such fluency, erudition, and insight that
he held us rapt for over three straight hours. Brill, Ferenczi, and I would
periodically interrupt, challenging his inferences with objections or
questions. Freud would answer the challenge before the questioner had even got
the words out of his mouth. I felt more alive in those three hours than at any
other moment in my life. Amid the barkers, screaming children, and thrill seekers
of Coney Island, the four of us, I felt, were tracing the very edge of man's
self- knowledge, breaking ground in undiscovered country, forging uncharted
paths the world would some day follow. Everything man thought he knew about
himself - his dreams, his consciousness, his most secret desires - would be
changed forever.
Back at the hotel, Freud and Ferenczi
were preparing to go to Brill's for dinner. Unfortunately, I was committed to
dine elsewhere. Jung was meant to go with them but was nowhere to be found.
Freud had me knock on Jung's door, to no avail. They waited until eight, then
set off for Brill's without him. I changed hurriedly but irritably into evening
dress. Under any circumstances, I would have been annoyed by the prospect of a
ball, but to miss dinner with Freud as a result was vexing beyond description.
New York society in the Gilded Age
was essentially the creation of two very rich women, Mrs William B. Astor and
Mrs William K. Vanderbilt, and of the titanic clash between them in the 1880s.
Mrs Astor, nee Schermerhorn, was
highborn; Mrs Vanderbilt, nee Smith, was not. The Astors could trace their
wealth and lineage to New York's Dutch aristocracy of the eighteenth century.
To be sure, the term aristocracy in this usage is a bit of a stretch,
since Netherlandish fur traders in the New World were not exactly princes in
the Old. European ladies and gentlemen may not have read their Tocqueville, but
the one difference between the United States and Europe on which they all
agreed was that America, to its misfortune, lacked an aristocracy.
Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century, the fabulously monied Astors
would be received at the Court of St. James and would soon have their
aristocratic claims confirmed by English titles of nobility, which were far
superior to Dutch ones, had there been any Dutch ones.
By contrast, a Vanderbilt was a
nobody. Cornelius 'Commodore' Vanderbilt was merely the richest man in America
- indeed, the richest man in the world. Being worth a million dollars made one
a man of fortune in the mid- nineteenth century; Cornelius Vanderbilt was worth
a hundred million when he died in 1877, and his son was worth twice that a
decade later. But the Commodore was still a vulgar steamship and rail magnate
who owed his wealth to industry, and Mrs Astor would call on neither him nor
his relations.
In particular, Mrs Astor would not
set foot in the home of the young Mrs William K. Vanderbilt, wife to the
Commodore's grandson. She would not even leave her card. It was thus
established that the Vanderbilts were not to be received in the best Manhattan
houses. Mrs Astor let it be known that there were only four hundred men and
women in all New York City fit to enter a ballroom - that number being, as it
happened, the quantity of guests who fit comfortably into Mrs Astor's own
ballroom. The Vanderbilts were not among the Four Hundred.
Mrs Vanderbilt was not vindictive,
but she was intelligent and indomitable. No penny would be spared to break the
Astor ban. Her first measure, achieved with a liberal dose of her husband's
largesse, was to procure an invitation to the Patriarchs' Ball, a significant
event in New York's social calendar, attended by the city's most influential
citizens. But she was still excluded from Mrs Astor's more rarefied circle.
Her second step was to have her
husband build a new house. It would be located on the corner of Fifth Avenue
and Fifty-second Street and like no house yet seen in New York
he held us rapt for over three straight hours. Brill, Ferenczi, and I would
periodically interrupt, challenging his inferences with objections or
questions. Freud would answer the challenge before the questioner had even got
the words out of his mouth. I felt more alive in those three hours than at any
other moment in my life. Amid the barkers, screaming children, and thrill seekers
of Coney Island, the four of us, I felt, were tracing the very edge of man's
self- knowledge, breaking ground in undiscovered country, forging uncharted
paths the world would some day follow. Everything man thought he knew about
himself - his dreams, his consciousness, his most secret desires - would be
changed forever.
Back at the hotel, Freud and Ferenczi
were preparing to go to Brill's for dinner. Unfortunately, I was committed to
dine elsewhere. Jung was meant to go with them but was nowhere to be found.
Freud had me knock on Jung's door, to no avail. They waited until eight, then
set off for Brill's without him. I changed hurriedly but irritably into evening
dress. Under any circumstances, I would have been annoyed by the prospect of a
ball, but to miss dinner with Freud as a result was vexing beyond description.
New York society in the Gilded Age
was essentially the creation of two very rich women, Mrs William B. Astor and
Mrs William K. Vanderbilt, and of the titanic clash between them in the 1880s.
Mrs Astor, nee Schermerhorn, was
highborn; Mrs Vanderbilt, nee Smith, was not. The Astors could trace their
wealth and lineage to New York's Dutch aristocracy of the eighteenth century.
To be sure, the term aristocracy in this usage is a bit of a stretch,
since Netherlandish fur traders in the New World were not exactly princes in
the Old. European ladies and gentlemen may not have read their Tocqueville, but
the one difference between the United States and Europe on which they all
agreed was that America, to its misfortune, lacked an aristocracy.
Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century, the fabulously monied Astors
would be received at the Court of St. James and would soon have their
aristocratic claims confirmed by English titles of nobility, which were far
superior to Dutch ones, had there been any Dutch ones.
By contrast, a Vanderbilt was a
nobody. Cornelius 'Commodore' Vanderbilt was merely the richest man in America
- indeed, the richest man in the world. Being worth a million dollars made one
a man of fortune in the mid- nineteenth century; Cornelius Vanderbilt was worth
a hundred million when he died in 1877, and his son was worth twice that a
decade later. But the Commodore was still a vulgar steamship and rail magnate
who owed his wealth to industry, and Mrs Astor would call on neither him nor
his relations.
In particular, Mrs Astor would not
set foot in the home of the young Mrs William K. Vanderbilt, wife to the
Commodore's grandson. She would not even leave her card. It was thus
established that the Vanderbilts were not to be received in the best Manhattan
houses. Mrs Astor let it be known that there were only four hundred men and
women in all New York City fit to enter a ballroom - that number being, as it
happened, the quantity of guests who fit comfortably into Mrs Astor's own
ballroom. The Vanderbilts were not among the Four Hundred.
Mrs Vanderbilt was not vindictive,
but she was intelligent and indomitable. No penny would be spared to break the
Astor ban. Her first measure, achieved with a liberal dose of her husband's
largesse, was to procure an invitation to the Patriarchs' Ball, a significant
event in New York's social calendar, attended by the city's most influential
citizens. But she was still excluded from Mrs Astor's more rarefied circle.
Her second step was to have her
husband build a new house. It would be located on the corner of Fifth Avenue
and Fifty-second Street and like no house yet seen in New York
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