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To the Mother Prioress of a Contemplative Order
Reverend Mother Prioress, 6 February 1960
It is very kind of you to give me news about Victor “White, Although it is much worse than I expected.
I assume that a malignant tumour has been revealed through the operaon.
Let us hope that by the Grace of God and the aid of a human physician the ordeal of his passing away will be mitigated.
My dreams have warned me of this unexpected development.
The last news I got from him was of a rather cheerful nature, so that I was not expecting a deterioration of his state.
I am very grateful to you that you let me know the truth about him.
You have cleared up several points of what I have recently observed and experienced.
As there are so few men capable of understanding the deeper Implications of our psychology, I had nursed the apparently vain hope that Father Victor would carry on the opus magnum.
But it is the curious fact that most of the intelligent men I became acquainted with and who began to develop an uncommon understanding have come to an unexpected, early end.
It looks as if only those who are relatively close to death are serious or mature enough to grasp some of the essentials in our psychology, as a man who wants to get over an obstacle grasps a handy ladder.
Well, it is a sad truth that we know very little about the most important aspects of life.
If Father Victor is still in a condition of enough consciousness, please give him my message that I know and think of him.
Yours devotedly,
C.G. Jung Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 536-537
Note: Richard Wilhelm, Heinrich Zimmer, Erich Neumann, and Wolfgang Pauli had all died at a relatively young age.
