Dear Mohr,

I hope the arsenic and the exercise will have thundered a rapid “Zurück” at the notorious “worrisome” thing. But I also hope that from these constantly renewed relapses you will finally come to the conclusion that a more rational way of life must be begun. You are poisoning your own blood by making regular digestion impossible for yourself. And in doing so you certainly do not finish the same quantity (and quality) of work that you would finish under more normal conditions. The idyllic drama “Family Happiness coram Philistaeo (?)” is truly enchanting. One does not know which to admire more, the fadaise of the speakers and poets (interrupted only by the downright idiocy of the drunken Karl Beck) or the importunity of the family which allows such things to be printed as “manuscript for friends” (hence public for non-friends). But how a noble Freiligrath can allow the audacious words of a tender-feeling Walesrode to be printed: that the poet Freiligrath has also got on in the goods of this world (through begging) is not quite clear to me. I should have liked to see the faces in the family when these words were dropped. Monsieur Ledru is certainly counting on nothing else but dictatorship. Little Louis Blanc also bobs up again, as though nothing at all had happened – why not the others? From the bourgeois press at a moment like the present one can see absolutely nothing of what is really going on, and even the revolutionary press is not sufficient to enlighten one. The confusion is certainly great, and the crisis also certainly not yet so very near. Nevertheless, a general in Paris said: Nous avons encore un Empereur, mais l’empire n’existe plus. With the Russians things are going briskly forward in Asia. Now they have also happily got war with the Khan of Kashgar, who was formerly subject to the Chinese but has now made himself independent. If they subjugate him, they will directly border on countries that are already under English dominion (Ladakh, Kashmir) and are about 200 miles from the English frontier. You will have seen Vambéry’s communications (transferred from the A.A.Z. into English papers) about the dodges in Bokhara (where, according to treaty, Russian goods pay 3% duty, English 40%!), Afghanistan, etc. John Bull’s stupidity, by virtue of his self-importance, is getting greater and greater. The best joke of the Irish is, after all, putting up O’Donovan Rossa as candidate for Tipperary. If that succeeds, Gladstone will be in a fine fix. And now again amnesty in Italy. About the debates, etc., in the International I hope to read full details next Sunday in the Bee-Hive. Do send me any documents. Last Sunday the Bee-Hive had nothing about the International, but instead about the marriage of the Duke of Abercorn’s daughters. Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement, is out of print. You would therefore greatly oblige me by ordering it second-hand for me at once. Butt’s Irish people: none in London. Other Irish pamphlets, e.g. those by Lords Rosse and Lifford: Cannot find. These are the answers my bookseller received from his London commissioner and at the same time told me that the English book trade could not generally bother with procuring things published in Ireland, as it is not customary to have a correspondent in Dublin, but only in London. I shall now write directly to Duffy in Dublin. I have found here a good deal of useful material on Ireland. Wolfe Tone’s Memoirs, etc., that is, in the catalogue. As soon as I ask for these things in the library, they, like Wakefield, are not to be found. Some old fellow must once have had the whole heap together and returned it en masse, so that the whole lot lies hidden somewhere. In any case the things must be found. The wise bourgeois thinker is Goldwin Smith on Irish History and Irish Character. Ireland is destined by Providence to be a grazing land, the prophet Léonce de Lavergne has prophesied it, ergo pereat the Irish people! I wanted to write about Carey today, but was interrupted. Soon. Best greetings to all ladies.

Your F. E.