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Vienna, March 24, 1898
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
You will not be surprised if I write to you today about your evaluation of my dream manuscript, which made my day. No doubt you do not want me to compare you with Breuer in any way; such a comparison is forced on me. I think of the underhandedness with which he doled out praise; for example, the style is wonderful, the
most ingenious ideas; and the consideration which led him to express his picky objections to the essentials to other people from whom I then heard about them. Again and again I am glad to be rid of him.
Fortunately I can answer your objections by referring to later chapters. I have just stopped before one such chapter, which will deal with the somatic stimuli of dreams. It will also touch upon anxiety dreams, on which light will be shed once again in the last chapter on “Dreams and Neurosis.” But in the account you have read I shall include cross-references, to avoid the impression it gave you that the author is making things too easy for himself here.
I do not at all think of this version as final. First I want to put my own ideas into shape, then study the literature in detail, and thereafter insert or revise where this is indicated by my reading. I cannot do the reading until I have finished what I myself have to say, and I can compose the details only in the process of writing. So far another twenty-four pages are finished; but I suspect no other section will turn out to be as amusing and as rounded out1 as what you have read.
I hope you will tell me more about many particular points when we meet. You shall not refuse me the duties of the first audience and supreme judge. I would like to appropriate your comments on the migraine dreams; I am not familiar with such dreams from my own personal experience and therefore would have omitted them.
Our Easter congress gains even greater value for me in this respect as well, and I am glad to hear that you are adhering to the plan. If at the same time it can