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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
2. xii. 27
Dear Dr. Zweig,
Many thanks for sending me your new book,1 which I very much look forward to reading. I read your Caliban during the holidays with great interest, partly with warm agreement and partly with critical reserve. I was very proud of the message you dedicated to me, but then again annoyed that you made an obeisance to Karl Kraus2 who stands at the very bottom of my ladder of esteem. In so far as I was put off by anything in the book the fault no doubt was mine. With regard to anti-semitism I don't really want to search for explanations; I feel a strong inclination to surrender to my affects in this matter and find myself confirmed in my wholly non-scientific belief that mankind on the average and taken by and large are a wretched lot. Naturally I am not reproaching you with having managed not to surrender to this irrational affect. I did once go into the ‘differential feelings’ of which you speak. I spoke about a narcissism of the minor differences.3 There is much about them that remains enigmatic.
English translation: The Case of Sergeant Grischa. Viking, New York, 1927; Martin Secker, London, 1928; also Hutchinson International Authors, 1947.
Karl Kraus (1874-1936): Satirical writer; editor of Die Fackel.