Toni Wolff Correspondence with Katy Cabot
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot August 3, 1937
Toni, my mother eventually did so, and Toni replied from Ascona on 3 August 1937:
Before I leave Ascona to-morrow I want you to have a few lines, particularly to thank you for your letter which I enjoyed tremendously.
I am so glad you can settle the “American complex” at Venice, and I can’t say what fun I had in reading your description of those Americans.
I really do think you write awfully well and I wonder if you could not write for a magazine, but of course not for an American one, as they would probably feel offended.
The “clou” of your description was of course about the Duke and Duchess of W[indsor]. I read that part to G., and she was simply transfixed with amazement. . .. You don’t say if they stay in your hotel; at any rate, you are bound to see something of them and I would even venture a bet that you are going to meet them.
So please give me all your impressions, they are prizeless the way you find words for it all …. . . If I would feel like going home via Venice I would let you know, but it would probably have to be with Barbara, and also I am afraid we would not have the clothes for the place, and anyhow your hotel is probably pretty expensive.
Maybe we simply will not be able to resist the temptation to have a close look at Mrs. S.!!!
I shall think of you in Ascona, so you don’t have to do any thinking about it, and I shall miss you very much, as you belong to our crowd, with de T[rafford] of course. ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 157-158
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot February 7, 1939
My dear Katy,
Many thanks for your letter, which interested me greatly. I am so glad that at last you can enjoy St. Moritz.
It must be glorious now with the sun. I wish we had some of it. It is not the dangerous kind, I understand.
Your description of the Palace Hotel sounds most vivid and very apt.
I think it is awful and a very bad sign for our epoch, and one understands why people like Hitler and Mussolini think that everything has to be changed.
I think it is particularly awful, that is, pathological, that the women and young girls are so completely devoid of instinct to lead such a kind of “life.”
You must feel calm and thankful for real companionship when you sit there with de T. watching that awful circus.
It sounds like the late days of old Rome.
I am so glad that you discovered why the spinster and so-called worldly women are jealous of you.
It is of course a very rare thing indeed to find real companionship, and not only to find it, but to be able to work for it for years.
And yet it is the thing which every woman has a longing for, and really is born to get, if only she knew and were willing to work for and to sacrifice artificial values.
Janey’s drawings are most awfully good and funny, but don’t need an analytical letter to understand them.
They seem to be very plainly that which they show. Incidentally, they are a marvelous commentary on the way she sees you in regard to de T.’s moods, quite helpless in your attempts to calm him down; for after all, what can you do if a man is seized by such anima moods?
The Poliphile scene, Nr. 1, is most funny, only one would have to know what Janey knew of Poliphile in order to understand what she wanted to express.
They are probably all the beautiful nymphs who always come to Poliphile and lead him to the places of his quest.
But it is clear that de T. does neither see nor want them, being preoccupied by his mood. (Could it be a tender and, of course, to Janey, quite unconscious allusion to the things de T. misses in his rotten attitude to sex?
I wonder, and would think it not improbable, particularly as it would coincide with the problems of Poliphile who also had to learn that a woman, or rather, the woman he loves, is not just to be taken as if she were a nymph and he a satyr.)
But the really interesting thing, it seems to me, is de T.’s queer mood, before he got the news which, alas, meant an anticlimax.
He must have been absorbed by something going on outside of him, probably in Mrs. de T. It must have been an awful shock to her.
Why did the friend commit suicide? She was not an emigrant in trouble, I suppose. I wonder, too, because such things do happen, if the whole incident could have been something like an anticipation of further events.
Otherwise why would de T. have been drawn in so much?
You know it happens that people just dead, draw after them another person into death, or try to and naturally if possible a person near to them, such as a best friend.
By the way, why is the password Z – Passug, does it come from “She has passed away?”
Mrs. L. ran up today to say she was feeling queer and is going to bed and taking antigrippin, so we only hope she can have her last lecture on Thursday.
I enclose the drawings with best compliments to Janey. I hope of course de T. has seen them: it is a very apt picture of his bad moods, which he ought to see.
With kind regards to de T. and Janey, and love to yourself,
Affectionately,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 193-194
Katy Cabot to Toni Wolff July 25, 1939
On 25 July 1939, Toni Wolff wrote from Zurich:
… I have not forgotten about having you to dinner at Bollingen, but unfortunately we simply couldn’t manage.
We had to go to Zurich again for two days, and I got a bad intestinal cold ….I saw Mrs. L. just for a minute at Bollingen just before leaving myself … I was amused at her letter to you, it was so elaborate and umstandlich.
She, like a good deal of the people here, seems to be under the impression that you are a person of the ‘big world,’ and that it is quite a condescension on your part to dine with the L’s and other “Zurich Burger.”
It is queer how so many of them misjudge you.
I believe it comes partly from the fact that you are almost the only one here who has kept up (if they ever had it!) a real social form and who does not talk shop (i.e. analysis).
It is of course the only thing to do, but nobody will understand this, as so very many of them make analysis a surrogate for real life.
So don’t get disoriented by what they say. But try to see why they can’t understand your attitude ….
I am so sorry for Janey that the weather is bad, she does not get the nicest impression of the Exposition in this way.
I hope you have a nice celebration of de T.’s birthday, with no bad humours to interfere.
With Love,
Affectionately,
Kind regards to Janey,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 203-204
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot July 31, 1939
Toni Wolff wrote again on 31 July:
Dear Katy,
I suppose you have moved to Ascona. It is a great pity you were not in Zurich these days.
We are going from one festivity to another, and all in glorious weather.
Saturday I stayed at Hugenins [a Bahnhofstrasse tearoom] all from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. with Dr. and Mrs. C.
We saw the procession of the Schaffhausen people, and then the state procession for the Lord Mayor of the City of London.
It was very fine, all for being simple and democratic.
And yesterday was the finest thing of all, a real demonstration of our arms.
Pity de T. could not see it, he would have been pleased.
The firing was real, mostly infantry and artillery cannons and machine guns.
We feel quite secure now against our various neighbours ….
After mentioning her travel arrangements to Ascona, Toni continued on a more analytical line:
I am sure you are right that people [Psychological Club members] may get your reaction of being bored underneath.
So if you try and cover it up that will help a lot, at least as far as you are concerned.
I am afraid the other side will remain what it is though – hopeless.
The way they all snubbed the Exposition was incredible, and all under the pretense of analytical work!!
But I do think that in spite of your not being able to talk about analysis, you do deserve merit, as it would be so easy to ingratiate those people in a cheap way by talking shop.
Well, you can’t change mules into horses, so they must be treated as mules ……. I am so very glad de T. feels so much freer.
That will mean of course he needs no surrogate outlets in furies.
Do you dream again that I am writing you, I wonder.
But please don’t answer, it is really my answer to your letter.
Affectionate regards to Janey and de T., and love to you,
Toni ~Jane Cabot Reid, Jung My Mother and I, Page 203-204
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot October 4, 1939
Freiestrasse 9
Zurich 7
Oct. 4th, 1939
Dear Katy,
I don’t think it is any use to go into a discussion by letter, and so we better postpone it until a time when you can bring yourself to speak about your feelings right away, the moment they come up.
For only in this way there is a means to find out if your feeling gives a true picture of my attitude and to discover, if your reaction should happen not to correspond to what I really think or feel, why your reaction is what it is.
I have given you so much proof, by letter on Friday, of how well I understand and sympathise with all the decisions you made, that I feel grieved and shocked by the way you take it for granted that I should be “annoyed” and even “disgusted.”
It seems to me that it would help your contacts more if, instead of going on to explain your side, which has been fully understood, you were trying to understand the other person by taking in what she says or does, and by asking what you don’t understand, and by finding out
whether your reactions are justified.
It does not seem to me to help at all – in fact, just the contrary –
when you allow yourself to discuss any questions or doubts with Janey, instead of with myself. Not to speak of the implication that this method will certainly not help Janey’s rapport with you.
It is evident, now that Tommy is away, that you feel the lack of a companion in immediate response, and that Janey ought not to be made a surrogate.
All the more, anything to do with myself ought to be given to me directly and immediately.
It is quite possible, in fact I do believe, that your cooking course will teach you more than cooking: namely, immediate reactions in the right place and sizing up facts where they belong.
Affectionately yours,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 212-214
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot November 3, 1939
Dearest Katy,
In anticipation of this evening I am sending ahead all my warmest wishes for the day and for the special date.
In a way 45 is just a number like any other, and yet it feels a bit more important and probably is psychologically.
The “second half” of life is nearer and more imperative.
Perhaps the little book carries a meaning for you – provided you don’t possess it already.
I am looking forward to the evening and think the number 4 and the combination of persons just the right one for the occasion.
I forgot to say that I am sure it’s safe if you order dinner for 7:30 p.m. And as far as I know, Dr. C. does not like aperitifs.
With much love,
Affectionately,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 228
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot 22 January 1937:
Dear Katy, 22 January 1937
I am so sorry that you are ill again and will try to write an analytical letter to give you a little comfort.
Though I don’t think you need much explanation, as you do see everything well for yourself and analysed your dreams very clearly.
I am sorry you got punished for having been too nice to the Fraulein by getting the flu in having to enter her room.
But on the other hand, to be a hermit for a while is what you desired and probably needed too after all these ‘revelations.’
And too after a dose of St. Moritz life, which must have been a bit too much, coming right after your very quiet life in Zurich.
Of course you are right too when you say it is better to go out once in a while so people can’t say you don’t care a damn when de T. is not with you.
But now the flu has solved that problem for the time being.
But on the other hand, you can’t act the very jolly person who cares nothing whether de T. is with you or not when his absence makes all the difference.
Such are the complications of life and real feeling – that is probably the reason why you tried to keep the feelings at bay and made reason the basis of your attitude – as of course lots of people do.
Feelings mean more complication, but also more fullness and depths – I mean of course your own individual feelings, and not those social ones where one is just “nice” to people ….
in your dream must represent your former society person side, which has grown apart from you.
Her having to have a baby might mean that the social side is coming up in a new way – which it has done already, for your insight into people makes you relate to them again, only in a very new and individual way.
That would refer to the mandalas in the room also.
You must not expect “loving” feelings to people to come through again.
Your insight into their unconscious would prevent that.
But you have a much fuller realization of their whole personality as you have into your own – when you can see the good and the bad in them ….
I think, I thought you were a sensation type because you repressed your intuition so much, as it made you vulnerable.
And also because up to now you really had the attitude of a French woman with very much common sense and being almost too reasonable. (The money situation, your feelings for de T. and the social side.)
I only hope D.’s visit will not interfere with your coming down to Zurich to the carnival party, it would be an awful pity.
As for D. coming too I am rather uncertain whether she would fit into our group, you know she is so easily shocked, and of course at such a party no one can be expected to treat her specially, she would have to be just like any other person. . ..
The dream of B. shows you a girl who hasn’t given a damn about her birth and went all along on the individual way – probably rather a bit too much.
But in association with her you discover these men’s pajamas which you try first to give away, but finally remain with you, for your own use if made smaller.
That means a more masculine attitude, firmer and more self-dependent, as a man has to have in regard to the world …. I think you are right about C. in the dream and all it involves.
Though I wonder if in reality you would decline a party which is given by C.
That is to say, if you analyse the dream by taking C. subjectively your analysis is perfectly correct.
But as C. is a person whom you meet in reality and who belongs very much to the Analytical group I think you have to take her also objectively, and then the meaning might be a bit different.
I should say that then one is led to different conclusions, the sum of which would be that you ought to get somehow in contact with C. socially, not analytically.
The party would be a chance to do that, for instance.
By the way I don’t think C. likes parties and gatherings more than mildly; in a way she does, but in a very introverted sensation type way.
She enjoys herself being in a group, but does not make much effort to do something about people.
This attitude of an introverted sensation type might be quite useful to study.
And don’t forget too that as C. she is always somebody – perhaps too much only the wife of her husband, she likes to be taken on her own values, but on the other hand, it is of course much simpler and easier than it is for a person who like you has no husband along upon whom one can rely and who does create the social situation.
This may be a difficulty you undervalue, probably because in the USA it is the women who make the social situation.
But in Europe it is very much the men.
A married woman is always getting her persona by the social position and profession of her husband.
I do hope you can come to the party, you just belong to it and we would feel decidedly that something were missing if you were still not well to come down.
But I do hope rather that D. is not coming, I don’t think she could get into our atmosphere.
Do take care of yourself and enjoy the days in bed in your room.
I am quite well and we don’t have much flu here.
I am trying to get my dancing a bit refreshed – took a course before Christmas. E. really encouraged me. F. and G. were also coming.
Our teacher is going to St. Moritz next week to lead the international dancing competition she had organized.
Love and good wishes,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Pages 142-144
Toni Wolff’s to Katy Cabot June 25th 1937
I think it was very fine and courageous of you to have made this decision to [to give up Eranos].
I realise how difficult it must have been for you.
But I am absolutely convinced that it was the only course to take not to come, as your health matters far more than anything else.
And you can be sure to make a great moral and spiritual gain by this most wise decision.
One always gets something in another direction after having made a sensible sacrifice.
You will somehow get far more than you would have got at the lectures.
I am sure that you are progressing psychologically, this very decision is proof of it.
And in the acceptance also of your own nature as you really are, the more you will feel that your nature and character are really a nice thing, and nothing at all to be despised.
To despise one’s self simply shows that one has not yet made friends with one’s self.
And I am glad too that you have accepted your dependence upon de T.
If you think this over carefully you will have to admit that he is a man of sense and judgement and good taste.
So, if he loves you as he does, you simply cannot be such an utterly impossible person.
Have you never thought of this?
I do hope that de T.’s divorce will come off in the near future. I think you deserve a more quiet and settled sort of life.
And, to tell you the truth, I really do believe that when you have reached a certain inner attitude of complete acceptance of yourself, this can work miracles and that outer things begin to happen, such as for instance a way opening to the divorce. ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Pages 155-156
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot November 3, 1939
Dearest Katy, November 3, 1939
In anticipation of this evening I am sending ahead all my warmest wishes for the day and for the special date.
In a way 45 is just a number like any other, and yet it feels a bit more important and probably is psychologically.
The “second half” of life is nearer and more imperative.
Perhaps the little book carries a meaning for you – provided you don’t possess it already.
I am looking forward to the evening and think the number 4 and the combination of persons just the right one for the occasion.
I forgot to say that I am sure it’s safe if you order dinner for 7 .30 p.m. And as far as I know, Dr. C. does not like aperitifs.
With much love,
Affectionately,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 228
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot April 10, 1940
My dear Katy, April 10
Many thanks for your messages. [She then mentions her mother’s illness and continues:] I am awfully sorry you can’t come to the Ascona hotel.
It is rather small (36 rooms), and all the lecturers are staying there. I did tell Mrs. N. to reserve rooms there – I don’t know how many she needs – and one relief to you may be that G. will be there – of course!
That’s one reason why I should have liked you there – so that B. would vanish in the background.
Well, it’s fated otherwise. The [Hotel] Tamaro, Dr. C. wrote after seeing it, it is very nice ….
Maybe Mrs. L. did not yet write you. She was awfully busy with the wedding and all [her eldest son Markus was married in 1940] and having to go to Basel.
I think your letter to her is very good and covers up the fact that you were ill – at least it would to most people . … I do hope, Katy, that you consider 2 weeks in the Tessin.
I am sure a change of air would be good. And Janey could begin her [art] school a bit later.
The weather seems fine – only occasionally a bit of wind. I do hope you feel better every day.
Love and good wishes,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 270
Katy Cabot to Toni Wolff February 8, 1941
Waldhaus-Dolder
Zurich
February 81h, 1941
Dearest Toni: –
I am bringing this letter to you Monday, and it will contain what I am going to try and tell you, but as I have difficulty in expressing myself clearly by word-of-mouth, I thought it best to write out my ideas on paper, so that you can see exactly what I mean, in case I don’t make myself clear in talking to you.
The last two or three times I have been to see you, I have felt very definitely that something intangible, and which I can’t quite put a finger on, has come between us – and it has upset me and made me feel very sad, but also it has made me feel that for the moment I must give up analyzing with you, because feeling as I do that there is a wall between us, I can’t make any headway and the ‘hours’ have become very painful to me.
Don’t think for one minute that this means that I don’t appreciate and value most highly all you have done for me up until now, because I do and I realize only too well that it is due to you and your untiring efforts, that I was able to make headway in this work and that I have achieved a happiness and inward peace, which I would never have believed possible.
You have been largely responsible – with your patience, understanding and sympathy – in bringing this inward state of mind about, and for that reason, I can say honestly that I really care for you sincerely, but I do feel an incompatibility between us at the moment, and being fond of you as I am, I would rather not go on for a while.
I am utterly convinced that you have your own problems and that this wall has nothing to do with me; nevertheless, it is there and I feel that you are suffering, and I am so sorry, and wish so that I could help, and be a friend in such a moment, though I realize that it can’t be, because you used to know me as I was, and therefore it would be hard for you to realize that I have changed, and to take me on a different basis.
In the last weeks, I have come very close to certain impersonal things, which have greatly changed me and my point of view and I have suffered in giving birth to them, but I could never tell you about them, as I felt this wall – and now I know that for the moment it’s better to stop work with you temporarily.
I do hope that you will understand and not think it’s for lack of affection because it isn’t, for I feel just the same deep affection and regard for you that I have always felt.
Can’t we see each other out
of analysis once, for I don’t want to lose you, for after all these years, you mean a great deal.
Always your affectionate,
Katy ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 329-330
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot February 28, 1945
Freiestrasse 9
Zurich 7
Feb. 28th, 1945
Dear Katy,
This looks very nice, but I am afraid it is too far away.
Anyhow I thought of you when I saw it in yesterday’s evening paper [an advertisement for a house].
I love the two Swiss episodes, and was delighted to find you brought in Mrs. P. [the British Minister’s wife].
I could work them in easily. I am soon finished and shall then send you your ms. and the translation, as I wish you would go through it and see if I got your meaning all right.
I think your letter to her1 is very good and covers up the part that you were ill – at least it would to most people.
I do hope, Katy, that you consider 2 weeks in the Tessin – I am sure a change of air would be good, and Janey could begin her school a bit later.
The weather seems fine – only occasionally a bit of wind.
I do hope you feel better every day.
Love and good wishes,
Toni ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 467
Toni Wolff to Katy Cabot March 23, 1945
Das PRASIDIUM
Psychological Club, Zurich
Gemeindestrasse 25
Zurich 7
March 23rd, 1945
Dear Mrs. Cabot,
The Vorstand is heartbroken, that you have fallen ill and can’t read that charming causerie of yours yourself.
Your article of course stands in itself and loses none of its value when read by someone else.
But all the charm of your personality and all the life of the evening, when the author herself holds the chair, will be absent.
For your own sake we are equally sorry.
We should have wished so much that you could have earned in person the fruits of your labour.
We admire the keen observation and the great fervour you show in understanding the Swiss.
We are, too, grateful for the critical and unflattering things you say about us, for it is a well known fact that no person and no nation is able to understand themselves without learning from others the impression they make.
After due consideration we have however come to the conclusion to have the paper read by Dr. Q. First, not to disappoint the people who will come to hear your causerie, and second, because the article being published in May, it were impossible to arrange for another Tee-Abend or lecture before the publication, our annual meeting being due in May also.
We are hoping that you will recover speedily from your grippe and that in spite of the general disappointment your illness is causing, you will hear a good deal of what this evening’s audience feels about your paper.
With best wishes,
Very sincerely yours,
Toni Wolff ~Toni Wolff, Jung My Mother and I, Page 469
Then I spoke of my echec [failure] with Miss Foote.
I told him it was positively painful to have her around – so abject, so groveling, and apologizing for herself.
He said that Miss Foote had an abysmal feeling of inferiority.
Such people, he said, have a terrific power complex, and Miss Foote can spoil everything with her feelings of inferiority.
People like her are sadists, and they act in a melancholy way.
It is only wise to reckon with the possibility that Miss Foote will react badly if, after asking her to come home with me, I say I don’t want her to.
She naturally takes this as an affront to herself.
I told Onkel that I still had the panics in the Dolderbahn, but not in the Schwebebahn! He said indeed it was crazy!
I was horrified and explained to him that in the Schwebebahn I could speak to someone and say I feel ill; that would be considered by those present as quite natural.
The very fact that I could say I felt badly would prevent me from having the panics.
But in the Dolderbahn, one could not -say one was ill: it looked too absurd to be scared in such a thing.
That very fact would make a panic start.
He then said that he understood and that it was not crazy (at which I felt immensely relieved!).
He went on to say how he felt utterly suffocated and panic-stricken when he went up to the Jung fraujoch the first time.
He then said ~hat it was of course only wise that I reckon with the possibility [ of being panicky] and where I can say such a thing.
The animus is converted into a natural mind.
If I were cornered in a place I could not leave, I would resort to violence. My Lump and panics are my violence.
In the mental form, my natural mind is masculine, direct, brutal and reckless. If I don’t say I feel badly I get into a panic or a violent mood.
He said he was scared of such panics, having seen two awful cases.
There is a good deal of the unconscious that I have not tackled yet, and I haven’t got down to the rock bottom of it yet, but through dreams I will find a clue.
I must pierce the Lump to find consciousness. ~Katy Cabot, Jung My Mother and I, Page 202-203
