Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 22, 1856

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 22 September 1856


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 22 September 1856

28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

I would have ACKNOWLEDGED your last letter before this, but for ABOUT a fortnight past the whole day from morn till night has been spent in search of lodgings. In no circumstances could we remain

in the old hole. At last we found a place—a whole house which we have to FURNISH ourselves. It is 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitiand Park, Haverstock Hill, Hampstead Road. Rent £36. We are to move in on 29 September; this week we have to furnish it. We are in something of a quandary, as we have ABOUT £26 to pay out in town, and a great deal more for the new set-up. I.e. we are short of £10-£15—if only for the time being, since there is still a sizeable sum due to my wife from her brother[2] in Berlin as a result of the Trier legacy.[3] Yesterday he wrote to say that he couldn't send the money because the Lower Silesian Railway Bonds in which the capital due to my wife is invested could be sold [4] only at a considerable loss. As M. le Ministre sadly remarks:

'It is, to be sure, an unfavourable moment just now, since all genuine securities such as these have fallen sharply as a result of frenzied speculation in Crédit mobilier[5] and limited liability companies.'

If you can supply part of what is wanted, I think I can manage the remainder with the help of the pawnshop until the money arrives from Berlin. The worst of it is that there's no time to be lost.

I was terribly affected by the news of Weerth's death,[6] which I found hard to believe. Freiligrath, too, has already written to me about an obituary. But I must confess that I can't think of a likely paper in Germany. The only possibility might be an obituary in the Tribune until the times permit us to do something bigger and better. WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?

Today I have been invited to dine with the Putnam's chap[7] who is over here again. I don't know whether I shall go. My poor spoken English might put me to shame.

The Tribune has returned me the unpublished articles. These are, ALL IN ALL, Pan-Slavism and my articles on the DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES. Mr Dana says in his letter that, if I cannot place the things elsewhere, they will be legally responsible for any 'LOSS' incurred, since they failed to register their objections soon enough. In the opposite case, they expect to get PART of their EXPENSES back. [8]

Bruno Bauer is bringing out 2 volumes of England.[9] No doubt he will write at length about his [10] PIGSTY. I don't know what else he has seen in England.

Pieper, whom I threw out on my wife's return, found his way back and settled in again 2 days later which, just now, is far from pleasant. When I move into our new home, I shall leave him behind, safely installed on my surety in the little hole you know in Dean Street.

A Prussian amnesty is expected on 15 October. Otto's mother died leaving 2,000 talers; these were confiscated by the Prussian government to pay the 'costs of the Cologne trial'.

Strohn was here last Friday. The fellow has put on an enormous amount of weight, in consequence of which his spirits seem to have improved SOMEWHAT at the expense of his wits. Nor is his expression now so wry—benevolent, RATHER.

I have heard all sorts of details concerning Heine, recounted to my wife in Paris by Reinhardt. Shall write about these at length some other time. For the present only that

'Eight had barely struck, yet she Was quaffing wine with laughter free'[11]

came true LITERALLY in his case. While his corpse was still in the mortuary—on the day of the funeral—the [12] of Mathilde the mild, angelic child, did in fact appear on the doorstep and fetch her away. The worthy 'Meissner', who doled out such sloppy rubbish about Heine to the German public,[13] was paid in cash by 'Mathilde' to sing the praises of this trollop who had tormented POOR Heine to death.

But now for another story about Moses Hess. That lad's fame WAS DUE TO A GREAT PART—TO Sazonov. When Hess and the Moses woman[14] arrived in Paris, this Russian was in very sore straits, very down at heel, without money or credit and consequently very plebeian and revolutionary and receptive to ideas of world subversion. Sazonov heard that Moses was not without 'ducats'. He therefore took his stand behind Moses and in front of the Moses woman. The latter he bedded, the former he extolled AS A GREAT LITERARY LUMEN, putting him in touch with the editorial boards of reviews and newspapers. Vladimire OF COURSE, had a finger in every pie and a foot in every door. Thus he extracted enough ducats from the tight-fisted Moses to enable him to 'shine' again and to put out decoys for further credit. And with these Sazonov enticed a rich old Jewess with whom he entered into kosher WEDLOCK. From then on, however, he became a man of fashion again and turned

his back on Moses, declaring him to be A VERY COMMON AND SUBORDINATE FELLOW. The Moses woman, however, was heartlessly abandoned and she is now running round Paris, scolding and cursing and telling anyone who will listen about the perfidious Muscovite's betrayal. Such, in a manner of speaking, is the story of the [15] Have you seen Golovin's paper, Russia etc., now appearing in London?

[16] L'Homme has temporarily ceased publication. La Nation has ceased to exist. The only thing still in the same LINE, though much poorer, is Le National. Kindest regards to Lupus.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ This letter was first published in an abridged English translation in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, 1979.—12, 30, 45, 54, 61, 67, 70, 93, 110, 128, 132, 224, 227, 254, 265, 319, 333, 359, 407, 430, 448, 459, 461, 518, 524
  2. ↑ Ferdinand von Westphalen
  3. ↑ This refers to the legacy left to Jenny Marx by her mother, Caroline von Westphalen. Part of it consisted in shares which, at the time of the mother's death, were in the hands of her step-son, the Prussian Minister of the Interior Ferdinand von Westphalen.—68
  4. ↑ at present
  5. ↑ Engels here refers to the discussion of the so-called Five Points or preliminary terms for peace between Russia and the coalition that fought Russia in the Crimean war (Britain, France, Turkey and Piedmont). The Five Points were presented to the Russian government through Austria in the form of an ultimatum by the Allied Powers in December 1855. They called for replacement of the Russian protectorate over the Danubian principalities by a protectorate of all the contracting parties, a revision of the Bessarabian border involving Russia's relinquishment of the territory along the Danube, neutralisation of the Black Sea, closure of the Straits to warships, a ban on the maintenance by Russia and Turkey of arsenals and navies in the Black Sea, and collective protection of the Sultan's Christian subjects by the Great Powers. The Allied Powers also reserved themselves the right to impose additional demands. The terms were accepted by the Russian government and provided the basis for the Paris peace talks. The Turkish fortress of Kars in Transcaucasia was captured, after a long siege, by the Russians on 28 November 1855. The fall of Kars, the last major event of the Crimean war, speeded up the termination of hostilities. Under the Paris peace treaty (March 1856) Kars was returned to Turkey in exchange for the evacuation of Sevastopol and the other Russian towns held by the Allies.—7, 21
  6. ↑ Georg Weerth died of jungle fever on 30 July 1856 in Havana while on a tour of West Indian countries as agent of a German commercial firm. Marx and Engels did not learn of their friend's death until much later.—68, 72
  7. ↑ Frederick Olmsted of Putnam's Monthly Magazine
  8. ↑ We shall see.
  9. ↑ Marx's information was inaccurate. The book on England, Englische Freiheit, was written not by Bruno, but by Edgar Bauer, Marx referred to it later in his letters to Engels of 18 March and 21 April 1857 (see this volume, pp. 106 and 122).—68, 122
  10. ↑ dear brother (Edgar Bauer)
  11. ↑ H. Heine, 'Ein Weib' (from Romanzen).
  12. ↑ pimp
  13. ↑ A. Meissner, Heinrich Heine. Erinnerungen.
  14. ↑ Sibylle Hess
  15. ↑ The Grandeur and Decline of the House of Moses (an ironical allusion to Balzac's L'Histoire de la grandeur et de la décadence de Cézar Birotteau).
  16. ↑ For want of means