London, 28 April 1862 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Lassalle, 

You'll be terribly angry with me, o1p soy, and justifiably so, but, 
at the same time, with absolutely no justification. If I postponed 
writing to you from one day to the next, it was because I was 
hoping from one day to the next to put my affairs so far in order 
as to be able at least to pay off the £10 I owed you and, besides, 
write to you with an easy mind. Instead, the situation has grown 
worse every day. The Tribune, with which I had taken up 

4 See this volume, pp. 340-41, 352. -> Eleanor Marx -° From The Free Press 
published by Urquhart. 

again—though at '/; of my former income—has finally got rid of 
all its foreign correspondents. So, I now find myself in a complete 
vacuum. I have no intention of treating you to a tale of woe of any 
sort; it’s a wonder I haven’t actually gone mad. If I mention the 
beastly mess at all, it’s simply so that my other misfortunes should 
not be compounded by a misunderstanding with you. 

What you say about J. Ph. Becker in your last letter is absolutely 
wrong.*”’ I. e., you don’t know the man except from hearsay. He 
is one of the noblest German revolutionaries there has been since 
1830, a man who can be reproached with nothing save an en- 
thusiasm which fails to take account of circumstances. As for his 
connections with the Italians, a bosom friend of Orsini’s* has 
entrusted me with papers that leave no room for doubt on this 
score, whatever the Italians, and even Garibaldi, may say. As for 
his relationship with Turr—whom I had denounced over here in 
The Free Press even before 1859* —all it amounts to is this: During 
the Baden campaign *” Becker made Türr a lieutenant. Hence a 
kind of comradely relationship. Had Becker intended to exploit 
this connection and accept the offers made him in Paris by Türr 
in the presence of one of my London friends,” he would not have 
endured the martyrdom which he, a man of 60, is in fact 
enduring. I know full well the sources whence Becker has 
obtained his exiguous financial support. They are confined to 
people within our closest circle. True, he fell foul of some of the 
Italians because his strongly Teutonic sentiments caused him to 
reject certain well-intentioned plans. It is indeed exasperating that 
men of Becker’s stamp should be so egregiously slandered. 

As for my book, it won’t be finished for another two months. 
During the past year, to keep myself from starving, I have had to 
do the most despicable hackwork and have often gone for months 
without being able to add a line to the ‘thing’. And there is also 
that quirk I have of finding fault with anything I have written 
and not looked at for a month, so that I have to revise it completely. 
At all events, the work loses nothing thereby, and pro anno‘ the 
German public has, after all, far weightier things to think about. 

Ad vocem* your book* which I have of course now quite 
finished, and individual chapters reread, it strikes me that you 
apparently haven’t read Vico’s ‘new science. Not that you’d have 
found anything in it immediately to your purpose; but it does 
provide a philosophical view of the spirit of Roman law, 

* Marx probably means Simon Francois Bernard. - > Victor Schily - ¢ for this 
year - 4 As regards - ¢ Das System der erworbenen Rechte 

contrasting with that of the legal philistines. You would scarcely be 
able to work your way through the original, as it is not only 
written in Italian but in a very peculiar Neapolitan idiom.* 
However, I commend the French translation, La Science nouvelle, 
etc.; traduite par lauteur de l’essai sur la formation du dogme 
catholique. Paris, Charpentier, Editeur—1844. To whet your 
appetite, I shall do no more than quote the following sentences: 

‘Liancien droit romain a été un poéme sérieux, et ’ancienne jurisprudence a 
été une poésie sévére dans laquelle se trouvent renfermés les premiers efforts de la 
métaphysique légale.’ ‘...’ancienne jurisprudence était trés poétique, puisqu’elle 
supposait vrais les faits qui ne ]’étaient pas, et qu’elle refusait d’admettre comme 
vrais les faits qui l’étaient en effet; qu'elle considérait les vivans comme morts, et les 
morls comme vivans dans leurs héritages. ‘Les Latins nommérent heri les héres; d’ou 
vient le mot hereditas ... Vhéritier ... représente, vis-a-vis de lhéritage, le pére de 
famille défunt.’> 

Vico contains in embryo Wolf (Homer),© Niebuhr (Rémische 
Konigsgeschichte),‘ the fundamentals of comparative linguistics 
(even if in fanciful form) and a whole mass of really inspired stuff. 
So far, I have never been able to get hold of his legal writings 
proper. 

Under the circumstances in which I now find myself (and have 
found myself for the better part of a year) I shall not be able to do 
a critique of your book until sy ann sy. On the other hand, I should 
be grateful, not for my own sake, but for that of my wife, if, without 
a prior quid pro quo on my part, you could let Brockhaus advertise 
the first part of the political economy. 

Never have the English middle classes (and aristocracy) put their 
foot in it with such effrontery as during the great struggle that is 
taking place on the far side of the Atlantic. By contrast, the 
English workinc cass, which suffers most from the bellum civile,° has 
never before shown itself as heroic and noble. This is the more 
admirable when one knows, as I do, all the mechanisms that were 
set in motion, both here and in Manchester, to incite them to stage 

a G,. Vico, Principj di una scienza nuova. - » ‘Ancient Roman law was a grave poem and 
ancient jurisprudence austere poetry which contained the first attempt to formulate 
legal metaphysics.’ ‘...ancient jurisprudence was highly poetical in that it supposed 
true those facts that were not so, and refused to admit the truth of facts that 
were so indeed; in that it regarded the living as dead, and the dead as living in their 
inheritance.’ ‘The Latins called heroes heri; whence comes the word hereditas ... 
the heir ... represents, vis-a-vis the inheritance, the deceased pater familias. - 
¢ F. A. Wolfius, Prolegomena ad Homerum sive de operum homericorum prisca et genuina 
forma variisque mutationibus et probabili ratione emendadi, Vol. 1, Halis saxonum, 
1795. - ¢ B. G. Niebuhr, Romische Geschichte, Th. L-III, Berlin, 1827-32. - © civil war 

a demonstration.“ The only major organ they still have, the 
Newspaper owned by that low-down scoundrel Reynolds,* has been 
bought by the Souruerners, as have the most important of their 
LECTURERS. But ALx IN vain! 

Varnhagen’s book” interested me a great deal and I can 
understand how timely its appearance was. On no account must 
you fail to congratulate Ludmilla about it on my behalf. Nevertheless, 
this has not raised Varnhagen in my esteem. I find him shallow, 
insipid and paltry and would ascribe his abhorrence of Counsellor 
to the Legation Kélle to the shock of encountering his own 
double. 

Please return the enclosed letter from the régicide Simon 
Bernard. Do you think I should get involved in the matter? I 
rather think not. 

My kindest regards to the Countess.° She shall soon have a letter 
from me all to herself. I hope she has never allowed herself to be 
misled by trifles such as my omitting to write, nor ever doubted 
the lasting attachment and admiration I feel for her. 

Your 
K. M.