Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels  
in Manchester  
Ramsgate, Monday, 25 July 1864  

125 Mi.1864.  
46, Harares street,  
Ramsgate.  

Dear Frederick,  

You see from the address that I have been in Ramsgate for a few days.  

To my by no means pleasant surprise it turned out that the furuncle was rather a thoroughly malignant carbuncle, and besides so shameless as to develop right above the penis. I was thus forced to lie mostly in bed for about 10 days – and in this heat! The stuff is healing quickly here; however I have in fact lost all confidence through the unexpected reappearance of the disease in such a malignant form.  

Jenny and Tussy are here with me; Laura arrives the day after tomorrow and after about 8-10 days we go to Holland, while my wife then betakes herself to the seaside.  

Apropos. Don’t forget to send the latter her chain, as she needs it for her watch at the seaside. She says that for that purpose you only have to take a little box and send it by post, so the dispatch can impossibly cause you much trouble.  

I hope that you are now square with Ermen and no longer bothered by the lawyers.  

As for the Schleswig-Holstein affair, I am still not quite sure that the business won’t end with a personal union of the duchies with Denmark. The jealousy between Prussia and Austria, both with the German Confederation, the row between Augustenburg and the Oldenburg put forward by Russia, etc., make such a solution even at this moment still at least possible. Incidentally, Palmerston already proposed en passant and as a pis aller in 1851 the Duke of Oldenburg as a candidate for Schleswig-Holstein.  

I will write to Laura to send you the Free Press.  

Here the holiday-making philistine predominates, and even more his better half and his female offspring. It is almost sad to see how the old Ocean, titan though he is, has to let these whippersnappers dance on his nose and must serve them as a pastime.  

Best compliments from Jenny and Tussy. The seaside life does both of them a world of good.  
Adio  
Mohr.