MARX TO ENGELS” 

{London,] 22 December 1857 

Dear Frederick, 

Thou hast triumphantly snatched me out of the clutches of the 
Exchequer, praised be thy name—halleluiah! 

Herewith a letter (with enclosure) from the great Lassalle“” who 
now positively assures me that he is serious.y beginning to be 
known in Berlin by reason of his fame. These trrusions of a 
beautiful soul will amuse you and Lupus. The worthy Lassalle took 
up philosophy and Heraclitus* as he took up the Hatzfeldt case *° 
and, if he is to be believed, eventually won his ‘case’. It would, 
indeed, seem that the old school—both philologists and 
Hegelians—were surprised to see such a posthumous blossoming of 
a by-gone epoch. But we shall be seeing the thing for ourselves 
and, gift-horse or no, shall look it long and searchingly in the 
mouth-—on THE EXPRESS CONDITION, OF course, that Heraclitus doesn’t 
reek of garlic. *Fancy only this fellow going up and down the 
streets of Berlin and ‘asking for himself’ strutting like a peacock, a 
stride and a stand: biting his lips, with ‘a political regard’ as who 
should say: “This is the man who has written Heraclit.’* The 
laddie might be of some service to us in finding a publisher, 
unless, perhaps, he’s afraid that competition might endanger the 
reputation to which he also aspires in the field of economics, 
thereby losing him his ‘case’. I have replied to Friedlander 

254 

a F, Lassalle, Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos. 

through Mr Lassalle saying that, while I, too, am ‘anti-French’, I 
am no less ‘anti-English’, and that the last thing I could do would 
be to write in favour of ‘Lord Pam’. So I have turned the thing 
down. Should Friedlander send me the Presse so that I can see 
beforehand whose spiritual offspring it is, and if the fellows want 
no more than one money article a week—for which they would, of 
course, have to shell out—I might perhaps agree. There can be 
no question of pourrics in this Case. 

I have written to Lassalle, brief and cool, to say that, while I had 
received the letter sent through Freiligrath, I hadn’t answered it 
for reasons that could hardly be committed to paper. For the rest 
a few words, no more.* 

Schramm has written to my wife from Jersey; an extremely witty 
letter. For his sins, Kosmos Leiden has lost 3 of his children; 2 
daughters (including Mrs Mevissen) died of consumption and one 
of his sons went down with the Pacific. 

In last Sunday’s issue of Reynold’s there is a significant attack 
upon those apostates who advocate union with the MIDDLE CLass. 
Meaning Jones. I haven’t seen the laddie for a long time. He 
seems to be avoiding me, for which he must have his ‘raysons’. 
However, I shall probably surprise him—one FINE MORNING, 

Regards to Lupus. 

Your 
K. M.