| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 13 June 1871 |
MARX TO HIS DAUGHTERS JENNY, LAURA AND ELEANOR
IN BAGNÈRES-DE-LUCHON[1]
[London,] 13 June 1871
My dear children,
After a 6 weeks' illness I am all right again, so far as this is possible under present circumstances. Besides, the devil is let loose in the house which is whitewashing, oiling, painting, papering, everything topsy-turvy. During the last days the noise and the continued expulsion from one corner to another got the better of my nervous system, and I have lived more at the general's[2] house than at ours.
I wish to have fuller notice about Jenny's health. I fear to have read between the lines that she is not quite as she ought to be. Now, generally speaking, after consultation with doctors of notorious sagacity, and in possession of full information, I think all of you ought to leave the French for the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.[3] The climate is much better, the change you all stand in need of much more marked. As to Toole,[4] in particular, his health will deteriorate and may even incur great danger, if he any longer hesitates to follow the advice of medical men who know everything about his constitution and have besides consulted his former doctors at Bordeaux, etc. Hence, I expect that you will not care for a little trouble, resort to a more healthy place, and soon send me your new address whither I would send you my new 'address'.[5]
Here in London life is just now dull enough. The cousins from the country[6] are thronging its streets. You recognise them at once by their bewildered airs, their astonishment at everything they see and their feverish anxiety at the convolution of horses, cabs, omnibuses, people, babies, and dogs.
Mamma and Madame Lormier—as I hear—are fighting hard battles about politics. I do not know whether they have already come to blows, or whether they confine themselves to hard words, which will break no bones.
I have got from St Petersburg very valuable books and very friendly letters in which all sorts of advances are made to me.[7]
Lawroff (not Anoroff) is a good fellow enough, not at all without capacity, but he has spoiled his brain and lost his time, by reading throughout the last 20 years mainly the German literature (philosophical, etc.) of that period, the lousiest sort of literature in existence. Being German, he seems to have fancied, it must needs be 'scientific'.
Mrs Vivanti has come it out strongly, it seems. I have not seen her, but I remark, that now she is spoken of in terms of praise, perhaps a little exaggerated, but in the family Cutts there runs, as you know, a vein of extravagance.
Jung's sister-in-law has been buried the day before yesterday. Poor girl! She died in a hospital.
The little 'master'[8] is excellent in everything essential. So you may bear with his little weaknesses, his loquacity, his self-complacency, and the rehearsal of the 'happy speeches' he made here and there.
The German 'Knoten'-patriots,[9] of course, have celebrated in Bolleter's Gardens the 'glorious' upshot of the Borusso-French war[10] by a 'Friedensfest'[11] in which, more teutonico,[12] they have not failed 'sich blutig zu keilen'.[13]
Kern, having first found a schoolmaster's place, has now, by the general's mediation, got a good place as engineer in the North of England.
Yours sincerely,
M.