London, 19 November 1859 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Engels, 

Today I’m sending you all sorts of curious things: 1. a letter* 
from philistine Freiligrath to me; 2. a letter from Orges (of the 
Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung) to Biskamp; 3. an issue (No. 43) of 
the Gartenlaube,” published in Leipzig, and 4. a letter from Imandt 
to me together with a cutting from the Trier Volksblatt™ Finally, I 
would advise you to buy today’s Hermann as it contains the story, 
devised by Mr Beta, of the Schiller festival here and casts a strange 
light on the conduct of our friend Freiligrath< 

Before going into these matters and in case I forget, I would 
mention that the Hungarians in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, 
etc., have held meetings at which they resolved to send Kossuth a 
letter suggesting he vindicate himself with reference to my article 
in the New-York Tribune’ Otherwise they would renounce their 
ALLEGIANCE to him. I don’t know whether I have told you about the 
latest news I have received from Szemere.< D’abord,! that after the 
peace of Villafranca, Kossuth decamped from Italy without a word 
to his officers, amongst whom Klapka. Kossuth og afraid 
Bonaparte would hand him over to Francis Joseph.** Originally, 
so Szemere now writes, this same worthy had not been included in 
the Bonaparte business. Klapka, Kiss and Teleki had, off their 
own bat, agreed with Plon-Plon to instigate a revolution in 
Hungary. Kossuth got wind of it and, from London, threatened to 
denounce them in the English press should they not include him in 
the compact. Such ARE THOSE WORTHIES. 

In some ways I envy you for being able to live in Manchester, 
cut off as you are from the war between mice and frogs.” Down 
here I have to wade through all this ordure and do so in 
circumstances which already consume too much of the time I 

4 dated 17 November 1859 - > containing H. Beta’s article ‘Ferdinand Freiligrath’ - 
© {H.] Bfeta,] ‘Chronik unseres Schillerfestes’, Hermann, No. 46, 19 November 
1859. - d ‘Kossuth and Louis Napoleon’ - ¢ See this volume, p. 523. - f First 

should be devoting to my theoretical studies. Conversely, I’m glad 
that you only have to put up with all the ordure at second hand. 
Last Thursday I received the enclosed letter from Freiligrath. 
What follows will help you understand the full extent of his 
depravity and pettiness. Throughout the time when that fellow 
(Blind) was playing his perfidious role vis-a-vis ourselves, he was 
on the most intimate terms with Freiligrath. He acted as his homme 
daffaires—in the matter of the great Kinkel-Freiligrath controver- 
sy—on the organising committee for the Schiller festival. At that 
festival the Blind and Freiligrath families sat cheek by jowl 
throughout the performance. Well, on the following morning* The 
Morning Advertiser carried a report in which Freiligrath’s poem 
was described as ‘asove meviocrrty’. The same critical sense 
(whereof, indeed, not much is needed to strip student Blind of his 
mask of anonymity) which told me that Blind, and Blind alone, 
had written the anti-Vogt paragraph in The Free Press, also told 
me that he was the author of this article. The only thing which 
surprised me was that the obsequious sycophant had had the 
courage to speak about Freiligrath 1n THIs coor MANNER. I sent the 
latter thé cutting. Whereupon I received from him the enclosed 
letter which, if one reads between the lines, more or less voices the 
suspicion that I was responsible for introducing a forgery into 
student Blind’s Exerciss—namely, the quip about Freiligrath. On 
Saturday I went to see Freiligrath. I didn’t yet know about the 
statement he had made in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung (to wit, 
that he was not one of Vogt’s accusers, nor had he ever written a line 
for the ‘Volk’).1 He was careful, too, not to breathe a word to me 
about it. I told him de prime abord* that I thought it by no means a 
crime on Blind’s part to consider Freiligrath’s poem as ‘asove 
Mepiocrity, for this was an aesthetic judgment; but that it did 
seem to me altogether too much when he allowed Blind to 
bamboozle him into thinking I had amended Blind’s task for 
him—through some mysterious third party—and interpolated the 
quip about himself (Freiligrath). Greatly embarrassed, the philis- 
tine now admitted, d’abord,' that he had shown Blind my letter, 
and proceeded to show me the two letters from Blind. In the first, 
student Blind describes a person frequently seen near me at the 
Urquhartite meeting of 9 May*” and who had skulked round him 

a 11 November 1859 - > ‘Crystal Palace—-The Schiller Commemoration’, The 
Morning Advertiser, No. 21344, 11 November 1859. - ¢ [K. Blind,] ‘The Grand Duke 
Constantine to Be King of Hungary’, The Free Press, No. 5, 27 May 1859. - 
dq F. Freiligrath, ‘Erklarung’, Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 319 (supplement), 15 November 
1859. - © to begin with - f first 

at the Crystal Palace (10 November).*” In the second letter - 
(Freiligrath was condescending enough to write to Blind saying he 
couldn’t believe I had interpolated the insulting bit) Blind declares 
that that wasn’t really what he’d meant to say. I next told the 
philistine that the only two Germans or, for that matter, persons, 
who had accosted me more than once on the platform on 9 May 
had been Blind and Faucher and nosopy eEtse. Well now, Blind 
knows Faucher, whom he asked to be introduced to on the Schiller 
committee and whom he thanked on Freiligrath’s behalf for 
backing Freiligrath’s ‘cantata’ against the ‘speech’.* Again, the 
slyboots from Baden failed to mention Faucher’s name. (I 
immediately informed the latter of the fact.) For Faucher knows 
epiror Grant of The Morning Advertiser, and might help to get 
Blind kicked out of the LICENSED VICTUALLER PAPER were he to demand 
that Blind make a personal statement as to whether he (Faucher) 
had got him (Grant) to interpolate something in Blind’s. article, 
which is why student. Blind is capable of remembering what 
Faucher’s Features were like on 9 May. He recalls that they were 
the same Features that skulked round him at the Crystal Palace on 10 
November. But he forgets that this individual he knows so well is 
that selfsame Faucher. 

This whole business is so rotten—tortuous—and so typical of 
philistines Freiligrath and Blind that I had to go into this nonsense 
at some length. It’s altogether typical of philistine Freiligrath that 
he should not deem himself accountable to me for his appearance 
in public with Kinkel and Co., for his statement in the Augsburg 
Allgemeine Zeitung, for his coquetry with the Hermann, for his 
intercourse with Blind at a time when he knew about that 
scoundrel’s ‘word of honour’,” etc.—but believes that everything 
should revolve round somebody’s having had the audacity to find - 
his poem (I enclose it) ‘asove Mepiocrity instead of crying it up AS THE 
VERY INCARNATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME, 

I told him I didn’t give a fig for that affair, compared with 
which there were far more important things at stake between 
myself and Blind, etc. 

As for the ‘machinations’ against him on the part of Kinkel, etc., 
he had only himself to blame. Why demean himself with the 
fellows? 

Finally I wanted to know what was contained in No. 43 of the 
Gartenlaube“ It then transpired that Mr Freiligrath was on very 

a by Kinkel (see this volume, pp. 512-13) - © See this volume, pp. 502-04. -¢ It 
contained Beta’s article ‘Ferdinand Freiligrath’. 

close terms with Mr Beta, had entertained him in his own house 
and had ‘suffered’ Beta to write a fulsome biography of himself 
and an apotheosis of his family, and was irritated only at Beta’s 
having concluded (at Kinkel’s instigation, of course) with the 
suggestion that Freiligrath’s poetry, like his character, was being 
ruined— by me. It was I who was to blame for the fact that Mr 
Freiligrath, never particularly’ prolific in the matter of original 
work, had for years pursued the business of banking rather than 
the business of poetry. Mr Freiligrath showed no feeling of shame 
in my presence for having demeaned himself by consorting with 
that scoundrel Beta, one-time sub-editor of Louis Drucker’s How 
do you do? Nor for the gross flattery ladled out by that abject 
creature. What shocked him was to be publicly portrayed as 
‘influenced’ by me. He wasn’t sure whether he oughtn’t to make 
some statement on the subject, being deterred from doing so only 
by his fear of a counter-statement on my part. The fellow thinks it 
‘in the nature of things’ that, if he lets out a fart, it should cause a 
great flurry; that on the one hand he should serve Mammon and, 
on the other, be ‘priest to the Muse’; that his want of character in 
practice should be hailed as ‘political virtue’ in theory. The man is 
sensitive to the tiniest pin-prick. His petty histrionic bickerings 
behind the scenes with Gottfried* he treats as weighty intrigues. 
On the other hand he considers it quite in order that my family 
should forego, not just recognition but even notice, of a closely 
reasoned work such as the instalment on money,” and that, as a 
result of my uncompromising political attitude, they should have 
to endure much misére and, in fact, lead a. joyless existence. The 
man thinks that my wife should, moreover, gratefully bear with 
the slights publicly inflicted on myself in the knowledge that Mrs 
Freiligrath is eulogised and extolled and that even his Kathchen,° a 
sity Goose who doesn’t understand a word of German, is 
commended to your German philistines. The man has not a 
vestige of fellow-feeling. Otherwise he would see how my wife is 
suffering, and how much he and his spouse contribute thereto. 
How false and ambiguous his behaviour is, both from the personal 
and the party point of view. 

Nevertheless, I cannot and dare not risk any kind of éclat with the 
fellow. He sees to my bills on the Tribune, something I’m bound to 
regard as a favour (although the standing thus gained with 
Bischoffsheim is to his advantage, not mine). Otherwise I should 

4 Gottfried Kinkel - > K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. - 
¢ Katche, Freiligrath’s daughter - 4 row