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February 8, 1897
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
Breuer, whom they call the good one, cannot let any opportunity go by when there is a chance of spoiling the most harmless state of contentment. He received my book1 and thereupon paid a visit to my wife to ask her how the publisher may have reacted to the unanticipated size of this work. The publisher, for whom he is so concerned, and Nothnagel assured me that it did not matter, that the entire work is sure to have splendid sales. The opus really did turn out to be larger than is appropriate to the established size of the series. Confronted with this contrast, I am, however, especially grateful to you for your friendly evaluation — you, the “blunt one” — and merely give expression to my astonishment that you were at all able to look through it in this short time.
That I am the “nobody” in Vienna who believes in your series you undoubtedly know. Brother-in-law Oscar makes very strange compromises between the claims made on him by his relatives and by acquaintances. He is, in equal measure, admiring and rejecting because the authority sitting in judgment in his intellect is strangely impartial. Thus, he is now enthusiastic about my addition of periodic mental development in series of 13. The truth is that I have long since given up my attempt, never intended seriously, to play on your flute. I would rather have you present a concert to me at Easter.
I.K. with the dyspnea (?!?) is not my patient. If you knew Z.v.K.,2 you would not doubt for a moment that only this woman could have been my teacher. You probably saw a sister-in-law of hers.
I must correct one item I reported to you recently. When I called on Nothnagel a short time ago to present him with a complimentary copy, he told me spontaneously and, for the time being as a secret, that he and Krafft-Ebing would propose me for a professorship (as well as Frankl-Hochwart) and he showed me the document they had signed. He added that if the board did not go along, the two of