Letter to Laura Lafargue, February 16, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 February 1884


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. I, Paris, 1956
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

IN PARIS

London, 16 February 1884

My dear Laura,

To-morrow is Sunday and on Monday we shall have to rummage in Maitland Park again,[1] so if I don't write to-day to you there is no telling how long it may be delayed. We have got the old Speicher[2] at last cleared out, found a whole lot of things that have to be kept, but about half a ton of old newspapers that it is impossible to sort. I think next week we can begin to clear out and the week after sell up the remainder for what it will fetch. I was afraid at one time I should have to give it up again, but fortunately I am getting better every day, I can walk again for half an hour as fast as ever and with Nim's help get through two bottles of Pilsener and a fair allowance of claret every 24 hours.

Amongst the manuscripts there is the first version of the Kapital (1861-63) and there I find several hundred pages: Theorien über den Mehrwert, partly worked up into the text of the later versions, but there will be quite enough left to swell the 2nd volume into a 2nd and a 3rd.

Bernstein is sending me an article of Mohr's on Proudhon, published in the Berlin Social-Demokrat of 1865. Very likely the whole of it will have to be translated for the French edition of the Misère.[3]

By the bye Bernstein will be in Lyons to-morrow and may come to Paris while once on the road, and even extend his trip to London. If he does come to Paris, pray engage him to come here too, I want to see him about a good many things; he knows he finds a bed here ready to receive him and if he is a little short of cash, that should not stop him, we can arrange about that.[4]

Paul tells me I can take my time about the preface to the Misère,[5] but I don't believe in that sort of thing, I have too much experience of publishers. I want to know by what time Oriol will require it, though I won't undertake that I shall deliver it to the day or even the week; but I ought to have some idea. The house in Maitland Park has to be delivered up on the 25th March, and I have plenty of other things to do besides; I must be able to arrange my plans beforehand to some extent at least.

What Paul thinks is an article of Mohr's on Proudhon's la propriété c'est le vol[6] is in the Heilige Familie which I have got.[7]

I cannot much share Paul's enthusiasm about the London Justice, I find the paper awfully dull. But what can you expect of a set of people who take in hand the task of instructing the world about matters of which they themselves are ignorant? There is not a single burning question which they know how to tackle; Hyndman combines internationalist phraseology and jingo aspirations, Joynes is a muddled ignoramus (I saw him a fortnight ago), Morris is all very well as far as he goes, but it is not far, poor Bax gets himself fast in German philosophy of a rather antiquated character—all that might do for a monthly where they have time to get themselves into harness, but for a weekly, with all sorts of questions d'actualité to be tackled, it is blamable.

Anyhow the new 'respectable' Socialist stir here does go on very nicely, the thing is becoming fashionable, but the working classes do not respond yet. Upon that everything depends. And this is why it was so stupid to hurry on the bringing out of Justice. Articles like these will never stir up the masses. Six months' intercourse with working people would have prepared a public and taught the writers how to write for it. But what's the use of grumbling? Les petits grands hommes veulent absolument faire leur petit bonhomme de chemin![8]

I hope the children[9] are better. Nim is rather anxious about them. Do please let us know how they are going on.

Best love from Nim and from

Your affectionate

F. Engels

  1. ↑ From March 1864 to his death Marx lived with his family in North West London, first at 1 Modena Villas (renamed 1 Maitland Park Road in 1868), then in March 1875 they moved to 41 Maitland Park Road.
  2. ↑ 'storehouse'
  3. ↑ In the 1870s and 1880s the French government pursued an active colonialist policy: in 1876 Franco-British financial control had been established in Egypt, and interference in the country's internal affairs continued until 1882, in 1881-83 a French protectorate was established in Tunisia. In 1882 came the provocation of an armed conflict in Madagascar and the beginning of a colonial war in North Vietnam (Tongking) which grew to become a war with China and led to the setting up of a French protectorate in Vietnam in June 1884.
  4. ↑ In his capacity as a representative of the German Social Democrats, Eduard Bernstein visited Lyons and Rouen in February 1884; he gave a speech at the German Workers' Club in Paris. From 25 February to 2 March Bernstein stayed with Engels in London, whereupon he returned to Zurich.
  5. ↑ Engels is referring to Volume II of The German Ideology (present edition, Vol. 5; see also Note 60).
  6. ↑ property is theft
  7. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, Ch. IV (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 23-54).
  8. ↑ Petty great people always want to follow their own path!
  9. ↑ Jean, Edgar, Marcel and Jenny Longuet