Library:Letter from Marx to Philips. June 25, 1864

BACKGROUND

From letter to Lion Philips (in Zalt-Bommel) London, June 25, 1864

This letter was extracted from the book The letters of Karl Marx^[1]

Dear Uncle:

My best thanks for your detailed letter. I know how troublesome writing is for you because of your eyes, and in fact I do not expect at all that you should answer every one of my letters. I was glad to see from your epistle that you are physically well and that your mental gaiety has been unaffected even by the discoveries of Professor Dozy^[2]. Since Darwin has demonstrated our common descent from apes, hardly any shock whatever could shake "our ancestral pride" anymore. That the Pentateuch was produced only after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, Spinoza had already elucidated in his Tractatus theologico-politicus.

In the enclosed note, Eleanor thanks you herself for your photograph, which is about as good as any of these silhouettes generally are. The child put "her letter" on my desk three or four days ago already.

I have had relapses of furuncles and have got rid of them only in the last fourteen days. Since the irksome illness has very much hindered my work in addition, the doctor forbade any strenuous and prolonged mental labor—I did, what will surprise you not a little, speculate partly in American funds, but particularly in English stocks, which in this year grew out of the ground like mushrooms (for all possible and impossible stock-enterprises), are driven up to unreasonable heights and then mostly burst like a bubble. In this way, I won more than £400 and will now, when the entanglement of political conditions offers new scope, begin anew. This sort of operation takes little time, and it is worth risking something in order to take money away from one's enemy.

Everything goes quite well at home. The doctor wants Jennychen^[3] to have a "change of air," and if you and fate have nothing against it, I will visit you with my three daughters at the end of the summer...

Best regards for the whole family. My wife also sends her regards to you and family.

Yours truly, Ch. Marx.

Notes

Context

↑ Karl Marx (1979). The Letters of Karl Marx: 'Letter 126' (pp. 186-187). [PDF] Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice-Hall.
↑ Reinhart Dozy, De Israeteten te Mekka (Haarlem, 1864). See Letter Marx to Engels, June 16, 1864.
↑ Marx's oldest daughter, Jenny.

[1] Karl Marx (1979). The Letters of Karl Marx: 'Letter 126' (pp. 186-187). [PDF] Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice-Hall.

[2] Reinhart Dozy, De Israeteten te Mekka (Haarlem, 1864). See Letter Marx to Engels, June 16, 1864.

[3] Marx's oldest daughter, Jenny.

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