London, 3 June 1854 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Frederic, 

I am back on my feet and the children out of bed again, if not 
yet out of the house, but now my wife has become very unwell, 
probably as a result of the night vigils and nursing, and the worst 
of it is that instead of consulting the doctor which she refuses to 
do, she is dosing herself—on the pretext that two years ago when 
she was similarly indisposed, Freund’s medicines only made her 
worse. If matters don’t improve I shall finally have to resort to 
force. Thus I shan’t be able to do the correspondence on Tuesday, 
for on that day Pieper’s lessons prevent him from acting as 
secretary and, with my wife in her present state, I can’t bother her 
with any writing. As you can see, I’ve become a regular Peter 
Schlemihl.* But over the years we have all enjoyed very good 
health on the whole and will, I hope, do so again when this crisis 

4 Chamisso, Peter Schlemihl’s wundersame Geschichte. 

is past. Au fond,* we can be thankful that we’ve all gone down one 
after the other. 

I wrote an article? yesterday deriding the plan of campaign 
published in Thursday’s Times“ However, if the French papers 
are to be trusted, it would not appear to be an official one. The 
Moniteur reports that Omer Pasha is hurrying to relieve Silistria.* 
Perhaps this is simply a device to keep the Parisians in good 
humour and to counteract the great Boichot’s presence in Paris.° I 
can make little of the Russian reports or of Napier’s in today’s 
paper.' Au bout the English would again appear to have achieved 
nothing. 

Yesterday a great raw-boned chap, a democratic loafer, intro- 
duced himself to me as Dr Otto. Danish by birth. Ostensibly now 
expelled from Schleswig-Holstein. Took part in the 1848/49 
Schleswig-Holstein and “Thuringian’ movement. Does Lupus, by 
any chance, possess any particular information about the man? 

Have finished reading the Archivio delle cose d'Italia. The man’s 
Considerazioni at the back of the book endeavour to demonstrate 
the opposite of what emerges from his collection of documents, 
namely that the Giovane Italia,’ and consequentity Giuseppe 
Mazzini, were the soul of the 1848 movement. What is particularly 
amusing is the final section in which he proves that the 
movements [must] shed their narrow, national character: FRATERNISA- 
TION among the various nations that came to grief in 1848/49 as a 
result of their isolation; Russia or the Unirep States or Europe. At 
this point comes the following revelation: 

‘La serviti d'Italia @ patto europeo: l’Italia non puo esser libera che in seno a 

una libera Europa. Allora apparve manifesto doversi sancire, contro l'alleanza dei 
pochi oppressori, Uennipotente alleanza degli oppressi.’i [Archivio, Vol. 1, 560] 

And this ‘Vonnipotente alleanza degli oppress? was effectuated by 
Mazzini as follows: 

2 At bottom -> K. Marx, ‘The Formation of a Special Ministry of War in 
Britain—The War on the Danube.—The Economic Situation’. - © The Times, 
No. 21756, 1 June 1854, leader. - 4 [Report from Belgrade of 29 May 1854,] Le 
Moniteur universel, No. 151, 31 May 1854.-¢ Marx derides the pseudo- 
revolutionary activity of the French petty-bourgeois democrats. See this volume, 
pp. 461-62. -f Reports in Journal de Saint-Pétersbourg of 26 May 1854 and Napier’s 
military reports in the section ‘The Baltic Fleet’ of The Times, No. 21758, 3 June 
1854. - 8 In the end - » Comments - : ‘Italy’s servitude is a European compact: Italy 
can be free only in the bosom of a free Europe. Then it became manifest that an 
omnipotent alliance of the oppressed must be formed to oppose the alliance of the few 
oppressors.’ 

‘Allora Mazzini compié lardua sua missione, dettando con Ledru-Rollin e 
Darasz e Ruge, un nuovo patto che stringa Italia, non solo alla Polonia e alla 
Francia, ma alla stessa Germania, serva volente finora, e quasi sacerdotessa della 
servitt. E cosi, dalle opposte parti e dalle pit: nemiche genti giungono i peregrini al 
santuario commune della liberta.’? [I. 560] 

Have received newspapers from America, but still no letter. 
‘Ruge’, who has concluded the ‘nuovo patio with Mazzini, declares 
in Dulon’s little sheet” that, as a result of the war against Russia, 
there is now a prospect of ‘liberal’ development in Germany and 
that, even though no more may be achieved than ‘freedom as in 
England’, one ought to participate in it. To adopt a pessimistic 
view is ‘base, idle and Russian’. As you can see, the prospect of his 
private fortune being exhausted within the year has made the 
noble man ready to attach himself to any form of ‘progress’ and, 
au cas de besoin, become ‘constitutional’. 

Your 
K. M.