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Special pages :
Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 1, 1859
| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 1 August 1859 |
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40
271
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 1 August 1859
DEAR Frederick,
D'abord I must acknowledge the £2 10/-. This time I myself corrected the proofs of your article.[1] If it still contains misprints, the printer is the only one to blame. Herwegh's rotten poem[2] got in without my knowing about it. I therefore compelled Biskamp to give an explanation in the last issue[3] and, INTO THE BARGAIN, I got him to publish the Landwehr soldier's song (as a fitting sequel to Herwegh).[4]
What is catastrophic so far as I'm concerned is that Biskamp isn't going to Edmonton but (it would seem) has accepted the post of tutor chez Bibra (the innkeeper) in the middle of the West End. If this is so I shall press for a written agreement with the gentleman. For, like all professional humorists he's a capricious, hysterical old woman, and we're not going to right the apple-cart so that someone else can drive it away. We must make sure we get possession of the thing.
Lina[5] is back here from Cologne. Bürgers has grown quite 'high-minded' since his release. He reprobates the Volk's 'rever- sion' to the old manner of using 'bad jokes' to split the 'party'. For him, it would seem, the 'party' comprises anyone who is 'not' official, and that includes Vogt and Kinkel. Needless to say these 'hints' were given merely out of tender regard for 'me'. 'One' copy of my work[6] had arrived at Bermbach's for the dozen or so party friends in Cologne. Bürgers hadn't read it, of course, nor will he, 'but in my interests' expressed his indignation that the thing should be coming out 'by dribs and drabs' and not all 60 sheets AT ONCE. For the rest, he's tutor at some 'merchant's', which only takes up a few hours each morning, and apart from that he gives one other lesson. All in all, he earns 700 talers. His 'work' is confined to mornings. After the midday meal he starts 'recovering' from his half day's work and lounges about chatting by the hour at Mrs Daniels' house where, however, he has a serious rival in Dr Klein. But in the evenings he hurries to Löllchen's to preside with great dignity over the Cologne debating club until far into the night. He 'esteems' Lassalle's activities but hasn't 'read' anything of his, not even Franz von Sickingen. The spurious pretext of having contracted a serious chest complaint during his time in prison has provided him with a splendid means of masking his habitual idleness. In addition, the 'high-minded man' frequents 'music clubs'. As regards the Cologne trial[7] he actually repeated to Lina several most infamous and far from unwitting lies, e.g. that it was us not him and the other asses in Cologne who sent that ass Nothjung to Germany as emissary.[8] He has, it seems, grown 'even more handsome' than he used to be. En passant, Georg Jung has become a gambler and has apparently pretty well dissipated his fortune. A few weeks ago Countess Hatzfeldt again took up residence in Berlin.
As soon as you have some hours to spare, it would be a good thing to go ahead with 'Infantry'.[9] My finances are closely linked with this. I should like to send my wife to the seaside for a few weeks. But that would be feasible only if I could draw an additional sum on America. Salut.
Your
K. M.
- ↑ 'The Italian War. Retrospect'
- ↑ ['On the Occasion of the Federal Marksmen's Festival in Zurich',] Das Volk, No. 12, 23 July 1859.
- ↑ This explanation by the Editorial Board was published in Das Volk, No. 13, 30 July 1859.
- ↑ In its 'Feuilleton' column, Das Volk, No. 13, 30 July 1859, carried a poem by a Landwehr soldier from Frankfort on the Oder describing the mechanism of the needle gun. The editors supplied it with ironical comments.—477
- ↑ Caroline Schöler
- ↑ A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
- ↑ The Cologne Communist Trial (4 October-12 November 1852) was a trial of a group of Communist League members charged with 'treasonable conspiracy'. It was rigged by the Prussian police on the basis of forged documents and fabricated evidence, which were used not only against the accused but also to discredit the whole proletarian organisation. Seven of the twelve defendants were sentenced to prison terms of three to six years. Marx directed the defence from London, sending material revealing the provocative methods used by the prosecution. After the trial he and Engels exposed its organisers (see Engels' article 'The Late Trial at Cologne', published in the New-York Daily Tribune, and Marx's pamphlet Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne, present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 388-93 and 395-457).—56, 69, 376, 477, 552
- ↑ Early in May 1851 Peter Nothjung was sent on a tour of Germany as an emissary of the Cologne Central Committee of the Communist League. On 10 May he was arrested in Leipzig. The documents seized from him enabled the authorities of Prussia and other German states to arrest more League members.—478
- ↑ an article for The New American Cyclopaedia