| Contents | complains that the telephone line was bad; the socks are itching; he had fish last night, the first time for months, was very agitated about it; has eaten from the cake from Hamburg; the 'witch' watches him as he eats the things from home, as a substitute for being with the family; he is getting more and more like an animal ['vertieren']; does not like the idea of a move to a house where there is no lift, no possibility to make tea, etc; there is a sanatorium near Göttingen, tells Mary to aks Mrs. Leo about it; has been thinking about writing a review of his scholarly work; in his life he was led by 'agathodaimon', from Lessing's Laocoon to Botticelli, Oraibi, Dürer and Luther; starts his review from his birth in Grindelhof, his will to solve problems, playing chess, Botticelli as tragic pantheist; he learned to understand how 'fatal' life can be through the cholera epidemic in Hamburg; on the trip to the Pueblos, discovered the unity of pagan agriculture with nature in the mythological serpent cult and masked dances; mentions Rucellai, Fortuna, Sassetti, velis novisve; perception, enlightenment, law, calendars, prophecy, Padua; in Europe, the most monumental memorial under the spell of magic from Asia Minor is the Salone in Padua; per monstra ad astra: the gods have put the monsters before the idea; the war of 1914 to 1918 has torn away the veil of truth, that elemental man was invincible; or fate has put fear before liberation, the fight with the dragon; on Luther, wasn't he himself a Perseus, who threw the inkwell at the devil?; decan or demon - this is the question!; fight of humans with their own fate, liberating hero and god, etc.; cannot stay any longer in Kreuzlingen; imagines Nurse Lydia, limping witch, as camp follower in the platonic vehicle of ideas, etc;. wishes to return to Hamburg in 1924; 'per monstrum ad superios inferisve', it means that fate has put the fight with the dragon before the liberation from fear; in Ferrara, the idea, pulling people up, is in the top register, the star demons are in the middle register with their ambivalent dynamic, fetish; on Perseus, king Alfonso; Luther does not accept such fetishism, but he himself was a Perseus when he fought with the devil; thanks Max Adolph for his very atmospheric landscape painting, which arrived only on 27/12/1923; likes Max Adolph's seminar paper topic, on dynamis and sympatheia; thanks Frede for her present; agrees to the plan of Max Adolph's visit in Kreuzlingen in March 1924; requests Plotin quote; Max Adolph should read [Anton] Hauber's 'Planetenkinder'; what has the family got to say to Warburg's scholarly Christmas letter?; admires Mary's work for Wilhelm [Hertz]; Aennes Goldschmidt has sent him a charming letter and thanked for chocolates; Salone in Padua is the expression of 'sympathetic magic'; sends New Year wishes to Mieken [Mary Warburg], Datzen [Marietta Warburg], Max Buttje [Max Adolph Warburg], Federchen [Frede Warburg]; requests the visit of Krauth as New Year present; Warburg has sent a copy of Schifanoia article to [Franz] Boll |