{London, beginning of October 1853] 

. Blind has suddenly become aware that the knife and fork 
question *”* is just as important as a South German view of the 
‘Turkish question. As you know, this gentleman had grown very 
grand, very much the homme d’étal,” very much the superior 
émigré. You will also know that an article of Pieper’s poking fun 
at Russia’—a frivolous scrawl well-suited to the Neu-England- 
Zeitung and such as could only have been concocted on the spur 
of the moment by a homeless waif—caused Blind to loose off in 
the Neu-England-Zeitung no fewer than 3 articles within 2 months, 
more or less fraternising (true love never fades) with Heinzen, etc. 
Hence his relations with us were strained. When I say ‘us’ I except 
Mr Lupus, who was naturally drawn to Blind by his Morning 
Advertiser sympathies and who, for some time past, has generally 
evinced a curious tendency to snarl at his so-called party friends 
and sympathise with political philistines. A few days ago then, Mr 
Blind reappears, bringing my wife a letter to Cluss, i.e. for Wolff 
who had written him a fond letter of farewell in which he invited 
him to correspond and left him Cluss’ address.**”” Needless to say, 
my wife informed him that England for the present was still 
harbouring the great Turkophile.© But that was not, of course, the 
reason why our ex-friend of Falstaffian proportions had called. 
The court in Baden has sequestered the entire fortune of the 
children by his first marriage (the 2nd was contracted in the 13th 
arrondissement) until such time as they are handed over to the Jews 
in Germany to be given a Jewish upbringing. Thus Mr Blind has 
been reduced to '/s of his or his wife’s* income and he now 
regards the ‘knife and fork question’ as worthy of consideration, even 
before the Turkish War has been decided and Petersburg taken by 

4 statesman - > Probably Pieper’s report from London of 31 May in Die Reform, 
No. 22, 15 June 1853. - © See this volume, pp. 369-70 and 372. -4 Friederike 

storm. In these much changed circumstances, and needing the 
assistance of the advocate Jones (Ernest), he once again remem- 
bered that I exist, which, of course, is damned flattering to me’...