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Semmering, Villa Schüler
August 15, 1924
Dear Mr. Wittels
Today I received the English translation of your book about me and looked into it here and there. This is the reason for my writing.
You know my attitude to this book; it has not become friendlier.1 I still maintain that someone who knows as little about a person as you do about me is not entitled to write a biography about that person. One waits till the person is dead, when he cannot do anything about it and fortunately no longer cares.
I cannot compare the English edition with the German, for I didn't bring the latter with me (and the same applies to the Nietzsche). You have apparently made use of my corrections. Certain passages strike me as additions, but this may be the result of a faulty memory. Other passages again gave me the opportunity to admire, if not exactly to envy, your facility.
A biographer should at least attempt to be as conscientious as a translator. Traduttore = traditore,2 says the proverb! I realize that the circumstances have made this especially difficult for you, with the result that omissions occur which distort certain facts, lead to outright mistakes, and so on.
For instance, in the concaine story by which, for reasons unknown to me, you set such great store. The whole analogy with Brücke's