DR. A. A. BRILL
55 CENTRAL PARK WEST
NEW YORK
PATIENTS SEEN BY APPOINTMENT TELEPHONE COLUMBUS 6615

Oct 27 / 14

My dear Professor

Your two letters reached me within a few days and the first one gave me much pleasure.  I am exceedingly glad to know that you are well and sincerely hope that your son will come home to you unharmed.  There is no use discussing war with you.  You see things that I hear of, usually in a distorted manner but as I said in my last letter, public opinion here is

gradually undergoing a change.  The enclosed editorial from one of our leading journals, a journal not at all pro-German, is a fair illustration of the present trend.  I am doing all I can in contributions and propaganda to help your cause and if there is anything that you could suggest I could do I would be only too happy to do so.

Now as to the second letter: It is unfortunate that my first letter to you which I mailed to you a few days after receiving your Geschichte der ψα (That was a few days before Federn sailed for the first time) was not received by you. If

you have received it by this time many things will be explained.  I cannot recall everything that I said in it but a good part of the letter was devoted to your paper which I had just finished reading.  In your last letter you thought it strange that I should be the only one of your pupils who has not expressed himself concerning your Geschichte der ψα.  If that were so it would indeed have been strange but as a matter of fact I discussed it very enthusiastically and expressed my gratitude to you for

giving me so honorable a place in it.  I also told you of my wish to translate it and asked you [sic] permission to publish it in Prince's Journal.  You see this translation is comparatively very simple and it would take little time to do it.  I could dictate it to my stenographer without any previous preparation.  I was most anxious to do it because I fully realized that it was most important that it should be given to our readers when the Jung and Adler views are being pushed as "new advances in ψα".  I was hard at work preparing it when I met Jelliffe and he told me of Jonese's [sic] connection with it.  I was baffled and I refused to believe it.  It was very strange.  (As a

matter of fact Jones did have something to do with it.  In a letter just received (Oct 19) from him answering my question he says: AI suggested to Jelliffe that he secure Freud's article for his Review, thinking of course you would translate it, I hear now from Payne that he is negotiating with you about the translation")  To return to the above.  I waited to hear from you before definitely deciding to whom I should offer it.  My own choice was naturally Prince but then I reasoned if Jones thinks it right to suggest to Jelliffe that

he secure it for the Review, it must be with some knowledge of your desire and perhaps your consent.  I will add that Payne never asked me about the translation although he occasionally consults me about some difficulties with his patients.  Payne was with Jung and as far as I know he is in sympathy with Jung in every way.  To be truthful had he asked me I would have said "no", simply because, I can do it as quickly and as well as he, and as it is a most important contribution which in my opinion will have the greatest influence on the psychoanalytic movement of the future I naturally prefer to do it myself.  In this connection I wish to call your attention to the fact that this translation is in no way to

be compared to the translation of the Witz etc. where I have to spend hours and days in search of fitting examples.  Translations as such offer no difficulty for me.  More of this later.

It is therefore very surprising that you should have asked Payne to do it for you.  Frankly speaking I feel somewhat hurt, although I had felt for sometime that you were not quite satisfied with my translations.  I would have been ready to leave it to someone else had you wanted it.  You will recall that I offered to do so about two years ago. But as you insisted that es

soll beim Alten bleiben I continued.  You may think that it is my fault that things do not run faster.  I wish to say if it were not for many external factors over which I have no control the Witz would have been out long ago.  All the reviews of the translations I ever made, agree that I did my work carefully, and the Wit particularly requires much care and time.  I have plenty of material when it comes to dreams and psychopathology but I have to hunt for witticisms that would fit in with your thoughts and do justice to your own.  That accounts for the tardiness.  Federn was wrong.  I told him I hoped to have it out soon and if it

were not for the war it would have been on the road to the publisher.  You will see the Mss first.

Oct 30

(I was interrupted and could not resume until now.)  I also inquired about giving out some of your smaller papers but so far I have not received any encouraging promises.  Of course Jellife would take all I could give him.  However I am sure that I shall place them in time.  I am telling you all this to show you that I am not asleep and that I am striving hard to bring your works before English readers.  Totem u. Tabu is practically finished but in accordance

with your wishes I shall not give it to publisher before the Wit will be out .  Still I feel, as I said above, that you are not pleased and for that reason I am willing to let someone else do the translations.  I shall simply finish what I am working on now viz. Wit, & Totem & Tabu.  I am convinced that Jones has been trying in all sorts of ways to bring this about and has not been honest with me about it.  I say this without the slightest rancor.  I am ready to devote myself to my work and let someone else to the translations.  Why should Jones suggest to Jelliffe that he secure it for his Review when he always maintains that he is out of sympathy with it?  He repeatedly advised me not to write anything for the Review

which I have so far strictly followed.  White & Jelliffe who claim to be very friendly to me are continually begging me to write something for them.  Another thing, how does Jones know that Payne is negotiating with you me about the translation?  Be that as it may, I am satisfied to leave things to you.

In my first letter I also spoke at lenght [sic] concerning Federn.  He made a very poor impression on me and from what I heard he impressed strangers in the same way.  I agree with you that he is a "Schmock".  His

constant desire to speak before gatherings made him ridiculous.  Since he left I heard from a doctor whom he visited that Federn told him that I am doing very poorly in my practice that I have hardly anything to do.  If this is true and I have no reason to doubt it, it is pure invention as I was unusually [q.e.d.!!] busy while he was here and never complained to him.  He has however many admirable qualities; but what I disliked most in him was his uncertainty about his own position.  He was with Jung, with Adler but always protested his loyalty to you.  I could not see how that could fit together.

The coming event will take place in about a month and Mrs. Brill is fully prepared for it.  Her condition is very good.  Gioia's pertussis is practically gone, she is in good health but shows many traits of the only child.  It is for that reason that I have sent her to a Kindergarten where she remains from 9 to 12.

Hoping that this will find you in the best of health and that peace will soon

be declared I am

Very sincerely
Brill