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 Ihad roughly 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 expositorymonographs. Anything like a real Marx collection would take up aspecial room in this library, and would have to have its own separatecatalogue. You see that even these two or three hundred books containlarge volumes of small pamphlets in many languages--German, English,French, Italian, Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Swedish, Hungarian, Spanish;and here," he concluded, pointing to a recently numbered card, "is onein 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. Herewere several thousand books on Marx, and I spent the best part of theday in looking them over.
What struck me as most singular was the fact that there was scarcely avolume 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 mostmeager fashion, while his economic theories were discussed withsomething that verged upon fury. Even such standard works as those ofMehring and Spargo, which profess to be partly biographical, sum up thepersonal side of Marx in a few pages. In fact, in the latter's prefacehe seems conscious 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 interestin studying 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," butsimply "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, butwhen you look into its history, and seek out that history's evidences,you will find that it was not always a rather sleepy little place. Itwas one 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 was thebirthplace of one whose sway over the minds of men has been bothimperial and imperious.
Karl Marx was one of those whose intellectual achievements were sogreat as to dwarf his individuality and his private life. What hetaught with almost terrific vigor made his very presence in theContinental monarchies a source of eminent danger. He was driven fromcountry to country. Kings and emperors were leagued together againsthim. Soldiers were called forth, and blood was shed because of him.But, little by little, his teaching seems to have leavened the thoughtof the whole civilized world, so that to-day thousands who barely knowhis name are deeply affected by his ideas, and believe that the stateshould control and 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 fairposition among the professional men and small officials in the city ofTreves. He had seen the horrors of the French Revolution, and wasphilosopher enough to understand the meaning of that mighty upheaval,and of the Napoleonic 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, andtherefore, when the imperial eagle was at the zenith of its flight, theJews in every city and town of Europe were enthusiastic admirers ofNapoleon, 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 andconservative type, fond of her children and her home, and detesting anytalk that looked to revolutionary ideas or to a change in the socialorder. She became a Christian with her husband, but the word meantlittle to her. It was sufficient that she believed in God; and for thisshe was teased by some of her skeptical friends. Replying to them, sheuttered the only epigram 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 herlife. In her son Karl she found an especial joy, as did her husband.Had the father lived beyond Karl's early youth, he would doubtless havebeen greatly pained by the radicalism of his gifted son, as well as byhis personal privations. But the mother lived until 1863, while Karlwas everywhere stirring the fires of revolution, driven from land toland, 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'shope and happiness in her son, and that every step he took should fillher heart with a great agony.
When young Marx grew out of boyhood into youth, he was attractive toall those who met him. Tall, lithe, and graceful, he was so extremelydark that his intimates called him "der neger"--"the negro." Hisloosely tossing hair gave to him a still more exotic appearance; buthis eyes were true and frank, his nose denoted strength and character,and his mouth was full of kindliness in its expression. His lineamentswere not those 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, theresoon came into his life some one who learned to love him, and to whom,in his turn,
he gave a deep and unbroken affection.
There had come to Treves--which passed from France to Prussia with thedownfall 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 mighthave shown all the arrogance and superciliousness of the averagePrussian official; but when he became associated with Heinrich Marx heevinced none of that condescending manner. The two men became firmfriends, and the 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 thetwo grew up together--he a high-spirited, manly boy, and she a lovelyand romantic 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 ofher lovely eyes, but its meaning had not flashed upon his mind. He wasnot old enough to have a great consuming passion, he was merelyconscious of her charm. As he could see her every day, he did notrealize how much he wanted her, and how much a separation from herwould 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 moment hisstudies, 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 beautifulvision of 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 fouryears older than the man who seeks her hand. She is four years wiser;and a girl of twenty is, in fact, a match for a youth of twenty-five.Brought up as she had been, in an aristocratic home, with the blood oftwo noble families in her veins, and being wont to hear the easy andsomewhat cynical talk of worldly people, she knew better than poor Karlthe un-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 theson of a provincial Jewish lawyer, with no fortune, and with a badrecord at the university. When she thought of all these things, she maywell have hesitated; but the earnest pleading and intense ardor of KarlMarx broke down all barriers between them, and they became engaged,without informing Jenny's father of their compact. Then they parted fora 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 totell you of it."
The elder Marx was at once shocked and seriously disturbed. Baron vonWestphalen 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 wrongand underhand.
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 father hadinsisted 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 eagerlyand tenderly he wrote to her, there came no reply. Even the mostpassionate pleadings left her silent and unresponsive. Karl could notcomplain, for she had warned him that she would not write to him. Shefelt that their engagement, being secret, was anomalous, and that untilher family knew of 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 socialsacrifice, and that, apart from the matter of rank, young Marx waswithout any fortune to give the girl the luxuries to which she had beenaccustomed. Other and more eligible suitors were always within view.But here Jenny herself spoke out more strongly than she had ever doneto Karl. She was willing to accept him with what he was able to giveher. She cared nothing for any ot
her man, and she begged her father tomake both of them completely happy.
Thus it seemed that all was well, yet for some reason or other Jennywould not write to Karl, and once more he was almost driven todistraction. He wrote bitter letters to his father, who tried tocomfort him. The baron himself sent messages of friendly advice, butwhat young man in his teens was ever reasonable? So violent was Karlthat at last his 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 reachingafter something 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, someLatin, 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 think toraise 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,though neither of them could understand the other. The fatherrepresented the old order of things; the son was born to discontent andto look forward to a new heaven and a new earth.
Returning to Berlin, Karl resumed his studies; but as before, they werevery desultory in their character, and began to run upon socialquestions, which were indeed setting Germany into a ferment. He tookhis degree, and thought of becoming an instructor at the university ofJena; but his radicalism prevented this, and he became the editor of aliberal newspaper, which soon, however, became so very radical as tolead to his withdrawal.
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 ofanxiety and 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 nofigure in German literature comparable to Heine. His prose wasexquisite. His poetry ran through the whole gamut of humanity and ofthe sensations that come to us from the outer world. In his poems aresweet melodies and passionate cries of revolt, stirring ballads of thesea and tender love-songs--strange as these last seem when coming fromthis 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 yearsof self-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 seenhim very much. At that time he was a merry, light-hearted youth, ajovial comrade, and one of whom any girl would be proud. But since hislong stay in Berlin, and his absorption in the theories of men likeEngels and Bauer, he had become a very different sort of man, at leastto 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 tosupply the void which Marx had left. The two were indeed affinities inheart and soul; yet for once the cynical poet stayed his hand, and saidno word that would have been disloyal to his friend. Jenny loved himwith a love that might have blazed into a lasting flame; butfortunately there appeared a special providence to save her fromherself. The French government, at the request of the King of Prussia,banished Marx from its dominions; and from that day until he had becomean old man he was a wanderer and an exile, with few friends and littlemoney, sustained by nothing but Jenny's fidelity and by his infinitefaith in a cause that crushed him to the earth.
There is a curious parallel between the life of Marx and that ofRichard Wagner down to the time when the latter discovered a royalpatron. 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 theyearnestly believed--an economic cause in the one case, an artisticcause in the other. Wagner's triumph came before his death, and theworld has accepted his theory of the music-drama. The cause of Marx isfar greater and more tremendous, because it strikes at the base ofhuman life and social 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. In hislifetime he issued a manifesto that has become a classic amongeconomists. He organized the great International Association ofWorkmen, which set all Europe in a blaze and extended even to America.His great book, "Capital"--Das Kapital--which was not completed untilthe last years of his life, is read to-day by thousands as an almostsacred work.
Like Wagner and his Minna, the wife of Marx's youth clung to himthrough his utmost vicissitudes, denying herself the necessities oflife so that he might not starve. In London, where he spent his latestdays, he was secure from danger, yet still a sort of persecution seemedto follow him. For some time, nothing that he wrote could find aprinter. Wherever he went, people looked
at him askance. He and his sixchildren lived upon the sum of five dollars a week, which was paid himby the New York Tribune, through the influence of the late Charles A.Dana. When his last child was born, and the mother's life was inserious danger, Marx complained that there was no cradle for the baby,and a little later that 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 womanwho had given up so much for him. He never sank to an artisticdegeneracy. Though he rejected creeds, he was nevertheless a man ofgenuine religious feeling. Though he believed all present government tobe an evil, he hoped to make it better, or rather he hoped tosubstitute for it a system by which all men might get an equal share ofwhat it is right 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.