Letter from Sigmund Freud to Margit Freud, March 4, 1927

Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
March 4, 1927

My dear Gretel

I too have been very saddened by Brandes' death. Not that I begrudge him his eternal rest at the age of eighty-five, but I made his acquaintance so late and would like to have met him again. Our meeting that time as he lay in the hotel room in Vienna was a very special experience. I didn't know anything about his hostility to psychoanalysis and approached him quite ingenuously, with unclouded respect. When the conversation finally turned to psychoanalysis, his conversion was seemingly a matter of two minutes. I cleared up the most obvious misconception, his failure to recognize the distinction between conscious and unconscious, and he appeared pacified at once. Probably it wasn't even a question of changing his mind, rather that psychology [psychoanalysis] had always been very alien to him and that, prepared by your influence and disarmed by my guilelessness, he was ready to relinquish a prejudice where he was unable to form an opinion. He could not fail to realize how highly I respected him. When he modestly tried to take second place behind the “scientist,” I pointed out to him his position among the descendants of our prophets.

I am fond of looking for resemblances. At that time I was struck by his likeness to Wallenstein, which however didn't signify anything in particular. After I had talked to Einstein in Berlin and seen the bust of Popper-Lynkeus in our Rathauspark, I discovered a more significant resemblance between these three great Jewish personalities.

I was very pleased to hear from you and from other sides that you are beginning to prosper and that your industry and ability are at last bearing fruit. Earning brings so much more pleasure than owning. Anna will be in Berlin on the nineteenth and twentieth of March. If you are thinking of coming to Vienna, I hope you will not choose just these days.

With fond greetings to you and your two men

Your uncle
Sigm.