[Draft] 
[London, after 7 April 1892] 

Dear Citizen, 

I have just received your letter of the 7th inst. (postmarked yester- 
day). I am still awaiting the pamphlet* you were good enough to 
send me. I shall read it with interest. But I greatly regret that it will be 
impossible for me to render you the service you ask of me. In the 
first place, if I were to write on_your behalf a criticism of your work for 
publication, courtesy might, perhaps, preclude my speaking freely. 
Moreover, whatever I might do for you I should also be obliged to do 
for every other bona fide socialist, be he French, German, English, 
Italian, Spanish, Danish, etc., etc., and what would that lead to? 
T shouldn’t have a single moment to call my own. And more impor- 
tant than any other consideration is the fact that I have before me 
a very difficult task which has been weighing on my conscience for 
years, namely the editing of Volume III of Marx’s Capital. Several 
months ago I made a resolution not to take on any additional work 
whatsoever until I had discharged this urgent duty. 

Yours sincerely