London, 17 May 1892 

Dear Kautsky, 

You will have got the postcard about Werner-Weiler.*’7 Meyer 
told me directly after the Edinburgh Congress that he had spotted 
Weiler there. 

To apply that epithet to me was really very silly.*7° You would be 
doing a kindness to me and certainly to others as well, if you pointed 
out to him, at any rate for his future guidance, that he must accustom 
himself to our less grandiose terminology, failing which you will have 
to correct his stuff accordingly. 

Hirsch is in Frankfurt all right and Meyer is in his debt since at 
Meyer’s request he used to shout out at appropriate moments the ad- 
monition: ‘Mr Meyer, you ought not to drink so much.’ It was the 
funniest bosom friendship between a Jew — and what an archetypal 
Jew!—and an anti-Semite I have ever known. It still makes me 
laugh, just writing about it. 

Now as to the business of Louise, I should, if I were you, let the 
matter rest.*°° That she bears your name is the result of your own 
voluntary action. That you are no longer together is likewise the result 
of your own initiative. That there is a possibility of mistaken identity 
is again entirely your own doing. She is now using the only name she 
is entitled to bear under Austrian law and I can see absolutely no rea- 
son why she should evade that necessity. 

Let me be perfectly frank with you. All of us here, not least myself, 
have grown very fond of Louise, as was already the case when you 
were over here together. When the business of the divorce began, she 
behaved from beginning to end with a magnanimity we could not ad- 
mire too greatly and, since arriving in this country, she has become so 
dear to me that I regard her just as I do Pumps, Tussy or Laura, just 
as though she were my own child. When you were here, she showed 
you that she bore you no grudge whatsoever. But enough is enough. 

Nobody can expect her to bear whatever unpleasant consequences 
may arise from_your actions. Were you to put to her what you told me 
in your letter and were she to come and ask my advice, my answer 
would be an uncompromising ‘No!’ 

Mistaken identity has also occurred on the other side, but she 
merely laughed about it. And supposing she did oblige you, what would 
be the result? Louise Kautsky and Luise Kautsky would be joined on 
the stage by yet a third Louise Strasser-Kautsky whereupon the com- 
edy of errors would degenerate into pure farce. It would be of no help 
to you, while she would have to go into long explanations with all and 
sundry about the how, the who, the when and the wherefore. 

So as I have said, let sleeping dogs lie. Your having parted is really 
quite a good thing and Louise is perfectly content with this state of af- 
fairs. But no one will ever be able to undo what you have done and it 
is you, after all, who must bear the consequences. And this particular 
consequence 1s really not so trying as to warrant any sort of fuss being 
made about it. 

Tussy is of the same opinion and August, to whom I have shown 
both your letter and the foregoing,*’* is fully in agreement with it. 

So don’t worry, the whole thing will automatically right itself. 

Your old friend, 

F. Engels