Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 10, 1866

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 May 1866


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


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 10 May 1866

Dear FRED,

No CARBUNCLES WHATEVER! But the accursed rheumatism and toothache have tormented me cruelly, until the former at last seems to be yielding to embrocation with pure alcohol. I must tell you candidly as well that my mind still feels somewhat weak and my capacity for work is only returning very gradually. Perhaps that can be attributed to the interruption in the arsenic treatment, which I started again after your last letter.

Cohen[1] was a very good lad (although not particularly gifted) for whom I have a special regard as he was an old friend of my Musch.[2] Freiligrath naturally dashed straight to Blind yesterday and came to us from him. I was not at home. Freiligrath's chief lament was the bad name Blind was giving him and others (nominal contributors to the Eidgenosse[3] whose symbol is a hand holding a dagger with the motto haec manus tyrannis[4] , etc.). He said he had not visited him for 9 months and that the affair was not even 'excusable'. In short, he was in fact only upset about the possible impression the affair might make on the London philistines. By the by, our trickster from Baden duped him nicely again. He played the broken man and gave his friend Freiligrath no inkling that in the first throes of grief he had the presence of mind to exploit the tragic incident for some good advertising for himself and family in the various London papers. ALWAYS AN EYE TO BUSINESS. His wife[5] is naturally inconsolable, and the funny thing about the affair is that Blind has by his idiotic regicidal blether sacrificed not his own son, but old Cohen's Isaac,[6] on the altar of freedom.

In consequence of their sad experiences in 1859[7] the Austrians are in the accursed situation of being scarcely capable of grasping the favourable moment, and although they have been forcibly presented with the initiative, they cannot seize it, or at least they will hesitate greatly before doing so. OF COURSE, European 'PUBLIC OPINION' benefits them not a tittle and requires something silly of them. These same liberal jackasses, who are now generally admitting that Austria is the challenged party and that there is a systematic CONSPIRACY against her, would tomorrow (the ENGLISH LORDS included) scream with one voice if Austria were to strike the first blow and did not wait quietly for her enemies to give the signal.

Repugnant though Bonaparte is to me, his coup in Auxerre did uncommonly amuse me.[8] That old jackass Thiers and the chiens savants[9] of the Corps législatif, who applauded him, fancied they would be allowed to play with Louis-Philippism unpunished! Les imbéciles!

The Russians as always are playing their part to a T. Having encouraged their worthy Prussians, they enter on the scene as men of peace and arbiters of Europe, but were, at the same time, canny enough to inform Mr Bonaparte that Poland could not, of course, be on the agenda at any congress, in short, that Russia was entitled to meddle in European, but not Europe in Russian affairs.

Following upon the importation of German and Danish tailors to Edinburgh, we have 1. sent a German and a Dane[10] (both tailors themselves) to Edinburgh, and they have already put an end to the understanding between IMPORTERS and IMPORTED; 2. I have put out a warning in the name of the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION to the German tailors in Germany.[11] The affair has been extraordinarily useful to us in London.[12]

A very disagreeable matter for me was the necessity of paying a lump sum of £25 for school fees. This money, for 3 quarters, could no longer be put off as Jenny and Laura are leaving the school, the latter taking no lessons at all, and the former only one music lesson a week now outside school. (Baumer has resigned from the school, you know.)

The Commonwealth is rapidly going from strength to strength and would certainly be PAYING within the space of a year. But it is probable that we shall soon have to suspend it for lack of money.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Marx presumably means the leading article, 'Bescheidenheit—ein Ehrenkleid' (Modesty—a Festive Garment), published in the Stuttgart Beobachter (No. 245) on 21 October 1864. It ridiculed Karl Blind's address to the American people (on the occasion of presidential elections), which was distinguished for his excessive claims to political importance and boasting. The article was probably written by the paper's editor, Karl Mayer.
  2. ↑ Marx's deceased son Edgar
  3. ↑ Der deutsche Eidgenosse
  4. ↑ manus haec inimica tyrannis—'this hand is hostile to tyrants' (an expression from The Life and Memoirs of Algernon Sidney)
  5. ↑ Friederike Blind
  6. ↑ An allusion to the Biblical legend about Abraham who sacrificed his son Isaac (Genesis 22:9).
  7. ↑ A reference to Austria's defeat by France and Piedmont in the Austro-Franco-Italian war of 1859.
  8. ↑ In preparing a war against Austria, Bismarck's government sought for France's benevolent neutrality. On 6 May 1866, the Emperor Napoleon III made a speech at an agricultural festival in Auxerre, in which he said that, like the majority of the French nation, he felt an aversion for the treaties of 1815, which certain parties would like to make the only foundation of France's foreign policy (see The Times, No. 25492, 8 May 1866). This statement, which was a response to a critical speech made by Louis Adolphe Thiers in the Corps législatif, implied the demand that the clauses of the Vienna treaties concerning France's eastern borders be revised. In Prussia, it was regarded as an encouragement for Bismarck's intention to reorganise the German Confederation which had been formed on the basis of the decisions of the Vienna Congress of 1815.
  9. ↑ scholarly dogs
  10. ↑ Albert F. Haufe and N. P. Hansen
  11. ↑ K. Marx, 'A Warning'
  12. ↑ On 26 March 1866, Edinburgh tailors went on strike. With a view to preventing the importation into Scotland of German and Danish tailors to be used as strike-breakers, German tailors living in London formed a committee headed by Lessner and Haufe, and decided to act jointly with the Central Council of the International. At Marx's request, Lessner and Haufe sent him on 3 May details about the events in Edinburgh for use in a report for the German press. On 4 May, Marx wrote and sent Liebknecht, on behalf of the Central Council, a short article, entitled 'A Warning', which was published in several German papers (see present edition, Vol. 20). At the same time a leaflet written by Lessner and Haufe was issued in London. They appealed to the German workers in London to raise funds and support the strikers. Moreover, the Central Council sent Haufe and Hansen to Edinburgh to wreck the employers' plans. The Central Council's efforts contributed to the success of the strike, and promoted the International's influence in Britain.