Letter to Laura Marx, March 20, 1866

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 20 March 1866


First published, in German, in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 1, Nr. 2, 1907-1908 and in the language of the original, English, in Annali, an. 1, Milano, 1958
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO LAURA MARX

IN LONDON

Margate, 20 March 1866
5 Lansell's Place

My dear Cacadou,[1]

Very good news indeed! I prefer Mrs Grach to the mother of all the Gracchi.[2] I am right glad that I have taken my lodgings in a private House, and not in an Inn or Hotel where one could hardly escape being pestered with local politics, vestry scandals, and neighbourly gossip. But still I cannot sing with the miller of the Dee, that I care for nobody and nobody cares for me.[3] For there is my landlady, who is deaf like a post, and her daughter, who is afflicted with chronic hoarseness, but they are very nice people, attentive, and not intruding. As to myself, I have turned into a perambulating stick, running about the greatest part of the day, airing myself, going to bed at 10 o'clock, reading nothing, writing less, and altogether working up my mind to that state of nothingness which Buddhaism considers the element of human bliss. However, with all that, I shall not turn out, on Thursday,[4] that paragon of beauty which worthy By Bye,[5] in his phantastic mood, seems to expect. The toothache on the right side of the face has not yet altogether disappeared, and the same side is afflicted with an inflammation of the eye. Not that there is much to be seen of it, but that eye has taken to the vicious habit of shedding tears on its own account, without the least regard to the feelings of his master. But for this state of things, I should have my photogramme already taken, since you get here 12 cartes de visite for 3 s. 6 d. and 48 cartes for 10 sh. Mummelchen[6] will oblige me by pacing her steps to Mr Hall and ordering him to prepare a solution of zink (he will know the composition of the drug) for my eye the which I expect to find ready on my arrival at London. This bad eye interferes with my nightrest. Otherwise, I am turning [over] a new leaf.

Withdrawing somewhat from the seaside, and roaming over the adjacent rustic district, you are painfully reminded of civilisation by large boards, staring at you everywhere, headed 'Cattle Disease', and placarded over with a government proclamation, the result of the wild rush which the horned cattle gentry, lords and commoners, made at the government, on the opening of Parliament.[7]

Oh, oh King Wiswamitra
What fool of an oxen art thou,
That thou so much wrangle'st and suffer'st
And all that for a cow.[8]

But if honest Wiswamitra, like a true Indian, tormented himself for the salvation of the cow Sabala, those English gentry, in the true style of modern martyrs, bleed the people to compensate themselves for their cows' ailings. The horn plague upon them! The horn, the horn, as discreet By Bye rings it lustily.

On Sunday, I made up my mind to walk per pedes[9] to Canterbury. Unhappily, I only formed this grand resolution, after having already measured for two hours the length and breadth of the piers and so forth. So I had already expended too much physical power, when I set out for the archbishop's seat or see, as you like. And from here to Canterbury are fully 16 miles. From Canterbury I returned to Margate by rail, but I had overworked myself, and could not sleep during the whole night. Limbs and loins were not tired, but the plants of my feet turned out tender hearted rogues. As to Canterbury, you know, of course, all about it, and more than I can boast, from your Eves, the trusted source of knowledge for all English Eves. (One cannot help, in your company, bad punning. But mark, Thackeray did worse, by playing upon Eves and Ewes.) Happily, I was too tired, and it was too late, to look out for the celebrated cathedral. Canterbury is an old, ugly, medieval sort of town, not mended by large modern English barracks at the one, and a dismal dry Railway Station at the other end of the oldish thing. There is no trace of that poetry about it, which you find in continental towns of the same age. The swaggering of the private soldiers and the officers in the streets, reminded me somewhat of Vaterland.[10] In the inn, where I was scantily purveyed with some slices of cold beef, I caught the newest scandal. Captain Le Merchant, it seems, had been taken up by the police on Saturday night, for systematically knocking at the doors of all the most respectable citizens. And a summons will be taken out against the Captain because of this innocent pastime. And the redoubtable Captain will have to bend down his diminished head before aldermanic majesty. This is my whole packet of 'Canterbury Tales'.[11]

And now, Cacadou, pay my compliments to Elly[12] to whom I shall write one of those days, and whose little letter was very welcome. As to Möhmchen,[13] she will hear of me by the by.

That damned boy Lafargue pesters me with his Proudhonism, and will not rest, it seems, until I have administered to him a sound cudgelling of his Creole pate.

My good wishes to all.

Your master

Has Orsini still received the letter I sent him?

  1. ↑ Laura's jocular nickname from the English folk song 'The Miller of the Dee'
  2. ↑ A pun on the similarity of the names Grach and Gracchi—the name of the ancient Roman reformers. Marx's wife Jenny deposited 1,300 talers with Grach, a banker in Trier, who went bankrupt and concealed the fact from the depositors. At the request of Grach's wife, who promised to return the money after she had received an inheritance, Jenny Marx refrained from pursuing the matter in the courts (see Marx's letter to Engels of 8 March 1855, present edition, Vol. 39, p. 526). In Marx's subsequent letters, however, there is no indication whether the banker's wife paid the debt or not. Marx may be referring here to reassuring news about this matter.
  3. ↑ from the English folk song 'The Miller of the Dee'
  4. ↑ 22 March, when Marx intended to go to London to attend a soirée arranged by his daughters (see this volume, pp. 249-50).
  5. ↑ Marx's daughter Jenny
  6. ↑ Marx's wife Jenny
  7. ↑ The reference is to the heated debates, which started on 6 February 1866 at the British Parliament session over the bill on compensation to the cattle-owners in the event of epizootic disease. The debates ended on 20 February with the adoption of the corresponding Act.
  8. ↑ Heinrich Heine, 'Den König Wiswamitra' (from Buch der Lieder, 'Die Heimkehr'). Marx quotes an English translation of the second stanza of the poem, which in the German original reads as follows: O, König Wiswamitra / O, welch ein Ochs bist du, / Dass du so viel kämpfest und büssest / Und alles für eine Kuh!
  9. ↑ on foot
  10. ↑ Fatherland
  11. ↑ An allusion to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
  12. ↑ Eleanor Marx
  13. ↑ Marx's wife Jenny