfy the person to whom I will give
it."—MS. R.S.E.
[292:1] Lit. Gazette , 1822, p. 711. Corrected from original in MSS.
R.S.E.
[293:1] Lit. Gazette , 1822, p. 722. Corrected from original in MSS.
R.S.E.
[293:2] MS. R.S.E.
[295:1] We are told (vie de Rousseau par Musset Pathay, i. 102,)
that a certain M. Augar, having been here presented to the apostle
of education, said he was bringing up his son after the model of
"Emile." "So much the worse both for you and your son;" tant pis
pour vous et pour votre fils, said Rousseau. This must have been

highly satisfactory. Of all the theories to reconcile Rousseau's
contradictions,—to discover on what principle he preached up
parental care, and sent his own children to the foundling hospital,
the best is supplied by himself in a single sentence in the Heloise:
"L'on sait bien que tout homme qui pose des maximes générales,
entend qu'elles obligent tout le monde, excepté lui." This is
certainly more intelligible than the mystical theory of his eulogist,
D'Escherny: "Il n'y a que les sots qui ne se contredisent point,
parce que leur esprit borné ne voit jamais qu'un côté de l'objet."
[295:2] He states, in the "Confessions," that when Wallace's work
on the Number of Mankind was passing through the press, Hume
undertook the revision of the proof sheets, though the work was
written against himself. I am not aware of any other authority for
this anecdote. Rousseau said he was charmed with it, because the
conduct was so much like his own!
[296:1] Account of the Controversy between Hume and Rousseau.
[297:1] "Un banc très-massif, qui étoit dans la rue à côté de ma
porte et fortement attaché, fut détaché, enlevé, et posé debout
contre la porte; de sorte que, si l'on ne s'en fût aperçu, le premier
qui pour sortir auroit ouvert la porte d'entrée, devoit naturellement
être assommé."—Confessions , Liv. 12.
[301:1] Hume, though habitually sceptical, was far from being
suspicious; and in his kindness to his new companion, he took
every thing in sincerity. "C'est un des malheurs de ma vie," says
Rousseau, "qu'avec un si grand désir d'être oublié, je sois contraint
de parler de moi sans cesse;" but those who knew him better than
Hume did at so early a period of their intercourse, do not give him
credit for desiring to be either neglected or forgotten. Madame de
Genlis professes to have been much vexed and perplexed by
having acted on a reliance similar to Hume's. Rousseau had
promised to accompany her to the Comédie Françoise, on the
condition that they were to occupy a loge grillée. When they
entered, madame flew to shut the grating; Rousseau opposed her;
he was sure she would not like it to be closed, and he would be
sufficiently hidden, by sitting behind her. In the scuffle he was
recognised; madame, vexed and terrified, insisted that the grating
should be closed; but he was inexorable. The commencement of a
popular piece soon relieved them from notice, and when the eyes
of the audience were averted from him, Rousseau grew gloomy
and rude. He afterwards professed himself deeply offended at
having been exhibited as a wild beast! Mémoires , ii. 12.

The same lady gives a more pleasing instance of his characteristics
at that time, in describing her first introduction to him. A friend
told her, that her husband intended to play a trick on her: to
employ the celebrated mimic Preville, the Foote of the French
stage, to personate Rousseau at his table. The expected guest
appeared. His dress and appearance were so unlike other people's,
yet so like what would have been expected in Rousseau—his
conversation was so brilliant—that it certainly must be a piece of
wonderful acting. Thoroughly at her ease, she laughed, and
talked, and sang the airs of the Devin du village. It was Rousseau
himself! and not accustomed, in this the full blaze of his
reputation, to be received with so much freedom, by a young and
accomplished woman, he pronounced her to be the most lively
and unaffected of her sex.
[303:1] MS. R.S.E.
[304:1] It does not appear that Rousseau made any progress in
English. In a letter to Hume, from Wooton, he says, "J'ai eu hier la
visite de M. le Ministre, qui, voyant que je ne lui parlois que
François, n'a pas voulu me parler Anglois, de sorte que l'entrevue
s'est passée à peu près sans mot dire. J'ai pris goût à l'expédient;
je m'en servirai avec tous mes voisins, si j'en ai; et dussé-je
apprendre l'Anglois, je ne leur parlerai que François, sur-tout si j'ai
le bonheur qu'ils n'en sachent pas un mot."
[305:1] General Conway's wife.
[305:2] Rousseau writes to Hume:—
Le Lundi Soir.
Je vous supplie, mon très cher patron, de vouloir bien
m'excuser auprès de Myladi Ailesbury et de Mr. Le
Général Conway. Je suis malade, et hors d'état de me
présenter, et Mademoiselle Le Vasseur, très bonne, et
très estimable personne, n'est point faite pour paroître
dans les grandes compagnies. Trouvez bon, mon très
cher patron, que nous nous en tenions au premier
arrangement et que j'attende dans l'après midi le
carrosse que M. Davenport veut bien envoyer. J'arrive
suant et fatigué d'une longue promenade: c'est pourquoi
je ne prolonge pas ma lettre: vous m'avez si bien acquis
et je suis à vous de tant de manières que cela même ne
doit plus être dit. Je vous embrasse de toute la
tendresse de mon cœur.

J. J. Rousseau.
Had Lady Aylesbury requested the honour of Mademoiselle le
Vasseur's company along with that of her keeper? Rousseau tells
us what pleasure it gave him to see Madame la Marechale de
Luxembourg embrace her in public. But if any English lady of rank
and character offered to extend her hospitality to such a person,
there could be no stronger evidence of the general consent to
suspend all social laws in favour of Rousseau.
[306:1] Of Lord Marischal he always spoke with respect. In the
Confessions, he says, "O bon Milord! ô mon digne père! que mon
cœur s'émeut encore en pensant à vous! Ah les barbares! quel
coup ils m'ont porté en vous détachant de moi! Mais non, non,
grand homme, vous êtes et serez toujours le même pour moi, qui
suis le même toujours."
[306:2] Madame de Boufflers seems to have early apprehended
mischief from Walpole's letter. In the letter referred to, she says,
"Je voudrois savoir si une lettre du Roy de Prusse qui court Paris
est vraie ou fausse. On dit qu'elle est pleine d'ironie." She then
proceeds to describe the letter. Hume in answer says, "I suppose,
that by this time you have learned it was Horace Walpole who
wrote the Prussian letter you mentioned to me. It is a strange
inclination we have to be wits, preferably to every thing else. He is
a very worthy man; he esteems and even admires Rousseau; yet
he could not forbear, for the sake of a very indifferent joke, the
turning him into ridicule, and saying harsh things against him. I
am a little angry with him; and I hear you are a great deal: but the
matter ought to be treated only as a piece of levity."—Private
Correspondence , p. 130.
[307:1] Private Correspondence, p. 125-128.
[308:1] Private Correspondence, p. 131-132.
[309:1] The mark of interrogation is in the MS.
[309:2] Writing to the Marquise de Barbantane, he makes the
following addition to this anecdote:—
"When the hour came, he told me, that he had changed his
resolution, and would not go: 'for—what shall I do with Sultan?'
That is the name of his dog. 'You must leave him behind,' said I.
'But the first person,' replied he, 'who opens the door, Sultan will
run into the streets in search of me, and will be lost.' 'You must
then,' said I, 'lock him up in your room, and put the key in your

pocket.' This was accordingly done: but as we went down stairs,
the dog howled and made a noise; his master turned back, and
said he had not resolution to leave him in that condition; but I
caught him in my arms and told him, that Mrs. Garrick had
dismissed another company in order to make room for him; that
the King and Queen were expecting to see him; and without a
better reason than Sultan's impatience, it would be ridiculous to
disappoint them. Partly by these reasons, and partly by force, I
engaged him to proceed."—Private Correspondence , p. 144.
[310:1] MS. R.S.E.
[310:2] The word appears not to be used in its modern popular
sense, but as meaning a person full of caprice.
[310:3] MS. R.S.E.
[311:1] In his narrative of the controversy, Hume says, "I wrote
immediately to my friend Mr. John Stewart of Buckingham Street,
that I had an affair to communicate to him, of so secret and
delicate a nature, that I should not venture even to commit it to
paper, but that he might learn the particulars of Mr. Elliot. . . . . Mr.
Stewart was to look out for some honest and discreet farmer in his
neighbourhood, who might be willing to lodge and board M.
Rousseau and his gouvernante. . . . . It was not long before Mr.
Stewart wrote me word he had found a situation, which he
conceived might be agreeable," &c.
In confirmation of this narrative, there is the following letter in the
MSS. R.S.E. Mr. Stewart is probably the "Jack Stewart," frequently
alluded to in Hume's letters.
"My Dear Sir,—Mr. Elliot told me the affair you
recommended to him. Since his arrival I have tried every
farmer in our side of the country, and can find no proper
place. Some have not room, some hate foreigners, some
don't chuse boarders, and the major part of all are such
beings as he could not live with in any comfortable
manner. There is an old Frenchman who has been here
since a child, and has a sort of a garden farm at Fulham.
To him I proposed the thing without mentioning names,
and to oblige me he will take such a boarder: but still I
could wish to find a place where he would be more
agreeably situated, for this man keeps only a single
maid, eats very plain, and his house is as dirty as a
Frenchman's in France. The farmer himself is about sixty

years old, unmarried, a cheerful honest creature, of a
very obliging disposition. Consider whether this will suit
your purpose, or if I should try in other counties. Adieu,
my worthy good sir. Believe me eternally, your devoted
servant,
"J. Stewart."
[312:1] Blair had written on 24th February,—
"I received both your letters; and am exceedingly indebted to you
for the many curious and entertaining anecdotes you gave me
concerning Rousseau. They bestowed upon me somewhat of the
same importance which you say your connexion with Rousseau
himself bestowed upon you in Paris, by having so much
information to give my friends from you concerning so
extraordinary a personage. Your accounts pleased me the more,
that they coincided very much with the idea I had always formed
of the man—amiable but whimsical. Strong sensibilities joined with
an oddly arranged understanding. He is a proof of what I always
thought to be a possible mixture in human nature, one being a
sceptic from the turn of their mind, and yet an enthusiast from the
turn of their heart; for this I take to be his real character—a man
floating betwixt doubts and feelings—betwixt scepticism and
enthusiasm: leaning more to the latter than the former; his
understanding strangely tinctured by both." He desires Hume to
ask Rousseau, whether the principal scenes in his "Héloise" were
not founded on real events.—MS. R.S.E.
[315:1] This anecdote is told in substantially the same manner to
Madame de Boufflers, to whom its spirit would be doubtless far
less incomprehensible than to Dr. Blair.—See Private
Correspondence , p. 150.
[317:1] Literary Gazette , 1822, p. 731, corrected from original,
MS. R.S.E.
[318:1] MS. R.S.E. Blair writes on 12th June:—
"Poor Jardine—I knew you would join with us in dropping very
cordial tears over his memory. What pleasant hours have I passed
with you and him. We have lost a most agreeable companion, as it
was possible for any man to be, and a very useful man to us here,
in all public affairs. I thought of you at the very first as one who
would sensibly feel the blank he will make in our society, when you
come again to join it. But when are you to come?"—MS. R.S.E.

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The Possible Profession The Analytic Process Of Change 1st Theodore J Jacobs

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