London, 15 April 1869 

Dear Frep, 

Jennychen arrived safely on Wednesday.*” During the return 
journey they had such fog at sea that the ship had a hair’s-breadth 
escape from running aground. 

From Wilhelm?” the enclosed note. You will see, d’abord* his 
first answer to my query™ about the ‘knavish tricks’ of which he 
accuses Schweitzer. ‘Political’ amongst this—only two enclosed 
ELECTIONEERING things. You must send them back to me, for Wilhelm 
asks for them back, and they appear to constitute his entire 
political ‘evidence for the prosecution’. 

Lafargue has sent me his French translation of the Communist 
Manifesto for us to revise. | am sending you the manuscript by 
post today. For the moment, the business is not urgent. I certainly 
do not want Lafargue to burn his fingers prematurely. However, 
if the stuff is eventually to be published in France, certain parts, 
such as those on German or ‘True’ Socialism, should be reduced 
to a few lines, since they are of no interest there. 

To get back to the negotiations with Wilhelm. I write to him“ 
about the conditions on which you are ready to give him the 
Peasant War.” He writes to you that Eccarius (who knew nothing 
about the matter) had informed him you would send him the 
stuff, and that he would not fulfil the conditions you laid down. 
He further writes to me that he has owed Eccarius 30 thaler for 2 
quarters, and that I should advance it, since he would, ‘on his 
word of honour’, repay it at an—unspecified—date. I certainly 
feel no inclination towards this transaction, since I have already 
loaned somewhat more than this sum to my friend Dupont. 

Ludlow is barrister AT Law, a leading contributor to the Spectator, 
a co-operator, devout, a determined enemy of the Comtists. He 
resigned publicly from our Commonwealth because Beesly, Harri- 
son, etc., were contributors. He had sent me a few of his little 
pamphlets at an earlier date, and is a friend of Jones Lloyd or 
Lloyd Jones, or whatever the tailor’s name is. A few days ago, 

a first - b See this volume, p. 256. 

after I had seen the relevant issue of the Fortnightly, 1 sent him my 
LAST AVAILABLE Copy or Capital. (Note of receipt enclosure No. I.) I 
naturally knew he read German. At the same time, I sent him a 
letter in which I made a few jokes about his article, in which he 
first stated that Lassalle disseminated my principles in Germany and 
then that I disseminated Lassalle’s principles in England? (Reply in 
No. 2.) I hope by this means still to achieve a review of my book 
in an English paper.*** Ludlow is, ditto, a great admirer of 
Ricardo, something exceptional today, after Mill mucked every- 
thing up. 

I discovered sy accipent today that we had two Neveu de 
Rameau” in our house, and so am sending you one. This unsurpassed 
masterpiece will once again give you a treat. 

Referring to it, OLD Hegel said: “The mocking laughter at existence, at the 
confusion of the whole and at itself, is the disintegrated consciousness, aware of 
itself and expressing itself, and is, at the same time, the last audible echo of all this 
confusion... It is the self-disintegrating nature of all relations and their conscious 
disintegration... In this aspect of the return to self, the vanity of all things is the 
self’s own vanity, or the self is itself vanity ... but as the indignant consciousness it is 
aware of its own disintegration and, by that knowledge, has immediately 
transcended it... Every part of this world either gets its mind [sein Geist] expressed 
here or is spoken of intellectually [mit Geist] and declared for what it is.—The 
honest consciousness’ (the role Diderot allots himself in the dialogue) ‘takes each 
element as a permanent entity and does not realise, in its uneducated 
thoughtlessness, that it is doing just the opposite. But the disintegrated 
consciousness is the consciousness of reversal and indeed of absolute reversal; its 
dominating elements is the concept, which draws together thoughts that, to the honest 
consciousness, lie so wide apart; hence the brilliance [geistreich] of its language. Thus, 
the content of the mind’s speech of and about itself consists in the reversal of all 
conceptions and realities; the universal deception of oneself and others and the 
shamelessness of declaring this deception is, therefore, precisely the greatest truth... 
To the quiet consciousness, which in its honest way goes on singing the melody of the 
True and the Good in even tones, i.e., on a monotone, this speech appears as “‘a 
farrago of wisdom and madness”, etc.’* (a passage from Diderot follows). 

More amusing than Hegel’s commentary is that by Mr Jules 
Janin, which you will find in the form of an excerpt in the 
postscript to the little volume. This ‘cardinal de la mer’* deplores 
the absence in Diderot’s Rameau of the moral point, and 
consequently sets things in order by discovering that Rameau’s 
entire absurdity arises from his resentment at not being a ‘born 
gentilhomme’.< The Kotzebue-like muck he has heaped upon this 
cornerstone is being melodramatically presented in London.*” 

a See this volume, pp. 259-60.-> D. Diderot, Le neveu de Rameau... - 
¢ G. W. F. Hegel, Phénomenologie des Geistes, Werke, Bd. 11, S. 393-97 -4 ‘cardinal of the 
sea’ - © gentleman 

From Diderot to Jules Janin must be what the physiologists call a 
regressive metamorphosis. French intellect before the French 
Revolution and under Louis Philippe! 

I shall ask Collet about the source of Brunnow’s maxim.’ I 
would not be at all surprised if it were to be found in the English 
Buve Boox,'” in an English legation letter from Athens. I found 
similar things from Brunnow in a 1839 Brive Boox about the 
Syrian-Egyptian Arrarrs.? 

Eichhoff always sends me the Schweitzer‘ in great masses. So he 
must be coming soon. 

Mr Thornton has written a thick book about capita anp Labour. I 
haven’t seen it yet, only extracts in The Daily News, to the effect that 
capital, as a force separate from labour, will fade away in the distant 
future. 

Take care with your eye. 

Salut. 
Your 
K. M.