Karl Marx: A Biography

EIGHT

The Last Decade

The more one lives, as I do, cut off from the outside world, the

more one is involved in the emotions of one's closest circle.

Marx to Kugelmann, 1874

I. MARX AT HOME

During the 1870 s Marx's life became much calmer. His house was no
longer the venue for refugees from the Commune or British trade union
officials. Although he was increasingly wary of strangers - and any
German had to produce written evidence of legitimate business before
being let through the door by Helene Demuth - Marx was still interested
to receive visits from foreigners sympathetic to socialism. Regular visits,
however, were limited to those made by his family and by the small circle
of what Marx liked to call his 'scientific friends'. He steadfasdy refused
the numerous invitations to give public lectures.^1 His temper, too, was
much more equable and his appetite for public controversy considerably
dampened.
Even in London [he wrote in 1881 ] I have not taken the slightest notice
of such literary yelping. If I didn't adopt this position, I would have to
waste most of my time putting people right from California to Moscow.
When I was younger, I often waded violendy in but old age brings
wisdom at least in so far as one avoids useless dissipation of energy.^2

Marx's routine was fairly regular now: he liked to work during the morn-
ing, walk after lunch, have his dinner at six and receive friends at nine.^5
His most frequent visitor was Engels who had moved to London in 1870
and lived in a fine house in Regent's Park Road less than ten minutes'
walk away. He would come regularly to Marx at 1.0 0 p.m., and the two
friends would either pace up and down in Marx's study, both wearing a
beaten track in the carpet diagonally from corner to corner, or, if the
weather was fine, go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. Jenny, however,
could not face the last ten years of her life with much optimism: 'Now I
am too old', she wrote to Liebknecht in 1872 , 'to have much hope any