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26F
Vienna
19 April 1908
Dear Colleague,
A few words, before we meet in Salzburg, about your work, which I am happy to accept as the fourth volume of the “Schriften” etc. [the publisher's consent is still to be formally sought].1 I have read it with pleasure and especially enjoyed the decisiveness with which you speak up for our cause. The basic thought, the way you conceive the myth, is obvious to me; an off-print that is going off to you at the same time will tell you that I have already stated it, without any proof.2
What follows now are suggestions for alterations, which you will kindly understand as an effort to make your work appear as favourable as possible:
I should like to ask that polemics, my name, psychiatry etc. should retreat a little in favour of the myth itself, as readers will be much more interested in that than in our disputes. In other words, what was written for you and me is to be transcribed for the public.
It would be a natural consequence that the sober scientific form would change to the style of a lecture or essay.
It would be wonderful if you could deal briefly with one additional myth or the other.
I will take the manuscript to Salzburg for you, and there we can discuss the details. I shall easily induce Herr Rank to let you precede him. His work is also mythological, it borders on yours but does not clash with it. Form and technique are quite different in him, so that the smooth and immediate sequence of the two papers remains quite possible. We should consider September as the date of publication, as two issues have just been brought out and midsummer is said to be unfavourable. Jung's “Content of the Psychosis”, brief but very well done, has been in my hands for a few days.
I might also tell you that Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, who visited me here recently, has asked for your address in order to get in contact with you. I hope you will not be influenced by the opinion of the official mob in Berlin about him.