Marx-Engels Correspondence 1874
Source: Karl Marx, Letters to Dr Kugelmann (Martin Lawrence, London, undated). Scanned and prepared for the Marxist Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.
Dear Kugelmann
About eight days ago I wrote your dear wife a few lines, telling her of the death of my only grandson and the severe illness of my youngest daughter. This was not an isolated but rather an acute outbreak of an illness from which she has long suffered. Eleanor is now up again, much sooner than her doctor (Madame Dr Anderson-Garrett) [1] had hoped. She is able to travel, though of course still delicate. Madame Anderson thinks the Karlsbad waters will help considerably to restore her health, just as Dr Gumpert [2] ordered rather than recommended me to go there. It is difficult for me to leave Jenny now (I mean in about two weeks). I am in this respect less stoical than in others and family afflictions always hit me hard. The more one lives, as I do, almost cut off from the outside world, the more one is caught in the emotional life of one’s own circle.
You must send me your exact Karlsbad address and, in particular, make my excuses to your wife and Fränzchen for not answering their friendly and affectionate letters.
Yours
KM
1. Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917) was a British physician and feminist. Although holding a licence from the Society of Apothecaries, as a woman she was forbidden to practice in a hospital, and so she opened her own dispensary, which became the New Hospital for Women and Children in 1872 – MIA.
2. Edward Gumpert (?-1895) – German doctor in Manchester and friend of Marx and Engels – Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.