ENGELS TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH*” 

[Draft] 
Manchester, 25 January 1859 

Dear Freiligrath, 

The bloody boy who was to have got the Post Orrick Orper 
yesterday idled away the time instead, which is why the 22/- will 
only arrive today. Many thanks for your trouble and for the 
outlay. 

As to the Neueste Rheinische Zeitung,”* due provision has been 
made, never fear. We have in the meanwhile learnt a great deal 
and forgotten nothing,” and that’s more than the others can say. 
Of this you could find no better illustration than the Hermann 
(clearly a misprint for Gottfried, otherwise the title’s meaningless *), 
which you recently described as the Rheinische Zeitung’s John the 
Baptist. It’s a long time: since I’ve read rubbish as_ insipid, 
namby-pamby, tail-wagging, lavish of compliments, conciliatory, 
propitiatory and atrociously written as is found in this, the latest 
product of the pseudo-noble sometime Maikdfer which, to 
judge by its style and content, is aimed solely at and tailored to the 
tastes of the Camberwell philistines and the German ditto in the 
City. The man has even forgotten what little he nianaged to pick 
up in 1848 and has become a real bourgeois windbag. Now, since 
it was you who brought up the topic of this cheery customer, 

4 An allusion to Gottfried Kinkel’s weekly Hermann. 

presently touting round his ‘grief’, I will not conceal from you the 
fact that I have recently been asked by various philistines how it is 
that you have formed such a bond of friendship with Monsieur 
Kinkel. Though an exaggeration, this placed me, as you can 
imagine, in something of a quandary. Needless to say, I attributed 
it largely to the malicious exaggeration with which Kinkel and 
clique had seized on what was a mere encounter with you and 
blazoned it in all the papers as an offensive and defensive 
alliance—directed against us—and this I roundly denied. As for 
your social intercourse with the worthy citizen, all I could do was 
crack bad jokes, such as that, since poets live in a world apart, 
Kinkel could only pass himself off as a poet by citing his 
intercourse with you, etc. Suffice it to say that, although a poor 
diplomat, I succeeded well enough in defending the party’s 
position. Moreover, it eventually transpired that one of the Jewish 
females who patronised the gentle Gottfried when he was last up 
here, had said: ‘Ah, just let Kinkel, the naughty man, visit 
Manchester again—he seduced a girl of good family in London 
and keeps her as his mistress, and that’s the reason why his 
wife....”*