[Ventnor,] 11 November 1882 

Dear Frep, 

I return the Prolétaire.s Difficult to say who is the greater-— 
Lafargue, who pours out his oracular inspiration upon the bosoms of 
Malon and Brousse, or these two heroes, heavenly twins who not only 
tell deliberate lies, but deceive themselves into thinking that the out- 
side world has nothing better to do than to ‘intrigue’ against them 
and, indeed, that everyone has the same cranial structure as the 
magnanimous twain. 

Lafargue has the blemish customarily found in the negro tribe — no 
sense of shame, by which I mean shame about making a fool of oneself. 

But it is time, if the journal” is not to be wilfully ruined and if they 

@ See this volume, pp. 363-64.-> L’Egalité 

do not intend (which I can’t believe) to Jet it go under as a result of 
proceedings taken by the government — it is time, I say, for Lafargue 
to put a stop to his childish bragging about the grisly deeds of his rev- 
olution of the future. But on this occasion he has been properly hoist 
with his own petard. Naturally alarmed because some denunciatory 
sheet or other, in defiance of police regulations, has reprinted hair- 
raising anarchist excerpts from the suppressed Etendard, thus making 
the latter seem ‘more progressive’ than Paul Lafargue, the licensed 
oracle of soctalisme scientifique alarmed at such revolutionary com- 
petition, Lafargue quotes himself (and he has, of late, acquired 
a pretty habit, not only of unloosing his oracles on the world, but of 
‘perpetuating’ them by self-quotation) as proof that the Etendard, i.e. 
that anarchism, has merely aped the wisdom of Lafargue and Co., 
though merely with the intention of realising it prematurely, before 
the time is ripe. That’s what sometimes happens to oracles; what they 
believe to be their own inspiration is, on the contrary and more often 
than not, merely a recollection that has remained stuck in their 
minds. And what Lafargue has written and ‘quoted’ from himself is, 
in fact, no more than the recollection of a Bakunian precept. 
Lafargue is, indeed, the last remaining disciple of Bakunin seriously 
to believe in him. He should reread the pamphlet he and you wrote 
about the ‘Alliance’, and then he would realise whence he has de- 
rived this, his most recent ammunition. Indeed, much time has had to 
pass before he Hap unperstoop Bakunin nb, INTO THE BARGAIN, HAS MISUN- 
DERSTOOD HIM. 

Longuet as the last Proudhonist and Lafargue as the last Bakunin- 
ist! Que le diable les emporte! » 

It’s a fine day today, and I must go out of doors (it’s only half past 
ten in the morning). 

In my last letter, I told you I intended to get rid of my cough with- 
out the help of mepicat men. But Dr Williamson gave me to understand 
d’une maniére autoritaire* that I must for all that be so good as to swal- 
low my medicine. In fact, the brew has done me good; its main ingre- 
dient is quinine disulphuricum; the others— morphia, chloroform, 
etc., have invariably formed part of the brews I have previously had 
to swallow. 

aK. Marx and F. Engels, The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International 
Working Men’s Association (written in collaboration with Paul Lafargue).-° May the 
devil take them! -° in authoritative manner 

What’s the position in regard to Hartmann’s pangs qua inventor *? 
Salut. 

Moor 

You'll have seen from the PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES in yesterday’s 
Standard that the ‘worthy’ Rivers Wilson has obliged to the extent of 
sorrowfully offering up on the altar of country his project, the rrus7ze- 
suip he assumed in company with the magnanimous Lowe alias 
Sherbrooke.*? A bitter pill for Rivers Wilson.