45 2
KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHYWhen I was so very ill at Brighton (during the week I fainted 2 or
3 times a day) L came to see me, each time left me stronger and
happier, and more able to bear the rather heavy load laid on my
shoulders. It is so long since I saw him, and I am beginning to feel so
very miserable notwithstanding all my efforts to be merry and cheerful.
I cannot much longer. - Believe me, dear Mohr, if I could see him now
and then it could do me more good than all Mrs Anderson's^17 prescrip-
tions put together - I know that by experience.^18
By the end of the year she had recovered from her ill health (which Marx
attributed in large part to hysteria^19 ), and continued a lively correspon-
dence with Lissagaray who liked to address her as 'ma petite femme'.^20
Marx seems later to have relaxed his restrictions on Eleanor, for in 1875
and 1876 she was assisting Lissagaray with his journalism and publishing
projects. She translated into English the whole of Lissagaray's classic
History of the Commune, which had been published in French in 1876 ;
Marx himself helped considerably in revising the translation. But when
an amnesty enabled Lissagaray to return to Paris in 1880 , Eleanor did
not follow him. During these years, the affair estranged Eleanor from her
father; with her mother it was even worse:
For long miserable years there was a shadow between myself and my
father. .. yet our love was always the same, and despite everything, our
faith and trust in each other. My mother and I loved each other
passionately, but she did not know me as father did. One of the bitterest
of many bitter sorrows in my life is that my mother died, thinking,
despite all our love, that I had been hard and cruel, and never guessing
that to save her and father sorrow I had sacrificed the best, freshest
years of my life. But father, though he did not know till just before the
end, felt he must trust me - our natures were so exactly alike! ...
Father was talking of my eldest sister and of me, and said: 'Jenny is
most like me, but Tussy... is me'.^21
For distraction, Eleanor threw herself into political activities: writing
articles - particularly on Russia; and canvassing for firee-thinking candi-
dates in the London School Board elections. She also undertook trans-
lation and precis work and spent long hours in the British Museum where
she met George Bernard Shaw. And as her mother moved more and more
into the background, Eleanor began to act as hostess to the visitors,
several of whom have left admiring accounts of her appearance, vivacity
and political understanding. Hyndman, the founder of the Social Demo-
cratic Federation, wrote of her that:
Eleanor herself was the favourite of her father, whom she resembled in
appearance as much as a young woman could. A broad, low forehead,
dark bright eyes, with glowing cheeks, and a brisk, humorous smile,