| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 16 February 1857 |
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 16 February 1857 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, N. W.
Dear Engels,
Enclosed a letter from Olmsted in reply to my inquiry. So this particular ARTICLE wasn't accepted.[1] However, even after this letter I believe that they will be glad to publish 'SHIPS AGAINST WALLS'.[2] The question is, have you got the time to write it? No doubt we ought to try Putnam again before giving up altogether. At any rate it was exceedingly impertinent of that gendeman not to let me know what the position was until after 4 months. Since I shall in any case have to write to Olmsted, see if you can make out his Christian name from this letter.
You will probably have had Miquel's letter. Freiligrath tells me that, besides Ruge and Hess, Oppenheim and other disreputable good-for-nothings write for the Jahrhundert.
Freiligrath requests you not to let the matter of Weerth remain dormant. Assuming that that Jew Steinthal has got his hands on Weerth's diaries (about which the noble Campe has already written to Weerth's brother[3] ), there is the additional danger that, should Weerth's relations get hold of them, they might in usum delphini[4] publish them amended and censored. It is to be hoped that Weerth's brother will approach you direct. If the diaries eventually turn up, this would also mean that you could appeal to the philistines' consciences. Incidentally, it is exceedingly mean of Steinthal to have no more than bluntly notified the old woman[5] of Weerth's death, without any details and without either preamble or postscript. That haggler with his saccharine smirk!
I have been rereading (but haven't quite finished) your essays on Pan-Slavism,[6] partly for my own edification, partly in order to note the passages which, in the event of a German version, would necessitate your referring to sources not readily available in
England save at the British Museum. While thus engaged I discovered that the same unknown hand (provisionally I make so bold as to ascribe it to the Polish renegade Gurowski) which wrote above my rejected DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES articles,[7] 'Tout ces chiffrés sont éxagérés',[8] etc., etc. (nice French), has also adorned the Pan-Slavism articles with marginal glosses, viz.:
ad[9] article I. At the end: 2. C'est ni bon.[10] (What the £ is supposed to be (German C?) is beyond me.) (Nice French sentence!
C'est ni bon. Period.)
ad article IX. Written at the top: Changez l'introduction[11] and, as heading: 'Southern Slavï. Again, re the sentence, 'BY THIS LOGIC ETC. IT WOULD FOLLOW THAT THE HINDOOS ARE THE MOST YOUTHFUL PEOPLE ETC' he comments, 'THIS DEDUCTION
IS ILLOGICAL'.
On the statistical survey of the Serbian race: 'GERMAN (instead of
GERMAN) INFLUENCES DESTROYED THEM IN OTHER BRANCHES UNDER AUSTRIAN DOMINION.' (Nice English!) Again, on your censure of Montenegrin BRIGANDAGE, THIS (instead of 'TIS) NOT TRUE'.
Again, on 'CROATIA ETC. HAVE FOR CENTURIES PAST BEEN ANNEXED TO HUNGARY', he comments, 'BUT HUNGARY IS A COMPOUND OF THOSE VARIOUS LANDS'.
T h e passage about the M o h a m m e d a n Bosnians, 'THEY WILL HAVE TO BE EXTERMINATED, NO DOUBT ABOUT THAT' is distorted in true Russian fashion by striking out the next passage: 'THESE ARE, HOWEVER, BUT THE INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES OPPOSING THE ERECTION OF A SOUTH SLAVONIC EMPIRE ETC'
T h a t these notes are all of Russian inspiration is obvious. Likewise, that no Frenchman could have written French with this kind of ACCENTUATION and such mistakes; likewise and no less, that a Yankee would never talk about 'Southern Slavi' and would express himself altogether differently. Hence I should say that the provenance of these notes is beyond doubt. And if, as Olmsted's (Yankee) travelling companion maintained in front of myself, Freiligrath and Olmsted, Gurowski is in the direct pay of the Russian Embassy in Washington, the whole crisis with the Tribune becomes perfecdy explicable. By the by, from the notes a n d deletions it transpires that originally it was still intended to publish a modified version of the articles on Pan-Slavism (up to and perhaps including No. 9), and that the idea was not completely abandoned until the fellow realised what we were driving at. Hence, too, Dana's belated decision.
Since, in the midst of my own crisis, it is very edifying for me to hear about crises, drop me a few lines telling me how things are in the industrial districts. Not at all well, according to the reports in the London papers.
The two final volumes of Tooke's History of Prices—from 1849 onwards—have come out. It is, of course, a pity that in his unrelenting battle with the CURRENCY chaps and Peel's Acts,[12] the old gentleman is too exclusively concerned with the question of circulation. Still, it's interesting at this particular juncture.
Salut.
Your
K. M.