Letter to Laura Lafargue, April 4, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 April 1892


First published in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. III, Paris, 1959
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 4 April 1892

My dear Laura,

Today but two words to ask you to look after the Eclair.— On Friday[1] morning all of a sudden Emile Massard came down upon me with a demand for an interview for that iridescent paper. As he promised to submit the ms. to my correction, and as I thought to be thereby able to put a flea in the ear of the Parisian gogo,[2] I consented. Yesterday I looked over the ms. and almost entirely recast it. Would you be good enough to send me about 4-6 copies of the paper as soon as it appears? If correct I shall want them for various regions, if incorrect, I shall at once protest against the breach of faith.[3]

Anyhow this new experience with the eternal interviewing nuisance will help me to refuse in future, as I always have to do the real work (from 11 to 3 yesterday, instead of being out this warm weather) and even then it's not what I want and does not bring out my ideas. Damn the lot of them.

I was in Ryde for a week,[4] has done me good. Pumps and the children are well, Percy has had influenza, pneumonia, pleurisy, inflamed throat, etc., one after the other and is only just recovering.

I am busy with an infernal preface[5] for the never-to-be-satisfied Swan Sonnenschein and Co. and that, as it will be long, will take me all week. As soon as finished you get a long letter.

Salut to the travelling parliamentarian[6] who is not only a peripatetic grass widower but also a grasshopper, and love from Louise and yours

everlasting old

General

Next week we expect Bebel here unless stopped by ill health — he seems a deal out of sorts by overwork and overexcitement.

  1. ↑ 1 April
  2. ↑ juggins
  3. ↑ Engels granted the interview to Emile Massard on 1 April 1892 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 533-38). On 3 April he almost completely rewrote Massard's manuscript. The interview appeared in Eclair on 6 April. Judging by the fact that it was reprinted, even if abridged, in Le Socialiste (No. 82, 16 April), the newspaper of the French Workers' Party, it may be assumed that Engels regarded the Eclair text as satisfactory.
  4. ↑ Engels holidayed in Ryde (Isle of Wight) from 20 to 26 March 1892.
  5. ↑ F. Engels, 'Introduction to the English Edition (1892) of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.'
  6. ↑ Paul Lafargue