Letter to James M. Williamson, January 6, 1883

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	6 January 1883

First published as a facsimile and in German translation in Neues Deutschland, 12./13. März 1983
Reproduced from the facsimile
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46

MARX TO JAMES M. WILLIAMSON

IN VENTNOR

Ventnor, 6 January 1883
1 St Boniface Gardens

Dear Dr Williamson,

I return with best thanks the enclosed letter.^[1]

My intended promenade was yesterday stopped by the rain. When rising this morning about a quarter past 9 o'clock, I got suddenly into a spasmodic cough, gasping, wrestling as if it were with suffocation. Unfortunately, I had used up the morphia, nor had I any of the 'loz- enges' prescribed by you, but I took a table-spoon-(rather somewhat more)-ful of the tonic. What in point of fact surprised me was, that during the course of yesterday my cough was much less troublesome than it had been for the last weeks. Nor was my night specially dis- turbed. Mere moral agencies, I suppose, do not touch the movements of the mucus.

Yesterday afternoon I had received from Paris a letter with bad news as to the health of Madame Longuet, my oldest daughter. I knew of course that her illness was serious, but I was not prepared to hear that it passes now through a critical phasis.

Yours very truly,

Karl Marx

↑ A reference to the author of the articles on the British labour movement for the Zurich Jahrbuch für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. When making ihis request, Eduard Bernstein believed the author could be Engels himself (see this volume, p. 361).

[1] A reference to the author of the articles on the British labour movement for the Zurich Jahrbuch für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. When making ihis request, Eduard Bernstein believed the author could be Engels himself (see this volume, p. 361).

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