Carl Jung to his Daughter on the death of Emma Jung
To Marianne Niehus-Jung
Dear Marianne, Bollingen, 17 July 1956
Warmest thanks for your lovely letter, which was a great joy.
I am glad you weren’t bored with me.
It was also a joy to be together with you for a while.
It is true that one cannot fully realize something that is not yet there, for one does not know what the pattern is which a still living person fills out.
Mama’s death has left a gap for me that cannot be filled.
So it is good if you have something you want to carry out, and can turn to when the emptiness spreads about you too menacingly.
The stone I am working on (like the one I carved in the winter) gives me inner stability with its hardness and permanence, and its meaning governs my thoughts.
I will gladly read the MSS.
I hope there’s no hurry.
The building is to start tomorrow if the permit arrives.
But I still have no news.
Will you be coming to Bollingen sometime?
Ruth sends best greetings,
Affectionately,
Your Father ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 316-317.
Notes:
- This was a stone in memory of his wife; it was set up at Bollingen.
The stone he carved in the winter of 195 5/56 consisted of three stone tablets with the names of his ancestors.
They were placed in the courtyard of the Tower (Memories, p. 232/220).
- In Memories (p. 225/213) Jung reports how after his wife’s death he felt compelled to add an upper story to the central section of the Tower, as a representation of his ego-personality: “Now it signified an extension of consciousness achieved in old age. With that the building was complete.”
