Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868
Source: MECW, Volume 43, p. 12;
First published: abridged in Die Neue Zeit, Stuttgart, 1901-1902 and in full in Pisma Marksa h Kugelmanu (Letters of Marx to Kugelmann), Moscow-Leningrad, 1928.
Dear Kugelmann,
You must regard me as a great criminal for taking so long to reply to the friendly letter from your dear wife and yourself. The situation is simply this. The old sanguinary herpes (to express myself poetically) attacked me with such tactical dexterity that I could not adopt the posture necessary for writing. I could, of course, have dictated, but you know that in such cases one always hopes to be all right next morning. Thus the delay, and thus, also, the brevity of these lines.
It is still quite uncertain when I shall be travelling to Germany for a few days; in any case, it won’t be soon. At all events, I shall come at a time when I know that you will not be away.
You have done me a great service with your lines to Virchow, though I doubt whether he will have the patience and the time to immerse himself in a subject out of his line. I know it cost me a great effort to read his Cellularpathologie in Manchester, particularly because of the way it was written.
The issues of Social-Demokrat hitherto concerned with my book are: No. 10 (22 Jan. 1868), No. 11 (24 Jan.), No. 12 (26 Jan.), No. 14 (31 Jan.), No. 15 (2 Feb.), No. 24 (23 Feb.), No. 25 (26 Feb.), No. 30 (8 March), 15 and another number, which I don’t have at the moment, but which contains only extracts.
With heartiest greetings to your dear wife and Fränzchen
Yours
K. Marx
Meyer paid me a visit here.