Letter to Laura Lafargue, September 25, 1869

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 25 September 1869


First published in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 1, Nr. 2, Stuttgart, 1907-1908. Published in English in full in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979. Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43.

To Laura Lafargue in London[1]

Hanover, 25 September 1869


My dear Cacadou,[2]

I regret that I cannot celebrate at home the birthday of my dear clear bird's eye, but Old Nick's[3] thoughts are with you.[4]

Du bist beslôzen

In minem Herzen.[5]

I was happy to see from Möhmchen's[6] letter (written in her usual amusing way, she is a real virtuoso in letter-writing) that your health is improving. Our dear little Schnappy,[7] I hope, will soon get better. At the same time, I fully share Kugelmann's opinion that Dr West ought to be consulted at once (or another medical man if he be absent). I trust you and Lafargue will in this case yield to my paternal authority, a thing, you know full well, I am not in the habit of appealing to. Nobody is more difficult to treat than a baby. In no case more immediate action is wanted, and any delay more hurtful. You must under no circumstances accelerate your departure from London. It would be really dangerous to the child and do no good to yourself. On this point, every medical man will give you the same advice.

I am glad the Basle Congress[8] is over, and has, comparatively speaking, passed off so well. I am always fretting on such occasions of public exhibition of the party "mit allen ihren Geschwüren".[9] None of the actors was à la hauteur des principes,[10] but the higher class idiocy effaces the working class blunders. We have passed through no little German town the Winkelblatt[11] of which was not full of the doings of "that formidable Congress".

We are here in a sort of fix. The Kugelmanns will not hear of an early leave-taking. At the same time, Jenny is much improving in health consequent upon the change of air and circumstances. With Liebknecht I am likely to meet, within a few days, at Brunswick. I decline going to Leipzig, and he cannot come to Hanover, since the Prussians would probably give him the advantages of free lodging during the present prorogation of the Reichstag.[12]

My best thanks to Paul for his elaborate letter.[13] Meine herzlichsten Grüsse an das ganze Haus und[14] hundred kisses to yourself and my dear little Schnappy.

Adio, my dear child!


Ever yours

Old Nick.[15]

  1. ↑ This letter was first published in English in full in: The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.
  2. ↑ Laura's nickname used by her family.
  3. ↑ Marx's nickname used by his family.
  4. ↑ On 26 September 1869, Marx's second daughter Laura Lafargue turned twenty-four.
  5. ↑ Thou art enclosed in mine heart (Middle-High German). Marx quotes an old German song (c. 1200).
  6. ↑ Marx's wife Jenny.
  7. ↑ Charles Etienne Lafargue.
  8. ↑ A reference to the Congress of the First International held in Basle on 6–11 September 1869. It was attended by 78 delegates from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Spain and North America. Marx was not present at the Congress but took an active part in preparing it. The General Council Minutes include his speeches dealing with individual items on the Congress's agenda: the agrarian question (6 July), the right of inheritance (20 July) and public education (10 and 17 August) (see present edition, Vol. 21).
    The question of the right of inheritance was entered on the agenda, which was approved on 22 June 1869, at the suggestion of the Geneva Section headed by the Bakuninists. They proposed to annihilate the right of inheritance, believing this to be the only means of eliminating private property and social injustice.
    At the General Council meeting of 3 August, Marx read out a report of the General Council on the right of inheritance, prepared by him, which was approved and submitted to the Congress on behalf of the Council. However, at the Congress itself the question of the right of inheritance provoked a heated debate. Despite the opposition of Liebknecht and De Paepe, Bakunin managed to win some of the delegates over to his side; nevertheless, thanks to the resolute stand taken by the members of the General Council and the majority of delegates who supported them, the Congress recognised the right of society to abolish the right of inheritance on condition that the Federal Council and the Congress approved.
  9. ↑ "with all its ulcers".
  10. ↑ "highly principled".
  11. ↑ Local rag.
  12. ↑ In July 1865, Liebknecht was expelled from the Prussian state by the police. Later, as a deputy to the North German Reichstag from Saxony, he enjoyed parliamentary immunity. Marx had expected to meet him during a break in the Reichstag's work at a party gathering in Brunswick, and later in Hamburg. However, the meeting never took place.
  13. ↑ Marx is referring to Paul Lafargue's letter of 14 September 1869, in which Lafargue reported on the Basle Congress of the International Working Men's Association.
  14. ↑ My heartfelt greetings to the whole family and
  15. ↑ On the inside of the letter: 'To Laura'.