53 St. Marks Ave. Brooklyn N.Y. City

June 22, 1908.

Prof Sigmund Freud.

My dear Professor.

Knowing how busy you are 
I did not like to trouble you 
with unnecessary correspondence, 
but thinking that it might 
interest you to know how far 
your ideas have penetrated 
on this side of the ocean I 
take the liberty to address you. 
Since my return to the city I took 
pains to find out how far your 
works have advanced in New 
York and the attitude adopted 
towards them. Just as in Europe 
the awaking is only at its starting

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point but I am glad to say that 
so far everything is very favorable. 
Of course there are but few who 
know your works but the men 
who do are certainly with you  They 
all however have slight objections 
when it comes to the sexual theory 
but I am quite convinced that 
in time this will also disappear. 
Most of the objections are due to 
ignorance; thus e.g. Dr. Peterson 
remarked to me that he is unable 
to find the sexual in the dream 
and added „Freud finds it because 
he draws his material from Vienna.“ 
I then related to him three dreams 
that I analyzed recently for three 
elderly Americans where the sexual 

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was quite plainly visible.  He was 
very much pleased and surprised. 
I took particular care in the analysis 
to avoid all suggestion, the word 
„coffin“ in the first dream of a man 
60 yrs old, very smoothly went to 
„box“, woman’s box“, and the whole 
dream was nothing but of the erotic. 
In the second dream the word 
Liverpool was divided into liver 
& pool – livery pool – something 
congealed – human sperma –. 
The dream was a wish realization 
of an old impotent man. Both 
gentleman were of the puritan type, 
church members etc. but when I 
analyzed the dreams and told 
them what it meant, they cheerfully 
admitted everything and showed

the greatest astonishment.  Both dreams 
are most interesting.

The enclosed clippings will give you 
an idea how things are looked upon. 
This discussion took place in Jan. 07 
at the N.Y. Neurological Soc. but it was 
published in the Journal of Nervous & 
Mental diseases of this month – June – 
I know all these men personally. 
Dr. C. as you will see has very queer 
ideas and he is still in his „cathartic“ 
age.  Dr. Bailey is the chief of the neurol. 
clinic of Columbia University N.Y.C.  
I am not settled about my future 
work, at present I am working on 
the translations.

I again take the opportunity to thank 
you for the kind treatment that I 
received from you while in Vienna and i
f there is anything that I can do for 
you please command me. Cordially Yours
A Brill

Kindest regards to your family.