Letter to Nikolai Danielson, September 2, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 2 September 1891


First published, in Russian, in Minuvshiye gody, No. 2, St Petersburg, 1908
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO NIKOLAI DANIELSON

IN ST PETERSBURG

London, 2 September 1891

My dear Sir,

Today I return to you six more letters which include everything to end of 1878 — remainder will follow.[1]

Your prophecy about the famine has but too soon been verified, and we here in England, too, will have to suffer severely. The crop seemed excellent on the whole, when about 10 days ago terrible weather set in—just as corn cutting began in the South of Eng- land— and played terrible havoc with both cut and uncut corn, 20 to 30 per cent of the crop are said to be severely damaged if not ruined. There is but one advantage connected with this calamity: it will render a war impossible for some 20 months to come, and that, in the present state of universal armament and mutual distrust, is a blessing.

Allow me to return, on another occasion, to your very interesting communication of 1 May.[2] Today I am on the eve of a journey and my principal object is to request you in future to address all your let- ters to

Mrs Kautsky, 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W. London. The letters will be handed to me unopened, so there is no necessity for a second cover [enveloppe). The fact is I shall be so often absent from London[3] that I am afraid letters addressed in the usual way might

miscarry; I should have to trust to the intelligence and punctuality of servants.

My health is on the whole excellent; but I require once a year a hol- iday of about eight weeks and a considerable change of air. A sea voyage is always the best remedy for me. If I keep as well as I expect to be in a month, I shall set at once about the 3rd volume,[4] it must be finished. But I better not make any promises as to time.

Very truly yours,

P.W. Rosher[5]

  1. ↑ This refers to Marx' letters to Danielson which the latter had sent to Engels for co pying (see present edition, Vol. 48).
  2. ↑ In his letter of 1 May 1891 Daniclson sent Engels statistics on the development of capitalism in Russia.
  3. ↑ In the summer and autumn of 1891 Engels repeatedly interrupted his work and left London owing to overstrain. From 26 June to 24 August (with intervals) he rested with Carl Schorlemmer and George Julian Harney in Ryde (Isle of Wight) at the home of Mary Ellen Rosher (Pumps), the niece of his wife, and roughly between 8 and 23 September he toured Ireland and Scotland with Mary Ellen Rosher and Louise Kautsky.
  4. ↑ of Capital
  5. ↑ Engels' conspiratorial pseudonym