[London,] 3 November 1859 

Dear Frederick, 

Lessner hasn’t got the names of the people to whom Das Volk 
was sent. All he knows is the number of copies (12) which he 
regularly despatched to Thimm. 

Biskamp maintains that the books he ordered from Thimm 
were not for his own account but for that of the parson who 
employed him as a schoolmaster. Nor, come to that, had Thimm 
ever said a word about the matter. He will be writing to him about 
it, likewise about Panzer’s acquisitive propensities. A few days ago 
he was taken on by the Weser-Zeitung at 50 talers a month. 

My work is making poor progress.” I’m plagued by too many 
domestic disruptions and too many worries. You'll have heard 
about the ‘grand’ Schiller festival here.“ Freiligrath and Kinkel, 
or rather Kinkel and Freiligrath, are to be its heroes. Seeing that 
the whole thing emanated from the Kinkel clique here and that 
even the invitations to form a committee were sent out by that 
wretch Beta, Gottfried’s factotum, I wrote to Freiligrath weeks ago 
saying I hoped HE WOULD KEEP ALOOF FROM THE KINKEL DEMONSTRATION.“ In 
reply I received a not exactly unequivocal letter from the fat 
philistine in which, inter alia, he said: 

‘Even should Kinkel secure Briseis in the shape of the festive address, this 
would be no reason for Achilles to withdraw sulking into his tent.’ 

So Kinkel is Agamemnon and Freiligrath Achilles*! Moreover, 
he says that the festival ‘is relevant in more ways than one’ (in what 
ways we shall presently see), and finally that he has written a 
poem on Schiller’ commissioned by the city of Boston (United 
States). 

Later I discovered from the Hermann that Freiligrath was acting 
as a member of the committee and that there was some talk of his 
having written a cantata on Schiller (set to music by Pauer)‘; in 
other words, that the philistine had kept something back from me. 
Later still I got another letter from him in which he said I would 
seem to have been right after all, though his participation had 
partially frustrated Gottfried’s plans. 

Well, when I saw the man he told me with bated breath about 
all that had happened. Beta and Juch, Kinkel’s agents, had heard 
from America that Freiligrath had written the poem on Schiller 
for Boston. Gottfried had, besides the address, reserved the festive 
cantata for himself. Believing, however, that non bis in idem,’ and 
that it wouldn’t be feasible to co-opt Freiligrath without conceding, 
or rather offering, him the poetic part (though they counted on 
his turning down the offer), Juch and Beta invited Freiligrath, on 
behalf of Kinkel’s committee, to join that committee and write the 
cantata. Freiligrath said he had already composed a poem for 
Boston, gave an inconclusive reply but promised to serve on the 
committee. This last treated the matter as a mere formality and 
did not renew its request. Freiligrath, however, hastily sets to work 
(no such difficulties here as in the case of the Volk for which he 
never could manage as much as 3 lines), writes a cantata (in the 
same metre as Schiller’s dithyrambs‘; he read me the stuff—pomp 
and circumstance), hurries to Pauer, has it set to music and, 
through his friends in the Schiller festival choir, compels Kinkel 
and Co. to renew their invitation to him. Then he sends them the 
rubbish which, ‘by an anachronism’, happened to be already 
finished and complete, not only written but actually set to music, 
and likens himself at the end of his epistle to a ‘menial’ who has 
served his ‘master’ without waiting for orders (Messrs Kinkel, Beta, 
Juch and Co.)! (And it’s the philistine himself who tells me 
this.) 

4 In Homer’s Iliad Agamemnon and Achilles quarrelled for the possession of Briseis, 
the captive queen of Lyrnessus. -» Here and below Marx refers to Freiligrath’s 
poems ‘Zur Schillerfeier. 10.November 1859’ which are subtitled ‘Festlied der 
Deutschen in Amerika’ and ‘Festlied der Deutschen in London’. - © ‘Die Sitzungen 
des Schiller-Comité’s’, Hermann, No. 43, 29 October 1859. - 4 the same thing must 
not be done twice (from Roman law) - ¢ F. Schiller, ‘Dithyrambe’. 

However the ‘tension’ between him and Gottfried was not yet at 
an end. Freiligrath attended the committee, where Gottfried 
behaved very coolly towards him. Now Freiligrath—‘quite fortuit- 
ously’ or so he says—had introduced into his cantata a passage 
during which it was ‘essential’ for Schiller’s bust to be unveiled. 
Gottfried, no less fortuitously, had arranged for the climax of his 
sermon to coincide with the ‘moment of unveiling’. After a 
prolonged tussle, throughout which philistine Freiligrath sat in 
silence and let his friends (riff-raff of all kinds) do the talking, it 
was at length decided that the ‘unveiling’ should fall to Freiligrath, 
whereupon Gottfried, sighing heavily, declared that in that case he 
would now be obliged to address his entire oration to ‘the veiled 
portrait’. Whereupon one of Freiligrath’s pals rose to his feet and 
said that this difficulty could be overcome if Kinkel were to make 
his speech after the cantata. Gottfried, however, voiced his 
unqualified opposition to this, declaring with the utmost indigna- 
tion that ‘he had already made so many concessions over the affair 
that this could not possibly be demanded of him’. And that was 
the end of that. So the sermon will come first. 

And Freiligrath told me all this rubbish with great seriousness 
and gravity; on the other hand he finds it perfectly natural that he 
should never have breathed a word to the committee about the 
Kinkel gang’s having taken it for granted that his (Freiligrath’s) 
supposed ‘party friends’ should not be invited to join the 
committee, thus making a Kinkel demonstration of it. Though he 
knew perfectly well that I wouldn’t attend, he should never have 
permitted such ‘ostracism’ on the part of a committee on which he 
himself sits. Blind is on it, of course. 

Ever since his poem about the Mockel woman,’ Freiligrath has 
treated us ‘strictly in private’ as his friends while openly walking 
arm-in-arm with our enemies. Qui vivra verra.” 

Ad vocem Blind: The scoundrel has now been to see Hollinger. 
For the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung had written to him saying 
that, if he persisted in his reticence, he would be brought out into 
the open in the most unpleasant manner, and that they possessed 
a document incriminating him.’ He accused Hollinger of having 
let the cat out of the bag. Hollinger, with justice, said guod non* 
and asked why Blind refused to admit responsibility for it. The 
latter told him that, while he had indeed written the manuscript, a 
friend of his had composed it. The fact of the matter is that while 
Blind wrote and composed it, Goegg supplied the most inculpating 
a F, Freiligrath, ‘Nach Johanna Kinkels Begrabnis’. - b He who survives will see. 
-¢ As to-4 that such was not the case 

bits. Now the respectable Goegg is ‘apparently’ Vogt’s friend, as he 
needs must be since Fazy, through the Swiss bank, owns shares 
worth 25,000 frs in his looking-glass factory and generally serves 
him as Banxer. Hence Goegg’s indignation at the act of ‘high 
treason’ can only be ventilated sotto voce. Such are the ‘serious 
republicans’. 

Couldn’t you do me an articie on the recent changes in the 
Prussian army ’*? 

Regards to Lupus. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.