Ryde, 14 August 1892 
The Firs, Brading Road 

Dear August, 

I share your hope that by the beginning of September I shall have 
so far recovered as to be able to travel at least as far as Berlin. Should 
this be the case, I shall without fail pay a flying visit to Berlin — my 
sole destination in fact, for by then the Engelskirchen folk will have 
dispersed to the four winds. 

The only question is whether it is going to be possible. And of that 
I cannot as yet give you any idea. I know from experience that in 

such cases 3 or 4 weeks’ rest is absolutely essential if I am to recover 
my mobility, and any premature exertion or excessive exercise, how- 
ever slight, will set me back by a week or a fortnight. But unfortu- 
nately one cannot tell until it’s too late whether the exertion is pre- 
mature or the exercise excessive. 

On top of that I am, after all, 5 or 6 years older than I was at the 
time of the last bout, and have undeniably allowed more alcohol to 
pass through the inner man this year than I normally do in three. So 
I shall have to resign myself to a somewhat longer cure, even if the 
inflammatory symptoms have not resulted in any organic changes in 
the shape of adhesions or lesions or scarring. 

At all events it will not be until very late in the day that I shall be 
able to tell from observations what the position is. You must keep me 
properly informed of the addresses at which my letters and, if needs 
be, telegrams, can reach you, especially in the case of Vienna, and 
how long you propose to stay there, so that Louise doesn’t leave for 
London at the same time as I for Berlin. 

Last Monday“ and Tuesday I was in London where I saw the Ave- 
lings and put my house in order. Thus the cure was interrupted until 
Wednesday. Now I am lying absolutely still and, of course, feel corre- 
spondingly better. I hope in a week’s time to be able with impunity 
to allow myself at least a modicum of exercise. I shall let you have 
a bulletin as soon as there is anything to report. 

Needless to say, I shall now have to observe ‘sobriety and modera- 
tion’ in regard to alcohol. I had indeed been surprised at my con- 
tinued ability to tolerate the stuff so well, and had grown overconfi- 
dent as a result. Well, we must hope that the consequences do not 
persist too long. I must revert to my former principle of abstaining 
for a fortnight or a month every so often. Not that I regard abstain- 
ing from drink as any more of a hardship than refraining from smok- 
ing, provided there is good reason for it. 

I have not had an answer from Louise to the letter I wrote to her 
a week ago today.!*? The Sunday postal arrangements over here are 
abominable. 

One good piece of news: Mr Seidel’s intrigues, aimed at prevent- 
ing the accursed Marxists from having any say in the preparations 
for the Zurich Congress,>+! would seem definitely to have misfired. 

Greulich wrote to Tussy on behalf of the Zurich Committee re- 

* 8 August 

questing her to draft a letter of invitation to the English Trapss 
Union Congress °*° and also to do their English translations. The letter 
arrived when the Avelings were on the point of leaving for Norway 
and Tussy, of course, immediately drafted the invitation, and gene- 
rally placed herself at the committee’s disposal; she sent me Greulich’s 
letter when she was actually on board the steamer. 

And now for another: a period of slack trade and the manufac- 
turers’ threats to knock 10 per cent off wages has suddenly cured the 
Lancashire cotton operatives of their enthusiasm for 10 hours and 
opened their eyes to the advantages of the 8 hour day. Even the lead- 
ers are already said to have switched horses. Thus the 8 hour day 
has triumphed in England. The resistance of those factory hands who 
enjoyed the protection of the 10 hour day was the principal weapon 
in the bourgeois arsenal. They’ll lose it, come the September 
congress.°*° 

K. Kautsky did not make use of the enclosed passages from the 
Avelings’ article in the Neue Zeit.5? When he wrote, he said this had 
had to be done for technical reasons; may be, but again it may have 
had something to do with Ede’s comical respect for the Fasians 8? and 
Bax’s (he’s in Zurich) interest in the Socia, Democratic Feprration.?9 
At all events, you'll find the passages interesting and they form an es- 
sential part of the overall picture. 

You might get the Vorwdrts to print the following questions: 

1. Is it true that the ‘Independents’ in London, i.e. those who 
were thrown out of the Communist Workers’ Educational Society, 
have founded a club and rented Grafton Hall, a large building in 
Fitzroy Square, for the purpose? 

2. That to help raise the considerable sum required for this, 
Mr Baginski, who earns at most £3 a week, made a contribution of 
£500 sterling = 10,000 marks? 

3. That Mr Hochgiirtel, likewise a working man, contributed 
another £500 and that, to the question as to where he had got the 
money, he returned the strange reply that he had divorced his wife, 
and thus obtained her money? 

4. That the brewer who supplies beer to the club advanced an- 
other £1,200? 

5. If all this be true, where did this money come from and who 
provided the brewer with the collateral without which no one would 
be so stupid as to advance so large a sum? 

Warm regards to your wife* and children, 

Your 

F.E. 
The Roshers send their kindest regards.