ABSTRACT
Dear Mrs Abraham, Your children's letters were too charming-I hope they did not cost
them too much trouble or even tears, were not rewritten several times, etc. I should have answered the little ones directly, but I was afraid of undermining their morals, because I should certainly have thought of confessing that the finest gifts are spoilt by having to say thank you for them. It would also have embarrassed me either to go on playing the part of the great patron or having to admit that I had made them happy by means of the resources of others. When the opportunity arises, please tell them the true state of affairs, to which the moral can be attached that also by work like the practice of psychoanalysis it is possible to acquire a few Dutch guilders sometime late in life.
