London, 21-22 June 1884 

Dear Kautsky, 

I hope you are now back from your trip to Salzburg 75° and will 
soon be able to tell me something about the outcome of the Stuckert *- 
on-the-Neckar affair over the Neue Zeit.?*° According to what I hear 
from Ede and also from August,” something of a damper has since 
been put on the passions of the Wise Men.?'° It is high time, too, 
that I heard something definite concerning the fate of my ms.° Ede 
dropped me a pencilled note and promised something more, but 
did = 0. 

Your ms.!! still reposes here and has not yet been attended to for 
the following reason. After having completed the ms.° I was like a cat 
on hot bricks until I could begin work on Volume II of Capital. I did 
so. Next, I proposed to set about revising your work, as also the En- 
glish translation (of the Ist volume of Capital) , in the evenings. But 
I had reckoned without my host. I had been hard at it since Easter, 
often spending 8 or 10 hours at my desk and, as a result of the posture 
this involved, my former indisposition partially reappeared — this 
time in chronic, not in its previous sub-acute, form. So desk work was 
again forbidden, sauf quelques exceptions." I therefore took the heroic 
step of engaging Eisengarten so that I might dictate the ms. to him 
and, since the beginning of the week, he and I have been slogging 
away from 10 to 5 every day, during which time I lie on the sofa, re- 
covering visibly (idiotic word— nothing to be seen, only felt) but, of 
course, slowly. The thing’s going far better than expected. Eisengarten 
is intelligent and hard-working and puts his heart into the thing, 
the more so since he is just working his way through the 3rd edition of 
the Ist volume. But most of the mss. are such that I have to spend 
every evening going through what I have dictated if I am to produce 
a text that is even provisionally valid. At the moment this takes up all 
my available time. But I believe that things will improve, as we are 

@ Stuttgart- Bebel-° The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State- 
4 save for a few exceptions 

now coming to the original gospel written before 1870, which means 
that there will be less re-editing.!7 Anyway, I couldn’t very well have 
revised your ms. lying down. But if you are in a hurry, I shall find the 
time and do it all at one go. There could be no question of this, how- 
ever, nor for that matter, any necessity for it, unless you had got al- 
most all of it done. I shall then — if not before — also let you have the 
preface about Rodbertus.* 

For the rest, I shall not discuss in detail your complaints about the 
eddicated chaps; I have known these worthies in this guise or that for 
40 years now and have already given Ede my opinion of them at some 
length.” The main thing is not to let oneself be browbeaten and, at 
the same time, retain one’s composure. 

The dynamiters have at long last discovered just what to do. They 
are concerned with striking at the root of the old social order, and 
now it transpires that the root in question is in fact the tail. This pro- 
found truth with which they are imbued eventually enabled them to 
discover how best to set about it, and they went and blew up a pis- 
soir.?>! 

Which reminds me that the man behind the Geneva-Carouge 
Explosion is none other than the Italian mouchard,° Carlo Terzaghi, 
who had already been unmasked by us in The Alliance of Socialist 
Democracy.?5? 

The expelled Austrian anarchists ?5* purport to be connected with 
the regular German charities which have long existed over here. One 
of them touched me for alms but was unmasked and, upon his return- 
ing today, was chucked out at top speed. 

The 2nd book of Capital will give us even more headaches, at least 
to start off with, than the first one. But it contains quite admirable 
analyses that will, for the first time, show people what is money and 
what capital and much else. 

But now it is time to lie down again. All things considered, and 
apart from the localised trouble, I’m as fit as a fiddle, and my brain is 
in first-class condition. 

Regards to Ede. 

Your 

F. E. 

@ F. Engels, ‘Marx and Rodbertus’.-> See this volume, pp. 144-47.-° police 
spy 

Sunday 22nd. 

Postscript. Hyndman intends to duy up the whole of the little move- 
ment here. He has done everything he can think of to ruin Jo-Day. 
Bax, who advanced the money for the purpose, got his sums wrong 
and was soon cleaned out. Hyndman, who is rich and also has access 
to the resources of Morris, a very rich but politically inept art lover, 
will either take To-Day under his wing or let it perish. Either way, he 
believes, he will reign supreme. I am glad that I have remained aloof 
from the whole caboodle. Hyndman is shrewd and a good business 
man, but superficial and stocx-Joun-Bull; moreover his ambition far 
outruns his talents and achievements. Bax and Aveling have the best 
of intentions and are, besides, learning by degrees, but everything’s at 
sixes and sevens, nor can these literati do anything on their own. The 
fact is that the masses are not yet going along with them. Once the 
chaps have sorted themselves out a bit it will be better.