Marx-Engels Correspondence 1860
Source: MECW, Volume 41, p. 58;
First published: in F. Lassalle. Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1922.
Dear Lassalle,
I am at present having to conduct two lawsuits, one in Berlin and another in London, while, at the same time, simply working for a living, and am unable to write you more than a few lines. I must say that, having seen the book, I'm astonished at the ‘great deal of truth’ you discovered in Vogt’s romance, no less than at the pusillanimous advice you gave me.
As for the only part that wasn’t pure invention — Techow’s letter, or rather the substance thereof — I refuted this 7 years ago in a pamphlet which appeared in New York under the title The Knight of the Noble Consciousness, and to such good effect that all the yapping curs, who then still all belonged to the same pack, held their tongues and dared not utter a single word in reply.
What I should like you to do and what would be of inestimable use to me, would be to find out who is the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Berlin and where the brute lives, the number of the house and the name of the street. I believe he’s a Jew called Meier. It shouldn’t be at all difficult for you, in view of the position you occupy in Berlin, to find this out. Please advise me of it forthwith.
I enclose the pamphlet on the communist trial.
Your
K. M.
P. S. As for my mistrust (you compel me to talk like statesman Blind, vide the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung), that’s something at least you can’t complain of. Take, for instance, the enclosed note from Baltimore (United States). That note was sent to me in confidence. The official allegations against you (among them the assertions of a workers’ deputation from Düsseldorf) are in the League’s files, which are neither in my possession nor am I authorised to use them.