Letters of Frederick Engels
Bremen, March 11 1839
Dear Hermann,
I request Your Honour not to plague me in future with beginnings of letters such as you learned from Herr Riepe and only permit myself for the moment to remark that it is winter with us every morning and summer every midday. For in the morning the temperature is minus five degrees, while it is plus ten degrees at midday. I continue to practise my singing and composing regularly. Here is a sample of the latter:
You can sing The Blind Man to that melody or you can leave it.
March 12. I'm very glad that you will soon be getting your dog. What is the breed of the mother and what does the animal look like? His Antiquity, Herr Leupold, is now arriving at the office and I will have to strike a more serious tone, as the great Shakespeare says. A new newspaper has just come out called the Bremer Stadtbote, [Courier] edited by Albertus Meyer, who is a very great blockhead. He used lure on the happiness of peoples, child education, and other topics, and when he wanted to get his lectures printed the worthy authorities would not agree, saying it would be far too nonsensical. He has the nature of a china merchant and has been in conflict with the Unterhaltungsblatte ever since his first issue. The way they go for each other would make you die laughing. Continuation in letter to Marie.
Your loving brother
Friedrich Engels