Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868
Source: Karl Marx, Letters to Dr Kugelmann (Martin Lawrence, London, undated). Scanned and prepared for the Marxist Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
Dear Kugelmann
On receiving your letter I did what I could, but in vain. At the moment it is impossible to get money for foreign strikes from the unions here. I find the variety of information about the Lindon factory contained in the Hanoverian papers finally sent to me very interesting.
My family is at present at the seaside which was the more necessary as both the girls were very weak after their illness. Lafargue, after having passed his surgery examinations here in London, will perform operations in a hospital as assistant surgeon for a few weeks and then move to Paris, where he still has to take the French medical examinations.
At the moment I am more concerned with private than with public economy. Engels has offered to guarantee a loan of £100 – £150 for me at five per cent interest, the first half to be paid in January, the second in July. Up to the present, however, I have not been able to find the lender.
I hope very much that the state of my work will permit me to leave London for good and go to the Continent next year, at the end of September. I shall break away as soon as I can dispense with the Museum here. The dearness of living here is becoming more and more burdensome as time goes on. It is true that the pettiness of conditions over there is not much to my taste. However, ‘Ruhe ist die erste Bürgerpflicht’ [1] and it is the only way of attaining peace. There are all sorts of scandals here concerning the so-called French branch of the International Working-Men’s Association, about which I shall report in my next letter.
I am now solus [2] and it seems strange to be without all the noise of the children.
Salut
Yours
K Marx
1. ‘To keep the peace is the first duty of the citizen.’ From a proclamation posted in Berlin, 17 October 1806, after the battle of Jena, which began with the words ‘The King has lost a battle’, and continued as above – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.
2. Alone – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.