opened mine, and I see more than pleases me.
QUESTENBERG. What is it, friend?
OCTAVIO. A curse on that journey!
QUESTENBERG. Why? What is it?
OCTAVIO. Come! I must immediately follow the unlucky trail, must see
with my own eyes--come----(_Wishes to lead him away._)
QUESTENBERG. What is the matter? Where?
OCTAVIO (_urging_). To _her_!
QUESTENBERG. To----?
OCTAVIO (_corrects himself_). To the duke! Let us go, etc.
The slight speech-blunder _to her_ in place of _to him_ is meant to
betray to us the fact that the father has seen through his son’s motive
for espousing the other cause, while the courtier complains that “he
speaks to him altogether in riddles.”
Another example wherein a poet makes use of a speech-blunder was
discovered by Otto Rank in Shakespeare. I quote Rank’s report from the
_Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, I. 3.
“A poetic speech-blunder, very delicately motivated and technically
remarkably well utilized, which, like the one pointed out by Freud in
Wallenstein (_Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens_, 2nd Edition, p.
48), not only shows that poets knew the mechanism and sense of this
error, but also presupposes an understanding of it on the part of the
hearer, can be found in Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_ (Act III,
Scene 2). By the will of her father, Portia was bound to select a
husband through a lottery. She escaped all her distasteful suitors by
lucky chance. When she finally found in Bassanio the suitor after her
own heart, she had cause to fear lest he, too, should draw the unlucky
lottery. In the scene she would like to tell him that even if he chose
the wrong casket, he might, nevertheless, be sure of her love. But she
is hampered by her vow. In this mental conflict the poet puts these
words in her mouth, which were directed to the welcome suitor:--
“There is something tells me (but it is not love),
I would not lose you; and you know yourself
Hate counsels not in such a quality.
But lest you should not understand me well
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought),
I would detain you here some month or two,
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
So will I never be; so may you miss me;
But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o’erlooked me, and divided me:
_One half of me is yours, the other half yours_--
_Mine own, I would say_; but if mine, then yours--
And so all yours.”
“Just the very thing which she would like to hint to him gently,
because really she should keep it from him, namely, that even before
the choice she is wholly his--that she loves him, the poet, with
admirable psychologic sensitiveness, allows to come to the surface in
the speech-blunder. It is through this artifice that he manages to
allay the intolerable uncertainty of the lover as well as the like
tension of the hearer concerning the outcome of the choice.”
The interest merited by the confirmation of our conception of
speech-blunders through the great poets justifies the citation of a
third example which was reported by Dr. E. Jones.[22]
“Our great novelist, George Meredith, in his masterpiece, _The Egoist_,
shows an even finer understanding of the mechanism. The plot of the
novel is, shortly, as follows: Sir Willoughby Patterne, an aristocrat
greatly admired by his circle, becomes engaged to a Miss Constantia
Durham. She discovers in him an intense egoism, which he skilfully
conceals from the world, and to escape the marriage she elopes with a
Captain Oxford. Some years later Patterne becomes engaged to a Miss
Clara Middleton, and most of the book is taken up with a detailed
description of the conflict that arises in her mind on also discovering
his egoism. External circumstances and her conception of honour hold
her to her pledge, while he becomes more and more distasteful in her
eyes. She partly confided in his cousin and secretary, Vernon Whitford,
the man whom she ultimately marries, but from a mixture of motives he
stands aloof.
“In the soliloquy Clara speaks as follows: ‘If some noble gentleman
could see me as I am and not disdain to aid me! Oh! to be caught out of
this prison of thorns and brambles. I cannot tear my own way out. I am
a coward. A beckoning of a finger would change me, I believe. I could
fly bleeding and through hootings to a comrade.... Constantia met a
soldier. Perhaps she prayed and her prayer was answered. She did ill.
But, oh, how I love her for it! His name was Harry Oxford.... She did
not waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over. Oh, brave girl,
what do you think of me? But I have no Harry Whitford; I am alone....’
The sudden consciousness that she had put another name for Oxford
struck her a buffet, drowning her in crimson.
“The fact that both men’s names end in ‘ford’ evidently renders the
confounding of them more easy, and would by many be regarded as an
adequate cause for this, but the real underlying motive for it is
plainly indicated by the author. In another passage the same _lapsus_
occurs, and is followed by the hesitation and change of subject that
one is familiar with in psychoanalysis when a half-conscious complex
is touched. Sir Willoughby patronizingly says of Whitford: ‘False
alarm. The resolution to do anything unaccustomed is quite beyond
poor old Vernon.’ Clara replies: ‘But if Mr. Oxford--Whitford ...
your swans, coming sailing up the lake; how beautiful they look when
they are indignant! I was going to ask you, surely men witnessing a
marked admiration for some one else will naturally be discouraged?’ Sir
Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment.
“In still another passage Clara, by another _lapsus_, betrays her
secret wish that she was on a more intimate footing with Vernon
Whitford. Speaking to a boy friend, she says, ‘Tell Mr. Vernon--tell
Mr. Whitford.’”
The conception of speech-blunders here defended can be readily verified
in the smallest details. I have been able to demonstrate repeatedly
that the most insignificant and most natural cases of speech-blunders
have their good sense, and admit of the same interpretation as the
more striking examples. A patient who, contrary to my wishes but
with firm personal motives, decided upon a short trip to Budapest,
justified herself by saying that she was going for only three days, but
she blundered and said for only three weeks. She betrayed her secret
feeling that, to spite me, she preferred spending three weeks to three
days in that society which I considered unfit for her.
One evening, wishing to excuse myself for not having called for my wife
at the theatre, I said: “I was at the theatre at ten minutes after
ten.” I was corrected: “You meant to say before ten o’clock.” Naturally
I wanted to say before ten. After ten would certainly be no excuse. I
had been told that the theatre programme read, “Finished before ten
o’clock.” When I arrived at the theatre I found the foyer dark and
the theatre empty. Evidently the performance was over earlier and my
wife did not wait for me. When I looked at the clock it still wanted
five minutes to ten. I determined to make my case more favourable
at home, and say that it was ten minutes to ten. Unfortunately, the
speech-blunder spoiled the intent and laid bare my dishonesty, in which
I acknowledged more than there really was to confess.
This leads us to those speech disturbances which can no longer be
described as speech-blunders, for they do not injure the individual
word, but affect the rhythm and execution of the entire speech, as,
for example, the stammering and stuttering of embarrassment. But here,
as in the former cases, it is the inner conflict that is betrayed to
us through the disturbance in speech. I really do not believe that any
one will make mistakes in talking in an audience with His Majesty,
in a serious love declaration, or in defending one’s name and honour
before a jury; in short, people make no mistakes where _they are all
there_, as the saying goes. Even in criticizing an author’s style we
are allowed and accustomed to follow the principle of explanation,
which we cannot miss in the origin of a single speech-blunder. A
clear and unequivocal manner of writing shows us that here the author
is in harmony with himself, but where we find a forced and involved
expression, aiming at more than one target, as appropriately expressed,
we can thereby recognize the participation of an unfinished and
complicated thought, or we can hear through it the stifled voice of
the author’s self-criticism.[23]
VI
MISTAKES IN READING AND WRITING
That the same view-points and observation should hold true for mistakes
in reading and writing as for lapses in speech is not at all surprising
when one remembers the inner relation of these functions. I shall here
confine myself to the reports of several carefully analysed examples
and shall make no attempt to include all of the phenomena.
A. LAPSES IN READING.
(_a_) While looking over a number of the _Leipziger Illustrierten_,
which I was holding obliquely, I read as the title of the front-page
picture, “A Wedding Celebration in the Odyssey.” Astonished and with my
attention aroused, I moved the page into the proper position only to
read correctly, “A Wedding Celebration in the Ostsee (Baltic Sea).” How
did this senseless mistake in reading come about?
Immediately my thoughts turned to a book by Ruth, _Experimental
Investigations of “Music Phantoms”_, etc., with which I had recently
been much occupied, as it closely touched the psychologic problems
that are of interest to me. The author promised a work in the near
future to be called _Analysis and Principles of Dream Phenomena_. No
wonder that I, having just published an _Interpretation of Dreams_,
awaited the appearance of this book with the most intense interest. In
Ruth’s work concerning music phantoms I found an announcement in the
beginning of the table of contents of the detailed inductive proof that
the old Hellenic myths and traditions originated mainly from slumber
and music phantoms, from dream phenomena and from deliria. Thereupon I
had immediately plunged into the text in order to find out whether he
was also aware that the scene where Odysseus appears before Nausicaa
was based upon the common dream of nakedness. One of my friends
called my attention to the clever passage in G. Keller’s _Grünem
Heinrich_, which explains this episode in the Odyssey as an objective
representation of the dream of the mariner straying far from home. I
added to it the reference to the exhibition dream of nakedness.[24]
(_b_) A woman who is very anxious to get children always reads _storks_
instead of _stocks_.
(_c_) One day I received a letter which contained very disturbing news.
I immediately called my wife and informed her that poor Mrs. Wm. H.
was seriously ill and was given up by the doctors. There must have been
a false ring to the words in which I expressed my sympathy, as my wife
grew suspicious, asked to see the letter, and expressed her opinion
that it could not read as stated by me, because no one calls the wife
by the husband’s name. Moreover, the correspondent was well acquainted
with the Christian name of the woman concerned. I defended my assertion
obstinately and referred to the customary visiting-cards, on which a
woman designates herself by the Christian name of her husband. I was
finally compelled to take up the letter, and, as a matter of fact, we
read therein “Poor W. M.” What is more, I had even overlooked “Poor Dr.
W. M.” My mistake in reading signified a spasmodic effort, so to speak,
to turn the sad news from the man towards the woman. The title between
the adjective and the name did not go well with my claim that the woman
must have been meant. That is why it was omitted in the reading. The
motive for this falsifying was not that the woman was less an object
of my sympathy than the man, but the fate of this poor man had excited
my fears regarding another and nearer person who, I was aware, had the
same disease.
(_d_) Both irritating and laughable is a lapse in reading to which I am
frequently subject when I walk through the streets of a strange city
during my vacation. I then read _antiquities_ on every shop sign that
shows the slightest resemblance to the word; this displays the questing
spirit of the collector.
(_e_) In his important work[25] Bleuler relates: “While reading I
once had the intellectual feeling of seeing my name two lines below.
To my astonishment I found only the words blood corpuscles. Of the
many thousands of lapses in reading in the peripheral as well as in
the central field of vision that I have analysed, this was the most
striking case. Whenever I imagined that I saw my name, the word that
induced this illusion usually showed a greater resemblance to my name
than the word _bloodcorpuscles_. In most cases all the letters of my
name had to be close together before I could commit such an error. In
this case, however, I could readily explain the delusion of reference
and the illusion. What I had just read was the end of a statement
concerning a form of bad style in scientific works, a tendency from
which I am not entirely free.”
B. LAPSES IN WRITING.
(_a_) On a sheet of paper containing principally short daily notes
of business interest, I found, to my surprise, the incorrect date,
“Thursday, October 20th,” bracketed under the correct date of the
month of September. It was not difficult to explain this anticipation
as the expression of a wish. A few days before I had returned fresh
from my vacation and felt ready for any amount of professional work,
but as yet there were few patients. On my arrival I had found a letter
from a patient announcing her arrival on the 20th of October. As I
wrote the same date in September I may certainly have thought “X. ought
to be here already; what a pity about that whole month!” and with this
thought I pushed the current date a month ahead. In this case the
disturbing thought can scarcely be called unpleasant; therefore after
noticing this lapse in writing, I immediately knew the solution. In
the fall of the following year I experienced an entirely analogous
and similarly motivated lapse in writing. E. Jones has made a study
of similar cases, and found that most mistakes in writing dates are
motivated.
(_b_) I received the proof sheets of my contribution to the annual
report on neurology and psychiatry, and I was naturally obliged to
review with special care the names of authors, which, because of
the many different nationalities represented, offer the greatest
difficulties to the compositor. As a matter of fact, I found some
strange-sounding names still in need of correction; but, oddly enough,
the compositor had corrected one single name in my manuscript,
and with very good reason. I had written _Buckrhard_, which the
compositor guessed to be _Burckhard_. I had praised the treatise of
this obstetrician entitled _The Influence of Birth on the Origin of
Infantile Paralysis_, and I was not conscious of the least enmity
toward him. But an author in Vienna, who had angered me by an adverse
criticism of my _Traumdeutung_, bears the same name. It was as if in
writing the name Burckhard, meaning the obstetrician, a wicked thought
concerning the other B. had obtruded itself. The twisting of the name,
as I have already stated in regard to lapses in speech, often signifies
a depreciation.[26]
(_c_) The following is seemingly a serious case of _lapsus calami_,
which it would be equally correct to describe as an erroneously carried
out action. I intended to withdraw from the postal savings bank the sum
of 300 crowns, which I wished to send to an absent relative to enable
him to take treatment at a watering-place. I noted that my account was
4,380 crowns, and I decided to bring it down to the round sum of 4,000
crowns, which was not to be touched in the near future. After making
out the regular cheque I suddenly noticed that I had written not 380
crowns, as I had intended, but exactly 438 crowns. I was frightened
at the untrustworthiness of my action. I soon realized that my fear
was groundless, as I had not grown poorer than I was before. But I
had to reflect for quite a while in order to discover what influence
diverted me from my first intention without making itself known to my
consciousness.
First I got on a wrong track: I subtracted 380 from 438, but after that
I did not know what to do with the difference. Finally an idea occurred
to me which showed me the true connection. 438 is exactly 10 per cent.
of the entire account of 4,380 crowns! But the bookseller, too, gives a
10 per cent. discount! I recalled that a few days before I had selected
several books, in which I was no longer interested, in order to offer
them to the bookseller for 300 crowns. He thought the price demanded
too high, but promised to give me a final answer within the next few
days. If he should accept my first offer he would replace the exact sum
that I was to spend on the sufferer. There is no doubt that I was sorry
about this expenditure. The emotion at the realization of my mistakes
can be more easily understood as a fear of growing poor through such
outlays. But both the sorrow over this expense and the fear of poverty
connected with it were entirely foreign to my consciousness; I did not
regret this expense when I promised the sum, and would have laughed
at the idea of any such underlying motive. I should probably not have
assigned such feelings to myself had not my psychoanalytic practice
made me quite familiar with the repressed elements of psychic life, and
if I had not had a dream a few days before which brought forth the same
solution.
(_d_) Although it is usually difficult to find the person responsible
for printers’ errors, the psychologic mechanisms underlying them
are the same as in other mistakes. Typographical errors also well
demonstrate the fact that people are not at all indifferent to such
trivialities as “mistakes,” and, judging by the indignant reactions of
the parties concerned, one is forced to the conclusion that mistakes
are not treated by the public at large as mere accidents. This state
of affairs is very well summed up in the following editorial from the
_New York Times_ of April 14, 1913. Not the least interesting are the
comments of the keen-witted editor, who seems to share our views:--
“A BLUNDER TRULY UNFORTUNATE.
“Typographical errors come only too frequently from even the
best-regulated newspaper presses. They are always humiliating, often
a cause of anger, and occasionally dangerous, but now and then they
are distinctly amusing. This latter quality they are most apt to have
when they are made in the office of a journalistic neighbour, a fact
that probably explains why we can read with smiling composure an
elaborate editorial apology which appears in the _Hartford Courant_.
“Its able political commentator tried the other day to say that,
_unfortunately_ for Connecticut, ‘J. H. is no longer a Member of
Congress. Printer and proof-reader combined to deprive the adverb of
its negative particle.’ At least, the able political commentator so
declares, and we wouldn’t question his veracity for the world; but
sorrowful experience has taught most of us that it’s safer to get
that sort of editorial disclaimer of responsibility into print before
looking up the copy, and perhaps--just perhaps--the world-enlightener,
who _knows_ that he wrote _unfortunate_, because that is what he
intended to write, didn’t rashly chance the discovery of his own guilt
before he convicted the composing-room of it.
“Be that as it may, the meaning of the sentence was cruelly changed,
and a friend was grieved or offended. Not so long ago a more
astonishing error than this one crept into a book review of ours--a
very solemn and scientific book. It consisted of the substitution
of the word ‘caribou’ for the word ‘carbon’ in a paragraph dealing
with the chemical composition of the stars. In that case the writer’s
fierce self-exculpation is at least highly plausible, as it seems
hardly possible that he wrote ‘caribou’ when he intended to write
‘carbon,’ but even he was cautious enough to make no deep inquiry into
the matter.”
(_e_) I cite the following case contributed by Dr. W. Stekel, for
the authenticity of which I can vouch: “An almost unbelievable
example of miswriting and misreading occurred in the editing of a
widely circulated weekly. It concerned an article of defence and
vindication which was written with much warmth and great pathos. The
editor-in-chief of the paper read the article, while the author himself
naturally read it from the manuscript and proof-sheets more than once.
Everybody was satisfied, when the printer’s reader suddenly noticed
a slight error which had escaped the attention of all. There it was,
plainly enough: ‘Our readers will bear witness to the fact that we have
always acted in a _selfish_ manner for the good of the community.’
It is quite evident that it was meant to read _unselfish_. The real
thoughts, however, broke through the pathetic speech with elemental
force.”
(_f_) The following example of misprinting is taken from a Western
gazette: The teacher was giving an instruction paper on mathematical
methods, and spoke of a plan “for the instruction of youth that might
be carried out _ad libidinem_.”
(_g_) Even the Bible did not escape misprints. Thus we have the “Wicked
Bible,” so called from the fact that the negative was left out of the
seventh commandment. This authorized edition of the Bible was published
in London in 1631, and it is said that the printer had to pay a fine of
two thousand pounds for the omission.
Another biblical misprint dates back to the year 1580, and is found
in the Bible of the famous library of Wolfenbuttel, in Hesse. In the
passage in Genesis where God tells Eve that Adam shall be her master
and shall rule over her, the German translation is “_Und er soll dein
Herr sein_.” The word _Herr_ (master) was substituted by _Narr_, which
means fool. Newly discovered evidence seems to show that the error was
a conscious machination of the printer’s suffragette wife, who refused
to be ruled by her husband.
(_h_) Dr. Ernest Jones reports the following case concerning A. A.
Brill: “Although by custom almost a teetotaler, he yielded to a
friend’s importunity one evening, in order to avoid offending him,
and took a little wine. During the next morning an exacerbation of an
eye-strain headache gave him cause to regret this slight indulgence,
and his reflection on the subject found expression in the following
slip of the pen. Having occasion to write the name of a girl mentioned
by a patient, he wrote not Ethel but Ethyl.[27] It happened that the
girl in question was rather too fond of drink, and in Dr. Brill’s mood
at the time this characteristic of hers stood out with conspicuous
significance.”[28]
(_i_) A woman wrote to her sister, felicitating her on the occasion
of taking possession of a new and spacious residence. A friend who
was present noticed that the writer put the wrong address on the
letter, and what was still more remarkable was the fact that she did
not address it to the previous residence, but to one long ago given
up, but which her sister had occupied when she first married. When
the friend called her attention to it the writer remarked, “You are
right; but what in the world made me do this?” to which her friend
replied: “Perhaps you begrudge her the nice big apartment into which
she has just moved because you yourself are cramped for space, and
for that reason you put her back into her first residence, where she
was no better off than yourself.” “Of course I begrudge her the new
apartment,” she honestly admitted. As an afterthought she added, “It is
a pity that one is so mean in such matters.”