Letter to Friedrich Engels, July 2, 1858

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 2 July 1858


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 2 July 1858 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, H averstock Hill

Dear Engels,

The delay in acknowledging your 'Cavalry'[1] due to great domestic TROUBLE. For weeks our youngest child[2] has been suffering from HOOPING-COUGH, a most alarming illness, besides which my wife is very seedy. So my work has been damnably disrupted by this and all kinds of other domestic upsets.

You will remember that, while our friend Schramm was in Jersey, I secured him the position of correspondent to an American paper. Now that he's dead and after he had dunned them on several occasions, his fee of SOME 6 POUNDS has arrived and has, of course, fallen to Mr Rudolf[3] as pocket-money.

Otherwise nothing new here. That little London German rag once run by Gumpert has, I believe, now fallen to 'united democracy', sub auspiciis[4] of the great Blind under the title Neue Welt.[5]

I assume you have read the statements made in the Star by Mr Türr and by the Hungarian émigrés in Constantinople. If not, I shall send you The Free Press.[6] Meanwhile Kossuth still remains obdurately silent. Our excerpt from Bangya's story has appeared in the Tribune.[7] The row in New York will force Kossuth to speak. Thus I may have to come right out into the open in this matter. Pulszky had de longue main[8] provided a loophole in the Tribune when he described Bangya as a former spy of Metternich's (!).[9]

Klapka, whom I met for a moment or two at Freiligrath's, remarked drily of Bangya: Finis coronat opus.[10] He seems to be very blasé about Kossuth. Is presently dabbling in Turkish shares.

Herewith two letters from New York.[11]

I have had no word from Ephraim Artful[12] for a fortnight. Being convinced, OF COURSE, that there was small likelihood of my letter being put to discreet use by him, I worded it with the utmost caution so THAT IT WILL BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO ABUSE IT. Apart from the special CIRCUMSTANCES of the CASE, concerning which I gave him your opinion pretty well verbatim, I censured duelling only in so far as it is claimed as privilege of caste by fellows who believe that their insults must be punished otherwise than those of a tailor, cobbler, etc. The revolutionary thing to do, I told him, when confronted with such inane presumption and laddies of this ilk, was to adopt the 'standpoint of the lout' and the 'code of the bludgeon'. On the other hand, in reply to Ephraim's pedantry, I said that duelling was among the things Aristotle described as being 'indifferent' and which one could either take or leave as one pleased; I told him he was right in saying that it was a relic of a bygone stage of development but that, 'given the one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness of bourgeois relations, individuality could sometimes assert itself only in feudal form'.[13]

I trust that, come what may, you will send me an article on India[14] next week. There is ample material for an article for the Tribune, which will otherwise reprint stuff from The Times, etc. Anyway, all that matters is that articles should be sent.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Regards to Lupus. Humboldt has published a very 'flattering' letter in the Tribune addressed to Fröbel,[15] who has published a book of his American travels.[16]

  1. ↑ Marx received Engels' article 'Cavalry', written for The New American Cyclopaedia, by 22 June 1858 and, as seen from an entry in his notebook, sent it off to New York the same day.—323
  2. ↑ Eleanor Marx
  3. ↑ Rudolf Schramm
  4. ↑ under the auspices
  5. ↑ presumably Die Neue Zeit
  6. ↑ I. Türr, 'To the Editor of the Presse d'Orient', The Free Press, No. 18, 30 June 1858.
  7. ↑ K. Marx, 'A Curious Piece of History'.
  8. ↑ long ago
  9. ↑ [F. Pulszky,] 'From Our Own Correspondent. London, April 23, 1858', New York Daily Tribune, No. 5319, 8 May 1858.
  10. ↑ 'The end crowns the work.'
  11. ↑ Marx means J. Weydemeyer's letter of 28 February 1858 from Milwaukee and A. Komp's letter of 15 June 1858 from New York, both written to him. Marx did not enclose them in his letter to Engels and they were mislaid among his papers. Some time later, Marx found them and replied to Weydemeyer on 1 February 1859 (see this volume, pp. 374-78). His letter to Komp has not been found but we may judge of its contents by the above-mentioned letter to Weydemeyer. Komp was a leader of the New York Communist Club, and his letter to Marx contained information and requests similar to those contained in a letter from Friedrich Kamm, another leader of the Club, written on 19 December 1857 (see Note 297). After replying to his American correspondents, Marx forwarded their letters to Engels on 9 February 1859 (see this volume, pp. 384-85).—324, 326, 337, 339, 374, 384
  12. ↑ Ferdinand Lassalle
  13. ↑ See also this volume, p. 322.
  14. ↑ F. Engels, 'The Indian Army'.
  15. ↑ A. Humboldt, 'A Private Letter to Mr. Julius Froebel', New York Daily Tribune, No. 5335, 27 May 1858.
  16. ↑ J. Fröbel, Aus America.