't so bad to be persecuted, but it is a terrible
thing to persecute.

DOCTOR HAENLE. It is often a good thing for the persecuted, provided he
can spare the time--how does that strike you, Herr Marx?

KARL MARX. I fully agree in the sentiment. There seems to be an Eternal
Spirit of Wisdom that guides man and things, and this Spirit cares only
for the end.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. Nature's solicitude is for the race, not the individual.

KARL MARX. Exactly so!

HERR HOLTHOFF. Get that in your forthcoming book, Brother Marx, and give
credit to the Madame.

KARL MARX. I surely will. Most of my original thoughts I get from my
friends.

HERR HOLTHOFF. You may not be so grateful when the book is published.

KARL MARX. You mean I may sing the Pilgrims' Chorus with Richard across
the border?

HERR HOLTHOFF. Yes; the government is growing very sensitive.

DOCTOR HAENLE. Which has nothing to do with the publication of _Das
Kapital_--eh, Herr Marx?

KARL MARX. Not the slightest. The book will live, regardless of the fate
of the author.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. You do not seem very sanguine of immediate success of the
workingmen's party!

KARL MARX. We will succeed when the ditches are even full of our
dead--then progress can pass.

FRAU HOLTHOFF. And that time has not come?

KARL MARX. I hope we are great enough not to deceive ourselves. We work
for truth: whether this truth will be accepted by the many this year, or
next, or the next century, we can not say, but that should not deter us
from our best endeavors.

HELENE VON DONNIGES. [_Golden-haired, enthusiastic, needlessly pink and
gorgeously twenty_] Men fight for a thing and lose, and the men they
fought fight for the same thing under another name, and win! [_All turn
and listen_] Life is in the fight, not the achievement. Oh, I think it
would be glorious to suffer, to be misunderstood, and fail; and yet know
in our hearts that we were right--absolutely right--and that the wisdom
of the ages will endorse our acts and on the tombs of some of us carve
the word "Savior"!

KARL MARX. Grand, magnificent! That sounds just like Lassalle.

HELENE. There; that is the third time I have been told I talk just like
Lassalle--a person I have never seen.

DOCTOR HAENLE. Then you have something to live for.

HELENE. Perhaps, but I echo no man. When one speaks from one's heart it
is not complimentary to have people suavely smile and say, "Goethe,"
"Voltaire," "Shakespeare," "Rousseau,"