[London,] 22 February 1858
Dear Engels,
Herewith a letter from Lassalle, interesting on account of the bit 
about Rudolf Schramm. What the chap says about my ‘logic’ 
amounts to nothing more than a refusal to understand me. All I  
did was simplement inform him that I hadn’t written to him 
because matters had come to a point at which a verbal explanation was 
necessary if written intercourse were to condnue. I n fact I  had done 
this ticklish passage in a very diplomatical sty lea
In my reply I asked him, of course, to look round for a 
publisher in Berlin. It is my intention to bring the thing out by 
instalments,b having neither the time nor the means to complete the 
whole of it at leisure. This initial form may be detrimental to the 
form. Better for distribution, at any rate. Also makes it easier to 
find a publisher.
As for the lousy Yankees nothing, of course, could have given 
me greater pleasure than to write and tell Messrs Dana and 
Appleton to—. But the state of affairs is simply t h is:
I had overdrawn £20 on Appleton. According to my reckoning, 
the amount overdrawn was at most £5. However I had no 
alternative, since some accounts which were due at the end of 
December had to be paid. W ell. For the time being Mr Dana has 
now credited the à comptec of the Tribune with £20—a sum which 
I was to draw on the Tribune 
exactly tomorrow— in this way 
virtually cutting off all my resources until the manuscript sent to 
Appleton has paid off the damned thing. So until then I am in a 
deadlock. As soon as this chap Appleton has been paid in kind, 
thus enabling me to dip into the Tribunés treasure-chest again, I 
am all for dropping him altogether—more especially if the Vienna 
Presse accedes to my suggestion of a weekly article on finance.254 
At all events I am of the opinion th at even the menace to stop supply 
would bring round D ana and A ppleton, and induce them to offer a better 
payment. But this move can only be made when the present deadlock 
has been resolved. By my reckoning some 30 or 32 columns will
See this volume, p. 228. - b See previous letter, p. 270. - c account

273
still remain to be sent if the swine have taken ‘Bolivar’. Until then 
I shall be quite literally in the air. Moreover, the rascals know that 
they now have me in their power. Hence, none of the stuff that 
now remains to be done should be condensed more than is 
absolutely necessary to avoid making it insipid.
As far as ‘Bülow’ and ‘Beresford’ are concerned, I can write the 
biographies, but the military part should be written entirely by you, in 
English, in order that these articles should not stand out from the 
rest. Besides, mere indications are of no use to me in this case 
since following them up would, after all, involve research—an 
impossibility just now. As soon as you have finished with B, 
you must get to work on ‘Cavalry’, since this will pay off the 
debt.
S uch, my boy, is the situation. Fortunately events in the outside 
world offer a good deal of solace just now. Otherwise, in private I 
think I lead th e most troubled life that can be imagined. N ever mind! 
What could be more asinine for people of wide aspirations than to 
get married at all, thus letting themselves in for the petites misères 
de la vie domestique et privée,a
What will the good Gtiardian say now? The revenge of Milner 
Gibson and Bright is indeed classic.287 Between ourselves, I think 
that Pam had his ‘raysons’b for dissolving his own ministry and that 
all the apparent blunders which led to this result were calculated 
ones so far as he was concerned.
From a 
paper which recently appeared in the Moniteur it 
transpires that, 
if compared with 
1855 and ‘56, the 
stored up 
commodities in th e F rench C ustoms entrepots'1 are enormous/ while the 
Economists correspondent declares outright that Bonaparte caused 
the Bank to make advances on the same and thus enabled their holders 
to return them. But with the approach of spring they will inevitably 
be thrown on the market, and th en, there is no doubt, there will be acrash  
in F rance, answered by crashes in B elgium, 
H olland, 
R henish P russia
ETC .'
In Italy the economic situation is truly frightful. Side by side 
with industrial crisis, agricultural distress. (This last, according to the 
conclusions of an agricultural congress in F rance, very bad there too. 
The congress declared that they could not go on with 17 frs. the
HECTO LIT R E  OFWH EAT.288)
a petty miseries of domestic and private life - b The original has Grind, a distorted 
form of the German Gründe (reasons). - c depots - d ‘Situation des entrepôts à la fin 
du mois de décembre’, Le Moniteur universel, No. 24, 24 January 1858. - e ‘From Our 
Own Correspondent. Paris, Thursday’, The Economist, No. 756, 20 February 1858.

274
T Aken all in all, the crisis has been burrowing away like the good 
old mole it is.a 
Salut.
Your
K. M.