[London, 26 March 1877] 

Dear Pauli, 

I can’t let this curious letter from Pumps go off without saying 
once again how very grateful my wife” and I are to you and your 
wife“ for all the love and kindness you have shown the girl. I hope 
that when your children are bigger there will at last be an 
opportunity of squaring the account. 

When will you be coming? Schorlemmer swears black and blue 
that you have to visit England before the summer, but that’s all we 
can find out, and yet it would be very nice to know, approximate- 
ly, when you will be turning up. Your room is ready; if you were 
to arrive at the end of this week, Schorlemmer could take 
advantage of the holidays and come too. 

We spent three weeks in Brighton,”*” which did my wife a power 
of good; she returned stronger than even after last year’s long 
spell at the seaside and recuperative trip, and she had been 
remarkably low. If only it lasts until the summer. 

a J. Ph. Becker, ‘Abgerissene Bilder aus meinem Leben’. - > Lizzie Burns - ¢ Ida 
Pauli 

So after all the endless shilly-shallying it now looks as though 
they are going to come to blows in the Orient after all””’ and I 
shall be delighted if the Russians take a pasting. The Turks are 
people of a quite peculiar stamp, who cannot be judged by 
European standards, and their position, complete with fortresses, 
between the Danube and the Balkans is inferior in strength only to 
the position Metz-Strasbourg-Mainz-Koblenz. The Russians may 
yet break many a tooth there. 

And now, warm regards to your wife and children and you 
yourself from my wife and 

Your 
F. Engels