| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 8 May 1869 |
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 8 May 1869
Dear FRED,
In the main you had the right explanation for my obstinate silence: it came from the liver. However, there were several other additional INCIDENTS. D'abord,[1] my wife was very unwell. As soon as the business had got a bit better, last Tuesday,[2] she went to Paris, but arrived there quite benumbed. Paris has adopted the unmannerly custom of conforming to the London weather. When it rains here, it does there too, etc. Second, Eichhoff[3] arrived here, and is still here. And he arrived with a trio, a Berlin engineer, ditto merchant, and ditto banker. Their task here, and it seems to be succeeding, is to find names for the prospectus of a bank in East Prussia, which has already received a concession. Finally, there were the massacres belges. After addresses had streamed in from all quarters, as you will see from the enclosed papers, it finally became necessary for the CENTRAL COUNCIL[4] to speak on this really important issue. I was appointed to edit the ADDRESS.[5] If I had refused, the business would have fallen into the hands of Eccarius, who would be a square peg in a round hole for a vital document like this. So I accepted. In view of the present state of my liver, it was very awkward to do it in English — since such things call for a certain rhetorical style—but then, in addition, the agony afterwards TO DO THIS IN FRENCH! But necessity knows no law, and I DID IT IN FRENCH. TO start with, I wanted to send the thing to the Belgians in the original English, but our Belgian secretary Bernard (French by birth) declared to the assembled patres conscripti[6] (last Tuesday[7] ) that it would be better to abandon the project altogether if the translation was going to be left to the Belgians, who only half knew English and absolutely no French. So I HAD TO GIVE WAY. You will be able to enjoy the thing in both languages. However, I left the German translation, which does not interest me, to Mr Eccarius, who also has a monetary interest.[8]
But writing French, with or without liver, is dead easy if you give the public the sort of French used by Mr Urquhart in the Diplomatic Review[9] which is travelling to you today. Astonishing double Dutch—even the original sample given by the grand and illustre Gaudissart was nothing compared to this!
After my wife left I would have been able to come to your place right away; and I would certainly have gained time by restoring the proper operation of this damnable sack of flesh earlier. But Jennychen was looking forward to my wife's short absence in Paris, to have me entirely at her disposition and be able to let herself go. So I stay here! Apropos Jennychen, she claims that you know everything, and therefore wants to know from you: WHY DID MR 'EXCELSIOR',[10] OF THE ALPINE CLUB, NOT MARRY 'LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE'[11] ?
About the FRENCHY[12] —Borchardt had his daughter ask me about him[13] — I have only learned after a considerable waste of time that he is a lumpacius vagabundus,[14] who, however, held a SUBORDINATE post on the Glowworm, a very SUBORDINATE lousy sheet. Communicate this to the doctorly priest or the priestly doctor.
Don't forget to report to me on that Dr Heinemann OF Manchester, the sub-Stieber on Hermann.
As TO Wilhelm[15] : Eichhoff brought Eccarius a gratification of £10 (I believe Eichhoff paid it out of his own private pocket) for 'my Mill', but told me, in confidence, that 'my Mill'[16] had been printed but now lay firmly aground with the Leipzig printer,[17] who demanded exactly double the printing costs stated by Mr Wilhelm. Your steps were, therefore, prophetically correct. Meissner wrote to me more than a fortnight ago that he would start,[18] but NOTHING OF THE SORT! This is really too much.
According to Eichhoff's report, credit swindling and the FINANCING game are at present so dominant in Germany that everything else is absorbed by them, as far as the upper classes are concerned. As for the workers in Berlin, he declares they are the most contemptible specimens in the whole of Germany. Even the imported ones are soon totally corrupted by the city's atmosphere, and the 'low-priced' minor amusements. Bismarck, Duncker, Schulze-Delitzsch and Dr Max Hirsch compete for ascendancy in this sphere.
The old Hatzfeldt's Scurvy-Mende used to be an itinerant improviser and declaimer, a brute who belongs through and through to the lumpenproletariat.
Hasenclever has allowed himself to be captured by Schweitzer. Eichhoff praises Bebel greatly.
Harney—today under-secretary or SOMETHING OF THE SORT in the HOME DEPARTMENT of the COMMONWEALTH OF Massachusetts (they still say officially 'COMMONWEALTH' and not 'REPUBLIC') — in Boston, has sent £1 membership fee to the INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL,[19] ditto a letter in which he asks after you very affectionately. Ditto, he says I should send him A COPY OF Capital. He hopes to find a translator and publisher in New York.
A Frenchman who has translated various volumes of Hegel and Kant has written to Lafargue stating that he wants to Frenchify the book[20] but—and what a visionary idea—for an honorarium of £60, for which sum he will also provide the bookseller.
The International, the Bonapartist organ here, had the impudence to state that the GENERAL COUNCIL of the Internationale no longer presides in London; that the leadership has now passed into the hands d'un personage très haut placé[21] in Paris.[22]
For the subscription list for the Belgians it would be very good if you could also send us SOMETHING from Manchester, and quickly.
Apropos. In the report on the EMPLOYMENT of AGRICULTURAL CHILDREN (only 2 volumes out yet, Report I and EVIDENCE), the COMMISSIONERS, in their preliminary resume, present a variety of facts about the expropriation of the workers from common land, quite in my sense.
My best greetings to MRS LIZZY, KING COLE or COAL,[23] and JOLLYMAYER.[24]
Your
Moor