| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 2 December 1854 |
MARX TO ENGELS[1]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 2 December 1854 28 Dean Street, Soho
Dear Engels,
I THINK NOT, SIR, that your letter[2] or so much as your name, should be linked with the worthy 'friend'.[3] (The Jew is so pressing because an exceedingly refined educational establishment, which he has let his wife set up in St John's Wood, has brought him to THE VERY BRINK OF BANKRUPTCY. I have just learnt the details via Cornelius.) Taking my cue from your letter, I have written to him[4] that: 1. I enclose a letter from A. Dana from which he can see how the commercial crisis in America has affected me and, through me, himself; 2. However, to cover the loss, I have established new literary contacts on the strength of which I will undertake in writing to pay him £4 on the 10th of every month, starting in January 1855. The amount still outstanding is about £17. Should Mr Freund not agree to this, then he can prosecute. As he cannot fail to realise, Dana's letter would protect me in any COURT. If I involve you directly, I shall forfeit 1. my whole position vis-à-vis Freund; 2. He will tell (and promptly show my letter to) the teacher in his establishment, Mr Gottfried Kinkel, who will pass it on to Mr Gerstenberg, who will pass it on to every German Jew in the City until it reaches Blanc, which would be BY NO MEANS desirable.
I had asked Lassalle whether he could not obtain some sort of literary BUSINESS for me in Germany for I must be serious IN REGARD to my decreased income and increased expenditure. Now Lassalle puts forward the following proposal,[5] as to which I should like to have your well-considered opinion. At the beginning of this month his cousin, Dr M. Friedländer will become proprietor of the Neue Oder-Zeitung, but—in co. with Stein and Eisner. I am to become the paper's London correspondent.[6] Friedländer doesn't think he would be able to pay more than 20 talers a month to begin with. But Lassalle believes he might be able to push him up to 30. Voilà la proposition.[7] It's a miserable pittance. However, too high a value should not be set on a little bit of work for a German hole-and-corner rag. Even so, one might pick up £40 or £50. But Eisner and Stein—there's the rub! This calls for all the more mature consideration as these gentlemen aren't Conservatives but actually Liberals, and more directly opposed to us than the Neue Preussische Zeitung. THAT IS THE QUESTION.[8] Think it over carefully.
I am sending you a copy of The People's Paper so that you can read about Jones' DODGE[9] with Barbes (whom, between ourselves, he took for Blanqui) and his agitation against Bonaparte for the latter's proposed visit to England.[10] The 'authorities' here are seriously concerned about the matter and the police, wherever feasible, have had the posters torn down. Even Reynolds and The Leader[11] have denounced him for his unpatriotic sentiments. He originally had honorary members, amongst whom myself, elected to his comité for the anti-Bonapartist movement. I chaffed him for it, in particular pointing out that if the MOVE was to be effective here and on the Continent, it must maintain its purely English character. He recognised this, as you will see from his remarks at the preliminary meeting with the FRENCH REFUGEES.[12]
On Monday I shall send you the Ripley and Solis' Conquista de Mexico by the PARCEL COMP, you mentioned. Return the latter as soon as you no longer need it, since it doesn't belong to me. I have now read the whole of Ripley (cursorily, of course, this being sufficient for my purpose). I am no longer in any doubt—and Ripley, in his 'restrained' sarcastic style, often makes it plain—that the great Scott is nothing more than a common, petty, untalented, carping, envious cur and HUMBUG who, aware that he owed everything to the bravery of his soldiers and the SKILL of his divisional commanders, played dirty tricks in order to reap the renown himself. He appears to be as great a general as the MANY-SIDED Greeley is a great PHILOSOPHER. Throughout the campaign, the fellow made a hash of things and played the kind of tricks for which any self-respecting court martial would justifiably have had him shot. But he is America's foremost (in terms of rank) general. Which is doubtless why Dana believes in him. Without question Taylor is still worth more than Scott, as the Americ. public seems to have sensed when it made the former President of the United States and rejected the latter AGAIN AND AGAIN despite all his efforts. General Worth strikes me as the most significant of them, on which point you must let me have your opinion as soon as you have read the thing. Also, and more important, on another point. Is it not CURIOUS that Scott always remains between 2 and 10 miles from the scene of ACTIVE OPERATIONS, that he never appears on the battlefield himself, but is always simply 'OBSERVING THE PROGRESS OF EVENTS' from a safe place in the rear. He himself never appears, as Taylor certainly does, when it is necessary in the interests of the army's 'morale' for the commander-in-chief to appear. After the fierce BATTLE OF Contreras, he and all his STAFF moved up only when the whole thing was over. During the fluctuations of the BATTLE OF Molino del Rey he passed a message to the 'brave' fellows to the effect that they should stand their ground, he himself would perhaps appear in person. His 'diplomatic' talents are matched only by his military ones. If he evinces mistrust, it is always of his more talented divisional commanders, never of Santa Anna who leads him by the nose as though he were an aged child.
It seems to me to be typical of the war that, despite wrong or inadequate orders from their CHIEF, every division and every single small body of men at all times STUBBORNLY make for their objectives, SPONTANEOUSLY exploiting every incident, so that in the end a measure of wholeness emerges. A Yankee sense of independence and individual proficiency greater, perhaps, than that of the Anglo-Saxons.
The Spanish are already degenerate. But a degenerate Spaniard, a Mexican, is an ideal. All the Spanish vices, braggadocio, swagger and Don Quixotry, raised to the third power, but little or nothing of the steadiness which the Spaniards possess. The Mexican guerrilla war a caricature of the Spanish,[13] and even the sauve qui peut of the REGULAR ARMIES infinitely surpassed. But then the Spaniards have produced no talent comparable to that of Santa Anna.
Vale[14]
Your
K. M.
Have you seen the fulminations against Heine by Jacobus Venedey—Kobes[15] of Cologne—in the feuilleton of Saturday's Kölnische Zeitung? It's a pleasure you should not deny yourself. And Kossuth's promotion to general!!!