Letter from Sigmund Freud to Max Halberstadt, July 27, 1912

Karlsbad
July 27, 1912

Dear Max

There is no doubt that we don't yet know you properly. Who would have thought that you are such an industrious correspondent! We had been told the opposite. In this respect you

are perfectly suited for a protracted engagement. In others admittedly less. I thought we had decided that the engagement should be published simultaneously in Vienna and Hamburg on the twenty-eighth. Now you haven't been able to wait and Vienna has to limp behind.

There is no reason to admire us for the four (actually 4¹/₂) years. There was no merit in that; we just couldn't help it and had nothing to show for the engagement except plenty of impecunious relatives. I was not yet the possessor of five high distinctions as you are, but had to produce everything from scratch; admittedly I was only twenty-five and when I married not younger than you are today. You are quite right in not wanting to follow our example. I have really got along very well with my wife; I am thankful to her above all for her many noble qualities, for the children who have turned out so well, and for the fact that she has neither been very abnormal nor very often ill. I hope that you will be equally fortunate in your marriage, and that the little shrew will make a good wife.

Today your aunt announced her visit to us; we have arranged in writing a first meeting tomorrow morning (after appeasing our early appetite). The engagement correspondence has followed right on the heels of the birthday letters. On July 261 next year you will join in the celebration as Mama's latest acquisition.

The two issues of the newspaper have arrived. I spell my name Sigm. without an e, but there is no doubt about the identity.

Cordial greetings, also from my wife.

Your new and old
father-in-law
Freud