INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHO‑ANALYSIS

«IP0,0»          15 December 1921  111 Harley Street  London W1

Dear Professor:

«IP4,0»I am sending this letter and a small Christmas parcel by a Mr. Pastor, late of Oxford, now at the University of London as Lecturer.  He is an intelligent and much‑travelled Spaniard, who has shewn some interest in psycho‑analysis, though he does not seem to have the inner need to come closer to it.

The only way to deal with a press of patients is for you to raise your fees still further.  Many analysts here, for instance, even unqualified ones, get two to three guineas, and you have surely the risk to ask at least five from those who can afford it.

Rickman and Strachey are probably quite right in their criticisms, though they may be sharpened by reasons to do with their analysis.  The situation is this.  Part 3/4 contains six articles.  Two short ones, in fair English and slightly improved by myself, by the Americans Coriat and Van Teslaar.«FN1.××Isador H. Coriat, "Anal‑Erotic Character Traits in Shylock," «MDUL»Journal«MDNM», 2(1921):354‑360; and James S. van Teslaar, "The Significance of Psycho‑Analysis in the History of Science," «MDUL»Journal«MDNM», 2(1921):339‑353.

»  A long one in excellent English by Berkeley‑Hill.«FN1.××Owen Berkeley‑Hill, "The Anal‑Erotic Factor in the Religion, Philosophy and Character of the Hindus," «MDUL»Journal«MDNM», 2(1921):306‑338.

»  Three translations.«FN1.×׫IP0,0»H. von Hug‑Hellmuth, "On the Techqnique of Child‑Analysis," «MDUL»Journal«MDNM», 2(1921):287‑305; Michael Joseph Eisler, "A Man's Unconscious Phantasy of Pregnancy in the Guise of Traumatic Hysteria," «MDUL»Journal«MDNM», 2(1921):255‑286; and Stärcke «MDNM»(1921).»  One of Hug‑Hellmuth translated into good English by Barbara Low, who is a lecturer on English literature.  One by Eisler (pregnancy phantasy) translated by a medical patient of mine, a Cambridge man, son of German parents; I must admit it was not so well translated as I had the right to expect; it was given him as a test.  Stärcke's psychiatry one is done by Bryan, and here we come to the difficulties.  Of my two assistants, who are certainly the most suitable available at the moment, Bryan works most industrially and has only the one fault of not being an educated man, so that his style and even grammar are exceedingly weak.  I have corrected so many of his translations and had so much else to do that I got him to ask Flügel to correct this one.  Flügel writes excellent English and is clever, but has two weaknesses.  He is rather selfish and only likes doing his own work, not helping other people, and secondly he has not overcome a strong reaction to a sadistic complex the effect of which is to paralyse his efforts to criticise or disagree from anyone else, with very few exceptions.  So he feels inhibited when asked to do such work as this (it was the same about correcting the American translation of the «MDUL»Vorlesungen«MDNM») and he sends back the manuscript in very much the same condition as before.  A combination of laziness and inhibition.  But one must work with the implements at one's disposal and I try to find whatever is most congenial or suitable to him (i.e. very little).  To correct Bryan, and many others, properly would mean extensive re‑writing of his work, often harder than to do a new translation.  I cannot do everything alone, so use my time and powers for whatever I consider the most important.  For some time to come this will be the revision of your own translations, «MDUL»Sammlungen«MDNM», etc., in the first place.

You may at all events be sure that I do not underestimate the importance of the linguistic factor in the «MDUL»Journal«MDNM».  My fear rather is that you may think that I overestimate it.  But it is difficult to overestimate it in England, for the following reasons.  A knowledge of good English is almost unbelievably rare here, and of course rarer still in America, and is valued correspondingly highly.  It is difficult to convey to anyone not English how completely a man is estimated here by his speech and his writing.  The average doctor writes worse English than a poor tradesman writes German in Austria.  Last week, for instance, I had the occasion to read for the first time Brill's translation of your Leonardo,«FN1.××Brill (1916a).

» and I was deeply shocked time and again to see punctuation as illiterate as that of a servant girl's, with expressions of a similar order.  Men of sensitive feeling, taste and education like Rickman and Strachey rightly shudder at such things, though this Stärcke translation is nothing like that and contains at least no gross grammatical errors.  In short, what I badly need is someone like Rickman for just this work of revising badly written manuscripts.  Until that time I can only struggle on and do what I can myself.

Perhaps I was to blame in accepting Varendonck's article.«FN1.××Varendonck (1922).»  I was influenced by your high opinion of him, my own being, I must confess, much lower.  I am now re‑reading his article, but will beg you, if you have the time, to look at it yourself and form an opinion about it (Hiller will be away, but Rank can doubtless find it, or perhaps Anna can).

We have nearly thirty book reviews waiting to be printed, for I am following your advice to make this a strong feature of the «MDUL»Journal«MDNM».  One of them, a review of Kempf's imposing work on Psychopathology,«FN1.××Jones (1922c).

»  I should like you to read if possible before it is printed, lest you may wish to make some alterations in it.

Thank you for your acceptance of the protest I wrote for Unwin.  It is being held up for a fortnight, as McCann's agent is making a last effort to bring him to terms.«FN1.××In his Rundbrief of 12 August 1921, Jones reported that James McCann the American publisher and pirate of Freud (1900a) had offered the British publisher Stanley Unwin the sum of $250 to continue the piracy (Sigmund Freud Copyrights Ltd, Wivenhoe; and Rank Collection, Butler Library, Columbia University, N.×Y.×C.).  Jones was attempting to intervene and thwart McCann's efforts.»  The «MDUL»Vorlesungen«MDNM» is ready except for the frontispiece, which Hiller is getting from Germany.

I hope you will have some rest at Christmas and am sure you will enjoy meeting our friends when they come to Vienna.  How I wish I could be present.

With my warmest regards to yourself and your family  Believe me,  yours always affectionately  Ernest Jones