The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-10-30
Karl Marx
Personal RecolIections

| Marx AInO ne nAd not yet reached
his thirtieth year then.
He spent hours on end playing with
his children. The latter still remem-
Der the sea-battles and the burning
Of whole fleets of paper boats which
he made for them and which, to their
great Joy, he then put into large
pail of water. On Sundays his daugh-
ters did not allow shim to work: he
belonged to them the whole day then.
In fine weather the entire family set
out for long walk in the country,
stopping on the way at ordinary tav-
erns in order to drink ginger beer and
to eat bread and cheese. When his
daughters were still small he short
ened the long way for them by telling
them non-endlng, fantastic fairy tales
which he invented as he walked and
whose complications he spun out and
developed according to the length of
the road, so that the little ones forgot
their fatigue in listening. Marx pos
sessed an Incompatible richness of
poetic fancy; his first literary works
were poetry. Mrs. Marx carefully pre-
served her husbands youthful verses.
Marx family had dreamed Of a career
for their son as writer or professor;
in their opinion he degraded himself
by devoting himself to socialist agi-
tation and by occupying himself with
political economy, which, at that time,
was looked upon with contempt in
Germany. Marx had promised his
daughters to write drama for them,
the subject of which was to be the
Gracchi. Unfortunately, he could not
keep his word: it would have been
interesting to see how he would have
treated the man who has been called
the knight of the Glass Struggle"
this grand and frightful episode of
the class conflict of the antique world.
Marx carried around many plans
which were never realized. Among
other things, he intended to write
logic and history of philosophy, the
latter having been his favorite study
in his youth. He would have had to
live a hundred years in order to carry
out his literary plans and give to the
world a part of the treasures which
his brain concealed.
Thruout his life his wife was COM
panion to him in the truest and fullest
sense of the word. They had both
learned to know each other as chill
dren and had grown up together.
Marx was not more than seventeen
when they. were engaged. The young
people waited for nine years before
they were married in 1S43, and from
that time on they were never sepa-
rated. Mrs. Marx died a short time
before her husband. No one possessed
the feeling of equality in a greater
measure than Mrs. Marx, and this, in
spite of the fact that she had been
born and raised in an aristocratic
family. There existed no social diff
ferences nor classifcations for her.
! In her house, at her table, she re-
ceived workers in their working
clothes with the same politeness and
| courteousness as tho they were SOW
ereigns and princes. Many workers
of all countries have learned to know
her charming hospitality, and am
convinced that not a single one Of
them has guessed that the woman
who received them with such sincere
and gentle heartiness is descended in
/ the feminine line from the family of
the Dukes of Argyll and that her
brother has been minister to the king
OF Prussia. That did not bother Mrs.
Marx; she had left everything in
order to follow her husband, and she
never regretted what she had done,
even in the times Of dire need.
She possessed a cheerful spirit.
The letters directed to her friends,
which flowed unforcedly and without
effort from her pen, are truly master
full contributions Of lively and origi-