Letter to Friedrich Engels, November 23, 1850

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To Engels in Manchester

London, 23 November 1850

Dear Engels,

Your letter did my wife a great deal of good. She’s in a really dangerous state of excitation and exhaustion. She had nursed the child [Fawksy] herself and had fought for its existence under the most difficult circumstances and at the greatest sacrifice. And on top of this, the thought that the poor child was a victim of bourgeois misère, although it never wanted for any particular care.

Mr Schramm is thoroughly beseilered and is just now at his most loathsome. For two whole days, 19 and 20 November, he never showed his face in our house, then came for a moment and immediately disappeared again after one or two fatuous remarks. He had volunteered to accompany us on the day of the funeral; he arrived a minute or two before the appointed hour, said not a word about the funeral, but told my wife that he had to hurry away so as not to be late for a meal with his brother. With my wife in such an irritable state, you can imagine how offensive was the conduct of this person, to whom so much friendship has been extended in our house.

Jones has explained Harney’s true situation to me. He is sous le coup de la justice.[threatened with persecution] The entire contents of his paper are such as to make it liable to stamp duty. The government is merely waiting for its circulation to increase in order to nab him. The proceedings against Dickens have been instituted solely as a precedent in respect of Harney. If he is arrested he may, besides the actual sentence, have to serve 20 years through being unable to produce securities.

Bauer and Pfänder have won their case. Their counsel was Roberts.

Your
K. M.