D IS FOR?

“In the depths of my heart I can’t help but be convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.”
 - Sigmund Freud

Laughing as tears rolled down his cheeks, the ghost of Mark Twain sat down beside me again. 

 "It was as delightful as watching a train wreck listening to you as old Coke Head's eyes got bigger and bigger."

Freud said, "Would you stop calling me that!"

Stone-faced, he turned to me.  "We are at D, young sir."

Twain chuckled, 

"As in your book,  Interpretation of Dreams -- you know the one you considered your 'most significant work.'  

It produced little fanfare when it was published in 1899. Only 351 copies of “The Interpretation of Dreams” were sold in its first six years, 

and a second edition was not published until 1909."

Mark Twain took a deep drag on his cigar and blew the smoke in Freud's face.  "You know, that book?"

I knew that Twain felt Freud a fraud, for the man borrowed the "talking cure" from the physician named Josef Breuer 

who was treating a woman named Bertha Pappenheim for a number of ailments.

It was she who coined the term "talking cure" for the therapy she was receiving from Dr. Breuer.

Worse to Mark, Freud had taken the concept of "Free Association" from a writer of all people!

 "The Art of Becoming an Original Writer in Three Days" by Ludwig Börne.

In it, Börne suggested that a good way to generate ideas was 

to concentrate on various topics, and over the next three days write down anything that came to mind.

Freud had read the essay while a young student.  

But why was Mark being so contrary right now?

 The answer hit me, and I smiled, "Defense by Distraction."

He was defending me as I had defended him.

 Freud glowered at Twain.  "This exercise is for Roland's benefit."

Mark chuckled, "You wouldn't be so quick to say that if you had been on Roland's side of your eyes a minute ago!"