A doctor's views on life / edited, with a biographical introduction, by Eden and Cedar Paul.

  • Robinson, William J. (William Josephus), 1867-1936.
Date:
[1927]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A doctor's views on life / edited, with a biographical introduction, by Eden and Cedar Paul. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/536 (page 23)
    first pieces I learned, Lermontoff's Molitva [The Prayer]. . . . The oldest memories are the most enduring. Anyhow, that little poem has not been repressed ! The attentive student of the following pages will, however, discern how powerfully Robinson's Odessa experiences have influenced his thoughts and actions throughout life. Re¬ pressed experiences are often more potent than those that remain in the realm of the conscious. Despite his critical attitude towards much of the Freudian teaching, he himself admits that he has an “ anti-Russian complex It is not our business as biographers to pursue these hints at an analysis further. It we have dwelt at considerable length on the Russian episodes it is because they have great intrinsic interest, besides throwing light upon the author's adult mentality. But it is time to leave them, and to cross the Atlantic. Robinson has often referred with indulgence, not unmixed with contempt, to the delusion that lures—or, when immi¬ gration was an easy matter, used to lure—so many immigrants to the United States. Just as in Napoleon's army every soldier was said to imagine that he had a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack, so every newcomer to the States expected to find the streets of New York paved with gold. Instead, he usually found a place where, as in the Old World, it was much easier to earn kicks than money. It should also be remembered that you must be of rather tough fibre if you are to be a success¬ ful immigrant to the land of the Almighty Dollar, or must at any rate have a fair amount of “ push . In the last of his Never Told Tales, Robinson writes of Professor Beaumont: “ I was convinced from the start that the United States was no place for him. With his modesty and shyness, his utter lack of push and bravado, he would have a hard row to hoe. It would take him ten years to reach the position that he could reach in his native country in three years. Certain people, like certain plants, . . . never get acclimatized upon a foreign soil. His aim was a medical career, for he had detrmined to follow one of the liberal professions. The Church was out of the question, and he had a full measure of the revolutionist’s dislike for Men of Law. (Readers of these pages will not fail to note that this anti-lawyer complex has persisted in adult