igible suitors were always within view.
But here Jenny herself spoke out more strongly than she had ever done
to Karl. She was willing to accept him with what he was able to give
her. She cared nothing for any other man, and she begged her father to
make both of them completely happy.

Thus it seemed that all was well, yet for some reason or other Jenny
would not write to Karl, and once more he was almost driven to
distraction. He wrote bitter letters to his father, who tried to
comfort him. The baron himself sent messages of friendly advice, but
what young man in his teens was ever reasonable? So violent was Karl
that at last his father wrote to him:

I am disgusted with your letters. Their unreasonable tone is loathsome
to me. I should never had expected it of you. Haven't you been lucky
from your cradle up?

Finally Karl received one letter from his betrothed--a letter that
transfused him with ecstatic joy for about a day, and then sent him
back to his old unrest. This, however, may be taken as a part of Marx's
curious nature, which was never satisfied, but was always reaching
after something which could not be had.

He fell to writing poetry, of which he sent three volumes to
Jenny--which must have been rather trying to her, since the verse was
very poor. He studied the higher mathematics, English and Italian, some
Latin, and a miscellaneous collection of works on history and
literature. But poetry almost turned his mind. In later years he wrote:

Everything was centered on poetry, as if I were bewitched by some
uncanny power.

Luckily, he was wise enough, after a time, to recognize how halting
were his poems when compared with those of the great masters; and so he
resumed his restless, desultory work. He still sent his father letters
that were like wild cries. They evoked, in reply, a very natural burst
of anger:

Complete disorder, silly wandering through all branches of science,
silly brooding at the burning oil-lamp! In your wildness you see with
four eyes--a horrible setback and disregard for everything decent. And
in the pursuit of this senseless and purposeless learning you think to
raise the fruits which are to unite you with your beloved one! What
harvest do you expect to gather from them which will enable you to
fulfil your duty toward her?

Writing to him again, his father speaks of something that Karl had
written as "a mad composition, which denotes clearly how you waste your
ability and spend