Letter from Sigmund Freud to Ernest Jones, October 21, 1920

21 October 1920
Vienna, IX. Berggasse 19

Dear Jones,

Highly satisfied by your good news about the mother and the baby, hope she will soon be able to spell her own name, and so get the better of me.

It is a sign of the present times if remarks on money matters should follow so soon after this congratulation. I was very much surprised at the sudden happy change in your business affairs, cannot understand it,—nor can Rank—and a pardonable doubt still subsists whether the first or the second account is the right one, whether Hiller or you got mixed up in the accounts. It will be matter of correspondence between you and Rank.

Referring to Lissa & Kann I will take the liberty to point out to you that you overlooked one feature of the case. L.[issa] & K.[ann] have not taken the money as a deposit like the Amsterdam bankers but they have opened an account (Konto) to me under your name as a cover and they are paying 3percnt; percents at least. Now if you put your money together with mine we will have to divide the interests among us and will not know how to do it. You must either enjoy mine or I yours or we will have to claim the help of a clerk to bring out the legitimate proportion. So I think it would be more convenient if you did return to Lipp.[mann] Ros.[enthal] & Co. and ask them to open an account to you or try some other arrangement. It is a queer thing to throw you out when you were so kind as to lend me your name, but you will see it is better to avoid complications.

I consent to your proposal I should write an introduction to Putnam's book and hope you will be contented if it is a very short one.1 I am so far from composing now as if I never had written a line for the printer.

None of these foregoing items would have urged me to so rash an answer, had I not got another bit of news for you. I have received a letter from Brill!, a long, tender, crazy letter not mentioning a word about the money