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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
May 26, 1907
Dear Colleague
Many thinks for your praise of the “Gradiva”!1 You won't believe how few people are capable of doing just that; it is actually the first time I have heard a friendly word about it (no, I mustn't be unjust to your cousin Riklin).2 This time I knew my little work deserved praise; it was written during sunny days and I derived great pleasure from doing it. Of course it doesn't contain anything new for us, but it allows us to enjoy our wealth [of insight]. I certainly don't expect it to open the eyes of the relentless opposition; I long ago gave up listening in that direction, and because I have so little hope of converting the experts I have also, as you have correctly detected, shown only a halfhearted interest in your galvanometric experiments, for which you now have punished me. A confession such as yours, by the way, is more valuable to me than the approval of a whole medical congress, not least because it promises the approval of future congresses.
If you are interested in the fate of the “Gradiva” I will keep you informed. So far only one review has appeared, in a Viennese daily, laudatory but about as lacking in understanding and feeling as one would expect from your dementia patients. This kind of journalist who is evidently incapable of grasping the passionate emphasis on abstract values doesn't shrink from writing: The mathematicians tell us that 2 × 2 frequently equals 4, or: We are assured that 2 x 2 usually doesn't equal 5.
What Jensen3 himself has to say? He wrote very warmly about it. In his first letter he expressed his pleasure, etc., and declared that the analysis agreed in all important points with the purpose of the story. Of course he wasn't referring to our theory, since as an old gentleman he seems altogether incapable of entering into