London, 31 May 1858 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Frederick, 

It took me a week to acclimatise myself again; moreover, the 
abrupt discontinuation of riding did me no good to begin with. 
Not until this very day have I at last begun to feel as fit as I did 
on the day I left Manchester. I am now In working order and shall at 
once start getting the stuff ready for publication.’ All I wrote last 
week was 2 articles for the Tribune.” The rest of the time I kept 
constantly on the move, since the feeling of heaviness in my head 
and trouble with my bowels made me fear a relapse. 

Ad vocem‘ Cluss. Before leaving, this young man_ visited 
Schapper again. When he got back from my house the worthy 
fellow discovered to his dismay that he had brought something 
back with him from Paris, viz. a chancre with all sorts of nasty 
secondary symptoms. He took to his bed and this, he told 
Schapper, was the reason for his withdrawal from the civilised 
world. 

Ad vocem Pélissier. What we jokingly suggested in Manchester, 
namely that Pélissier would promptly enter into relations with the 
Orléans, has now happened 1 reat coop Earnest, and become the 
talk of the town here. 

What do you think of Bonaparte’s thirst for confiscation? *” 

During my absence a book by Maclaren covering the entire 
history of currency came out in London‘; to judge by the excerpts 
in The Economist it is first-rate.© The book isn’t in the library! 
yet—nothing ever turns up there until months after publication. I, 
of course, am bound to read it before writing my treatise. So I 
sent my wife to the publisher in the City. To our dismay, however, 
we discovered that it costs 9/6d—more than the whole of our 

a K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. - » ‘Lord Canning’s 
Proclamation and Land Tenure in India’ and ‘The Financial Manoeuvres of 
Bonaparte.— Military Despotism’-¢ As regards - 4 J. Maclaren, A Sketch of the 
History of the Currency... - ¢ The Economist, No. 768, 15 May 1858, pp. 536-37. - © of 
the British Museum - 8 Groombridge 

fighting funds. Hence I should be most grateful if you could send 
me a POST OFFICE ORDER for that amount. There probably won't be 
anything that’s new to me in the book, but after all the fuss The 
Economist has made about it and the excerpts I myself have read, 
my theoretical scruples won’t permit me to proceed without having 
looked at it. 

Don’t you think you might have sufficient material to do 
something general on the state or THE British forces in India and also 
something conjectural for Friday? It would BE A GREAT BOON FOR ME 
since reading over my own manuscript? will take me the better 
part of a week. The damnable part of it is that my manuscript 
(which in print would amount to a hefty volume) is a real 
hotchpotch, much of it intended for much later sections. So I shall 
have to make an index briefly indicating in which notebook and 
on which page to find the stuff I want to work on first. 

I have at long last written to Lassalle.” You must grant me 
absolution for the plaudits I was obliged to accord Heraclitus, the 
Dark Philosopher. In a few unobtrusive asides—for praise is taken 
seriously only when offset by censure—I have to some extent, if 
very piano-piano, hinted at the real shortcomings of the entreprise. 

Tomorrow or the day after I shall be getting some more Bangya 
numbers,° 2 of which I shall send to Manchester, 1 for you and 1 
for Lupus. Apropos, in an issue of the Tribune I see that Pulszky 
is endeavouring to forestall the nauseous Revelations by represent- 
ing Bangya as Metternich’s spy and as one who betrayed General 
Stein.4 So statesman Blind, was GIVING A TESTIMONIUM PAUPERTATIS TO 
Kossuth, ‘THE 1LLUsrRious Governor or Huncary, in the  Adver- 
tiser, nevertheless found himself obliged to invite him in so many 
words to make a ‘counter-statement’. Kossuth, or course, held his 
tongue. 

How is Gumpert progressing in the noble art of equitation? As 
for me, the pity of it is that I always have to break off just when 
I’m again making enough progress to take an interest in the thing. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M.