| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 13 December 1886 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 13 December 1886
My dear Laura,
Well, here we have you at last nailed to a date,[1] and I hope you will make it the 23rd, so as to be able to go a bit about town with Nim before Christmas and look at the Christmas shops. And to cut short any further excuses, I enclose a check for £20.- to enable you to per- form your promise.
Also a letter from Tussy, who was yesterday in Williamsport, Penn- sylvania, and will have meetings after that in Baltimore, Wilmington and New York — but in New York a whole series from 19th to 23rd, and leave on 25th.[2] Another letter from Edward will be sent to- morrow, I have to make a note or two out of it. Please bring all these letters with you when you come for I have a strong suspicion that they were written with one eye to business, for I find that Liebknecht also wrote almost daily his impressions de voyage to his wife, not so much for her sake as for that of forming the material basis of a book already contracted for.
Last Wednesday week[3] Mrs Liebknecht arrived here, an extremely German lady, and before 24 hours had passed, she began to unbosom herself to Nim with an eagerness that was almost too much for Nim. The household seems to be a model German one, Sentimentalität und häuslicher £wist,'[4] but considerably more of the latter. Nim will tell you more anon. On Sunday afternoon Liebknecht dropped in, more hungry than usual, fortunately there was a boiled leg of mutton to ap- pease his craving. He is quite the old Liebknecht, only Nim who has got the deepest inside in his household mysteries affirms that he is somewhat more of a Philistine. What Tussy says of him is quite cor- rect, his notion of his own importance, capacities and absolute invin- cibility is astounding; but at the same time there is an undercurrent of a dim apprehension that after all he is not the stupendous man that he would like the people to believe him to be; which undercurrent drives him to be more in want of other people's admiration than he otherwise would be, and in order to obtain that, to manipulate facts considerably in all his tales about himself. But his wife says with truth that if he was not so immensely satisfied with himself, he would never be able to do the work he does. So we must take him as he is and be satisfied with a quiet laugh at much of what he says; he will create much mischief in a small way by his diplomatising ways pro aris etfo- cis,'[5] but at the decisive moment he will always take the right side. They left on Friday for Leipzig.
Percy is quite well again, he always has these violent attacks, but if once over the first assault, he is soon right again.
The Kautskys are taking a house beyond the Archway — not the Archway Tavern but the real Archway farther on. That is to say, Scheu takes the house for three years, and takes part of it with his daughter, a rather silly girl of about 18 whom he has got over from Hungary; and the Kautskys take the other part. They are beginning to move into it to-day and hope to have done with it by Saturday.
I had a letter last week from old Harney, he sailed 12th October, much too late for his condition of body, and of course arrived rheu- matic and gouty all over. But he could not leave England which he adores while he hates America, and if he lives, he says he will come across again next spring and live and die in England! Poor fellow — when the Chartist movement broke down he found himself adrift and the glorious time of free-trade prosperity in England was indeed enough to drive a fellow to despair. Then he went to Boston, only to find there, in an exaggerated form and ruling supreme, those very things and qualities he had hated most in England. And now when a real movement begins on both sides of the Atlantic amongst the En- glish speaking nations, he is too old, too decrepit, too much an out- sider, and — too patriotic to follow it. All he has learnt in America is British chauvinism!
Now Nim comes and brings me the out-of-the-way stamps to affix to this uncommon heavy letter, while Anni is getting the dinner things into shape and so I must conclude. Nim sends her love to both of you. As to Paul you will perhaps after all succeed in bringing him with you on the 23rd, what in the name of dickens is he going to mopse in Paris in Christmas week, not even the chambers sitting?
Ever affectionately yours,
F. Engels