MARX TO ENGELS 
IN MANCHESTER 


[London,] 4 November 1864 


Dear Freperick, 


I was very pleased to hear from you again. 
All well here. Myself included, since your departure from here’ 


a The manuscript breaks off here. The end of the letter is printed according to the 
Deutsche Revue. - » Elisabeth Engels 


3* » 


12 6. Marx to Engels. 4 November 1864 


until the day before yesterday, when yet another carbuncle 
appeared below my right breast. If the thing does not clear up 
quickly and others appear, I intend to use Gumpert’s arsenic 
remedy this time. 

I would translate your runic riim hart, etc.* as Dutch-Frisian for 
open heart, clear horizon. But I fear that there may be a quite 
different explanation, so I give up the riddle. 

You must send all the enclosed papers back to me as soon as read. 
I still need them. So that I do not forget any of the things I wanted 
to tell you, I am going to number them. 

1. Lassalle and Countess Hatzfeldt. 

The lengthy document is a copy of a circular that Herwegh’s 
wife (honi soit qui mal y pense”), Emma, sent to Berlin immediately 
after the catastrophe,'* so that exrracts from it could be put in the 
newspapers. You will see from it how cleverly Emma manages to 
put herself and her spineless Georg in the limelight at the 
beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the report; how the 
account evades two important points, firstly Riistow’s meeting with 
Donniges and daughter, when the latter must have renounced 
Lassalle before the scene recounted by Emma took place. Secondly: 
how the duel came about. Lassalle wrote the insulting letter. But 
then something happened which is not reported and which led 
directly to the duel. 

The suppression of two such important and crucial points makes 
one sceptical of the accuracy of the account. 

The Hatzfeldt letter. On her arrival in Berlin I got Liebknecht to 
take her a brief letter of condolence from myself.‘ Liebknecht 
wrote to me“ that she was complaining ‘I left Lassalle in the lurch’, 
as if I could have done the man any greater service than by 
keeping my mouth shut and letting him do as he liked. (In his last 
speech before the Diisseldorf assizes, he played the part of 
Marquis Posa with handsome William as Philipp I,° whom he was 
trying to persuade to suspend the present constitution, proclaim 
universal direct suffrage and ally himself with the proletariat.'*) 
You can see what is behind her letter and what she wants of me. I 
wrote a very amicable but diplomatically discouraging letter in 
reply.' The latterday Redeemer! That personage and the sycophants, 
who surround her, are mad. 


a See this volume, p. 9. - > the shame be his who thinks ill of it (the motto of the 
English Order of the Garter) - © See present edition, Vol. 41, p. 563. - 4 on 30 
September 1864 - © Marquis Posa and Philipp II are characters from Schiller’s Don 
Carlos; William—King William I of Prussia. - £ See this volume, p. 5. 


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Third page of Marx’s letter to Engels of 4 November 1864 


6. Marx to Engels. 4 November 1864 15 


Apropos. A couple of numsers of E. Jones’ Notes to the People 
(1851, 1852) happened to fall into my hands again; as far as the 
economic articles are concerned, the main points in them had 
been written directly under my guidance and partly even in direct 
collaboration with myself.* Wri! What do I find in them? That at 
that time we conducted the same polemic—only better—against 
the co-operative movement, since it claimed, in its present 
narrow-minded form, to be the last word, as Lassalle conducted 
against Schulze-Delitzsch in Germany 10-12 years later. 

In his last will and testament Lassalle has ‘installed’ Bernhard 
Becker, the unfortunate fellow, who was Juch’s editor on the 
Hermann for a while, as his successor in the office of President of 
the General Association of German Workers ?—in his ‘last will and 
testament’ (like a ruling prince). The Association’s congress meets 
in Diisseldorf this month, and strong opposition to this ‘decree’ 
by last will and testament is expected. 

Also enclosed, letter from a worker in Solingen, Klings,” in fact 
the clandestine leader of the Rhineland workers (former member 
of the League'’). This letter is not to be returned but filed. 

2. Workinomen’s INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 

Some time ago, London workers sent an address to workers in 
Paris about Poland and called upon them to act jointly in the 
matter.” 

For their part, the Parisians sent over a deputation headed by a 
worker named Tolain, who was the real workers’ candidate in the last 
elections in Paris,* a thoroughly nice fellow. (His compagnons were 
quite nice lads, too.) A Pusuic Mrerinc in St Martin’s Hall was called, 
for 28 September 1864, by Odger (shoemaker, President of the local 
Councit of att Lonpon Traves’ Unions and, in particular, also of the 
Trapes’ Unions Surrrace Acitation Society,! which is connected with 
Bright) and Cremer, a mason and secretary of the Masons’ Union. 
(These two had arranged the big Traps-Union meerinc on North 
America chaired by Bright in St James’s Hall, ditto the Garibaldi 
manifestations.!*) A certain Le Lubez was sent to ask me if I would 
participate pour les ouvriers allemands,° and, in particular, whether I 
was willing to provide a German worker to speak at the meerinc, 
etc. I provided them with Eccarius, who put on a splendid 


a E. Jones, ‘A Letter to the Advocates of the Co-operative Principle, and to the 
Members of Co-operative Societies’, ‘Co-operation. What It Is, and What It Ought 
to Be’ (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 573-89). - b ‘To the Workmen of France 
from the Working Men of England’, The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 112, 5 De- 
cember 1863. - © for the German workers