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12 November 1923
81 Harley Street, London
Dear Professor,
It was an enormous pleasure to have a letter again from you and to see that you are yourself again. The reports received from various sources (the last one from Hans Sachs to-day) are unanimous in describing how excellently you have endured the painful ordeal.
The offer you make to the Press shows, if I may say so, your characteristic fairness, generosity and shrewdness. I cannot deny the right you have to be sceptical, and in the circumstances we certainly could not ask for a better offer than the two year's trial you suggest. I am pretty confident that we shall have something to show for ourselves within that time. If not, then the matter is automatically settled. It is, as you say, indeed a question whether the attempt, much as it has cost us, should not be given up. The only motive I could have myself for being glad of such a solution is that it might mean less arduous work. On thinking it over I am not sure that this would be so, for presumably I should still go on with the translating whoever published the books. I should certainly be glad to be relieved of the business complications and confine myself to the scientific side, as I have vainly tried to do for some time past. The part of the activity to which I do attach the greatest importance is the maintenance of the Journal, and I greatly doubt if we could get any publisher to issue this for us. If any winding up of the Press is ever decided on I only hope