Letter to Ferdinand Freiligrath, about November 30, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 30 November 1859


First published in Die Neue Zeit, Ergänzungshefte, No. 12, 1911-1912
Printed according to the manuscript of Marx's letter to Engels of 10 December 1859
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH

IN LONDON

[London, about 30 November 1859]

Dear Freiligrath,

I am neither Liebknecht's letter-writer, nor his ATTORNEY. I shall, however, send him a copy of that part of your letter which relates to him.

I have decided against the statement I had briefly envisaged, bearing in mind that odi profanum vulgus et arceo.[1] While the statement was certainly against Beta, it was for that very reason bound to be also about you, as you will have seen from the SUMMARY. If only for that reason, I gave you notice of it, quite apart from the intimacy in which your family and his appear in his opusculum.[2]

You find it unpleasant to have your name mixed u p in the Vogt affair. I don't give a d a m n for Vogt and his infamous lies in the Biel Handels-Courier[3] but I will not have my name used as a mask by democratic tricksters. As you know, if someone is forced to call upon witnesses, no other person can 'object' to being cited as a witness. In accordance with ancient English legal USE, RESTIVE WITNESSES may, horribile dictu,[4] actually be crushed to death.

Finally, as regards party considerations, I am used to being treated on behalf of the whole party as target for mud-slinging by the press, and to seeing my private interests constandy damaged by party considerations; on the other hand, I am equally used to being unable to reckon on any kind of private consideration towards myself.

Salut

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ I loathe the profane rabble and shun it (Horace, Odes, III, I, 1).
  2. ↑ [H.] B[eta,] 'Ferdinand Freiligrath', Die Gartenlaube, No. 43, 1859.
  3. ↑ [K. Vogt,] 'Zur Warnung', Schweizer Handels Courier, No. 150 (supplement), 2 June 1859.
  4. ↑ horrible to say