[Draft] 
[Ramsgate, 25 July 1877] 

Dear Sir, 

Pray excuse me for, etc. 
Now, as regards my collaboration on your projected journal,’ I 
can, unfortunately, promise you nothing definite at the moment. 

a Die Neue Gesellschaft 

As soon as I have completed my critique of Dühring for the 
Vorwarts,'° I shall be obliged to concentrate my whole attention on 
a longer, independent work’ which I have had in mind for 
years, one of the obstacles to its completion hitherto—aside from 
extraneous circumstances—having been my collaboration on 
socialist organs. When a man has totted up 56 years, he must 
finally make up his mind to take stock of his time so that 
something may finally come of his preliminary labours. Should an 
isolated case occur in which I again deemed it necessary to cast my 
vote in public, it would depend on the circumstances where this 
should be done, whether in the Vorwärts or elsewhere, and in this 
latter case I should, among all the various ‘scientific journals’ now 
being projected, be happy,in so far as I can now predict, to turn 
to yours first. If, therefore, I feel unable to make any firmer 
promise today, I would beg you to ascribe this solely to the reasons 
adduced above, and in no way to a want of sympathy for a journal 
which greatly interests me, to which I wish all prosperity and to 
which I have already subscribed through my bookseller. 

I am, Sir, etc.