Chapter IV: Days of Cloud and Sunshine in London

Marx lived for more than a generation in London. Half of this time was spent in a wearying struggle for existence, which, however, did not prevent him from collecting and systematising a vast amount of material for his life-work, "Capital," nor from taking a decisive part in the Labour movement as soon as the opportunity presented itself, as it did on the founding of the International. The first decade was particularly trying. A letter written on May 20, 1851, by Marx's wife to Weydemeyer, in America, gives an affecting picture of their poverty during these first years of exile.--("Neue Zeit," 25th year, Vol. II., pp. 18-21.)

The attempt to continue the _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_ under the title _Neue Rheinische Revue_ had only the negative result of swallowing up Marx's last resources. How poor Marx then was can be judged from the fact that he had to send his last coat to the pawnshop in order that he might buy paper for his pamphlet on the Cologne Communist trial (towards the end of 1852). On top of all this, lamentable differences sprang up among the German exiles, who, deceived in their revolutionary illusions, overwhelmed one another with recriminations; an echo of these conflicts is heard in the pamphlet "Herr Vogt" (1860). Marx's only regular source of income in the years 1851-60 was his earnings as correspondent of the _New York Tribune_, which paid him at the rate of a sovereign per article, and this hardly covered his rent and the cost of newspapers and postage. Yet his articles were veritable essays, the fruit of researches which cost him a good deal of time. And in the midst of this penury the idea of writing a Socialistic criticism of political economy burnt within him. One might almost say that since 1845 this idea had allowed him no peace. Freiligrath's lines are, as it were, stamped upon him:

In the clouds his goal he planted;
In the dust had he to live,
Bare existence daily granted.
Cramped, hemmed in on every side,
Pinched by poverty and urged
By want, he, of all denied,
By necessity was scourged.

Only in the sixties did his fortunes improve. Small family inheritances, Wilhelm Wolff's legacy of over L800, and Engels' more plentiful and regular help, which from 1869 onward amounted to about L350 annually, enabled Marx to write his "Capital," the first volume of which, as is well known, is dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff.

To these relatively happy times belong Paul Lafargue's reminiscences--("Neue Zeit," 9th year, Vol. I., pp. 10-17, 37-42)--of his intercourse with the Marx family. In particular he depicts the personality of the author of "Capital." In the bosom of his family and among the circle of his friends on Sunday evenings Marx was a genial companion, full of wit and humour. "His dark black eyes sparkled with mirth and with a playful irony whenever he heard a witty remark or a prompt repartee." He was a tender, indulgent father, who never asserted the parental authority. His wife was his helper and companion in the truest sense of the word. She was four years older than he, and notwithstanding her aristocratic connections and in spite of the great hardships and persecutions which for years she had to suffer by the side of her husband, she never regretted having taken the step which linked her destiny with that of Marx. She possessed a cheerful, bright disposition and an unfailing tact, easily winning the esteem of every one of her husband's acquaintances, friends, and followers. "Heinrich Heine, the relentless satirist, feared Marx's scorn; but he cherished the greatest admiration for the keen, sensitive mind of Marx's wife. Marx esteemed so highly the intelligence and the critical sense of his wife that he told me in 1866 he had submitted all his manuscripts to her and that he set a high value upon her judgment." Six children were born to the Marxes, four girls and two boys, of whom only three of the girls grew up--Jenny, who married Charles Longuet; Laura, who became the wife of Paul Lafargue; and the unhappy but highly-gifted Eleanor, who spent 14 sad years of her life by the side of Dr. Edward Aveling.

The sixties were undoubtedly the happiest years of Marx's life, and seemed to promise an abundant harvest in his later life. But his health soon began to fail, and did not allow him to complete his work. The most productive years of Marx's life were between 1837 and 1847 and between 1857 and 1871. All his valuable work falls within these years: the "Poverty of Philosophy," the Communist Manifesto, his activity in the International, "Capital," the Civil War in France (the Commune).