London, 13 October 1885 

My dear Laura, 

I return you by this post the first ten leaflets of the Manifest **+ — I 
was compelled to break off, firstly because it is 5 o’clock and secondly 
because there is a /acune of considerable extent which I cannot fill up. 
Paul I hope will send me what is wanting at once, and I will return it 
if possible same day. For I see now that it will not take me long. To 
tell you the truth, a translation of the Manifest always frightens me — 
it reminds me of weary hours spent in vain on that most untranslat- 
able of documents. But you have hit the nail on the head. ‘There are 
only two passages where you evidently were interrupted and did not 
catch the exact meaning. Otherwise the work is excellently done, and 
for the first time the pamphlet will appear in French in a form that we 
can be proud of and that will give the reader an idea of what the orig- 
inal is. As you go on towards the end, practice will make you still 
more perfect, and you will more and more, not translate, but repro- 
duce in the other language. You will therefore take my notes —— where 
the meaning is not in question — as mere suggestions on the value of 
which you will have to decide. I am so out of practice in speaking and 
writing French that positively an hour’s chat with Johnny * acts upon 
me as a refresher upon a German Counsel, and really revives my ca- 
pacity of thinking in French more than ever I should have dreamt. 

I am glad indeed that you have taken this job in hand; that you 
would succeed if you once put your shoulder to the wheel, I never 
doubted, but I am glad to read the thing done. Now we have got you in 
harness and will do our best to keep you in it. It will be of infinite use 
to the movement in France,'for you may be sure the learning of Ger- 
man will not make much progress for some time amongst them, and 
even those that do learn it, learn it like schoolboys and without per- 
haps ever speaking to a native. Poor Fortin’s translation” do give me 
trouble enough— the German words are mere skeletons to him, no 

* Jean Longuet - ° the French translation of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of 
Lous Bonaparte 

flesh and blood——how can he reproduce them in French! And 
Mohr’s vigorous German too! 
Well here’s to your health and success, after the Manifest anything 
you may tackle will appear child’s play! 
Dinner bell—so good-bye, 
Yours ever, 

F.E.