Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 11, 1858

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MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 11 December 1858

Dear Engels,

Can you let me have an account of Bright's MEETING by Tuesday, so worded as to make it clear THAT THE WRITER WAS AT MANCHESTER?

Herewith Kinkeliana. Freiligrath seems to think that, because the Kinkel woman has broken her neck, her husband has become a great man, or at very least a noble one. So melodramatically did Kinkel organise the funeral—with 'trembling hand' and 'laurel wreath', etc.—that Freiligrath, who could not wring from his lyre a single note of sorrow for the 'tragic' events, either in his own party (as at Daniels' death) or in the world GENERALLY (Cayenne, Orsini AND so FORTH), suddenly goes and hymns the wretched humbug. From The Daily Telegraph cutting you will see how the coterie is exploiting the death of the NASTY, 'acrimonious shrew' (for such was the affected, speciously clever, essentially coarse personage whose meanness was GLARINGLY displayed in, e.g., her ingratitude to Strodtmann and to Mrs von Brüningk once she had squeezed the latter dry, etc.) in just the same way as the creature herself exploited 'KINKELS HAT. SHOT THROUGH AND THROUGH', and wrote to Germany from London: *'Have you an idea what it is to be looked upon as a sort of mother to all emigrants?' * That was what the creature wrote at a time when she and Gottfried, AS A SORT OF BEGGAR, were knocking at the doors of all the Jews in the City.

And there's something else I don't like in the palliative letter Freiligrath wrote me. I am expected to regard his opposition to the general craze for amnesty, i.e., IN FACT, to Rudolf Schramm's idiosyncrasy, as something revolutionary. But a few weeks ago o u r Freiligrath got himself naturalised English and would be a fool indeed were he to yearn nostalgically for the post of a badly paid clerk in Germany so long as those nice Crédits mobiliers LAST. Very vividly do I remember Mrs Freiligrath—at a time when people were already drivelling about amnesty but the GENERAL BANK OF SWITZERLAND had as yet no place in the ROYAL EXCHANGE BUILDINGS— most earnestly seeking to persuade me not to raise any objection to the acceptance of amnesty.

All these people sense THAT THERE IS SOMETHING MOVING AGAIN. And, of course, are pushing their way onto the stage bearing banners of liberty.

Keep the enclosed poem and letter. In this house things look MORE DREARY AND DESOLATE THAN EVER. Since my wife cannot even arrange Christmas festivities for the children—instead, she is beset on all sides by dunning letters, on top of which she is having to copy my manuscript and, in between whiles, to r u n errands to the pawnshop in town—the atmosphere is gloomy in the extreme. Moreover, my wife is quite right when she says thai, after all the misère she has had to go through, the revolution will only make things worse and afford her the gratification of seeing all the humbugs from here once again celebrating their victories over there. Women are like that. And the womanish behaviour of Freiligrath, etc., and other acquaintances justly embitters her. A la guerre comme à la guerre, she says. But THERE IS NO guerre. It's day-to-day routine.

Salut.

Your

K. M.