Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 15, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 15 February 1859


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 15 February 1859

Dear Engels,

Herewith:

1. Letter from my brother-in-law (the CAPE MAN)[1] from which you will see that the fellow will be landing in London tomorrow. Since I am sans sou[2] (only last Saturday I had to pawn my wife's last 'spare' skirt in order to send Eccarius SOME COMFORTS) and have got to entertain the man decently—he is going to Trier and carries some weight in the TRANSACTIONS with my mother[3] —I must once again press you to mail me AT LEAST £1. Luckily I have what is known as mumps, which means that I only have to entertain the man here at home and, as an invalid, can refuse to do any gadding about.

2. Letter from Eccarius. I had told the latter (who seemed, I thought, to be improving a little) that if he needed wine he was to let me know. So you should send him ABOUT 2 BOTTLES OF port wine.

3. 2 enclosures from The Free Press (the more important for having been reprinted from The New York Herald)'[4] will give you some idea of the Chinese war[5] and Mr Palmerston's policy.

Ad vocem[6] Freiligrath. I came, most opportunely for him, on the very day he got your letter.[7] He gave it to me to read and excused himself for the non-political nature of the poem[8] on the grounds that he was a 'poet'. Also said he had written to you about the Hermann simply as a 'joke'.[9] WELL, AFTER THESE VERY MEAGRE EXPLANATIONS, he said he would write and tell you that he had made everything ALL RIGHT with me. By the by, your letter 'tickled' him tremendously. I told him that it was 'very well written' and he, of course, couldn't help laughing at me for looking to 'style' first of all ON SUCH AN OCCASION. The FACT is, Freiligrath realises that Kinkel has used him and, having used him, is actually becoming somewhat uppish towards him. (Thus, to Freiligrath's intense annoyance, the Schriften von Gottfried und Johanna Kinkel' figure in large type among the Hermann's advertisements and, under the same heading, F. Freiligraths Gedichte in small type, so that Freiligrath's poems are annexed to the works of Gottfried and Johanna. This greatly riles our philistine.) On the other hand, Freiligrath is very much beholden to Kinkel for having, apparently against all expectations, again put him in the way of a political purgative which, BY THE BY, and if I am not mistaken, has earned him high praise and even, it is said, presents from philistines in Germany. Nota bene: Mrs Daniels wrote to Lina[10] (in reply to some quips about the Kinkel CASE the latter had sent her): We (she and Heinrich, the quiet one[11] ) are delighted and entranced by Freilig- rath's poem' and the day-dreaming Heinrich, who had grown 'still more self-confident and still more energetic', had actually discov- ered that 'the perfidious' Kölnische Zeitung had suppressed the 'most important verse', a verse which existed only in Heinrich's Olympian imagination.

What's this about Blind? Apropos. Did you and Lupus see in the papers (maybe a month or six weeks ago) that Madame Bangya in Paris had been sentenced to six months hard labour for soliciting?

Salut.

Your

K. M. I've lost Lupus' address again. It's 59 Boundary Street, Greenheys, isn't it? At any rate I sent him a letter to that address.

Schapper's wife has produced a son, and the old fool, who now goes in for phrenology, has discovered that the seven days'-old IMP has a sanguine-choleric temperament.

  1. ↑ Johann Carl Juta
  2. ↑ penniless
  3. ↑ Henriette Marx
  4. ↑ 'Revelation by a Russian of the Object of the Chinese War and Treaty', The Free Press, No. 24, 22 Decem ber 1858.
  5. ↑ Marx refers to the unequal treaties signed in Tientsin in June 1858 by Britain and France with China during the second Opium War (1856-60). The treaties made new ports available to foreign trade; foreign diplomatic representatives were authorised in Peking; foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the country for commercial or other purposes; Britain and France received economic privileges through the introduction of new commercial rules legalising the opium trade, and were paid indemnities. Marx discussed these treaties in his articles written in August and early September for the New-York Daily Tribune: 'History of the Opium Trade' and 'The Anglo-Chinese Treaty' (see present edition, Vol. 16). However, the article mentioned in this letter was not published in the Tribune.—342, 347, 362, 387
  6. ↑ As regards
  7. ↑ See this volume, pp. 370 71.
  8. ↑ F. Freiligrath, 'Nach Johanna Kinkels Begräbnis'. See also this volume, p. 359.
  9. ↑ See this volume, p. 372.
  10. ↑ Caroline Schöler
  11. ↑ Heinrich Bürgers