Letter to Thomas Allsop, October 16, 1876

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 16 October 1876


First published, in the language of the original (English), in Économies et Sociétés, Tome IV, No. 11, Genève, 1970
Reproduced from the original
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO THOMAS ALLSOP

IN LIMINGTON

[London,] 16 October 1876
41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.

My dear and honoured Friend,

A few days since Mr Leblanc informed us of the decease of your wife, but I find it even now almost impossible to address you a few lines. Those who had the privilege of knowing and admiring your noble companion for life, dare not intrude with empty words of consolations. It was in fact but her love for you, her fear to leave you alone that enabled her to resist so bravely to increasing ailings and to struggle so hard with nature for her own existence. Your love of mankind, your passionate interest in its general life, will, I hope, enable you to bear even with this irreparable loss.[1]

Your most devoted friend

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ Also extant are a few lines of the letter's rough draft: "... her warm glowing heart was always open for the wrongs and woes of humankind; she felt for the oppressed, the struggling, the lowly. How deep, how bitter must be your sorrow, your solitude and loneliness!..."