| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 19 November 1859 |
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
London, 19 November 1859 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill
Dear Engels,
Today I'm sending you all sorts of curious things: 1. a letter[1]
from philistine Freiligrath to me; 2. a letter from Orges (of the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung) to Biskamp; 3. an issue (No. 43) of the Gartenlaube[2] published in Leipzig, and 4. a letter from Imandt to me together with a cutting from the Trier Volksblatt[3] Finally, I would advise you to buy today's Hermann as it contains the story, devised by Mr Beta, of the Schiller festival here and casts a strange light on the conduct of our friend Freiligrath.[4]
Before going into these matters and in case I forget, I would mention that the Hungarians in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, etc., have held meetings at which they resolved to send Kossuth a letter suggesting he vindicate himself with reference to my article in the New-York Tribune[5] Otherwise they would renounce their ALLEGIANCE to him. I don't know whether I have told you about the latest news I have received from Szemere.[6] [7] that after the peace of Villafranca, Kossuth decamped from Italy without a word to his officers, amongst whom Klapka. Kossuth was afraid Bonaparte would hand him over to Francis Joseph.[8] Originally, so Szemere now writes, this same worthy had not been included in the Bonaparte business. Klapka, Kiss and Teleki had, off their own bat, agreed with Plon-Plon to instigate a revolution in Hungary. Kossuth got wind of it and, from London, threatened to denounce them in the English press should they not include him in the compact. SUCH ARE THOSE WORTHIES.
In some ways I envy you for being able to live in Manchester, cut off as you are from the war between mice and frogs.[9] Down here I have to wade through all this ordure and do so in circumstances which already consume too much of the time I
should be devoting to my theoretical studies. Conversely, I'm glad that you only have to put up with all the ordure at second hand. Last Thursday I received the enclosed letter from Freiligrath. What follows will help you understand the full extent of his depravity and pettiness. Throughout the time when that fellow (Blind) was playing his perfidious role vis-à-vis ourselves, he was on the most intimate terms with Freiligrath. He acted as his homme d'affaires—in the matter of the great Kinkel-Freiligrath controver- sy—on the organising committee for the Schiller festival. At that festival the Blind and Freiligrath families sat cheek by jowl throughout the performance. Well, on the following morning[10] The Morning Advertiser carried a report in which Freiligrath's poem was described as 'ABOVE MEDIOCRITY'[11] The same critical sense (whereof, indeed, not much is needed to strip student Blind of his mask of anonymity) which told me that Blind, and Blind alone, had written the anti-Vogt paragraph in The Free Press[12] also told me that he was the author of this article. The only thing which surprised me was that the obsequious sycophant had had the courage to speak about Freiligrath IN THIS COOL MANNER. I sent the latter the cutting. Whereupon I received from him the enclosed letter which, if one reads between the lines, more or less voices the suspicion that J was responsible for introducing a forgery into student Blind's EXERCISE—namely, the quip about Freiligrath. On Saturday I went to see Freiligrath. I didn't yet know about the statement he had made in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung (to wit, that he was not one of Vogt's accusers, nor had he ever written a line for the 'Volk')[13] He was careful, too, not to breathe a word to me about it. I told him [14] that I thought it by no means a crime on Blind's part to consider Freiligrath's poem as 'ABOVE MEDIOCRITY', for this was an aesthetic judgment; but that it did seem to me altogether too much when he allowed Blind to bamboozle him into thinking I had amended Blind's task for him—through some mysterious third party—and interpolated the quip about himself (Freiligrath). Greatly embarrassed, the philis- tine now admitted, first that he had shown Blind my letter, and proceeded to show me the two letters from Blind. In the first, student Blind describes a person frequently seen near me at the Urquhartite meeting of 9 May[15] and who had skulked round him
at the Crystal Palace (10 November).[16] In the second letter (Freiligrath was condescending enough to write to Blind saying he couldn't believe J had interpolated the insulting bit) Blind declares that that wasn't really what he'd meant to say. I next told the philistine that the only two Germans or, for that matter, persons, who had accosted me more than once on the platform on 9 May had been Blind and Faucher and NOBODY ELSE. Well now, Blind knows Faucher, whom he asked to be introduced to on the Schiller committee and whom he thanked on Freiligrath's behalf for backing Freiligrath's 'cantata' against the 'speech'[17] Again, the slyboots from Baden failed to mention Faucher's name. (I immediately informed the latter of the fact.) For Faucher knows EDITOR Grant of The Morning Advertiser, and might help to get Blind kicked out of the LICENSED VICTUALLER PAPER were he to demand that Blind make a personal statement as to whether he (Faucher) had got him (Grant) to interpolate something in Blind's article, which is why student Blind is capable of remembering what Faucher's FEATURES were like on 9 May. He recalls that they were the same FEATURES that skulked round him at the Crystal Palace on 10 November. But he forgets that this individual he knows so well is that selfsame Faucher.
This whole business is so rotten—tortuous—and so typical of philistines Freiligrath and Blind that I had to go into this nonsense at some length. It's altogether typical of philistine Freiligrath that he should not deem himself accountable to me for his appearance in public with Kinkel and Co., for his statement in the Augsburg
Allgemeine Zeitung, for his coquetry with the Hermann, for his intercourse with Blind at a time when he knew about that scoundrel's 'word of honour',[18] etc.—but believes that everything should revolve round somebody's having had the audacity to find his poem (I enclose it) 'ABOVE MEDIOCRITY' instead of crying it up AS THE
VERY INCARNATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME.
I told him I didn't give a fig for that affair, compared with which there were far more important things at stake between myself and Blind, etc.
As for the 'machinations' against him on the part of Kinkel, etc., he had only himself to blame. Why demean himself with the fellows?
Finally I wanted to know what was contained in No. 43 of the Gartenlaube. It then transpired that Mr Freiligrath was on very
close terms with Mr Beta, had entertained him in his own house and had 'suffered' Beta to write a fulsome biography of himself and an apotheosis of his family, and was irritated only at Beta's having concluded (at Kinkel's instigation, of course) with the suggestion that Freiligrath's poetry, like his character, was being ruined—by me. It was I who was to blame for the fact that Mr Freiligrath, never particularly prolific in the matter of original work, had for years pursued the business of banking rather than the business of poetry. Mr Freiligrath showed no feeling of shame in my presence for having demeaned himself by consorting with that scoundrel Beta, one-time sub-editor of Louis Drucker's How do you do? Nor for the gross flattery ladled out by that abject creature. What shocked him was to be publicly portrayed as 'influenced' by me. He wasn't sure whether he oughtn't to make some statement on the subject, being deterred from doing so only by his fear of a counter-statement on my part. The fellow thinks it 'in the nature of things' that, if he lets out a fart, it should cause a great flurry; that on the one hand he should serve Mammon and, on the other, be 'priest to the Muse'; that his want of character in practice should be hailed as 'political virtue' in theory. The man is sensitive to the tiniest pin-prick. His petty histrionic bickerings behind the scenes with Gottfried Kinkel he treats as weighty intrigues. On the other hand he considers it quite in order that my family should forego, not just recognition but even notice, of a closely reasoned work such as the instalment on money,[19] and that, as a result of my uncompromising political attitude, they should have to endure much misère and, in fact, lead a joyless existence. The man thinks that my wife should, moreover, gratefully bear with the slights publicly inflicted on myself in the knowledge that Mrs Freiligrath is eulogised and extolled and that even his Käthchen,[20] a SILLY GOOSE who doesn't understand a word of German, is commended to your German philistines. The man has not a vestige of fellow-feeling. Otherwise he would see how my wife is suffering, and how much he and his spouse contribute thereto. How false and ambiguous his behaviour is, both from the personal and the party point of view.
[21] with the fellow. He sees to my bills on the Tribune, something I'm bound to regard as a favour (although the standing thus gained with Bischoffsheim is to his advantage, not mine). Otherwise I should
find myself in the same old quandary about how to get my money from the Tribune. On the other hand, nothing would please Kinkel and Co.—the whole of vulgar democracy (including Mrs Freiligrath)—more than that this row should take place. If only for that reason it shouldn't be allowed to happen just now. However, it will be hard for me to take all these slights lying down.
About the happenings at the Crystal Palace and subsequently on the Schiller committee in my next.
Salut., Your
K. M. Another thing you should note in the latest rotten Hermann is the way Mr Blind commends himself as a prophet.[22]
The UPSHOT of all the Hermann's revelations from Berlin re Stieber is that Duncker, the old policeman, is again trying to take the place of Stieber, his rival and enemy (since 1848).[23] Moreover, in the last issue but one of the Hermann, the reinstatement of Police Superintendent Duncker was declared by the Berlin correspon- dent to be the true aim of modern world history.[24]