Letter from Sigmund Freud to Sandor Ferenczi, January 18, 1909

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
January 18, 1909

Dear Colleague

Be prepared to laugh at me. Today I glanced at the first 14 sheets of our Jahrbuch1 and was enchanted. Jung has done a splendid job. A real revenge for Amsterdam!2 It is something to be proud of.

And now an awful thing has occurred to me: that you are not represented in a volume which cannot be repeated so soon in this excellent and creditable fashion. Then I realized that it was my fault because, from some mistaken discretion or God knows why, I had prevented your excellent paper about the transference from being published in the second half-volume. I told myself that you could easily write another essay for the second half-volume, but this was followed by the thought that you could hardly produce anything of similar significance within a year. In short, I feel compelled to ask you to look upon my objection of that time as canceled, and to reconsider whether you would not rather withdraw the paper from Brodman's journal and offer it to the Jahrbuch. This seems to me at the moment much the better thing to do. So far as Jung is concerned you can by all means lay the odium of inconsistency on me. As for Brodman, you don't have to worry about him, just give him any reason. So have a good laugh at me and please take the advice I am giving you now.

Yours very sincerely
Freud