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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
20. 1. 1936
Dear Meister Arnold,
Have just received your Information; pleased that you are devoting so much attention to the matter. So it seems that your ‘poet's’ statements have not been completely snatched out of thin air, but here and there really do have their feet on solid ground. Luxor exists, Rockefeller subsidies exist, and so even does Prof. Smith. But one point which occurred to me later and which invalidates all our expectations is the following: if such a list of the pupils of the Sun Temple of On (?) was found in Amarna, it could not possibly be in cuneiform on a clay tablet. It would have to be hieroglyphics on papyrus. Cuneiform was used only for correspondence with foreign countries. So there is little hope of rousing my Moses in this way from the sleep which is his destiny. One of my young friends here, a Dr. Ernst Kris,1 a well-known art historian and official at the Museum, has also made certain investigations along channels accessible to him.
So much for Moses, which is one of the temptations that should entice you to Vienna. Another would be my promise to read you my last piece of work which most unfortunately must be published. I have been very much besought to write something for Romain Rolland's 70th birthday and have finally agreed. I managed to write a short analysis of a ‘feeling of alienation’ which overcame me on the Acropolis in Athens in 1904,2 something very intimate with scarcely any connection with R. R. (apart from the fact that he is exactly the same age as my brother3 with whom I was in Athens at that time). But combine the two proverbs about the rogue who gives more and the beautiful girl who will not give more than they have and you will see my situation.