Letter to Karl Marx, February 20-21, 1865

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 20 February 1865


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 20[-21] February 1865

Dear Moor,

The letter from Matzeratt enclosed.[1]

Quant à[2] Petzler, so the photographer is an altogether different Petzler from the other one. I saw the photographer, you know, the day before yesterday, at a scientific soirée at the Schiller Institute,[3] and the fellow is at least 20 years younger and looks quite different. Heaven knows what has become of the musician.

Your

F.E.

[Pencilled note on the reverse of the letter]

Quite forgot to post the letter yesterday. No ANSWER VET FROM HAMBURG.0

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 94.
  2. ↑ With regard to
  3. ↑ The Schiller Institute, founded in Manchester in November 1859 in connection with the centenary of Friedrich Schiller's birth, strove to be a German emigre cultural and social centre. Engels was critical of the Institute, noted for its tendency to formalism and pedantry, and he initially kept aloof from it. But when certain changes were introduced into its Rules, he became a member of its Directorate in 1864. Later, as the President of the Institute, Engels devoted much time to it and exercised a considerable influence on its activities.
    In September 1868, while Engels was away from Manchester, the Institute invited Karl Vogt, who was connected with the Bonapartists and was slandering the proletarian revolutionaries, to deliver a lecture. Engels felt that his political reputation would be compromised if he remained President and so he left the Directorate. In April 1870 he was again elected a member of the Directorate of the Schiller Institute, but did not take an active part in it.