Manchester, 8 April 1863 

Dear Moor, 

I have been meaning to write to you for the past six days and 
have been continually prevented from doing so. Especially by the 
worthy Eichhoff. The poor devil allowed himself to be so 
thoroughly cheated in Liverpool by Prussian lieutenants on the 
run and commercial swindlers that he has become responsible for 
about £100’s worth of debts over anp asove the capital that was 
thrown down the drain, not by him, but by his partner. He’d come 
here, he said, to stay for some time and would accept any post that 
was offered him; he was making a great mystery of what he was 
doing here, etc. However, it soon became apparent that, instead of 
looking round for posts, he was engaging in all kinds of 
mysterious agency transactions and it’s now plain to me that he is 
conducting a BLOCKADE-RUNNING BUSINESS TO THE Confederate STATES on 
behalf of ttle Dronke, who is very deeply involved in this line. 
Hence all the secrecy, though the creenyess of our friend is such (it 
is really beyond all bounds) that the secret keeps leaking out all 
the time. Enfin,* the chap has little to do just now, and I’m often 
saddled with him in the afternoons. Since he refuses to be 
straightforward with me, I can’t, of course, do anything much to 
help him, save in cases where he actually asks my advice. 

I fear the Polish business is going wrong.*” Langiewicz’s 
defeat’ would already seem to have made its mark in the 
Kingdom.” The Lithuanian movement is by far the most 
important because 1. it extends beyond the borders of Congress 
Poland°** and 2. because the peasants here play a greater part and 
the thing, if one looks towards Kurland, becomes unmistakably 
agrarian but unless this movement makes good progress and 
revives that in the Kingdom, I don’t imagine the prospects are 
very considerable. Langiewicz’s conduct seems to me as very 
dubious. Which party first broke the contract of alliance—which 
was absolutely essential to the success of the uprising—it will be 
difficult to establish. But it would be interesting to know how 

“@ Finally - > the Kingdom of Poland 

much truth there is in the rumours that link Mierostawski, on the 
one hand, and Koécielski, on the other, with Plon-Plon.* If I’m not 
mistaken, Branicki has long since been a Plonplonist. 

The worthy Kugelmann certainly seems to have the most 
wonderfully magnanimous plans for you. That men of genius 
must also eat, drink and be housed and even pay for these things, 
is much too prosaic a notion for these honest Germans, and to 
suspect them of so much as harbouring it would be virtually 
tantamount to an insult. I should like to find out who the know-all 
was who confided to him that I have disowned my book.*”? You 
will doubtless enlighten the good man on this score. As to the new 
edition (which, according to the same premises, would certainly be 
ANYTHING BUT opportune), this is not a suitable moment in any case, 
now that the English proletariat’s revolutionary energy has all but 
completely evaporated and the English proletarian has declared 
himself in full agreement with the dominancy of the bourgeoisie. 

I have read the new things by Lyell and Huxley,” both very 
interesting and pretty good. Lyell has some rhetoric but also some 
fine witty remarks, e.g. where, having vainly quoted all the 
naturalists in an attempt to establish the qualitative difference 
between men and apes, he finally quotes the Archbishop of 
Canterbury‘ as asserting that man differs from beasts by virtue of 
religion. Apropos, just now the old faith here is being well and 
truly sniped at, and from all sides. It will soon be found necessary 
to concoct a platitudinous system of rationalism for the protection 
of religion. Owen got someone to reply to Huxley in The Edinburgh 
Review: the answer conceded all the essential facts of the case and 
took issue only with the phraseology.‘ 

Litde Dronke evidently thought there was something tremen- 
dously heroic in his intention to raise £250 with his banker on my 
acceptance and actually pay the expenses and interest, amounting 
to less than £15, himself. My refusal, when confronted with such 
heroism, to undertake to provide the £250 within a year—you’re 
the best judge of why I couldn’t do so*—struck him as mesquin! in 
the extreme. I assure you that, but for you, I would have kicked 

« See this volume, p. 466. - > Ch. Lyell, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 
with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation, 2nd ed., London, 1863. 
Th. H. Huxley, Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, London-Edinburgh, 1863. - 
¢ J. B. Sumner, A Treatise on the Records of the Creation... Quoted on pp. 496-97 of 
Lyell’s book. - 4 ‘Professor Huxley on Man’s Place in Nature’, The Edinburgh Review, 
No. 240, April 1863, pp. 541-69. - © See this volume, pp. 447-48. - ‘ niggardly 

the little blackguard in the arse. I was so annoyed that I got tight 
and while still in a state of tightness wrote you a furious letter *? 
on the subject, which doubtless contained some pretty splendid 
stuff, for I have absolutely no recollection of what I wrote. I 
merely mention the matter how, so that you can view it in its 
proper context. 

Vale. 
Your 
F. E.