Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 8, 1852

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 8 September 1852


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, Berlin, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 8 September 1852 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

Your letter today found us in a state of great agitation. My wife is ill. Little Jenny is ill. Lenchen[1] has some sort of nervous fever. I could not and cannot call the doctor because I have no money to buy medicine. For the past 8-10 days I have been feeding the FAMILY solely on bread and potatoes, but whether I shall be able to get hold of any today is doubtful. Such a diet is not, of course, beneficial in present climatic conditions. I have not written any articles for Dana because I didn't have a PENNY to go and read the papers. By the way, as soon as you send No. XIX, I shall write and give you my views on No. XX, i.e. a résumé of the present dirty business. 14

When I was with you 146 and you told me you would be able to find me a somewhat larger sum by the end of August, I wrote and told my wife that to reassure her. Your letter of 3-4 weeks ago[2] hinted that there were no great prospects, but still left some. Accordingly I had put off all creditors—who, as you know, are always paid by dribs and drabs—until the beginning of September. Now the storm is breaking out on all sides.

I have tried everything, but in vain. First I am cheated out of £15 by that cur Weydemeyer. I write to Streit in Germany (because he had written to Dronke in Switzerland). The brute does not deign to answer. I approach Brockhaus and offer him an article of entirely innocuous contents for the Gegenwart. He sends a very polite letter of refusal. Finally I spend the whole of last week trailing round with an Englishman[3] who said he would find someone to discount the bills on Dana for me. Pour le roi de Prusse.[4]

The best and most desirable thing that could happen would be for the LANDLADY to throw me out. Then I would at least be quit of the sum of £22. But such complaisance is hardly to be expected of her. On top of that, debts are still outstanding to the baker, the milkman, the tea chap, the GREENGROCER, the butcher. How am I to get out of this infernal mess? Finally, and this was most hateful of all, but essential if we were not to kick the bucket, I have, over the last 8-10 days, touched some German types for a few shillings and pence.

You'll have seen from my letters that, as usual, when I myself am in the shit and not just hearing about it at second-hand, I plough through it with complete indifference. Yet, que faire?[5] My house is a hospital and so worrying is the crisis that it compels me to devote all my attention to it. Que faire?

Meanwhile Mr Goegg is again on a pleasure trip to America, STEAMER FIRST CLASS. Mr Proudhon has pocketed a few 100,000 fr. for his anti-Napoleon and Papa Massol has been generous enough to leave the miner, fouiller[6] etc., to me.[7] Je le remercie bien.[8]

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Helene Demuth.
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 147 48.
  3. ↑ Poenisch
  4. ↑ Literally: for the king of Prussia, i.e. for nothing
  5. ↑ what's to be done?
  6. ↑ digging and rummaging
  7. ↑ Marx alludes to a passage in Massol's letter of 25 July 1852. Massol informed Marx that Proudhon had published a book on the coup d'état in France on 2 December 1851 and stressed that Proudhon was only a populariser, while Marx was engaged in a serious analysis of the events: 'Dig, search, keep at it; that is your lot, let French mouths do the vulgarising'
  8. ↑ I thank him very much.