THE STORY OF KARL MARX
Some time ago I entered a fairly large library--one of more than twohundred thousand volumes--to seek the little brochure on Karl Marxwritten by his old friend and genial comrade Wilhelm Liebknecht. It wasin the card catalogue. As I made a note of its number, my friend thelibrarian came up to me, and I asked him whether it was not strangethat a man like Marx should have so many books devoted to him, for I hadroughly reckoned the number at several hundred.
"Not at all," said he; "and we have here only a feeble nucleus of theMarx literature--just enough, in fact, to give you a glimpse of whatthat literature really is. These are merely the books written by Marxhimself, and the translations of them, with a few expository monographs.Anything like a real Marx collection would take up a special room inthis library, and would have to have its own separate catalogue. Yousee that even these two or three hundred books contain large volumesof small pamphlets in many languages--German, English, French, Italian,Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Swedish, Hungarian, Spanish; and here," heconcluded, pointing to a recently numbered card, "is one in Japanese."
My curiosity was sufficiently excited to look into the matter somewhatfurther. I visited another library, which was appreciably larger, andwhose managers were evidently less guided by their prejudices. Here wereseveral thousand books on Marx, and I spent the best part of the day inlooking them over.
What struck me as most singular was the fact that there was scarcelya volume about Marx himself. Practically all the books dealt with histheory of capital and his other socialistic views. The man himself, hispersonality, and the facts of his life were dismissed in the most meagerfashion, while his economic theories were discussed with somethingthat verged upon fury. Even such standard works as those of Mehring andSpargo, which profess to be partly biographical, sum up the personalside of Marx in a few pages. In fact, in the latter's preface he seemsconscious of this defect, and says:
Whether socialism proves, in the long span of centuries, to be good orevil, a blessing to men or a curse, Karl Marx must always be an objectof interest as one of the great world-figures of immortal memory. Asthe years go by, thoughtful men and women will find the same interest instudying the life and work of Marx that they do in studying the lifeand work of Cromwell, of Wesley, or of Darwin, to name three immortalworld-figures of vastly divergent types.
Singularly little is known of Karl Marx, even by his most ardentfollowers. They know his work, having studied his Das Kapital with thedevotion and earnestness with which an older generation of Christiansstudied the Bible, but they are very generally unacquainted with theman himself. Although more than twenty-six years have elapsed since thedeath of Marx, there is no adequate biography of him in any language.
Doubtless some better-equipped German writer, such as Franz Mehring orEduard Bernstein, will some day give us the adequate and full biographyfor which the world now waits.
Here is an admission that there exists no adequate biography of KarlMarx, and here is also an intimation that simply as a man, and notmerely as a great firebrand of socialism, Marx is well worth studying.And so it has occurred to me to give in these pages one episode of hiscareer that seems to me quite curious, together with some significanttouches concerning the man as apart from the socialist. Let thethousands of volumes already in existence suffice for the latter. Themotto of this paper is not the Vergilian "Arms and the man I sing,"but simply "The man I sing"--and the woman. Karl Marx was born nearlyninety-four years ago--May 5, 1818--in the city which the French callTreves and the Germans Trier, among the vine-clad hills of the Moselle.Today, the town is commonplace enough when you pass through it, but whenyou look into its history, and seek out that history's evidences, youwill find that it was not always a rather sleepy little place. It wasone of the chosen abodes of the Emperors of the West, after Romebegan to be governed by Gauls and Spaniards, rather than by Romans andItalians. The traveler often pauses there to see the Porta Nigra, thatimmense gate once strongly fortified, and he will doubtless visit alsowhat is left of the fine baths and amphitheater.
Treves, therefore, has a right to be termed imperial, and it wasthe birthplace of one whose sway over the minds of men has been bothimperial and imperious.
Karl Marx was one of those whose intellectual achievements were so greatas to dwarf his individuality and his private life. What he taughtwith almost terrific vigor made his very presence in the Continentalmonarchies a source of eminent danger. He was driven from country tocountry. Kings and emperors were leagued together against him. Soldierswere called forth, and blood was shed because of him. But, little bylittle, his teaching seems to have leavened the thought of the wholecivilized world, so that to-day thousands who barely know his name aredeeply affected by his ideas, and believe that the state should controland manage everything for the good of all.
Marx seems to have inherited little from either of his parents. Hisfather, Heinrich Marx, was a provincial Jewish lawyer who had adoptedChristianity, probably because it was expedient, and because it enabledhim to hold local offices and gain some social consequence. He hadchanged his name from Mordecai to Marx.
The elder Marx was very shrewd and tactful, and achieved a fair positionamong the professional men and small officials in the city of Treves.He had seen the horrors of the French Revolution, and was philosopherenough to understand the meaning of that mighty upheaval, and of theNapoleonic era which followed.
Napoleon, indeed, had done much to relieve his race from pettyoppression. France made the Jews in every respect the equals of theGentiles. One of its ablest marshals--Massena--was a Jew, and therefore,when the imperial eagle was at the zenith of its flight, the Jews inevery city and town of Europe were enthusiastic admirers of Napoleon,some even calling him the Messiah.
Karl Marx's mother, it is certain, endowed him with none of his gifts.She was a Netherlandish Jewess of the strictly domestic and conservativetype, fond of her children and her home, and detesting any talk thatlooked to revolutionary ideas or to a change in the social order. Shebecame a Christian with her husband, but the word meant little to her.It was sufficient that she believed in God; and for this she was teasedby some of her skeptical friends. Replying to them, she uttered the onlyepigram that has ever been ascribed to her.
"Yes," she said, "I believe in God, not for God's sake, but for my own."
She was so little affected by change of scene that to the day of herdeath she never mastered German, but spoke almost wholly in her nativeDutch. Had we time, we might dwell upon the unhappy paradox of her life.In her son Karl she found an especial joy, as did her husband. Had thefather lived beyond Karl's early youth, he would doubtless have beengreatly pained by the radicalism of his gifted son, as well as by hispersonal privations. But the mother lived until 1863, while Karl waseverywhere stirring the fires of revolution, driven from land to land,both feared and persecuted, and often half famished. As Mr. Spargo says:
It was the irony of life that the son, who kindled a mighty hope in thehearts of unnumbered thousands of his fellow human beings, a hope thatis today inspiring millions of those who speak his name with reverenceand love, should be able to do that only by destroying his mother's hopeand happiness in her son, and that every step he took should fill herheart with a great agony.
When young Marx grew out of boyhood into youth, he was attractive to allthose who met him. Tall, lithe, and graceful, he was so extremely darkthat his intimates called him "der neger"--"the negro." His looselytossing hair gave to him a still more exotic appearance; but his eyeswere true and frank, his nose denoted strength and character, and hismouth was full of kindliness in its expression. His lineaments were notthose of the Jewish type.
Very late in life--he died in 1883--his hair and beard turned white,but to the last his great mustache was drawn like a bar across hisface, remaining still as black as ink, and making his appearance verystriking. He was full of fun and gaiety. As was only natural, there sooncame into his life some one who learned to love him, and to whom, in histurn
, he gave a deep and unbroken affection.
There had come to Treves--which passed from France to Prussia withthe downfall of Napoleon--a Prussian nobleman, the Baron Ludwig vonWestphalen, holding the official title of "national adviser." The baronwas of Scottish extraction on his mother's side, being connected withthe ducal family of Argyll. He was a man of genuine rank, and might haveshown all the arrogance and superciliousness of the average Prussianofficial; but when he became associated with Heinrich Marx he evincednone of that condescending manner. The two men became firm friends, andthe baron treated the provincial lawyer as an equal.
The two families were on friendly terms. Von Westphalen's infantdaughter, who had the formidable name of Johanna Bertha Julie Jenny vonWestphalen, but who was usually spoken of as Jenny, became, in time, anintimate of Sophie Marx. She was four years older than Karl, but the twogrew up together--he a high-spirited, manly boy, and she a lovely andromantic girl.
The baron treated Karl as if the lad were a child of his own. Heinfluenced him to love romantic literature and poetry by interpretingto him the great masterpieces, from Homer and Shakespeare to Goethe andLessing. He made a special study of Dante, whose mysticism appealed tohis somewhat dreamy nature, and to the religious instinct that alwayslived in him, in spite of his dislike for creeds and churches.
The lore that he imbibed in early childhood stood Karl in good steadwhen he began his school life, and his preparation for the university.He had an absolute genius for study, and was no less fond of the sportsand games of his companions, so that he seemed to be marked out forsuccess. At sixteen years of age he showed a precocious ability forplanning and carrying out his work with thoroughness. His mind wasevidently a creative mind, one that was able to think out difficultproblems without fatigue. His taste was shown in his fondness for theclassics, in studying which he noted subtle distinctions of meaningthat usually escape even the mature scholar. Penetration, thoroughness,creativeness, and a capacity for labor were the boy's chiefcharacteristics.
With such gifts, and such a nature, he left home for the university ofBonn. Here he disappointed all his friends. His studies were neglected;he was morose, restless, and dissatisfied. He fell into a number ofscrapes, and ran into debt through sundry small extravagances. All thereports that reached his home were most unsatisfactory. What had comeover the boy who had worked so hard in the gymnasium at Treves?
The simple fact was that he had became love-sick. His separation fromJenny von Westphalen had made him conscious of a feeling which he hadlong entertained without knowing it. They had been close companions. Hehad looked into her beautiful face and seen the luminous response of herlovely eyes, but its meaning had not flashed upon his mind. He was notold enough to have a great consuming passion, he was merely conscious ofher charm. As he could see her every day, he did not realize how much hewanted her, and how much a separation from her would mean.
As "absence makes the heart grow fonder," so it may suddenly draw asidethe veil behind which the truth is hidden. At Bonn young Marx felt asif a blaze of light had flashed before him; and from that momenthis studies, his companions, and the ambitions that he had hithertocherished all seemed flat and stale. At night and in the daytime therewas just one thing which filled his mind and heart--the beautiful visionof Jenny von Westphalen.
Meanwhile his family, and especially his father, had become anxious atthe reports which reached them. Karl was sent for, and his stay at Bonnwas ended.
Now that he was once more in the presence of the girl who charmed himso, he recovered all his old-time spirits. He wooed her ardently, andthough she was more coy, now that she saw his passion, she did notdiscourage him, but merely prolonged the ecstasy of this wonderfullove-making. As he pressed her more and more, and no one guessed thestory, there came a time when she was urged to let herself becomeengaged to him.
Here was seen the difference in their ages--a difference that had aneffect upon their future. It means much that a girl should be four yearsolder than the man who seeks her hand. She is four years wiser; and agirl of twenty is, in fact, a match for a youth of twenty-five. Broughtup as she had been, in an aristocratic home, with the blood of two noblefamilies in her veins, and being wont to hear the easy and somewhatcynical talk of worldly people, she knew better than poor Karl theun-wisdom of what she was about to do.
She was noble, the daughter of one high official and the sister ofanother. Those whom she knew were persons of rank and station. On theother hand, young Marx, though he had accepted Christianity, was the sonof a provincial Jewish lawyer, with no fortune, and with a bad record atthe university. When she thought of all these things, she may well havehesitated; but the earnest pleading and intense ardor of Karl Marxbroke down all barriers between them, and they became engaged, withoutinforming Jenny's father of their compact. Then they parted for a while,and Karl returned to his home, filled with romantic thoughts.
He was also full of ambition and of desire for achievement. He had wonthe loveliest girl in Treves, and now he must go forth into the worldand conquer it for her sake. He begged his father to send him toBerlin, and showed how much more advantageous was that new and splendiduniversity, where Hegel's fame was still in the ascendent.
In answer to his father's questions, the younger Marx replied:
"I have something to tell you that will explain all; but first you mustgive me your word that you will tell no one."
"I trust you wholly," said the father. "I will not reveal what you maysay to me."
"Well," returned the son, "I am engaged to marry Jenny von Westphalen.She wishes it kept a secret from her father, but I am at liberty to tellyou of it."
The elder Marx was at once shocked and seriously disturbed. Baronvon Westphalen was his old and intimate friend. No thought of romancebetween their children had ever come into his mind. It seemed disloyalto keep the verlobung of Karl and Jenny a secret; for should it berevealed, what would the baron think of Marx? Their disparity of rankand fortune would make the whole affair stand out as something wrong andunderhand.
The father endeavored to make his son see all this. He begged him to goand tell the baron, but young Marx was not to be persuaded.
"Send me to Berlin," he said, "and we shall again be separated; but Ishall work and make a name for myself, so that when I return neitherJenny nor her father will have occasion to be disturbed by ourengagement."
With these words he half satisfied his father, and before long he wassent to Berlin, where he fell manfully upon his studies. His fatherhad insisted that he should study law; but his own tastes were forphilosophy and history. He attended lectures in jurisprudence "as anecessary evil," but he read omnivorously in subjects that were nearerto his heart. The result was that his official record was not muchbetter than it had been at Bonn.
The same sort of restlessness, too, took possession of him when hefound that Jenny would not answer his letters. No matter how eagerly andtenderly he wrote to her, there came no reply. Even the most passionatepleadings left her silent and unresponsive. Karl could not complain, forshe had warned him that she would not write to him. She felt that theirengagement, being secret, was anomalous, and that until her family knewof it she was not free to act as she might wish.
Here again was seen the wisdom of her maturer years; but Karl could notbe equally reasonable. He showered her with letters, which still shewould not answer. He wrote to his father in words of fire. At last,driven to despair, he said that he was going to write to the Baron vonWestphalen, reveal the secret, and ask for the baron's fatherly consent.
It seemed a reckless thing to do, and yet it turned out to be thewisest. The baron knew that such an engagement meant a social sacrifice,and that, apart from the matter of rank, young Marx was without anyfortune to give the girl the luxuries to which she had been accustomed.Other and more eligible suitors were always within view. But here Jennyherself spoke out more strongly than she had ever done to Karl. Shewas willing to accept him with what he was able to give her. She carednothing for any
other man, and she begged her father to make both ofthem completely happy.
Thus it seemed that all was well, yet for some reason or otherJenny would not write to Karl, and once more he was almost driven todistraction. He wrote bitter letters to his father, who tried to comforthim. The baron himself sent messages of friendly advice, but what youngman in his teens was ever reasonable? So violent was Karl that at lasthis father wrote to him:
I am disgusted with your letters. Their unreasonable tone is loathsometo me. I should never had expected it of you. Haven't you been luckyfrom your cradle up?
Finally Karl received one letter from his betrothed--a letter thattransfused him with ecstatic joy for about a day, and then sent himback to his old unrest. This, however, may be taken as a part of Marx'scurious nature, which was never satisfied, but was always reaching aftersomething which could not be had.
He fell to writing poetry, of which he sent three volumes toJenny--which must have been rather trying to her, since the verse wasvery poor. He studied the higher mathematics, English and Italian,some Latin, and a miscellaneous collection of works on history andliterature. But poetry almost turned his mind. In later years he wrote:
Everything was centered on poetry, as if I were bewitched by someuncanny power.
Luckily, he was wise enough, after a time, to recognize how haltingwere his poems when compared with those of the great masters; and so heresumed his restless, desultory work. He still sent his father lettersthat were like wild cries. They evoked, in reply, a very natural burstof anger:
Complete disorder, silly wandering through all branches of science,silly brooding at the burning oil-lamp! In your wildness you see withfour eyes--a horrible setback and disregard for everything decent. Andin the pursuit of this senseless and purposeless learning you thinkto raise the fruits which are to unite you with your beloved one! Whatharvest do you expect to gather from them which will enable you tofulfil your duty toward her?
Writing to him again, his father speaks of something that Karl hadwritten as "a mad composition, which denotes clearly how you waste yourability and spend nights in order to create such monstrosities." Theyoung man was even forbidden to return home for the Easter holidays.This meant giving up the sight of Jenny, whom he had not seen for awhole year. But fortune arranged it otherwise; for not many weeks laterdeath removed the parent who had loved him and whom he had loved, thoughneither of them could understand the other. The father represented theold order of things; the son was born to discontent and to look forwardto a new heaven and a new earth.
Returning to Berlin, Karl resumed his studies; but as before, theywere very desultory in their character, and began to run upon socialquestions, which were indeed setting Germany into a ferment. He took hisdegree, and thought of becoming an instructor at the university of Jena;but his radicalism prevented this, and he became the editor of a liberalnewspaper, which soon, however, became so very radical as to lead to hiswithdrawal.
It now seemed best that Marx should seek other fields of activity. Toremain in Germany was dangerous to himself and discreditable to Jenny'srelatives, with their status as Prussian officials. In the summer of1843, he went forth into the world--at last an "international." Jenny,who had grown to believe in him as against her own family, asked fornothing better than to wander with him, if only they might be married.And they were married in this same summer, and spent a short honeymoonat Bingen on the Rhine--made famous by Mrs. Norton's poem. It was thebrief glimpse of sunshine that was to precede year after year of anxietyand want.
Leaving Germany, Marx and Jenny went to Paris, where he became known tosome of the intellectual lights of the French capital, such as Bakunin,the great Russian anarchist, Proudhon, Cabet, and Saint-Simon. Mostimportant of all was his intimacy with the poet Heine, that marvelouscreature whose fascination took on a thousand forms, and whom no onecould approach without feeling his strange allurement.
Since Goethe's death, down to the present time, there has been no figurein German literature comparable to Heine. His prose was exquisite. Hispoetry ran through the whole gamut of humanity and of the sensationsthat come to us from the outer world. In his poems are sweet melodiesand passionate cries of revolt, stirring ballads of the sea and tenderlove-songs--strange as these last seem when coming from this cynic.
For cynic he was, deep down in his heart, though his face, when inrepose, was like the conventional pictures of Christ. His fascinationsdestroyed the peace of many a woman; and it was only after many years ofself-indulgence that he married the faithful Mathilde Mirat in whathe termed a "conscience marriage." Soon after he went to his"mattress-grave," as he called it, a hopeless paralytic.
To Heine came Marx and his beautiful bride. One may speculate as toJenny's estimate of her husband. Since his boyhood, she had not seen himvery much. At that time he was a merry, light-hearted youth, a jovialcomrade, and one of whom any girl would be proud. But since his longstay in Berlin, and his absorption in the theories of men like Engelsand Bauer, he had become a very different sort of man, at least to her.
Groping, lost in brown studies, dreamy, at times morose, he was by nomeans a sympathetic and congenial husband for a high-bred, spiritedgirl, such as Jenny von Westphalen. His natural drift was toward abeer-garden, a group of frowsy followers, the reek of vile tobacco, andthe smell of sour beer. One cannot but think that his beautiful wifemust have been repelled by this, though with her constant nature shestill loved him.
In Heinrich Heine she found a spirit that seemed akin to hers. Mr.Spargo says--and in what he says one must read a great deal between thelines:
The admiration of Jenny Marx for the poet was even more ardent thanthat of her husband. He fascinated her because, as she said, he was "somodern," while Heine was drawn to her because she was "so sympathetic."
It must be that Heine held the heart of this beautiful woman in hishand. He knew so well the art of fascination he knew just how to supplythe void which Marx had left. The two were indeed affinities in heartand soul; yet for once the cynical poet stayed his hand, and said noword that would have been disloyal to his friend. Jenny loved him with alove that might have blazed into a lasting flame; but fortunately thereappeared a special providence to save her from herself. The Frenchgovernment, at the request of the King of Prussia, banished Marx fromits dominions; and from that day until he had become an old man he wasa wanderer and an exile, with few friends and little money, sustained bynothing but Jenny's fidelity and by his infinite faith in a cause thatcrushed him to the earth.
There is a curious parallel between the life of Marx and that of RichardWagner down to the time when the latter discovered a royal patron.Both of them were hounded from country to country; both of themworked laboriously for so scanty a living as to verge, at times, uponstarvation. Both of them were victims to a cause in which they earnestlybelieved--an economic cause in the one case, an artistic cause inthe other. Wagner's triumph came before his death, and the world hasaccepted his theory of the music-drama. The cause of Marx is far greaterand more tremendous, because it strikes at the base of human life andsocial well-being.
The clash between Wagner and his critics was a matter of poetry anddramatic music. It was not vital to the human race. The cause of Marxis one that is only now beginning to be understood and recognized bymillions of men and women in all the countries of the earth. Inhis lifetime he issued a manifesto that has become a classic amongeconomists. He organized the great International Association of Workmen,which set all Europe in a blaze and extended even to America. His greatbook, "Capital"--Das Kapital--which was not completed until the lastyears of his life, is read to-day by thousands as an almost sacred work.
Like Wagner and his Minna, the wife of Marx's youth clung to him throughhis utmost vicissitudes, denying herself the necessities of life so thathe might not starve. In London, where he spent his latest days, he wassecure from danger, yet still a sort of persecution seemed to followhim. For some time, nothing that he wrote could find a printer. Whereverhe went, people l
ooked at him askance. He and his six children livedupon the sum of five dollars a week, which was paid him by the New YorkTribune, through the influence of the late Charles A. Dana. When hislast child was born, and the mother's life was in serious danger, Marxcomplained that there was no cradle for the baby, and a little laterthat there was no coffin for its burial.
Marx had ceased to believe in marriage, despised the church, and carednothing for government. Yet, unlike Wagner, he was true to the woman whohad given up so much for him. He never sank to an artistic degeneracy.Though he rejected creeds, he was nevertheless a man of genuinereligious feeling. Though he believed all present government to be anevil, he hoped to make it better, or rather he hoped to substitute forit a system by which all men might get an equal share of what it isright and just for them to have.
Such was Marx, and thus he lived and died. His wife, who had long beencut off from her relatives, died about a year before him. When she wasburied, he stumbled and fell into her grave, and from that time untilhis own death he had no further interest in life.
He had been faithful to a woman and to a cause. That cause was sotremendous as to overwhelm him. In sixty years only the first greatstirrings of it could be felt. Its teachings may end in nothing, butonly a century or more of effort and of earnest striving can make itplain whether Karl Marx was a world-mover or a martyr to a cause thatwas destined to be lost.