| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 16 May 1851 |
To Engels in Manchester
London, 16 May 1851
Dear Engels,
I received your letter, which arrived the day before yesterday,[1] too late for me to answer. I was, as it happens, already at the Museum[2] by the time the postman arrived, and didn't return home until 7 o'clock in the evening. Even with the best will in the world I couldn't have written to you yesterday since I had such severe abdominal trouble that I felt as though my head would burst like the negro's drum in Freiligrath's poem.[3]
The earlier confusion was due simply to the fact that I immediately gave one of the two idlers (Schramm)[4] a note to post off to you in answer to your first letter. He missed the post, and still had the note in his pocket-book yesterday.[5]
As for the electricity, the account appeared in The Economist of 1845[6] and contains, besides what I passed on to you, nothing save the statement that the experiment was carried out with great success in Scotland. Even the farmer is named.
Freiligrath will be here within the next few days.
Now to the business of the post. I believe the post office to be innocent. At all events I alone am responsible for the poor shape of the seal. The only thing that quite alienum est[7] to me is the ✕Manchester✕.[8]
Did you see how the impertinent Kinkel got his wife to deny in the Kölnische Zeitung that he had any connection with the manifesto of the bold 'Provisionals'?[9] and how, in order to titillate the interest of the German philistine, he purports to have a 'serious disease'?
As a result of intervention by my worthy brother-in-law-cum-minister,[10] the printing of my things, as of the Revue,[11] has again come to a standstill.[12] It would seem that Becker[13] has run into difficulties in Verviers.
In France Cavaignac appears to be making spanking progress. While his election would be the rational solution,[14] it would postpone the revolution for years to come. The meeting between Nicholas, Frederick William and Habsburg[15] is neither more nor less significant than that between General Haug, Ruge and Ronge. Incidentally, to tax incomes was at that particular moment the shrewdest thing the Prussians could do.
Now a look at the émigrés here.
Led by a fellow (a German) whose name I don't know, or rather, along with this fellow, the immortal Faucher, the inevitable E. Meyen, now also here, etc., undertook the editing of the German article for the London (daily) Illustrated News. As none of the chaps knows English, they asked that a German-Englishman should supervise the editing. The superior allotted to them was an old woman who was last in Germany 20 years ago and speaks broken German. Her deletions equalled old Dolleschall's, notably E. Meyen's profound article 'Skulptur'. What this idiot was doing was to reproduce here in London the asinine artistic concoctions that appeared 10 years ago in a Berlin literary gossip sheet.[16] Faucher was also unmercifully blue-pencilled. And a few days ago the editor summoned these louts, who humbly, if reluctantly, suffer the old woman's domination, and told the gentlemen that he couldn't use their concoctions and that they must confine themselves to translating articles from the English. Since the unfortunate pair know not a word of English, this was tantamount to a polite good-bye. And they went. And Meyen will have to wait and while away another decade before he can find a taker for his 'Skulptur'.
What is more, Mr Faucher was unceremoniously jettisoned by the Kölnische Zeitung weeks ago on the grounds that the public found his articles boring.
What is your view of the Portuguese revolution?[17]
Mr A. Goegg is here, was immediately taken in tow by Willich & Co., and gives lectures in Windmill Street.[18] Hurrah!
Maintenant, mon cher:[19] farewell. From now on our correspondence will get properly back on the rails again.
Your
K. M.