You will have received my few lines of the day before yesterday. If Weerth cannot raise what is necessary at once, I shall see that I settle the matter the day after tomorrow or by Monday at the latest. In an emergency you will in any case be able to put the thing off until Tuesday.

Enclosed, the letter from Master Pieper. Heine seems to be coming in very handy to him to fill up the requisite 4 pages. I hope you have written him a letter spurring him on to energetic action in regard to Proudhon, for once he is back here you will neither hear nor see another word of the manuscript for some time. As to Löwenthal, P. and Ebner contradict each other greatly; in any case, however, the latter is more to be trusted. I believe that, as far as starting with the history of political economy is concerned, of which P. speaks, if L. really intends this, Ebner will best make difficulties for him, saying that it would not do to upset your whole plan, that you had already begun to work out the critique, etc. But if there is no other way, then L. would have to commit himself to 2 volumes, and you would need this space, partly on account of the critical matter to be anticipated, partly in order to make the history—at the end, with an honorarium in any case not calculated at London cost prices—somewhat profitable for you. Then the Socialists would come as Vol. 3, and the critique—what would remain of it—and the much-vaunted “Positive”, what you “really” want, as Vol. 4. The matter has its difficulties in this form, but it has the advantage that the long-demanded secret is only revealed right at the end, and only after the curiosity of the philistine has been kept in suspense through 3 volumes is it disclosed to him that one does not manufacture Morison’s Pills. For people of some intelligence, the indications in the first volumes, the Anti-Proudhon, the Manifesto, will suffice to put them on the right track; the mob of purchasers and readers will no longer be interested in the history, etc., once the great mystery has already been disclosed to them in Vol. 1; they have, as Hegel says in the Phenomenology, read the “preface”, and that, after all, contains the general part.

You will certainly do best to conclude with L., with decency but in any case on some acceptable conditions, and to strike while the iron is hot. In doing so, you will best proceed in the opposite way to the Sibyl. For every louis d’or he deducts from you per sheet, you force upon him so many more sheets that it comes out again, and you fill these extra sheets with quotations, etc., which cost you nothing. 20 sheets at £3 or 30 sheets at £2 always make £60, and to put together 10 sheets free of charge and without loss of time from Petty, Stewart, Culpeper and other fellows is, after all, really easy, and your book will be all the more “instructive” for it.

The main thing is that you once again make your debut before the public with a fat book, and best of all with the least contentious one, the historia. The mediocre and lousy literary hacks of Germany know very well that they would be ruined if they did not appear before the public 2–3 times a year with some trash or other. Their tenacity pulls them through; although their books have little or only middling appeal, the booksellers end up believing that they must be great men because they appear a couple of times in every fair catalogue. Then, too, it is absolutely necessary that the spell be broken which has arisen from your long absence from the German book market and the booksellers’ subsequent funk. Once one or two volumes of instructive, scholarly, thorough and at the same time interesting stuff from you have appeared, alors c’est tout autre chose and you can whistle at the booksellers when they offer low.

In addition, you can only do this history in London, whereas you can do Socialists and critique anywhere. It would therefore be good if you took advantage of this opportunity now, before the crapauds commit some stupidity and put us back on the theatrum mundi.

The New York fast post arrives tomorrow.

As I said, stick to Löwenthal under all acceptable circumstances. If it comes to nothing with him, then, as P. writes, Ebner’s resources are exhausted. With Löwenthal, anyway, more can always be done later than with others because one has Ebner sitting on his neck in Frankfurt. If he cannot bring anything off with L., whom he can kick around in person every day, then the matter is even more problematic with other fellows not located in Frankfurt. You should write to Ebner in such a way that he has broad authority from you and can conclude immediately; the longer the thing drags on, the sooner L. will tire of it, and political fears on account of ’52 will intervene. If the slightest little overture breaks out in Paris, all prospect of a publisher is gone, and if the Federal Diet makes press laws before everything is contracted in black and white, you are also done for. You must set a sprat to catch a whale, or—te résigner, ce qui n’est pas trop agréable.

The more I reflect on the matter, the more practical it seems to me to start with the historical part. Sois donc un peu commerçant, cette fois!

As for my glosses on Proudhon, they are too insignificant to be of much use. It would be the same as with the *Critical Critique*, where I also wrote a couple of sheets because a brochure was counted on and you made a thorough book of 20 sheets out of it, in which my humble self cut a very comic figure. You would again add so much to it that my contribution, in any case not worth mentioning, would vanish entirely before your heavy artillery. Otherwise I would have nothing against it, except that your history with Löwenthal is much more important and urgent.

Your 
F. E.

27 Nov. 51