[London,] 11 April 1881 

My dear Jennychen, 

It’s been boring ever since you left— without you and Johnny and 
Harra! and Mr “Tea!’* Sometimes I hurry across to the window when 
I hear children’s voices which sound like those of our children, mo- 
mentarily oblivious of the fact that the little chaps are on the other 
side of the Channel! 

One comfort is that you have found a nice place to live and that it 
suits the children; otherwise everything seems to be RATHER worse than 
in London, with the exception, however, of the climate, whose benefi- 
cial effect — beneficial also to asthma— you will discover sy anp sy. 

I have found yet another doctor for Mama, one recommended to 
me by Prof. Lankester, namely Dr Donkin; he seems a BRIGHT AND INTELLI- 
GENT MAN; but for Mama’s complaint it does indeed strike me that one 
MAN [is] AS GOOD, AND PERHAPS BETTER, THAN ANOTHER MAN. However, the 
CHANGE OF MEDICAL ADVISERS serves to distract her and, during the initial 
period — which doesn’t usually last long — she is full of praise for the 
new Aesculapius. Longuet’s eyeglass turned up immediately after his 
departure; it was, in fact, tucked away in your bedroom. Hirsch has 
been selected to bring it to you, but that gossip-hunter seems hardly 
able to tear himself away from London at a moment when there is so 
much to be smelt out. The ‘great’ Most affair '?° alone is an inex- 
haustible source of fresh water (if by no means a ‘cooling stream’) for 
the said hart.» Now he threatens to postpone his departure till 18 Ap- 
ril. Then, too, he has found a kindred spirit in Kautsky — on whom 
he had frowned so grimly; even Engels takes a much more tolerant 
view of this joker* since the latter gave proof of his considerable 
drinking ability. When the charmer — the little joker, * I mean — first 
came to see me, the first question that rose to my lips was-——are you 

2 Marx’ grandsons: Jean, Henri and Edgar Longuet-” A pun on the name Hirsch — 
hart. (‘As pants the hart for cooling streams /When heated in the chase’.)-° Kautz 
(diminutive Kautzchen), an untranslatable pun or the name Kautsky. 

like your mother *? Not in the least, he exclaimed, and silently I con- 
gratulated his mother. He’s a mediocrity, narrow in outlook, over- 
wise (only 26 years old), a know-all, hard-working after a fashion, 
much concerned with statistics out of which, however, he makes little 
sense, by nature a member of the philistine tribe, for the rest, a decent 
fellow in his own way; I unload him onto amigo Engels as much as 
[QA: garble stripped 2026-06-23]

The day before yesterday the Dogberry crus'** was here; yester- 
day, besides the 2 Maitland girls‘—and, briefly, Lankester and 
Dr Donkin — we were invaded by Hyndman and his wife,¢ both of 
whom have too much staying-power. I quite like the wife on account 
of her brusque, unconventional and determined manner of thinking 
and speaking, but it’s amusing to see how admiringly she hangs on 
the lips of her complacent chatterbox of a husband! Mama grew so 
weary (it was close on half past ten at night) that she withdrew. But 
there was some syptay which tickled her. For Tussy has discovered 
a new infant prodigy amongst the Dogberries——one Radford; this 
youth is already a barrister-at-Law, yet looks down upon the jus* and 
works in the same Lins as Waldhorn. He ooxs wet, cross between Irving 
and the late Lassalle (but has nothing in common with the latter’s 
cynical, smarmily importunate mannerisms @ /a marquis-cum-Jew), 
AN INTELLIGENT AND SOMEWHAT PROMISING BOY. WELL, that’s him in a nutshell. 
So shockingly did Dolly Maitland pay court to Azm that during sup- 
per Mama and Tussy were constantly exchanging signals. Finally, 
Mr Maitland also turned up, pretty well sober, and began a verbal 
duel with his instructive neighbour, Hyndman, on the subject of 
Gladstone in whom Maitland, a spiritualist, believes. *] — rather an- 
noyed by a bad throat — felt glad when the whole lot vanished. It is 
a strange thing that one cannot well live altogether without com- 
pany, and that when you get it, you try hard to rid yourself of it.* 

Hartmann is working hard in Woolwich as a common WORKMAN; it 1s 
becoming increasingly difficult to converse with him in any language. 
The Russian rerucees in Geneva insist that he should disavow Roche- 
fort and do so publicly. This he neither will nor can, even had this not 
been made impossible by the immoderate letter sent to Rochefort by 
the Petersburg Committee and published by him in the Intransi- 
geant.'*° The Genevans have, indeed, long been trying to convince 

@ Minna Kautsky-? friend-* Dolly and Clara Maitland-4 Mathilda Hyndman- 
© law 

Europe that it was, in fact, they who were directing the movement in 
Russia; now that the die they themselves had disseminated has been 
taken up by Bismarck e¢ cze and constitutes a threat to them, they as- 
sert the opposite and vainly endeavour to convince the world of their 
innocence. In fact, they are mere doctrinaires, muddle-headed anar- 
cho-socialists, and their influence on the Russian ‘theatre of war’ is 
ZERO. 

Have you been following the course of the legal proceedings 
against the assassins in St Petersburg? 13° They are sterling chaps 
through and through, sans pose mélodramatique,* simple, matter-of-fact, 
heroic. Shouting and doing are irreconcilable opposites. The 
Petersburg Executive Committee, 7° which took such vigorous ac- 
tion, issues manifestoes of exquisite ‘moderation’. It is remote indeed 
from the bungling way in which Most and other puerile ranters advo- 
cate TYRANNICIDE as a ‘theory’ and ‘panacea’ (the same thing was done by 
ENGLISHMEN as innocent as Disraeli, Savage Landor, Macaulay and 
Mazzini’s friend, Stansfeld); they, on the other hand, are at pains to 
teach Europe that their modus operandi’ is a specifically Russian 
and historically inevitable mode of action which no more lends 
itself to moralising — for or against-—— than does the earthquake in 
Chios. 137 

In this connection there was a fine old scandal in the House of 
Commons (as you know, so as to oblige Bismarck and Gorchakov 
these miserable Gladstonites are making an onslaught, in the person 
of the pitiful Most, '? on the freedom of the press in England, in 
which they are unlikely to succeed). Lord Churchill, a bumptious 
Tory youth, and member of the Marlborough family, questioned Sir 
Charles Dilke and Brassey, both unpersrrappers in the Cainer, about 
the financial support afforded to the Fretheit. This was flatly denied 
and Churchill was compelled to name his authority. He named the 
ubiquitous Mr Maltman Barry! I enclose a cutting about this affair 
from the Weekly Dispatch (the Dilkes’ paper, edited by the :ruiLosoput- 
caL RADICAL’, Ashton Dilke, brother of the great ‘Dilke’), and a state- 
ment by Maltman Barry in The Daily News. Clearly Dilke is lying. 
How pitiful that this braggart, the self-appointed future ‘President of 
the English republic’ should, for fear of losing his post, allow Bis- 
marck to dictate upon what journals he ought or ought not to bestow 
£ 1! Only suppose it became known that, immediately after Hart- 

* without melodramatic posturing-? way of going about things 

mann’s arrival in London, Ashton Dilke invited him to a Luncheon! 
But Hartmann turned this down, not wanting to ‘exhibit’ him- 
self. 

Apropos the Comtist renegade Maxse. This laddie is done far too 
great an honour in La Justice which handles him with kid gloves. In 
the eyes of this peculiar clique — Enctisk Liberals and their even worse 
subspecies, the so called RADICALS — it is indeed a crime on the part of 
La Justice that, flouting all tradition and contrary to agreement, it 
fails to treat these shams AND HUMBUGS in the accepted manner, to perpe- 
tuate the legend that is current about them in the liberal press on the 
Continent! If one considers the enormous effrontery with which the 
London press attacks socialist parties in all European countries, and 
how difficult it is for anyone who thinks it worth the trouble to say 
a word in return or even to get a brief answer into that press — it is 
really a bit too much to have to recognise the principle that, should 
a Paris newspaper venture to criticise that arch-hypocrite and casuist 
of the old-fashioned school, the ‘great’ Gladstone, it is duty-bound 
to put entire columns at the disposal of Mr Maxse and his prose, in 
order that he might repay Gladstone tn inp for the avancement* pro- 
vided by the latter! 

Assuming the policy adopted by Gladstone (man of the Coercion '?% 
and Armsact) vis-a-vis Ireland to be as right as it is in fact wrong, 
would this constitute any reason to talk of that man’s ‘générosité and 
‘magnanimité? As though there was any question of any such things be- 
tween England and Ireland! Maxse really ought to be told that, while 
such Pecksniffian expressions may have free currency in London, they 
do not have it in Paris! 

Get Longuet to read Parnell’s speech in Cork in today’s Times.” 
He will find in it the substance of what ought to be said about Gladstone’s 
new LAND acT}**; in this connection it should not be forgotten that 
Gladstone, by his disgraceful preliminary measures (incl. abolishing 
the freedom of speech of members of the Lower House),!?? has 
brought about the conditions under which mass evictions are now taking 
place in Ireland, while the Act is pure humbug, seeing that the Lords 
who can get anything they want from Gladstone, and no longer have 
to tremble before the Land League !*° — will pousriess throw it out 
or else so castrate it that the Irish themselves will end up by voting 
against it. 

* advancement-? ‘Cork, 10 April’, The Times, No. 30165, 11 April 1881. 

Give the children a hundred kisses from me; regards to Longuet. 
Write and tell me, pear cup, about the state of your health. 
Adio. 

Your 

Otp Nick? 

Dear JOHNNY, HOW DO YOU LIKE France?