ABSTRACT
Brill's next letter, in response to a lost one from Mabel, dates from over a year since his last existing communication. Eastman's Venture cast Mabel as the character Mary Kittridge who is a maternal figure for male revolutionaries, offering them sexual, emotional, and financial comforts. Mabel Dodge appeared as the salon hostess Edith Dale in Carl Van Vechten's Peter Whiffle, first published in 1922. Brill's apparently pejorative use of the word "abreaction" in his commentary on Lawrence's novel is intriguing, given his urging Mabel to write her own autobiography in the spirit of abreaction. He seems to cast judgment on the "pornographic" elements of Lawrence's novel, suggesting the author should have curtailed his inclination to write freely about sexual matters. Brill's suggestion that she write her memoirs was based not just in his belief in sublimation, as discussed earlier, but also on his understanding of Freud's theory of abreaction.
