Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 19, 1864

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 19 April 1864


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 19 April 1864

1 Modena Villas, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, N. W.

DEAR FREDERICK,

T h e furunculosis persisted until ABOUT a week ago, which made me very 'peevish' and it was not until a day or two since that I was able to start work again.

This month, April the first's privilege of being ALL FOOLS DAY, has been extended, at least in London, to the whole of April. Garibaldi and Palmerston FOR EVER on the WALLS of London! 5 8 2 Garibaldi with Pam and Clanricarde, and extolled by the ENGLISH POLICEMEN, at the Crystal Palace![1] In England there aren't any mouchardsgl T h e Bandiera brothers would have something to say about that.[2]

Garibaldi and 'Karl Blind'! What a talent for puffing himself u p the last-named hydrocephalous crab-louse displays! 'Mr Karl Blind', the Athenaeum announces, 'HAS JOINED THE SHAKESPEARE COMMIT- TEE!'[3] T h e fellow doesn't understand one line of S. I had to put u p considerable resistance and have doubtless completely forfeited W e b e r V[4] esteem. For the Workers' Society (incited by W.) wanted m« to compose an address to Gar., and then call on him with a deputation. I REFUSED FLATLY.

When are you going to come here? T h e family is expecting you. Tomorrow sees the start of the conference 5 7 7 that will cause the scales to fall from the Teutons' eyes. Collet has announced himself for Thursday and, at the same time, sent me a whole LOT of German literature on the Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg mess. Tomorrow I shall have to get down to a serious study of this disagreeable affair so as to be ready with my answers for the fellow, who has the entire genealogy' 8 6 at his fingertips. You may have noticed that the wretched Disraeli has spared Pam the trouble of answering Osborne's and Kinglake's motions on Schleswig-Holstein at the impending conference. Yesterday, Dis- raeli gave notice that he would put the PREVIOUS QUESTION. In all the SERIOUS AFFAIRS of the past 2 or 3 years (e.g. the Afghanistan business[5] ) he has extricated OLD Pam from the MUDDLE.

You will see how pitiful (I mean what a DONKEY) Garibaldi is—he has been half KILLED, incidentally, by John Bull's EMBRACE—from the following, which is not, OF COURSE, common knowledge.

At the secret revolutionaries' congress in Brussels (September 1863)—which had Garibaldi as its nominal CHIEF—it was decided that G. should go to London, but do so incognito and thus catch the metropolis unawares. He was then to COME OUT for Poland IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE WAY. Instead of that, the fellow goes and frater- nises with Pam! I'd rather be a louse in sheep's clothing than a man of such brave stupidity, as Shakespeare says in Troilus and Cressida.c

Kindest regards to Lupus and Lizzy.[6]

Your

K. M.

Little Jenny still has a cough but strikes me as being much better. T h e new house 3 8 7 has, IN FACT, cheered her u p a great deal.

  1. ↑ Meetings in honour of Garibaldi were held at the Crystal Palace (see Note 246) on 16 and 18 April.
  2. ↑ In 1844 letters from the Bandiera brothers to Mazzini containing the plan for their expedition to Calabria were opened by order of Sir James Graham, the British Home Secretary. The members of the expedition were arrested. The Bandieras were executed.
  3. ↑ The National Shakespeare Committee was formed in England in 1863 to organise the celebration of the tricentennial of Shakespeare's birth on 23 April 1864. Blind's admission to the Committee was announced in the Athenaeum, No. 1902, 9 April 1864.
  4. ↑ Josef Valentin Weber
  5. ↑ This refers to the Parliamentary debate in March 1861 on Alexander Dunlop's proposal for setting up a commission of inquiry into the falsification of diplomatic documents in 1839 by the British Foreign Office, then headed by Palmerston. In 1839 the British Parliament issued a Blue Book on Persia and Afghanistan (Correspondence relating to Persia and Afghanistan) containing, among other documents, a number of letters by A. Burnes, the British representative in Kabul, on the Anglo-Afghan war (1838-42). The letters had been selected and presented by the Foreign Office in such a way as to conceal Britain's provocative role in unleashing the war. Shortly before his death Burnes sent duplicates of his letters to London. Those not included in the Blue Book were published by his family (A. Burnes, Cabool, Being a Personal Narrative of a Journey to and Residence in That City, in the Years 1836, 7 and 8..., London, 1842; J. Burnes, Notes on His Name and Family (Including a Memoir of Sir Alexander Burnes), Edinburgh, 1851). On 19 March 1861 Palmerston, speaking in the House of Commons, refused to discuss the matter as too far back in time and irrelevant. See Marx's article 'The London Times and Lord Palmerston' (present edition, Vol. 19).
  6. ↑ Lizzy Burns