Eastbourne, 26 August 1879 

Dear Mr Hdéchberg, 

As I do not know how long you will be staying in Scheveningen, 
I hasten to advise you in reply that you have been misled in 
regard to the information allegedly given us by C. Hirsch. He did 
not assure us that the new newspaper‘ was to be ‘your private 
property’, or that it was to ‘adopt a moderate attitude’.*’ Our view 
of the affair is based, not upon Hirsch’s assurances, but upon our 

a 23 August - > From the final couplet of Goethe’s Faust: ‘The Eternal-Feminine 
entices us on’. - © Der Soztaldemokrat 

appraisal of all the relevant correspondence conducted between 
Leipzig and Zurich on the one hand and C. Hirsch on the other. I 
must refrain from going into the whole comedy of errors these 
letters represent, and in which nobody has been more blameless 
than Hirsch. In my view his conduct in the whole affair has been 
perfectly rational, frank and honourable. Hence I must 
wholeheartedly approve of his decision to refuse the editorship on 
the terms mooted which have not yet even been settled between 
the interested parties in Leipzig and Zurich, and at this juncture 
my only concern is to deflect from him a reproach he does not 
deserve. 
With Social-Democratic greetings, 

Yours faithfully, 

F. Engels 
Back in London as from day after tomorrow.*”