Mrs. Kautsky has just informed me that my friend Lessner has 
told her you intend to bring me musical greetings this evening on 
my seventy-first birthday. However I had already arranged to 
spend the evening with a friend,* and since others will be coming 
too, it is absolutely impossible to reverse my plans now; very 
regretfully, I shall not be able to be at home this evening. 

I am therefore obliged, dear comrades, to convey to you by 
letter my most sincere thanks for your so kind and honourable 
offer, and at the same time my regrets that I was not informed 
earlier of your plans. Both Marx and I were always opposed to all 
public tributes to individuals, except in a case where a greater 
purpose could be served; and most particularly against such 
tributes as would centre around ourselves in our lifetime. Had I 
had the slightest indication that such an honour was planned for 
me, I would have hurried to request, humbly but most urgently, 
that the singers should refrain from carrying out their intefition. 
To my regret I only learned of this today, and being so reluctantly 
faced with the necessity of frustrating your plans, as well meaning 
and honourable as they are, I can only best make amends by 
assuring you that the few years I may expect to survive at the 
outside, and the whole strength of which I still dispose, I shall 
continue to devote unstintingly to our great cause, as I have done 

a Eleanor Marx-Aveling.— Ed. 

To the Choir Club of the Communist Workers’ Educational Society 255 

for nearly fifty years now—the cause of the international 
proletariat. 

Sincerely yours, 
Frederick Engels 

Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, script 

pen earen Published in English in full for the 
first time