ABSTRACT
A patient relates of his uncle who suffers from delusions of persecution that although the latter was already more than thirty years of age he always played with boys, would sometimes show them his member, and was particularly fond of, and skilled at, constructing gigantic paper kites with long tails. He would let the kites fly so high that they went out of sight, then he tied the string to a chair, and made a boy sit upon it, and was delighted when the pull of the kite upset him. The association of paranoia with homosexuality is also shown in this example. In connection with this I am reminded of the mentally afflicted Mr. Dick in Dickens’ David Copperfield; he, too, always plays with boys, and flies kites on which he scribbles his phantasies about the death of King Charles the First. If this occurred in one of our patients we should have to regard him, even though he were just as good-natured as Mr. Dick, as an unconscious parri- (regi-) cide, but who, on the other hand, worshipped the insignia of the paternal dignity.
