MARX TO ENGELS” 

London, 10 June 1859 
Dear Frederick, 

Two manuscripts received today. One of them splendid —yours on 
‘fortification’, though I must say I feel some twinges of conscience 
about having made such demands on the little spare time you 
have. One grotesque, viz. Lassalle’s reply to myself and you 
respecting his Sickingen.“° A whole sheaf of closely written pages. 
Incredible that at this season and in the present historical 
circumstances, a man should not only find time to produce stuff 
of this kind himself, but actually presume that we have time to 
read it. 

Ad vocem* Volk. Should your booksellers actually deliver the 
little paper to you, which I doubt, you and Lupus will be surprised 
to see in tomorrow’s issue an announcement that there is some 
‘prospect’ of our, etc., collaboration.” The diplomatic reasons 
which decided me to take this step will be communicated by word 
of mouth. 

Duncker: Nothing yet received, neither money nor copies. Tell 
Lupus about this; he'd already have had one otherwise. 

Ad vocem Schramm*: This great man was a failure in Berlin. His 
wife’s family council therefore decided that he should take a 
minor commercial post in Krefeld. Thereupon the ‘failure’ 
addressed a long scrawl to the Ministers in Berlin saying he had 
considered it his political duty to join combat with Minister 
Manteuffel, whom he abhorred, but now, having fulfilled that 
duty, and finding that Prussia was not 4 sa hauteur a lui,” requested 
to be released from the commonwealth of subjects. Granted, and 
Schramm arrived in London along with the other parcers. Now 
intends, as he warned the Hohenzollern cabinet, to get himself 
‘naturalised’ an Englishman. The worst blow that has befallen 
Prussia since the battle of Jena.” 

Ad vocem Lassalle. In reply to his gigantic manuscript, wherein, 
by the by, he also mentions the ‘anonymous’ pamphlet’ he wrote 

a As regards - > ‘Statement by the Editorial Board of the Newspaper Das 
Volk’- ¢ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. - 4 Rudolf 
Schramm - € good enough for him - f [F. Lassalle,] Der italienische Krieg und die 
Aufgabe Preupens 

‘in the name of the party’, I sent him (today) a letter about "Is as 
long as the present one.* As regards the pamphlet, all I said was: 
‘Not our view at all. No point in writing about it, as we should be 
expressing our opinion publicly in print.’ 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.