Marx-Engels Correspondence 1864
Source: MECW Volume 42, p. 22;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913.
Dear Engels,
I have had to stay mainly in bed for almost a week on account of the carbuncle. The thing is now healing up. However, as the carbuncle is just below the breast, I still have trouble leaning forward in order to write. So, to keep it as brief as possible:
1. Please send the enclosed letters addressed to me back to me (both the one from Schweitzer and the one from Liebknecht) and reply by return, as the people need our reply as soon as possible.
My view is that we should promise occasional contributions from time to time. It is important for us to have a mouthpiece in Berlin, especially for the sake of the association I was involved in founding in London, and for the sake of the book [Capital] I am planning to publish. It is also important that whatever we do, we do it together.
If you agree with me, you can send me a few lines for these chaps, or say in a few lines what statement I am to make in your name.
2. You will receive the ‘Address’ along with the ‘Provisional Rules’ etc., in a few days. The thing was not quite so difficult as you think, because we are dealing with ‘workers’ all the time. The only literary man in the Association is the Englishman, Peter Fox, a writer and agitator who is, at the same time, one of the people from The National Reformer (atheist but anti-Holyoake). I am sending you the very kind note he passed on to me concerning the ‘Address’. Mazzini is rather disgusted that his people are among the signatories, mais il faut faire bonne mine a mauvais jeu [one has to grin and bear it].
3. Your stuff from the Guardian I find most valuable. I had already pieced this abomination together from the ‘Factory Reports’, but only in a most laborious and fragmentary fashion.
4. 2 copies received from the Manchester solicitor for signing, etc. In a day or two, I shall send you the signed copies, along with the list (inventory), etc., which you will then have to record. Of course, I can no longer reel off a complete list of all the stuff we left in the flat, etc., and put a value on it.
That old humbug McCulloch has died. I hope the British Museum buys up his economical library. But no doubt Edinburgh will get in first.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
I have just come across P. Fox’s letter, which I am enclosing; please send it back as soon as you have had time to peruse it.