70 THE CLASS STRUGGLE KARL MARX 71 services at the disposal of the bourgeois, in order to overthrow feudal society, genius has acquired an immense power, which has always disappeared, however, as soon as genius has undertaken to act on its own authority: the rock of St. Helena has then been its asylum. Or, if genius consents to don the frock coat of the Philistine, it may rise to the position of a GrandDucal Şaxon Minister of State at Weimar, or a Professor at the Royal Prussian University of Berlin. But unhappy is the lot of the genius who, in proud independence and inaccessibility, opposes bourgeois society, prophesying its downfall on the basis of its own inner structure, forging the weapons which are to inflict a death blow on this society. For such a genius, bourgeois society has only racks and tortures, which may, to be sure, seem less savage to the external eye than the crucifixion of the ancient world and the auto da fè of medieval society, but are in reality much more cruel.
Of all the geniuses of the 19th century, none suffered so cruelly under the tortures of this lot than Karl Marx, the most inspired of them all. He was obliged to struggle with the sordid cares of daily life even in the very first decade of his public activity, and when he settled in London he entered upon the life of an exile with its worst burdens, but his truly Promethean lot cannot be said to have begun until, after a painful ascent to his prime, in the full flourish of his manly energy, he was daily assailed by the petty troubles of life, by the depressing worries as to his daily bread: and this lasted for years and for decades! Up to the day of his death he did not succeed in establishing himself in the domain of bourgeois society, even in the most rudimentary sense.
And yet, his mode of life was far removed from what a Philistine may be inclined to term, in the generally accepted disreputable sense of the word, tle life of a genius. His diligence was as tremendous as his strength: early in life his iron constitution began to be undermined by the excessive labors of his days and nights. Incapacity for labor he considered to be the death sentence of any man that was more than an animal, and he meant these words in dead earnest: once, having been seriously ill for several weeks, he wrote to Engels. These days, being completely unfit for work, have read the following: Carpenter Physiology, Lord ditto, Kölliker Theory of Tissues, Spurzheim Anatomy of the Brain and Nervous System, and Schwann and Schleiden Zellenschmiere. And in spite of all his eagerness for study, Marx remained ever mindful of his own statement, made when he was still a young man, that a writer must never work in order to make money, but that he must make money in order to be able to work; Marx never underestimated the imperative necessity of earning one living.
But all his exertions were of no avail against the suspicions, the hatred, or, in the most favorable case, the fears, of a hostile world. Even those German publishers who wished to emphasize their independence were afraid of the name of this disreputable demagogue. All German parties alike slandered him, and whenever the clear outlines of his position forced their way through the mists of deception, it was killed by the malicious treachery of systematic silence. Never has a nation been so completely and for so long a period deprived of a knowledge of its greatest thinker.
The only connection that might have enabled Marx to socure a comparatively firm footing in London was his work as a contributor to the New York Tribune, which covered a full decade, beginning in 1851. The Tribune, with its 200, 000 readers, was then the wealthiest and most widely circulated newspaper of the United States, and, through its agitation in favor of American Fourierism, it had at least raised itself above the level of mere capitalistic money making. And the conditions under which Marx was to work for the Tribune were not exactly unfavorable; he was to write two articles a week and to get ten dollars for each article. This would have meant an annual income of 1000, which would just about have enabled Marx to keep his head above water in London. Freiligrath, who went so far as to boast that he was eating the beefsteak of exile in London, was not at first better paid for his business activity.