London, 17 December 1881 
41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. 

My Dear Child, 

Tussy, supported By Engels, is this moment taking the Christmas 
hamper for our little ones by cab to the parcel company. Helen* wants 
me to point out specially that | little jacket for Harry, 1 for Eddy, 
and a woollen bonnet for Pa‘ are from her; again for the selfsame Pa, 
a ‘little blue frock’ from Laura; from myself a sator’s sur for My DEAR 
Johnny. On one of the last days of her life, Moehmchen laughed so 
merrily when telling Laura how you and I took Johnny to Paris, and 
chose a suit for him there in which he looked like a little bourgeois 
gentilhomme.° 

The letters of condolence I get from near and far, and from people 
of such various nationalities, professions, etc., etc., are, in their appre- 
ciation of Moéhmchen, all of them animated by a spirit of truth and 
a depth of feeling rarely found in what are as a rule merely conven- 
tional tributes. I ascribe this to the fact that everything about her was 
natural and genuine, unforced and without affectation. Hence the 
impression she made on others was one of vivaciousness and lucidity; 
even Mrs Hess writes: 

‘In her, Nature has destroyed its own masterpiece, for never in my life have I met so 
witty and loving a woman.’ 2779 

Liebknecht writes to say that, without her, he would have suc- 
cumbed to the wretchedness of exile,?2° etc., etc. 

How exceptionally healthy she was by nature, for all her delicate 
constitution, is evident from the fact that, despite being bed-ridden 
for so long, she did not have a sore spot on her body, much to the as- 
tonishment of the doctors; during my recent illness I already had 
a number of sore places after only two weeks of being confined to bed. 

* Demuth- Edgar Longuet-° Marcel Longuet-* Pet name for Jenny Marx.- 
© a bourgeois with pretensions to gentility (from the title of a play by Moliére) 

The weather has been very bad since I got over my illness, so 
I have been under house arrest up till now, but next week, on doctors’ 
orders, I am to go to Ventnor (Isle of Wight) and from there, later 
on, somewhere further south. Tussy will accompany me. 

You will be getting (posted at the same time as this) an article 
about me in the monthly review Modern Thought.’ It’s the first time an 
English critic has gone into the matter with such enthusiasm. It ar- 
rived in time to cheer Méhmchen up. Where the quotations from the 
German ‘text’ are too bad (I mean too badly done into English), I have 
got Tussy to write in corrections on such few copies as we are reserving- 
ing for friends. The mistakes that occur under the heading ‘Lire’ are 
indifferent. 

And now, my dear child, the best service you can do me is to keep 
your chin up! I hope that I shall spend many more happy days with 
you and worthily fulfil my functions as a GRANDPA. 

With a thousand kisses to you and the little ones, 

Your loving 
Old Nick 

I could have written much more about Vivanti, etc., but believe 
that Tussy has bagged this for herself.