On my seventieth birthday I received so many messages of 
sincere support, so many unexpected testimonials, that it will 
unfortunately be impossible for me to answer each message 
personally. There was a veritable torrent of telegrams, letters, 
gifts, articles devoted specially to me in the party press of many 
different countries, but particularly in all parts of Germany. 
Therefore allow me to express thus my most sincere thanks to the 
friends old and new who remembered me so appreciatively on 
November 28. 

Nobody knows better than I that the greater part of these 
testimonials were not due to me and my own services. It is my fate 
that I must harvest the glory and the honour the seed for which 
was sown by Karl Marx, a greater man than me. So I can only 
pledge myself to devote the remainder of my life to the active 
service of the proletariat, so that I may, if possible, make myself 
belatedly worthy of these honours. 

London, December 2, 1890 
Frederick Engels 

No. 284, December 5, 1890 paper 

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