PART SEVEN

1892–1898

XXXII HOME AND FRIENDS We two · Business troubles · Deaths · Family life at Castle Stockern · Home theater · The twelfth of June · Visit of Prince André Dadiani

These pages have of late been very full of Union reports and “movement” news, and it looks as if we both had been immersed in political life and sadly taken up with league-breeding. But when I look back to those days, there rise in my memory a multitude of other recollections connected with our private life, with the family and social life that we led, and especially with our cloudlessly happy married union. The outside world with its mediæval darkness and its pitiable conditions caused us much annoyance, and we took the field against these as well as we could; we found much satisfaction, too, in the battle itself; but our chief joy, our wealth, our fullest gratification, was each other. We had lost nothing of our gayety, of our frivolous childishness, nothing of our deep, fully confiding love. We swam in it as fishes in the sea; and, whatever made us gasp and suffocate when we ventured out on the beach sands, we could always dive back again into the vivifying currents of our happiness.

A filigrain happiness, a miniature happiness. It did not consist of soaring emotions and boisterous enjoyments. The everyday was its territory; the everyday with the petty sweetnesses of comfort and humor. We were not lost in astonishment, in admiration, in worship of each other; better than anything of that kind, we loved each other,—loved with all our weaknesses and faults. To lay one’s self out to be of assistance, to procure a better existence for our fellow-men now and in the future, is all very fine. Yet the best and first of duties is to give as much joy as possible to one’s partner in life, and at the same time to be joyful one’s self. To what end do we want to free mankind from persecution, from disease, from oppression, from violent killing, if not to provide mankind with the possibility of enjoying life? So that is the chief end. But we ourselves, and those who stand nearest to us, have the same claim; why should this claim be left unrecognized, when it is the easiest of all to satisfy? If in a circle of ten each sacrifices himself for the welfare of the other nine, who of the circle gets the intended welfare? Well, we two _did_ fare “cannibalistically well,” if not _wie fünfmalhunderttausend Säuen_, “like half a million swine,” as the well-known student song has it, yet like two jolly little pigs.

And it was not all a bed of roses at Harmannsdorf either. The business of the estate would not go right, the quarry least of all. They changed superintendents, changed managers, negotiated with agents for contracts, but there was no improvement. On the contrary, the enterprises planned, ever arousing new hopes, led to risks, and when they ended in smoke we were a bit worse off than before, but ready to come up to the next hope all the more trustfully. And, since a modicum of volatility was characteristic of the whole house of Suttner, we shook off the worry and took from the day whatever of good the day brought.

All these long days had also brought something of sorrow. My Own’s oldest brother Karl was suddenly attacked by pneumonia, which carried him off in a week. My sister-in-law Lotti, the Countess Sizzo by marriage, lost her husband. The bereavement was not very severe. It had not been a wretched marriage, but not a happy one either; the two were incompatible and lived for the most part separated,—he in his home in Southern Tirol, she at Harmannsdorf. Karl’s daughter Mizzi, who was then sixteen, after his death came to live in her grandparents’ house and was always with us thenceforth. Her uncle Artur, whom she genuinely worshiped, had to take her father’s place.

The liveliest intercourse was kept up with the neighboring castle of Stockern. There lived (and still live) my husband’s older brother Richard, nicknamed _Igel_, “hedgehog”; his wife Pauline, called _Das Weib_, née Ponz von Engelshofen, châtelaine of Stockern and mother of five children,—one daughter and four sons, the eldest of the sons born in 1871, the youngest in 1886, so that there was much fresh, gay youth; and, in addition, governesses, tutors, aunts, cousins, and other guests. Lively times were always going on there. Very often the whole train would come to Harmannsdorf, especially on occasion of birthdays, patron saints’ days, hunts, vintages, and harvest-homes; still more frequently we drove over to Stockern, or both families would join in excursions to near-by Rosenburg or some other place of resort.

“Das Weib” was the last survivor of several brothers and sisters who in the war year of 1866 had fallen victims to the epidemic of cholera which had broken out in the country. The stories of that time when nine persons in the family and service of Stockern were carried off by the destroying angel in six days served as the basis for the episode “The Cholera Week” in my novel _Die Waffen nieder_.

Now grass had grown over all that tragedy. Man’s memory is so terribly short. Stockern was now full of happy people, and we two contributed our mite to the gayeties. Uncle Artur was his young nephews’ favorite comrade, and “Tante Boulotte” was no spoil-feast either.

I recall among other things a tragi-comedy entitled “Cleopatra,” which was performed on the domestic stage. My Own had written the text, in gory doggerel, and composed the music for it as well. The rôle of the Egyptian queen was intrusted to my hands. The eldest son of the house, at that time already a lieutenant of dragoons, appeared as a helmeted officer of the Roman Guards; a neighboring proprietor played Antony; the young girls of the family had to enact the part of slaves, and the author of the masterpiece mimicked an old wandering prophet who knew all things in advance, from the Queen’s death of snake-bite up to the latest events in the Vienna city council. The governess at Stockern, a wonderfully pretty young English lady, had to play the part of Cleopatra’s maid, whose most important function it was to groom her mistress’s pet snake. Miss Pratt’s English accent had a monstrously comical effect. As she knew no German, her part had been hammered into her only with the greatest difficulty. In a soliloquy she had to apostrophize the snake intrusted to her care with the words _o du elendes Mistvieh_—“O you wretched dung-brute” (from that specimen of the text may be got some idea of the loftiness of the poem), but she declaimed it _o du ellen Mittwoch_! From that day, when people at Stockern wanted to be rude they called each other _Mittwoch_, “Wednesday.”

To us two the greatest festival of the year was always the twelfth of June, the anniversary of our marriage. But we never cared to celebrate it with more company than ourselves, and so it came to pass that if we were at Harmannsdorf at that date we left for parts unknown early in the morning and were gone at least twenty-four hours. Having run away on our real wedding day, we did so on the anniversaries too. Of all things, no congratulations and toasts on that day; we wanted to be alone—in devotion. We would drive down to the railway, take tickets to any station; arriving there, we would hunt up the local hotel to order a dinner, and then go out into the fields and woods. June, you know, is the happy month when everything is in full bloom, when roses grow rank and the cuckoo calls, when all nature is a wedding celebration. We would wander about for a few hours and then come to our dinner with a glorious appetite; we would have it served under an arbor in the hotel garden. And then out to the woods again. There we would seek out a shady or perchance a sunny place—we were not afraid of the sun, but had a lizard-like predilection for its caressing glow—and there other hours of hallowed dialogue would pass: hours which were prolonged till the setting of the sun, till the rising of the moon, till the blowing of the evening breezes. Then back to the inn, where supper was awaiting us in a neat room. And our material for conversation was still not exhausted—from year to year it grew richer; for what we said to each other on those days was the manifold variation of the now cheerful, now melancholy, but always sweet, theme, “Do you remember?” All that we had experienced together, seen together, learned together, we passed in review, and when we took out and rearranged our memories and conceptions it was as if we were counting treasures,—the joy of wealth obsessed us. Rich we were in remarkable memories that were common to both, rich in accordant ideas, and superlatively rich in intertwining feelings of never-cooling affection, of never-failing confidence.

And on the next day we would go back among men again—as if nothing had happened.

We had kept up a correspondence with our friends in the Caucasus. The Murats were still in Zugdidi; Prince Niko was living for the most part in St. Petersburg. One day there came from Prince André Dadiani a letter postmarked at Vienna, to say that he was passing through the city and ask if he might call. We, too, had to be in Vienna—for a festival meeting of the Peace Union, at which, among other things, Peter Rosegger and the court actor Lewinsky made addresses. Accordingly I wrote the prince to come to the meeting, and he did so. After the addresses the company stayed to supper, and our Caucasian friend stayed with us. All this may possibly have been Greek to the Russian officer who had fought at Kars, but he expressed himself as quite in sympathy with my aims and endeavors; whether from politeness or conviction, I will not undertake to say. On the following day we took him with us to Harmannsdorf, where he remained for some time as our guest.

XXXIII LETTERS FROM ALFRED NOBEL

I kept up a regular correspondence with Alfred Nobel. I will quote here some of his letters[35]:

Dear Baroness:

If I have not replied sooner to your kind and courteous letter, it is because I was in hopes of bringing you my answer _de vive-voix_, my respects _de vif-cœur_.

Here I am in Vienna, but you are not, and I am told that you do not often come. On the other hand, if I should go to Harmannsdorf I should be greatly afraid of causing you trouble, and in this respect I am as timid as the most sensitive woman.

How happy I am to know that you are happy and contented, back at last in a land which you love, and rested from struggles of which my sympathy can measure the extent.

What shall I tell you of myself—a shipwreck of youth, of joy, of hope? An empty heart, whose inventory is a white—or gray—page.

Pray remember me cordially to your husband, and accept, dear Madame, the assurance of my best sentiments founded on profound respect and genuine devotion.

A. Nobel

Vienna, Hôtel Imperial, August 17, 1885.

The visit at Harmannsdorf was nevertheless paid. In the year 1887 we had seen Nobel again in Paris, and the following letter shows that we were urging him to visit us in our own home:

Dear Baroness:

The proof that there is no justice in this world is that you take me, I am sure, for an ill-bred man and an ingrate. And yet there is no truth in it, for ever since I had the pleasure of seeing you at my house I have been anxiously watching for the moment of leisure that should permit me to go and shake hands with two friends. But if you could see, only for a day or two, the life I am leading, you would realize how impossible it is to make the two ends meet. For a week past, with my trunk packed, I have not been able to get away; and yet my visit to Manchester is urgent. But at this moment all the _dynamiteurs_ in the world—the _dynamiteurs_ are the directors and managers of the dynamite companies—have conspired to come here and bother me with their affairs,—conventions, plans, deceptions, etc., and I am ardently wishing that a new Mephisto would come to enrich hell with these evil-doers.

A thousand friendly things—never friendly enough for you—and the assurance of my good will.

A. Nobel

Paris, January 22, 1888

The following letter is the answer to mine in which I wrote that I had been told at a florist’s that he was married and that the presence of a Madame Nobel had been announced in Nice. I asked whether I might congratulate him. He wrote back:

Dear Baroness and Friend:

What an ingrate this old Nobel is, but in appearance only, for the friendship which he feels for you only increases, and the nearer he approaches the final nothingness the more he values the few persons—men or women—who show him a little genuine interest.

Could you have really believed that I was married, and married without informing you? That would have been a double crime against friendship and against courtesy. The bear has not as yet got so far as that.

In making me married, the florist was using flowery language. As for Madame Nobel of Nice, it was in all probability my sister-in-law. That is how the secret and mysterious marriage is explained. Everything does in the end get explained in this world below, except the magnetism of the heart, to which this same world is indebted for its existing and living. Now this magnetism is just what I must be lacking in, since there is no Madame Nobel and since in my case the dust that is thrown in the eyes is inadequately replaced by gunpowder.

You see there is no _jeune femme adorée_—I am quoting word for word—and I shall not find in that direction a remedy against my _nervosité anormale_—once more a literal quotation—or against my gloomy ideas. A few delicious days at Harmannsdorf might perhaps cure me, and if I have not as yet replied to your arch-amiable and friendly call of hospitality, that comes from a multitude of reasons which I will explain to you by word of mouth.

Whatever happens, it is absolutely necessary that I should come soon to see you, for if not, who knows if I ever have this pleasure and consolation. Fate, alas! is unwilling to be converted into an insurance company; and yet we would offer her very tempting premiums.

I beg of you, assure your husband of my best sentiments; as for yourself, it is idle to reaffirm to you my affectionate and fraternal devotion.

A. Nobel

Paris, November 6, 1888.

On December, 10, 1889, my husband’s oldest brother Karl died. As Nobel, during his last stay at Vienna, had become acquainted with Karl and his wife, I informed him of the bereavement. Nobel wrote:

Copenhagen, December 19, 1889

Dear Baroness and Friend:

On receipt of your brief note of the 10/12 I addressed to the Baronne Charles de Suttner the expression of my condolence. Will you be the intermediary of my lively sympathy for your husband and your relatives?

I also have sad news to announce. I am just here from Stockholm, where I have been to conduct to her last home my poor dear mother, who loved me as people do not love nowadays, when feverish life serves as a check on sentiment.

I press your two hands—the little hands of a dear, kind sister who wishes me well just as I wish her and hers well.

A. Nobel

My appeal in the _Neue Freie Presse_ of September 9, 1891, was partially reproduced in the Paris newspapers, and editorially commented on. Nobel wrote to me regarding this:

My dear Friend:

Delighted I am to see that your eloquent pleading against that horror of horrors—war—has found its way into the French Press. But I fear that out of French readers ninety-nine in a hundred are chauvinistically mad. The government here are almost in their senses; the people, on the contrary, are getting success- and vanity-drunken. A pleasant kind of intoxication, much less deleterious unless it leads to war, than spirits of wine or morphium.

And your pen—whither is it wandering now? After writing with the blood of martyrs of war, will it show us the prospect of a future fairy-land or the less utopian picture of the thinkers’ common-wealth? My sympathies are in that direction, but my thoughts are mostly wandering towards another common-wealth, where silenced souls are misery-proof.

With kindest regards ever yours A. Nobel

Paris, September 14, 1891

After the Austrian Peace Society had been founded and the Roman Congress was in prospect, I informed my friend about it and asked him for a contribution to the treasury of the Union; here is his reply

53 Avenue Malakoff, October 31, 1891

Dear Baroness and Friend:

I do not see very clearly what great expenses either the Peace League or the Peace Congress can have to bear. Nevertheless I am quite ready to make a pecuniary contribution to its work, and I hasten to send you for this object a check, inclosed herewith, for £80 sterling.

What you need to get, I think, is not the money but the programme. Wishes alone do not assure peace. The like may be said of big dinners with big speeches. One ought to be able to present well-minded governments with an acceptable plan. To demand disarmament is almost to make one’s self ridiculous without profiting any one. To demand the immediate establishment of a court of arbitration is to come into collision with a thousand prejudices and to make every ambitious man an obstructer. To succeed, one ought to be content with more modest beginnings, and do as they do in England with legislative projects whose success is dubious. In such cases they content themselves with passing a temporary law, limited in duration to two years or even to one year. I do not think there would be found many governments that would refuse to take into consideration such a modest proposition, provided it were supported by statesmen of note.

Would it be too much to ask, for example, that for one year the European governments should engage to refer to a tribunal formed for this purpose any difference arising between them; or if they should refuse to take this step, to defer every act of hostility until the expiration of the period stipulated?

This would be apparently little, but it is just by being content with little that one arrives at great results. A year is such a small period of time in the lives of nations, and the most blustering minister will tell himself that it is not worth while to break by force a convention of such short duration. And at the expiration of that period all the states will make haste to renew their peace compact for another year. Thus, without a shock and almost without realizing the fact, they will come to a period of prolonged peace.

Then only will it be of any use to think of proceeding little by little to that disarmament which all good men and almost all governments desire.

And suppose that in spite of everything a quarrel should break out between two governments, do you not think that nine times out of ten they would calm down during the obligatory armistice which they would have to respect?

Believe, dear Baroness, in my affectionate sentiments, A. Nobel

XXXIV IN BERLIN AND HAMBURG My review · Invitation to Berlin · A. H. Fried and his plans · The reading · The Berlin Tageblatt on a letter from Frédéric Passy · A banquet · Voices from the Press · Evening at Spielhagen’s · Dinner at Mosse’s · The Empress Frederick · Professor W. Meyer does us the honors of “Urania” · Excursion to Hamburg · An evening tea with Hans Land, Dr. Löwenberg, Otto Ernst, and Detlev von Liliencron · A letter of Liliencron’s

As aforesaid: on January 1, 1892, began the publication of my review _Die Waffen nieder_, through the house of A. H. Fried, Berlin. The publisher helped me very zealously in the editing. Distinguished collaborators were represented in the very first numbers: Carneri, Friedrich Jodl, Ludwig Fulda, Björnson, Bonghi, Karl Henckell, Rosegger, Widman, Moritz Adler, and others sent me articles. I published the review for eight years, until the end of 1899. From that time forth its place was taken by the _Friedenswarte_, edited by A. H. Fried, which is still—in 1908—being published, and to which I regularly contribute a running chronicle entitled _Randglossen zur Zeitgeschichte_, “Comments on the History of the Time.”

But let us return to 1892. Through my participation in the Congress at Rome, through my editorial labors on the peace review, through correspondence with sympathizers in all parts of the world, through the duties connected with the Vienna Union, I was now wholly absorbed in the movement. The next object of my desire—and in this also I was incited and supported by A. H. Fried—was to see a peace society, established in Berlin likewise.

I received from the Berlin Press Society an invitation to give, on one of their literary nights in the following March, a public reading of some chapters from my novel _Die Waffen nieder_ in behalf of the endowment fund of the Society. I accepted the invitation, and my husband and I started for Berlin full of anticipation. For I had learned by previous letters from A. H. Fried that a very special honor was in store for me, namely a banquet, whose committee of organization presented the following signatures: Dr. Baumbach, vice president of the Reichstag; Dr. Barth, member of the Reichstag and editor of the _Nation_; Wilhelm Bölsche, author; Oskar Blumenthal, dramatic writer; Gustav Dahms, editor of the _Bazar_; Paul Dobert, editor of _Zur guten Stunde_; Karl Frenzel, writer; Dr. Max Hirsch, member of the Reichstag; Hans Land, author; A. H. Fried, publisher; L’Arronge, theatrical manager; Fritz Mauthner, author; Dr. Arthur Levysohn, editor in chief of the _Berliner Tageblatt_; O. Neumann-Hofer, editor of the _Magazin_; Paul Schlenther; Prinz Schönaich-Carolath, member of the Reichstag; Zobeltitz; Albert Traeger, member of the Reichstag; Julius Wolff; Baron von Wolzogen; and Friedrich; Spielhagen.

It was A. H. Fried who had been the original promoter of this affair, and who had also succeeded in obtaining such brilliant names on the dinner committee. He was waiting for us at the railway station on our arrival, and this afforded me my first opportunity of becoming acquainted with the publisher and co-creator of my review. A young man of twenty-eight, all fire and flame for the cause of peace, full of zeal for organization. He began at once to unfold plans for using my presence toward realizing the establishment of a proposed union. There was already in existence a small Interparliamentary Group, and this must now be followed by a private peace society which might send its representatives to that year’s Peace Congress at Bern.

The hall where my reading had been announced as to be given had been long sold out, so that many demands for seats had to be refused. The Empress Frederick had engaged a row of places, but the death and funeral obsequies of her brother-in-law the Grand Duke of Hesse called her away from Berlin at that time.

The evening of the reading was successful—that is to say, I was received with applause and was applauded at the end; but I read altogether too softly, as I afterward heard. That the public and the critics gave me such a favorable reception in spite of that, I attributed to their sympathy with the cause which I represented.

Frédéric Passy sent a letter to me at Berlin, in which he pleaded for our cause with his usual eloquence. I handed the letter over to the editors of the _Berliner Tageblatt_, and it was published on the day after my reading with the following editorial comment:

Mr. Frédéric Passy, the president of the French Peace Society, a political economist whose high reputation is not confined to France, is a member of the Académie des Sciences and enjoys universal respect. If there were never any but such voices sounding over the Vosges from France, the cause of peace, of humanity, of the higher civilization, would soon have the victory. Let us hope that Mr. Passy’s eloquent words will waken in his own country also the universal response which they so thoroughly deserve.

A glittering picture of the dinner has remained in my memory. In the richly flower-decked banqueting-hall stood a table laid for two hundred and fifty guests. There was a preliminary gathering in side parlors, and there I made the acquaintance of a great number of literary colleagues of both sexes, and also found again many whom we had met seven years earlier at the Authors’ Convention; there were also parliamentarians, publicists, and other notabilities of Berlin. About ten o’clock Friedrich Spielhagen escorted me to the table, at which he presided. He it was, too, who pronounced the oration of the evening. After he had ended, my right-hand neighbor, Dr. Barth of the Reichstag, spoke. And now I had to express my thanks. A stenographer took down my maiden after-dinner speech, and I found it the next morning in the newspapers:

It is in joyful exhilaration that I express to you, Meister Spielhagen, and to you, Herr Dr. Barth, and to all the company who have done me the honor of gathering here, my deep-felt thanks. To be so acclaimed and by such persons—for those who entertain me are certainly among the foremost in the literary and political world here—must indeed fill any one’s heart with pride.

Indeed, if one feels, as I do, that this lavish homage so far exceeds the desert of her to whom it is offered, then must the wish be aroused to protest against it and to cry out: It is too much—take back the praise, take back the expression of such kindly sympathy! You fill me with happiness, but you fill me also with mortification.

Yet I can gather from your addresses that the reason why the honor conferred upon me so far exceeds the value of my performances and my person is that it does not really concern them, but the principles which I endeavor to serve. They are the same principles to which you, highly honored artists, representatives of the people, and publicists, devote your work and your works—the enfranchisement, ennoblement, and fraternization of civilized mankind. Those minstrels and legislators and journalists who pay homage to war and stir up national differences have assuredly remained absent from this banquet.

I trust that an echo from this festival so indescribably beautiful to me will make its way to all our fellow-citizens. By this I mean all, whatever nation they belong to, who strive for righteousness. All on this side or that side of the Rhine, this side or that side of the ocean, this side or that side of every other boundary of country or class—I could wish that these fellow-citizens of ours might learn how in the circle of the most intellectual men of the capital of the German Empire a simple woman, hitherto unknown to them, has been so brilliantly honored, merely on account of the will which she has manifested in the cause of peace. In giving me your approval for a book bearing the title “Away with Weapons,” in sanctioning my endeavor which took me to the Peace Congress at the Capitol, you coin that title into a watchword and recognize that endeavor as a legitimate ideal of civilization.

Thus understood, ladies and gentlemen, I joyfully accept all that you have said to me; thus understood, no enthusiasm is too impetuous for me, no love too warm, none of those who entertain me too high in rank and repute. With joy I take from your hands the roses and the wreaths, and—merely as an intermediary—lay them at the feet of the genius in whose name you have summoned me here. In this sense I am ready to drain my glass in the heartiest thanks to you who are present, and in brotherly greeting to the absent friends of peace in all nations, in the name of the whole table!

Albert Traeger spoke after me, and then, as a special surprise, the great tragedian Emanuel Reicher was called upon and read to us a translation of Maupassant’s short story _La Mère Sauvage_.

In the account given in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, from the pen of the editor in chief, it said:

It cannot be sufficiently reiterated that this festival has powerfully contributed to strengthen all who have at heart the blessings of international peace in their endeavor diligently to cultivate the humanitarian and civilizing might of the peace idea, without reference to the unfavorableness of the times and the tendencies of the day. Thus, then, the festival that was planned in honor of a single person may be considered as a link in the chain of phenomena by means of which the enlightened spirits of the century are seeking to build up the higher (_kulturellen_) interests of humanity.

Nevertheless, I must note that several Berlin newspapers spoke disparagingly of my appearance there in particular and of my aims in general, for the most part making reference to the so-often-cited saying of Moltke, “Perpetual peace is a dream and not even a beautiful one!” But even the antagonistic voices refrained from abuse and ridicule. That would not have been the case twenty or perhaps even ten years before. Then the whole matter would have been half laughed to death, half scolded to death,—or wholly smothered to death by silence.

We stayed in Berlin for a number of days, and these days were crowded with participation in conferences, talks, and plans for the establishment of a German Peace Society in Berlin. Yet nothing definitive resulted. Dr. M. Hirsch and Baumbach were in favor; Rickert disapproved.

Friedrich Spielhagen gave us a delightful reception at his house one evening before my reading took place. About forty persons were present. At the table I sat between the host and Albert Traeger. There I became acquainted with Ossip Schubin, Wolzogen, Stettenheim, Dahms, Wolff. A Prinz Reuss, an officer, asks for an introduction, and says in a modest way,—of course it was meant ironically,—

“I ought to be ashamed of being in uniform in your presence.”

I could not think of anything to say; later, on the stairs, some very appropriate answers occurred to me.

I also remember a Lucullus dinner which the proprietor of the _Berliner Tageblatt_, Rudolf Mosse, and his wife gave us in their splendid new _palais_. Frau Mosse, who was engaged in all sorts of philanthropic undertakings, often had the opportunity of talking with the Empress Frederick. She knew that the Empress would have been glad to hear me. The Empress had now returned from the funeral of the Grand Duke of Hesse, and on the next day Frau Mosse was to meet her at some kind of a function. She intended to ask her if she wished me to be presented to her. This would have been a great pleasure for me, because I cherished a deep respect for the widow of Frederick “the Noble.” But the following day I received a note from Frau Mosse stating that her plan had fallen through; her Majesty thought best to forego the pleasure—“from motives of prudence.”

Professor Wilhelm Meyer also invited us to inspect his “Urania,” and he did us the honors of all the sections, explaining the whole series of wonders in his poetically clear manner. “Those are the churches of the future,” I wrote in my diary at that time.

From Berlin we made an excursion to Hamburg. Hans Land accompanied us. My diary mentions drives among marvelously beautiful country establishments; a trip on the Elbe to Blankenese; meals in the famous Restaurant Pfordte; a performance of _Der Vogelhändler_ in St. Paul’s Theater; and an evening tea at our rooms in the hotel. This made a vivid impression in my memory, for we had a very interesting little circle and the conversation was highly stimulating. Our guests, besides Hans Land and his sister and brother-in-law, were Dr. Löwenberg, Otto Ernst, and Detlev von Liliencron. Otto Ernst was not as yet the celebrated dramatist, but a simple school-teacher; yet he had with his _Offenes Visier_ written himself on our hearts. Detlev von Liliencron was already at the height of his celebrity—the king of German lyric poets at that time. Certainly no pacifist; on the contrary, a strenuous, mettlesome advocate of war—but none the less admired by me. I welcomed the chance of making his acquaintance. His conversational talent was brilliant. I had corresponded with him some years before, expressing my admiration and sending him some of my husband’s writings. I insert his reply here:

Kellinghusen (Holstein), April 27, 1889

Gracious Baroness:

How gracious and kind of you—hearty thanks! Twice already I have been eager to write to you; first after reading _Es Löwos_, which I find so incomparable, and then after reading the _Inventarium einer Seele_. I did not do so especially because I thought you would not care to pile up still more correspondence. Now I have the privilege of offering you my sincerest thanks for both,—and how touching, heart-quickening and lovely is _Es Löwos_!

You, most gracious Baroness, and your husband are fighting together with us, the little band that there is of us, against the absolute bogging, the absolute collapse, of our literature. We who are living shall have no laurels,—scorn and ridicule are too strong,—but we have smoothed the way for our successors.

I have already heard so much about you from my friend Hermann Friedrichs, whom I honor so highly—if only he were not so gloomy. In political matters—I am very conservative, and am growing more so every day if possible—Friedrichs and I are antipodes. But in other respects we have many views in common.

You must be in the midst of springtime in your beautiful Lower Austria; in my cloudy and ever-damp home and in the loneliness in which I am compelled to live like a deaf-mute, scarcely a leaf is on its way.

I beg you most humbly to remember me most cordially to your husband. _Daredjan_[36]—wonderful.

I am the most gracious Baroness’s most obedient

Baron Detlev Liliencron Captain retired

Well, between the date of that letter and our meeting in Hamburg three years had passed, during which the most gracious Baroness had chosen “Away with weapons” as a watchword, which probably went against the grain of the most obedient and conservative Captain retired. None the less we got along together all right.

From Hamburg we went home by way of Berlin again, but stopped there only from one train to another. During this delay we conferred once more with Dr. M. Hirsch, who promised that he would do his best to establish a Berlin Peace Union.

I have not yet told of one encounter which took place in those Berlin days. Because it was the one that made the deepest and most lasting impression on me, because it remained interwoven with my further thought and activity, I have reserved speaking of it to the end.

On the forenoon of the eighteenth of March—it was the day after my reading—we made the acquaintance of a man with whom we had already had intellectual relations for a long time,—Moritz von Egidy. I would remind the reader of his letter of November, 1891, which I quoted among the other documents addressed to me on the occasion of the Congress at Rome. Now I was to see face to face the man who had offered to join with me in “putting his hand to the latch of the gate that admits us to the age of completion.”

One forenoon during our stay in Berlin—I had just written to Egidy to ask when we might see him—his card was handed to us. He came in, and—but of this man, this creature of light who was snatched away all too soon from the world of his day, I will not speak incidentally, but devote a special chapter to him.

XXXV MORITZ VON EGIDY His confession of faith · Further development · Candidacy for the Reichstag · From his address to the electors · On the fear of revolution · Idealists in act · My first meeting with Egidy · Visit at his home · Consistency of preaching and practice · A letter from Egidy

Von Halbheit halte den Pfad rein, Der ganze Mann setzt ganze Tat ein, Und wahre Ehre muss ohne Naht sein. Emst Ziel Keep thy path from halfness free; Whoso is whole, whole deeds plies he; Genuine honor must seamless be.

When the report went through the papers that a lieutenant colonel of the Prussian army had written a pamphlet entitled “Serious Thoughts,” in which he renounced the teachings of the Church, and that as a result of this he had been obliged to send in his resignation, it was regarded as a spicy bit of news. People sent for the pamphlet expecting to find in it the views of an enemy of religion; and behold, they were the thoughts, the serious and quickened thoughts, of one of the most religious and Christian men that could be found; but one who, like unnumbered multitudes of his contemporaries, did not regard the dogmas and formulas of official orthodoxy as true and binding—who, however, in contradistinction to the contemporaries that pass over this discord, considered it incompatible with his human dignity and his religious nature to pretend to a belief which he did not cherish.

His demand was that the Church should cease to impose articles of faith that are in contradiction with the conscience of the time, and that instead of the narrow sects a broad, great, united Christianity should embrace all those who feel the need of a consecrated life, and who carry in their hearts faith in God, and the Christian ideal.

Honest, solid, frank, glowing with inward warmth, was every word of the booklet; and even one who occupied a quite different standpoint—that is to say, one who had not reached the author’s degree of doubt or who had got far beyond it—could not but feel the one desire to shake that man’s hand.

That it is not compatible with the position of an active officer to utter thoughts that are not merely “serious” but revolutionary, since they assail an established institution sanctioned by the State, was doubtless clear to the penalized lieutenant-colonel himself; and he accepted his discharge without resentment, as a matter of course. And where he had posted himself he kept his stand, with head erect.

To be of use to the men of his time, to make a way out of untenable contradictions for them, to free the sacredness of genuine inward religion from external fetters of falsehood, was what had constrained him to write. And he felt himself doubly bound to continue the work that he had begun after a multitude had flocked to him waiting for his further leading.

The sentence above, “Where he had posted himself he kept his stand,” is in reality inaccurate, for Egidy went on from this place step by step in the same direction—that is, along the upward path of knowledge—with the same resolute gait, and where he stood a few years later he had immeasurably widened his field of view, and consequently his field of influence also. Although he remained true to himself, or rather by remaining true to himself, he had become almost another man since his first appearance with his “Serious Thoughts”; he had gone on thinking with the same seriousness, gone on willing with increasing power, and the domain which he surveyed at the end of his career, the ideal toward which he was then striving, went as far beyond his first announcement as that went beyond the narrow dogmatic track which he had originally renounced. And yet he did not for a moment need to disavow the basis of his endeavor; the watchword that he followed was from first to last “Religion no longer beside our life, our life itself religion!” Only his religion was then no longer “Mere Christianity,” but the push toward goodness, inner consecration; the striving for knowledge, for development. “Love is power” was another of Egidy’s maxims. He had begun with the demand for a change in the religious sphere, because there first he felt the discrepancy between old canons and new needs of the spirit; but gradually his demands had extended to the bettering of all—especially social and political—conditions.

He had put himself at the service of his convictions with a strength of character that was matched only by his strength for work. He went on lecture tours, published a weekly entitled _Die Versöhnung_ (“Reconciliation”), gave an answer to every one who in person or by letter came to meet him either as a seeker for advice or as an opponent; he took a stand publicly with regard to all problems and events of the day, and when election time came he announced himself a candidate for the Reichstag.

But the election went against him. One who subscribes to no party programme does not get the voters, for they too have been drilled into partisan politics.

Here are a few passages which I have extracted from his appeal to the electors, premising only that this man was never an opportunist, that he forever scorned to say A and insinuate B, or to show gray in order to attain white. Certainly this method is unpolitical according to prevalent customs, and apparently Egidy’s attempt to enter political life was wrecked on that reef. The worship of party and special interests in which our life is swamped comports but ill with a series of declarations in which the first sentence ran, “I belong to no party and to no group of interests,” and where a little further on it says:

The question does not concern the advantage of a group or class, or the principles of a party; the question is to serve the community—without any limitation of the concept. He who cannot take into his heart and brain the concept community (_Gemeinsamkeif_) in all its completeness and elevation, is no such representative of the people as the times require.

The goal which Egidy saw before him was,

for every individual an intellectual independence limited by nothing, and an existence secured against all material oppression, for these are the conditions of inner freedom. There is no such thing as a welfare outside of freedom, at least for any one who feels himself a man. Until all are free, none is free. The ruling portion of the people is just as little free as the ruled. The continual fear of losing the rule paralyzes the sense of welfare—makes unfree.

We need conditions which shall make it possible for every one of the people to lead a life worthy of humanity. We are a people no longer under guardians, and we shall get ourselves these conditions. The way to this end: a peaceable transformation of our circumstances, from the present as starting-point, with the unselfish coöperation of all. No _tabula rasa_, not a “future society” to begin day after to-morrow; but a resolution of the people, clearly expressed in some form or other, that from now on other fundamental conceptions sway our institutions and consequently our existence. The change of conditions takes place in proportion to the progressive development in ourselves.

We all, without exception, are in a process of development. The transition to a new view of the world, which has long been on the way, is to take place during the next few years in the soul of the people. Whoever hampers this development commits a crime against the ordinances of God. Only when rationality and natural sensibility rule the thought of the majority, can we dare think of actual upbuilding. All enterprises undertaken in the meantime are only barracks which will be crushed by the spirit of the new time as it will soon appear with elemental power.

Again, as to his attitude toward the military bills that were pending at the time of his candidacy, Egidy expresses himself in such fashion as no legislator in our country has yet ventured on. He binds himself neither to Yes nor to No. He reserves the right to examine each situation as it comes:

Should the duty of the representative of the people be understood as many would have it, he would not need to enter the hall, but might send in on paper the written Yes or No with which his electors have stamped him for each individual question. Just because I believe so fearlessly in the victory of good in the world as a whole, just because I believe rock-firmly in peace, I must also conscientiously hear the others. If the representative comes to-day to a decision that binds him, then he relinquishes the right to approach the champions of the measure with questions, desires, proposals, and discussions. What more intelligence does any one need who is tagged beforehand?

On the other hand, a candidate for election must carry with him serious reflections regarding this as well as every question. My reflections are as follows: I am persuaded that we are not on the immediate verge of a war; nor is a war between civilized nations any longer thinkable. We are on the verge of peace. A war of battles is a phenomenon which the consciousness of civilized nations has got beyond. “Peace” does not mean “no more struggle”; “peace” means only “no more war.” That we ourselves do not desire war and have no use for it, we affirm on every occasion; our neighbors assert the same. Either we have confidence in these assertions, and then nothing hinders us from accordingly realizing peace,—to-day we are only living in an armistice,—or we do not have confidence in these assertions, and then we must forthwith get a certainty of how we stand with our neighbors. The present status is unworthy of a dignified nation. “The quietest man cannot live in peace if it does not suit his malignant neighbor”—but the proof that the neighbor is malignant is lacking; the proof that it does not suit the neighbor is lacking; and, above all, the proof is lacking that from the moment when we should pave the way for peace it would not suit the neighbor; quite apart from the fact that we have no right to designate ourselves as quietest men. As yet nothing has been done to convince our neighbors by our actions that we love peace. Only after attempts directed toward this end have shown a negative result will it be permissible to say that our neighbor is thinking of war. But in that case the sooner we strike the better. So I shall first ask for the proof of the factors of danger which the champions of these measures may allege, and shall, as occasion may demand, suggest and support measures which shall practically demonstrate to our neighbors that love for peace which we have always professed. _Si vis pacem, para pacem._ One party must begin; he is free to begin who is most sensibly conscious of his strength; he is bound to begin who can say with the best conscience: “Not from fear of war do I put aside my weapons, but from love for peace.” The manliness of the nation should assuredly not be lost; but for its exercise the handiwork of war is no longer necessary, nor for its preservation the battlefield.

It was a time when in the German Empire the combating of the so-called revolutionary parties was part of the order of the day. Egidy took a stand with regard to this question also, and gave his discussion of it a particularly interesting turn; for his conception of “religion, order, propriety,”—three ideas which he assuredly held in the highest esteem,—differed fundamentally from the popular conception which demands a clinging fast to all the established. He who fights under the banner of Evolution does not want to “revolutionize” the established, but to “transform” it. I let Egidy speak for himself:

I do not see any revolution (_Umsturz_, “upset”) threatening, anyhow: at least I do not feel threatened so long as I still have the confidence, which hitherto remains unshaken, that we shall wake to reason at the right time. To begin with, there is no need of thinking of such a thing as an upset, but only of the breakdown, the collapse, of an antiquated view of the world. Things can come to an upset, i.e. a topsy-turvy state, a reign of terror, only if the representatives of the hitherto-existing order, in melancholy blindness or from outright selfish motives, contumaciously oppose the collapse of antiquated notions, set themselves against the breakdown of untenable social formations. That they can prevent the collapse is of course a thing not to be thought of, no more than any one may imagine that he occasioned this breakdown.

Egidy’s style acquires a distinct individuality from its conciseness and perspicuity of expression, which are the consequences of the absolute honesty and straightforwardness of his thought. Never, for the sake of a fine-sounding phrase or a rhetorical effect, will a superfluous word or a periphrasis be found in it; but the heartfelt quality of the thought does now and then create for itself new words and new compoundings which unintentionally become stylistic beauties:

The community is a living organism, in which injuries can be cured only from within outward, only by a new, pure, warm heart-blood. No sentimentality, no full-toned din of words. The will to resolve. The doing, also, by each in his own way. We want to be practical idealists, idealists in realization, idealists in act.[37]

We were entertaining callers when Lieutenant Colonel von Egidy was announced: our ambassador Count Szechenyi, and Ossip Schubin the famous Austrian novelist, who had moved from Bohemia to Berlin awhile previously with her sister the painter. A pretty, vivacious, elegant lady. A new novel of hers had just been published, adding yet more to her already well-established reputation as a notable delineator of Austrian high life. When Egidy came in Count Szechenyi took his departure, but Ossip Schubin remained awhile longer. Joyously we went forward to greet our caller and shake hands with him. After a long correspondence a first meeting is the meeting after an absence.

Egidy, although rather short in stature, had a very martial appearance; his bearing, his voice, his accent, were altogether those of a Prussian officer of hussars. But the rigorous face with its thick mustache was lighted up by a pair of smiling, gleaming blue eyes.

The presence of the strange lady kept the conversation in conventional channels at first; there was no talk about the things that were close to our hearts. The lieutenant colonel and the authoress had ten minutes of very lively converse. Then Ossip Schubin took leave of us. Later it came out that neither of them had ever heard of the other. Evidently Egidy was not interested in fiction and Ossip Schubin cared still less for political addresses.

Then, as soon as we were alone, we broached the subject of the efforts in which we were respectively engaged. I had not then heard any of Egidy’s public speeches, but even in his conversation words flowed warmly and eloquently from his lips. He was so completely penetrated with his ideas, his plans, his hopes, that he uttered what he was full of. Such an utterance were his speeches also, as I afterward discovered; only in them he spoke with an exceptionally loud, clear, and deliberate utterance, and was often carried to heights of eloquence by his inward fire. In the drawing-room, of course, he spoke gently and more simply, but still with ever logical fullness of thought, always consistent with himself. We now let him know our ideas and aims also. The peace cause Egidy had not yet included in his programme, although theoretically he agreed with us.

The next day we visited him in his home. A beautiful, harmonious family circle. A congenial wife—born Princess of something, I have forgotten the name—and ten children. To be sure, not all ten were at home. The oldest son was serving in the navy; one daughter was studying in Sweden; but at any rate there was a fine bunch of Egidy children present, and all seemed to worship their father. One of the daughters acted as his secretary. Charming hours those were which we spent in the plainly furnished home in eager speech and reply, in which the wife and the older children took part, about the loftiest aims of human struggle and labor,—reconciliation, peace, consecration of life. “We are pulling on different ropes,” said Egidy to us, “but it is the same bell.”

Later, when on the occasion of his candidacy I wrote to him how desirable it was that such servants of the community, such thinkers who stood above narrow party interests, should be members of the popular assembly, and how different everything would then at once be, he wrote back to me:

Everything will not be different at once, but gradually—of course; but the tempo decides. “Gradually” everybody says; the point is whether it is slow step by numbers—One—back again—One—back again—Twooooo (you surely know something of the drillground?) or, of course, rather livelier, try even a bit of quick step for aught I care—no need that it be a double quick with _tambours battants_. And it is coming. It has to come. What phases we may still have to pass through I would not say, in view of the latest phenomena in our public life. As yet I still do not believe in a bloody settlement. The incoming of the new view of the world will come about, not without tears and outcries, but still as a natural process, as a birth.

You speak of my working power. Well, yes, I have working power and creative impulse, and how I yearn to be able to bring both “immediately” into service. Inwardly I am so well prepared and equipped that at a second’s notice I could take up my duties. I am sure of myself. If one chooses to speak at all of a value which I may be supposed to represent (as your words do in such a wonderfully pretty way), this value can only be seen in the future. Many have already spoken and written, but if they were put before the “doing” they gave out; they made miserable compromises with shallow unchangeableness and other wretched notions. Honesty, concord, the bringing into concord of preaching and practice, is what the business means for me. And in this matter I will not yield a hair’s breadth from my apprehension of the truth.

On our return from Hamburg, where we had gone after my Berlin address, we stopped in Berlin (as has already been mentioned) for only an hour at the railway station. Thereupon Egidy wrote me the following letter, which also I will put on record here because it shows so very clearly how Egidy conceived of his busy work and of a possible coöperation with me:

Berlin, N. W., Spenerstrasse 18, May 11, 1892

Highly honored Lady:

You passed through Berlin and we knew nothing about it, when we had been taking so much pleasure in the anticipation and planning everything so as to enjoy, if possible, a few more hours of interchange of thought with you and Herr von Suttner.

For in truth I had my heart very much set on it. I would gladly have anchored our acquaintance on a ground that might be fruitful for the community. We must act (operate) on one set of principles. Guerrilla warfare of individuals, or even of groups, must be superseded by a systematic action of all under one controlling idea, with each one conscious of the object to be attained. The heads of all columns must now appear on the battlefield; those who always do nothing but talk of religion, Christianity, and the Church, without being honest men or thinking of their brothers,—those we leave to march in circuit around the battlefield as they have been doing in the past. Our idea is the conquest, not merely the combating, of the old view of the world; the new appears to me under the name “Christianity,” to you under the name “Humanity.” That ought not to separate us, however, but should make the one complement the other. Perhaps, too, with the meaning which I give to the concept “Christianity,” “Humanity brought closer to the Godhead,” you may be able to accept the word. For the success of our endeavors, and _that_ is the only point that concerns us, the word “Christian” is indispensable. Yes, the circles that you already have will be content with the word “Man”; but millions will not accept it.

We must take Christianity _seriously_—that is the sentence which I lately cried out to the literary world when I had invited them to meet in the Chamber of Deputies. In speech and writing, in our own lives, wherever we come forward, we must verify the Christian consciousness, must “_live love_” I was understood without doubt—but faith is lacking; faith in the possibility of a realization of my endeavors. And that is fearfully sad!

Others again, who share the faith with me, cannot conceive the realization with retention of the external forms, as I strive for it; often, therefore, they scarcely believe in the audacity and intrepidity of my will. The sort of spiritualization of the established (altar and throne), or “idealization,” is to them unthinkable, and just as unthinkable to them is it that in my concrete demands on the future I go beyond them all. None of all these dream of anything _so_ radical as the changes I want to make, because in many cases, it must be admitted, they lack the clear conscience: they want to “destroy”—much at any rate—while I would only build up.

I recently had an intensely serious interview with two teachers. One of them wanted to compile the views of the most prominent champions of the development of mankind relative to the schools: the anonymous author of _Maschinenzeitalter_—I helped him over the anonymity to begin with (could do so the more freely because on the day before that splendid booklet _Wilhelm II., Romantiker oder Sozialist_ had come into my hands, on the cover of which Frau v. S. is named as the author of that work). It was highly interesting to hear and to see how the two developed the fact that, and the reasons why, they had believed, not believed, believed again, and ultimately not believed, this or that. The other observations of these (still rather young) men were also very noteworthy, their zeal for the development of mankind downright magnificent. And of such there are thousands—only the faith is lacking, and for that we ourselves are to blame, if we do not work unitedly and so become to those who are striving and willing, demanding and yearning, a real _safeguard_ for their hopes.

Therefore, Frau von Suttner, place your efforts also under the banner of a pure religiousness, true and genuine;[38] only so can you _uphold them before every one_ as justified. Those who care nothing for the word “Religion” will not ostracize your efforts because of a word; and those to whom religion is everything will recognize your efforts for very religion’s sake. But religion in a sense which excludes any limitation of belief, any Churchism and any Judaism, all sectarianism, and the like.

I had my heart too much set on saying these additional words, highly honored lady; I may take it, since the acquaintance we have formed, that you have a friend’s comprehension of the unreservedness of my discussion. We are dealing here with something too high for phrase-making. Above all, I beg you to see in the fact that I have written you thus at all a proof of pure and genuine esteem—else had I remained silent. And this honest and convinced esteem I feel (together with all my family) in no less a degree for your husband, whom I respectfully salute. My wife and daughter desire me to express to both of you their warmest greetings and respects. Your visit remains for us all a valued memory.

Sincerely yours M. von Egidy

I should not be at a loss to characterize the whole man Egidy in one word. Just as there are, for example, men of steel and iron, so hard and keen; men of gold, so good and true; men of wax, so soft and plastic; so is Egidy, in his transparent luster, a man of crystal.

XXXVI VARIOUS OPINIONS Letters from Alphonse Daudet, Paul Heyse, the Bishop of Durham, Ruggero Bonghi, and Count Kamarofski

After our return from Berlin we gave ourselves up once again to our literary and propagandist labors. We exerted ourselves to find out what distinguished contemporaries thought of our purposes, and to utilize their approval if we got it. So it was that I gained the authoritative approval of Björnson and Fulda and Edmondo de Amicis and Émile Zola and many others. But we also encountered opposition and doubt, though only rarely. My husband, who during our stay in Paris had won Alphonse Daudet’s sympathies, now wrote to him about the founding of the Peace Society and about the Congress in Rome, and asked him if he would help in the cause. Here is the answer:

My dear Colleague,

War is odious and your work is fine. So I am with you against war; but do you really believe that we can do anything in behalf of peace except wave our arms and utter sounds? To me war is a thing fated, and the _apple_ side of my nature—mankind is divided into pears and apples, idealists and others—the terrible apple side of me, then, takes from me all hope of success in the campaign which I am ready to undertake with you.

Remember me to Madame Suttner, and believe me wholly

Yours, Alphonse Daudet

And to me a famous German poet wrote:

Honored Baroness:

Is there need of an express assurance of my warmest approbation of the ends and aims of the Peace League? And yet, as I am convinced that mankind, ruled as they are more by passions and instincts than by reason and love, will approach these ends only by the civilizing labors of centuries if they ever do at all, it goes against my grain to express in solemn protests, from which I am unable to hope for any practical result, pious wishes which for a nobler humane minority are self-evident. As long as European civilization is still threatened by a half-Asiatic barbarism which will never submit to an arbitrator’s decision but will yield only to force, I regard the _Ceterum censeo_ of such congresses even as a danger, like everything else by which our readiness for defense, indispensable in the interest of the world’s peace, is impaired.

With sincere respect Yours very devotedly Paul Heyse

Munich, October 31, 1891

I append a few other letters from that time:

Auckland Castle Bishop Auckland July 12, 1892

Dear Madam:[39]

Englishmen cannot but hail with the fullest, heartiest sympathy the work which you have taken in hand, as well as the success that has attended it. The promotion of the business of peace in the nearest future depends in large measure on the mood of the German race, and on this you have already made a deep impression.

As far as I am personally concerned, I have faith enough—may I say, I have confidence enough in the power of the Christian faith?—to expect that if once the magnanimity of opposing nations is awakened, which is quite within the range of possibility, there will also be found a way to obviate the persistent causes of mutual irritation. Then the natural institutions of peace will suffice to furnish the nations with that powerful discipline, consisting in self-denial, which at present has to be maintained by perpetual readiness for war.

Would it be going too far to express the hope that even our generation may yet live to see France, Germany, Russia, fenced in as it were by a neutral girdle, enabled to improve their resources without being obliged to anticipate untoward events, and to perform their functions in the service of man—at the same time forwarding the kingdom of God on earth.

May a rich blessing attend your efforts!

With the sincerest feelings of respect, dear Madam, I am Yours truly B. F. Dunelm.[40]

I had kept up a correspondence with the chairman of the Congress at Rome, Minister Ruggero Bonghi. Here is one of his letters (the original in Italian):

Anagni, July 9, 1892

Dear Friend:

Since you permit me to call you “friend,” I will no longer give you any other name, for there is none tenderer. And the consciousness that I am speaking to a friend sweetens writing for me, makes it almost seem pleasanter to me than wandering about the fields to breathe in the fresh breezes which blow here on the heights of the Apennines in these early morning hours—here where I now, as Petrarch says, “dwell serious and sad” (_doglioso e grave or seggio_), and where in days gone by so much martial rage was let loose, while to-day such deep peace and quiet reign. Here in this ancient Anagni whose origin is lost in gray antiquity, which took the highest place in a people that had been subjected by Rome, and which was once the home of haughty popes who from their dwelling-place there ruled the world—here, I say, I indulge in considerations about the fortunes of my country, about the difficult remedies for its ailments; and withal, in my orphanage I watch the little girls grow up. And I instruct them so that when they have grown big, and return to their families, they may have an influence upon them to make them better and may turn the future into a more friendly channel....

It almost seems to me, dear friend, that I am thus doing a work perhaps more useful—though it may be insignificant—than the work of very many who carry their chatter into the assemblies, and their passions and infatuations into the privy council. And when I think of you I rise to that ideal of unity and peace which lives in your spirit and your heart, and which bears witness to nobility of soul in those who can grasp it and love it,—while despising it, deriding it, and denying it, attests the opposite.

What has war accomplished here? It has laid waste these landscapes, and often in the course of the centuries scattered the inhabitants so that even the traces of their habitations have disappeared. Often, also, in the course of the centuries, Anagni and the Secco valley above which it lies have risen; and as often it has been again reduced by the power of arms and the ambition of the great. And now the valley is unhealthy; one can scarcely get safety from its miasmas up here, about five hundred meters above the level of the sea.

I have an idea, and I am almost afraid to express it, my dear lady. It is this: I believe that Rome, by which the first conquest of these territories was effected, also brought the first misfortune upon them. Either the whole history of the first centuries of Rome is false, or else the peoples which first fell under the Roman yoke were previously happier and more numerous and lived on healthier and more fruitful lands and in more widely spread residences than after that. What benefit has war realized here or anywhere else?

If in the deeds to which it constrains men not all is evil, and if many a virtue shines out in connection with them, this is because man, savage and—I feel like saying—bestial as he may become, still never wholly ceases to be human, and in some way mitigates the harm which his own work inflicts. If war has done anything good in any respect, this has been done, one may say, in its own despite and contrary to its intent. Even if many instincts impel man to war, how much nobler are those that repel him from it! How august sounds the voice that would restrain him from it, in comparison to the angry shout that eggs it on! To-day I read the maxim of old Lao-Tse: “If two armies of equal strength are pitted against each other, the victory belongs to that one whose leader was the more merciful.”

That is—unfortunately—not correct. But it is one of those human illusions that are more valuable than a truth, because they prove that man feels ruth at the use of arms, that his conscience is not easy even when he is compelled to use them, and that he seeks the basis for victory in some virtue, in some feeling that might absolve him. We promoters of peace, who work for it with glowing zeal, have in the last analysis no other object than this,—that man shall become _wholly human_.

And, as I am in the habit of ultimately ending my letters to my friends, I make an end of this one. Have a little affection for your

Bonghi

After my trip to Berlin I received from Bonghi the following lines, this time written in French:

Rome, April 26, 1892

I follow you and applaud you. You have everything that is necessary for the beneficent and intelligent part that you are playing. You have had the courage to go and plant our banner in Berlin, in the very fortress of our enemies.

Write me, dear Baroness, as often as you can; you will be doing me a very great favor. A thousand greetings to your husband.

Yours altogether R. Bonghi

From the famous Russian folklorist and professor in Moscow University, Count Kamarofski, I had received an article for my review and the following letter:

Moscow, May 18/30, 1892

Highly honored Lady:

Accept my thanks for your letter and the pamphlets accompanying it. You are right: you are no stranger to me since I have learned to esteem you from your beautiful story, _Die Waffen nieder_. I am sending you herewith my lecture which I delivered in behalf of the famine-stricken, and give you permission to make such extracts from it as you may see fit. As for an original article for your review, I will get one ready as soon as I find the opportunity.

In Russia people defend the tremendous military preparations as necessary on account of the Triple Alliance, and especially of Germany; thus every one talks of his merely defensive designs, and attributes to his neighbor the most threatening plans. Surely a melancholy sign of the times!

In view of this, all friends of peace are called upon to act on public opinion, and through it on the governments, as much as possible; and certainly the chief part in this noble effort belongs to women, for they are most able to influence education and morals.

I am yours, etc. Graf L. Kamarowsky

XXXVII THE BERN SESSIONS Journey to Switzerland · Poem by Count Hoyos · Letter from Prince Camillo Starhemberg · Opening of the Congress · First impulse to arbitration treaties, from America · League of European states · Social life of the Congressists · Arturo de Marcoartu · Alfred Nobel complies with my invitation · On the Lake of Lucerne · A parable by Ruchonnet · Protest against distorted reports · A lively debate · Arrival of the Interparliamentarians · The Conference · A prophetic toast

In August, 1892, we proceeded to Bern, where the fourth World’s Peace Congress and the fourth Interparliamentary Conference were invited to meet. It was our first journey to Switzerland—for us both an intense delight. The name Switzerland awakens in the mind a whole mass of mountain poetry and ideals of freedom: glaciers and Rütli oath, cow bells and Tell’s arrow. To go with this, a highly modern international hotel life. The plainest and most democratic country in Europe, and withal the meeting-place of the traveling aristocrats and plutocrats of the Old and New Worlds.

The way to Bern took us to the Lake of Zurich. My Own reveled in the spectacle of this magnificence of nature. Curious—when my mind reverts to the journeys which I took with my husband, it is only through the medium of the pleasure which _he_ found in them that I recall all the beauties of art and nature which we enjoyed. Now I myself am also susceptible to such enjoyments; but when I was with him I felt only the reflex of his feelings.

We put up at the Berner Hof. On our first arrival, although it was late in the evening, we met many of our friends of the Rome Congress,—Frédéric Passy, Ducommun, the Moscheles pair, Hodgson Pratt, Pandolfi, Émile Arnaud, and many others. The next morning a new, joyous surprise: the glass door of our room opened out on a great terrace, and from here the gaze swept over the hotel garden, over the city, and over the horizon of snow-glittering peaks of the surrounding mountains.

“It is beautiful here, my Löwos!”

“Yes, My Own, beautiful; and we will have our breakfast here on the terrace.”

So the luminous pictures flash, so fresh breezes of happiness blow over from the past into my gray, lonely present, as I look back upon the journeys which we two took together, when we carried with us everywhere, into the most serious days filled with work and political problems and into the different imposing surroundings, our modest, sunshiny bit of home. On that first morning in the capital of the Swiss Confederation the mail brought me various letters,—from Count Hoyos a poem dedicated “to the Peace Council at Bern,” and entitled

NEVER THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS

_Wenn blinder Haft die Krallen regt_

When blindfold Hatred’s claws are shown And Falsehood’s wings come dark behind, Stand to your arms, and lay not down The weapons of the Mind!

The war of nations, demon strange, Before the truth shall shrieking flee; Man’s genius good shall fearless range After the victory.

Pour from your sword-blade floods of light, Be love the sign upon your shield; These arms by their o’erwhelming might Shall make the tempter yield.

From the Liberal member of the Herrenhaus, Fürst Camillo Starhemberg, whom I had requested and half persuaded to come to the Interparliamentary Conference at Bern, I received the following communication, interesting from many points of view:

Schloss Hubertendorf, Nied.-Oest. August 21, 1892

Honored Baroness:

The quite abnormal heat that has been prevalent for some time has so affected my nerves and made me so unwell that I shall hardly be able to carry out my intention of taking part in the Conference at Bern.

I will not yet definitively decline, but I hardly believe that I can get to Bern. I have no desire to act as a dumb listener and looker-on, and for taking a part in word and deed I do not, to speak frankly, feel myself either in the mood or well enough.

At the request of Baron Pirquet I have, during the recent sessions, put questions to various members of the Herrenhaus, and sounded them as to whether they would not be pleased to take part in the deliberations of the Conference, and, anyhow, to express their sympathy with our endeavors by letting their names appear on the list of those who are working for peace in the world.

Unfortunately, the least that I got was a courteous declination; in most cases it was an ironical answer, of course always in such polite terms as admitted of no decided protest. I had also the opportunity of speaking with a personage of exalted position about the idea of peace in general, but everywhere I found expressed more or less the idea that the German lady betrothed to a German officer, on page nine of the Festival Number of _Die Waffen nieder_, develops:[41] Sooner sacrifice millions, sooner bring upon men limitless misery, sooner ruin states financially, decimate the population, plunge families in want, mourning, and the deepest distress, than be unfaithful to traditional ideas; every thought of a peace movement of that kind is actually interpreted as if there must be cowardice back of it.

I cannot say that these utterances which I have recently heard enhance my hopes of _a speedy success_, but none the less I harbor the conviction that sometime the idea will make its way, and that at least the civilized nations of Europe will acknowledge allegiance to the principle of arbitration and will bring their controversies to a decision in that way.

I had not very long ago an extremely interesting letter from a Pole who is very warm on the peace question and sends me all sorts of peace journals and bits of news, but will not agree to peace, to the idea of a _permanent_ peace anyway, till Poland is an independent kingdom and free both from Russia and from Austria—and he himself admits that of course this could not be attained until after a bloody war and strife. And this is the way with a good many adherents of the peace idea: first they want to see their own object attained, they shrink from no difficulties, no deluge of blood, and only when they have gained their own ends are they willing to make peace. The fact is, to accept subordination, to submit, is what individual men cannot do, much less peoples and nations; and just as we stand for the idea of peace and are carrying on a propaganda for it—of course only with very slight progress against the existing hostility to it—so others are fanning the hatred and discord of the nations, are egging on the nations to senseless national hatred, and use this to serve their own foul purposes, to attain their own despicable ends.

Most heartily wishing the best success to you at Bern, highly honored Baroness, and promising that in thought and feeling I shall be one at this so honorable assemblage which is striving for the ennobling of humanity, I sign myself with the assurance of my fullest respect and devotion,

Your sincerely admiring and appreciative Starhemberg

I had also written to Alfred Nobel asking him to come to Bern and attend the deliberations of the Congress, but had received no answer to this.

—So after the festive breakfast on our terrace we went with tense anticipation to the opening of the Congress. The great hall of the Bundesrat was filled to the last seat. The galleries were crowded as densely as on days when an especially interesting parliamentary session is expected.

Louis Ruchonnet, who the year before had been President of the Swiss Republic, was to be chairman. In the hall we met several more friends. Professor Wilhelm Löwenthal of Paris was among them. After Ruchonnet’s inaugural address a representative from each of the different nations made remarks; and that brought the first formal session to a close. The deliberations did not begin till the second session, which took place in the afternoon in the hall of the Museum.

In the course of years I have attended more than a dozen peace congresses and conferences, the protocols of which I possess in as many volumes. I cannot propose to insert in these recollections of my life the speeches, resolutions, and festivities which this small library chronicles. I shall reproduce only what especially impressed itself on my mind, what was a part of my experience so to speak, and thereby afford to such of my readers as here seek a historical sketch of the movement with which my name and activities are associated a glance at its development. It is always interesting to follow the line along which certain phenomena of contemporary history move—now swiftly, now slowly, now standing still or even backing, to go forward again with all the greater rapidity; it is noteworthy, too, how many an after-phase is prophetically adumbrated, how projects come up and are dropped and afterward come up again as something entirely new; how that which is at first a matter of contention gradually becomes a matter of course, and how apparently insurmountable obstacles, which one does not even try to remove, are later found to have simply vanished away.

In Berlin no peace society had as yet been formed, so Germany was not represented by any one from its capital, but by Dr. Adolf Richter from Württemberg. From the United States Dr. Trueblood, president of the Boston Peace Society (founded in 1816), was there. Ducommun was in the chair at the second session, and made a report on the establishment of the permanent International Bureau, the honorary secretary of which this splendid man continued to be until his death in 1906.

Hodgson Pratt brought an interesting piece of information: the President of the United States had sent to all governments a letter announcing the resolution of the United States Senate and House of Representatives expressing the wish to have permanent arbitration treaties concluded with all other nations. Hodgson Pratt added to this communication the proposal that we should work in every country to have this letter answered by the respective governments. So that was the beginning—suggested by America, supported by England—of “permanent arbitration treaties.”

There was debated, and adopted, a motion proposed by E. T. Moneta, S. J. Capper, and the Baroness Suttner, with the title, “A Confederation of European States.”

Oh, that Capper! What a half comical but wholly pleasing figure of a congressman! The white beard of a prophet and a tall white hat. A vibrant voice that uttered itself by preference in French but with the most exaggerated English accent; enthusiasm and fire, and at the same time solid common sense.

But to return to the motion, “A Confederation of European States.” At that time the idea had not yet begun to be understood at all; it was generally confounded with “United States,” after the pattern of North America, and proscribed for Europe. So thoroughly proscribed that a Swiss paper called _Les États-Unis d’Europe_ was forbidden to be brought into Austria.

The Capper-Moneta-Suttner motion read:

Whereas both the injury caused by armed peace and the danger that is ever threatening the whole of Europe from a possible great war have their basis in the condition of lawlessness in which the different states of Europe stand toward one another;

Whereas a confederation of European states, which would be desirable also in the interest of the commercial relations of all countries, would do away with this condition of lawlessness and create permanent legal relations in Europe;

And finally, whereas such a confederation would in no wise impair the independence of the individual nations as regards their internal affairs, and therefore as regards their forms of government:

The Congress invites the European peace societies and their adherents to exert themselves, as the highest aim of their propaganda, for the formation of a confederation of states on the basis of the solidarity of their interests. It moreover invites all the societies in the world, especially at the time of political elections, to draw attention to the necessity of a permanent congress of nations, to which every international question should be submitted, so that every conflict may be settled by law and not by force.

The members of the Congress—at least the greater part—were together the whole day long, for most of them lodged in the same hotel and took their meals there at a great common table between the sessions. There they went on conferring during luncheon and dinner. Especially at the after-dinner coffee, which was taken in a covered veranda adjoining the dining-room, groups of friends were formed and indulged in unconstrained conversation.

One afternoon a large circle of us was gathered in this veranda to hold a mock trial. At table a little controversy had arisen between the Marchese Pandolfi of Rome and Senator Arturo de Marcoartu of Madrid. Now, in jest, a court of justice was appointed; the two contending parties had to submit their cases, each of them chose an advocate, and the judge was to give his decision. I no longer remember what it was all about; I only know that it was very amusing. One of the advocates—it was Gaston Moch, a former French artillery officer—proved to be very witty, and the two opponents likewise put the whole tribunal in the merriest of moods by their repartee.

Arturo de Marcoartu was the only Spaniard who attended the Peace Congress; I believe the Spanish Interparliamentary Group and the Spanish Peace Society consisted of himself and no one else,—at least he was the only active member. He spoke a good deal and was very long-winded, and he was not a popular speaker because he had a very indistinct enunciation and he was all the time repeating himself; but when his speeches were read they were found to contain notable ideas. He had been working for years with the greatest zeal to help spread the idea of universal peace. Even before the first London Conference he had tried in Vienna to win to the cause a number of prominent politicians and aristocrats, and had found appreciation and assistance in Fürst Joseph Colloredo, a very liberal-minded man. The beginning of an activity had ensued, but this first stream was soon lost in the sand. I shall by and by introduce a letter from Marcoartu, containing many interesting discussions and observations which have been justified by events. As long as he lived Marcoartu never was missing at a Peace Congress or an Interparliamentary Conference; since his death, Spain has been unrepresented at the Congresses.

To return to that afternoon in the veranda: my husband, who was employed as Pandolfi’s advocate, was in the act of delivering a humorous plea, when a waiter came to me where I sat at one side, said that a gentleman in the drawing-room wished to speak to me, and handed me the man’s card,—Alfred Nobel. Joyfully surprised, I hastened to the drawing-room, where my friend came to meet me.

“You called me,” he said; “here I am. But incognito, so to speak. I do not want to take part in the Congress or make any acquaintances, only to hear something specific about the matter. Tell me what has been done so far.”

We remained absorbed in a long conversation. Alfred Nobel displayed much skepticism, yet he seemed anxious to see his doubts dispelled. He left Bern that same evening, but he made my husband and me promise to come and visit him for two days at Zurich after the Congress was adjourned.

Among the festivities which were arranged for the benefit of the Congressists was an excursion to the Lake of Lucerne. It was a grand trip. We had a collation at Lucerne. Of course toasts were made; but all after dinner eloquence evaporates with the froth of the champagne. Nevertheless, something that Ruchonnet said—not in a speech but in conversation with his vis-à-vis—made a great impression on me, and I copied it into my diary. Some one had spoken of the objection that is often heard made by the opposing party that it would be an impossibility, a misfortune, to reduce the armies—it would be simply unthinkable from the standpoint of civilization and political economy. Then Ruchonnet made this comparison: If to-day, by some misfortune, the sun should be darkened, then men would use every effort to provide artificial light and artificial heat; new industries and new professions would come into existence; and then, if after a few generations people should come along with the proposition to abolish the sun’s eclipse, there would be a general outcry, “That would be a calamity, an impossibility—what would become of the heat factories, of the numberless light-makers?”

On the day after the excursion to Lucerne the deliberations were resumed. First of all, A. G. von Suttner took the floor to protest against the false, distorted reports of a certain correspondent. The person inculpated had done nothing less than to send the newspapers a telegram in which the opening assembly was pictured as a turbulent scene among people who were stirring up war in their own camp. The speaker read aloud the distorted reports in question, which had furthermore given the foreign press material for sarcastic comments, and called on the chair to send an official denial to the newspapers; and this was done. It proved later that the correspondent was an avowed opponent, who had declared to a colleague that he was not willing that the movement should take root in Switzerland.

There did come a somewhat lively scene in the course of the Congress, however, when the Polish member of the Austrian Parliament made a speech in which he demanded the restoration of Poland as an independent kingdom. Ducommun, who was in the chair at that session, as well as several other speakers, notably Frédéric Passy, laid down the law to the Polish patriot, who would not accept the partition of his fatherland, declaring that the Congress could not possibly occupy itself with the revision of Polish history. The justice of the future is to be made ready for; the individual injustices of history cannot now be rectified, for all the divisions of the land as at present constituted are based on the ground of force; new laws, new ordinances—and they must be worked for—have no retroactive power.

Now the Parliamentarians too took their turn in Bern. Their Conference was to be opened after the close of our Congress, on the twenty-ninth of August. There we again met many old acquaintances: Dr. Baumbach and Dr. Hirsch from Berlin; Frédéric Bajer from Denmark; Philip Stanhope, brother of the Minister of War, Cremer, Dr. Clark, from England; and many others. We also learned to know many new faces: from Norway the president of the Storthing, Ullman, was present, and Honduras and San Salvador were this time represented by Minister Plenipotentiary Marquis de Castello Foglia. Altogether thirteen nations were represented. The sessions were held in the Federal Palace. The rest of us—non-parliamentarians—were allowed to be present in the galleries. The Conference was received by the director of the Department of the Exterior, Bundesrat Droz. Of the transactions I note the following:

The French Senator Trarieux and the Englishman Stanhope took up the American overture in regard to arbitration treaties and proposed the establishment of an international tribunal. Pandolfi pleaded for “a permanent International Conference.” Marcoartu demanded the neutralization of isthmuses and straits. Baumbach, vice president of the German Reichstag,—even then the German politicians were showing themselves very reserved toward the idea of peace,—spoke in behalf of the protection of private property at sea in times of war. The debate on this topic became rather excited. The Frenchman Pourquery de Boisserin explained in fiery words that a Peace Conference could not, on principle, take under advisement any eventualities of war—and there he was right, a hundred times right!

The other standpoints, however,—“that we cannot be satisfied with pious wishes; we cannot as yet proclaim permanent peace, so we must content ourselves with what is attainable, and every factor that works toward the humanizing of war, the diminution of its horrors, is itself a mighty step toward better things,”—these standpoints won the day, and the Baumbach motion was passed.

Even at luncheon—I sat between Baumbach and Pourquery—the controversy was kept up. And it has lasted till to-day. There are still those who want to guide the work of peace along the course of mitigating and regulating the phenomena of war, in order to demonstrate thereby that they are too practical to strive for the “impossible,” and in order to postpone to misty future times the attack on the real enemy, “war,” for which they show especial regard and respect; and in contradistinction to these there are those who assert that if the goal lies in the south one ought not to pave the way toward the north.

During the session of the Conference the Parliamentarians were given a festival at Interlaken. On that occasion Schenk, who afterward became President of the Confederation, offered a toast containing a prophecy for which even the speaker himself probably did not foresee so speedy a fulfillment.

“I am glad,” said he, “to see the representatives of parliaments here assembled to deliberate about peace and arbitration; still more glad should I be on the day when the official commissioners of the governments should assemble for the like purpose—and that day will come.”

That day arrived only seven years later, when twenty-seven governments sent their official representatives to The Hague for that same purpose.

XXXVIII VISIT TO ALFRED NOBEL Arrival at Zurich · Nobel begins to take an interest in the peace movement, and joins us · Trips on the lake · A glimpse into his views of life · His first project for an act in furtherance of the cause of peace

We left Bern a few days before the close of the Conference in order to accept the invitation of Alfred Nobel, who was staying at Zurich. Our host had put at our disposal in the Hotel Bauer _au lac_, where he himself lodged, a suite of rooms that the Empress Elisabeth had vacated the day before after a short visit. I found still lying on the toilet table a pale faded rose....

Alfred Nobel came to meet us at the railway station and conducted us to the drawing-room prepared for us, and there, a half hour later, he joined us at dinner. He had us tell him all about the meetings of the Bern Congress. He also gave us his name as a member of the Austrian Peace Society, with a contribution of two thousand francs. He had sent a like sum through me to the Congress committee at Rome the year before.

“What you are handing me,—and I thank you for it,”—I said, “comes from amiability rather than from conviction. A few days ago in Bern you expressed your doubts regarding the cause....”

“Regarding the cause and its justice—no, I have no doubts about that, but only as regards the question whether it can be realized; nor do I yet know how your Unions and Congresses propose to take hold of the work....”

“Then if you knew that the work was being well taken hold of would you take a hand and help?”

“Yes, I would. Inform me, convince me,—and then I will do something great for the movement.”

I replied that I could not then, _entre la poire et le fromage_, explain the whole matter, expel deeply-rooted doubts, and evoke firm conviction; but I would from that time forth keep him posted, send him regularly my review and other publications appertaining to the matter, and would endeavor to give him not only “information” but enthusiasm.

“All right, try for that—I like nothing so much as to be able to feel enthusiasm, a capacity which my experiences in life, and my fellow-men, have greatly weakened.”

Nobel owned a tiny aluminium motor boat, in which we took delightful trips around the lake in his company; the silvery craft darted swiftly over the waters without rocking. We sat leaning back in comfortable deck chairs covered with soft plaids, let the magic panorama of the lake shores pass before our eyes, and talked about a thousand things between heaven and earth. Nobel and I even agreed that we would write a book together, a polemic against everything that keeps the world in wretchedness and stupidity. Nobel was very strongly inclined to Socialism in his views: thus, he said it was improper for rich men to leave their property to their relatives; he regarded great inheritances as a misfortune, for they have a paralyzing effect. Great accumulations of property should go back to the community and common purposes; the children of the rich should inherit only so much that they could be well educated and kept from want, but little enough so that they should be stimulated to work, and through this to renewed enrichment of the world.

The days in Zurich went swiftly. Trips on the lake, excursions to places within and without the city, during which I admired the opulence of the villas that fringe the city, which all look more like castles.

“Yes, the silkworms have spun all that,” said Nobel.

“Perhaps dynamite factories are even more profitable than silk mills,” I remarked, “and less innocent.”

“Perhaps my factories will put an end to war even sooner than your Congresses; on the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops.”

It was his belief that scientific progress and technical discoveries are destined to regenerate mankind. “Every new discovery,” he wrote me once, “modifies the human brain and makes the new generation capable of receiving new ideas.” From a letter of Alfred Nobel’s which was not addressed to me, but came under my eyes, I copied the following passage; it gives a glimpse into his philosophy of life:

To spread the light is to spread prosperity (I mean general prosperity, not individual wealth), and with prosperity will disappear the greatest part of the evils that are the inheritance of dark ages.

The conquests of scientific investigation, and its ever-widening field, awaken in us the hope that the microbes—the soul’s as well as the body’s—will gradually disappear, and the only war which mankind will wage will be the war against these microbes. Then Bacon’s splendid phrase that there are deserts in time will be applicable only to times that lie far back in the past.

On our departure I had to reiterate my promise to keep Alfred Nobel regularly informed about the progress of the peace movement; and from that time forth, though (alas!) I never saw him again, I corresponded with him indefatigably in regard to the cause of peace. As a testimony of how quickly and eagerly he became interested in its behalf I include here a letter which he wrote me a few months after our meeting in Switzerland:

Paris, January 7, 1893

Dear Friend:

May the new year prove prosperous to you and to the noble campaign which you are carrying on with so much power against human ignorance and ferocity.

I should like to dispose of a part of my fortune by founding a prize to be granted every five years—say six times, for if in thirty years they have not succeeded in reforming the present system they will infallibly relapse into barbarism.

The prize would be awarded to him or her who had caused Europe to make the longest strides toward ideas of general pacification.

I am not speaking to you of disarmament, which can be achieved only very slowly; I am not even speaking to you of obligatory arbitration between nations. But this result ought to be reached soon—and it can be attained—to wit, that all states shall with solidarity agree to turn against the first aggressor. Then wars will become impossible. And the result would be to force even the most quarrelsome state to have recourse to a tribunal or else remain tranquil. If the Triple Alliance, instead of comprising only three states, should enlist all states, the peace of the centuries would be assured.

XXXIX ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN PEACE SOCIETY IN BERLIN

When we came home from Bern much work was waiting for us. The editing of the review, the duties of the presidency in our two Unions, and at the same time uninterrupted literary activity,—all this gave us much to do. My correspondence had greatly increased. It was my ardent wish that a peace society should be established also in Berlin. During my visit there the matter had indeed been broached, but had not come to anything. Now once more I began correspondence with prominent persons in Berlin in order to take further steps in this matter. Even at the beginning of the year I had written letters with this object in view, and now I resumed these connections with redoubled zeal.

Passages from my own letters give some precise basal facts about the course of events connected with the founding of that society. I will put down these passages. The material lying before me consists of the letters that I wrote in those years to my publisher, A. H. Fried, who zealously coöperated with me in this matter—who indeed had really given the first impulse to it. He preserved all my letters, and has, at my request, put at my service the package containing those of 1892, from which there clearly appear, authentically and in chronological sequence, certain data which I should otherwise have forgotten long since, relating to that enterprise which lay so close to my heart.

January 2, 1892

There is really as yet no German peace society. Virchow was persuaded originally, but has since then relapsed into silence. Max Hirsch, member of the Reichstag, now wants to found one. Dr. Barth, the editor of the _Nation_, is also on our side. In Frankfurt there is also a Union, I believe.

January 14, 1892

Your question about Dalberg is justified too, for such a party politician as Hirsch would not be the right man at the head of the movement. I am just at work getting into communication with others in Berlin.

January 29, 1892

It is almost certain that there is now going to be a peace society in Germany. Hirsch wrote me to-day that the sixty deputies of the peace bureau of the Reichsrat[42] will doubtless effect the formation of a society, and that I shall find it already in existence when I reach Berlin. That would doubtless mean a growth for our paper.

March 1, 1892

Laying of the corner stone during my visit—that would be splendid! I would see to communicating a great declaration of sympathy from the French Parliament on that occasion. If only a revolution does not break out in your beautiful Berlin between now and then, and the Lord God of Dannewitz throw in a bomb[43]....

March 9, 1892

Gustav Freytag would doubtless be the right man as to his standing, but, I believe, not as to his opinions.

April 4, 1892

Dr. Hirsch has written me that the question [as to the establishment of a society] cannot come to discussion in the assembly mentioned; but that I must not be troubled. Well, for a time I will not be troubled, and then I shall go to writing letters and articles until a German peace society is formed. We _must_ have it. Karpeles ought to talk with Hirsch. To get signatures, a provisory committee must first be made up, which then signs under the reservation that they will _not_ have to be active afterwards. That is the way I did in Vienna. Then the big fish remain only as honorary presidents. That suffices perfectly.

April 9, 1892

To-day I wrote a long letter to Karpeles to push the Berlin peace society; if you have the opportunity, look up Karpeles and talk with him about the matter. If only Du Bois-Reymond would lend us his name! A German society must be called into existence before Bern.

Bern, August 31, 1892

Because of the society forming here you need not discontinue your labors there. Just go ahead gathering names, please. It will ultimately centralize itself in Berlin all the same.

September 5, 1892

Yes, the Berlin movement will halt—that I understand [because of the worthless partisan reports about the Bern Congress]; but between now and the next Congress societies must be formed and they will be.

September 10, 1892

The Grelling news is very good. I can now see that the society in Berlin will be formed. I will write to Grelling.

Karpeles is quite right in his unwillingness to serve; the thing to do is for him to coöperate, to get people into the committee, but not to sign. As things stand, the initiative must not have too many Jews back of it, else it will be immediately classified; no more than it could afford to be, say, too strongly Social Democrat. The Austrian comic papers are caricaturing me as the leader of a troop of Polish Jews as it is.

I will name several other people who will be helpful to the German society. The time for founding the society is the most propitious conceivable on account of the impending military bills. In order that the mammoth petition which our Bureau has drafted may get signatures in Germany as well as elsewhere, societies must also exist there. The manifestation may become just as imposing as that against the school laws,—even more imposing! since it is to spring up simultaneously all over Europe.

September 1, 1892

Here are two more letters of adhesion to the Berlin peace society. Hirsch’s is indeed good news.

October 24, 1892

—No, nothing can be done with the party men who will not do anything but go with Rickert and the opponents of the Peace Union there; especially if they take the view that the military bill—that splendid occasion for a mammoth protest—is a _hindrance_. Nor do we need the Radicals; they constitute the Peace-Conference group anyhow—others will surely join. Only there must be one to appear as chairman.

October 27, 1892

I will try to induce Hoyos, Starhemberg, or the Duke of Oldenburg to come to the Berlin assembly, or at least to write. Wrede will write—he cannot take the journey. Am looking forward to a bulletin with keen anticipation. Südekum must write me fully and frequently.

October 28, 1892

Dr. Förster will not be willing, I think. Also too much worried. Bothmer, perhaps—I am writing to him and others. I do not know whether his means will permit. So you need titles, you Democrats?—Don’t see the need of it. He who was born in Bethlehem had no title either, and his Union is still flourishing.

November 1, 1892

It seems things have got into a scrape. Well, it will go through; it cannot get wholly to sleep again now.... The notice of an incipient society—how am I to do that? Without names, without details.... I have often announced that one was going to be formed,—before my Berlin trip and before Bern,—and nothing ever came of it. People will not believe my word any longer. Possibly the inclosed? If you agree, send it to the printer. Anyhow, such a notice can be made at the last moment, and you who are on the spot will know best what there is that can be said.

November 1, 1892

What our Südekum—he is one of us—writes me causes me to doubt whether the peace society that we need is going to be formed. In the inclosed I have set down a few thoughts relating to that. Herewith I send also a letter to Hetzel. Please see that it reaches him. I wrote to Oldenburg yesterday, also to Hoyos. But of course all these suppose that it is to be a Union after the pattern of the Austrian one. If, however, it is the forming of a new political party, so be it; but outside of the great Union which women and teachers may join. Our head center is at present the Bern Bureau. That is the rendezvous of nonpolitical Unions. The politicians meet in the Interparliamentary Conference; and even they must have the tact not to trot out the _status quo_, else the French members instantly leave the hall, and what is the good? In the same way the French must keep quiet about their hopes of recovering their lost provinces through the future arbitration tribunal or future congresses of governments, else the Germans would have to leave. There will be time to get an agreement on these matters when, through the power of public opinion, the governments shall be compelled—with a view to the assurance of peace—to adjust such questions. Adieu! it is to be hoped that the majority of the preliminary committee will vote for the formation of a nonpolitical Union. And it is to be hoped that then Dr. Schlief will not deprive us of his energies.

November 4, 1892

Received your two letters to-day simultaneously. Am highly delighted about Förster, Spielhagen, etc. Well, I will not exult until I know definitely how the session of Thursday resulted, since it is still possible that an agreement was not reached. But then I shall scream with delight. Oldenburg has been predisposed through me. A request to join the committee will then have more of a chance to succeed if coming from Förster and Spielhagen. Especially Spielhagen, because Oldenburg is literary too and must therefore be taken hold of on the fellow-craftsman side. The incendiary letter desired I will write to the Excellency mentioned.[44] Next thing you will be putting me into correspondence with Death.... Am eager for the next news; but should not be surprised, and _not discouraged_, if the thing did not get into running order at once.

November 5, 1892

My dear Friend:

I have not in a long time experienced a greater joy than that which your dispatch afforded me! That is splendid. What we owe to you in this matter is incalculable; if you had not kept tirelessly at work, nothing would have been effected,—at least not for a long time.

Fifteen founders! Of these Förster and Spielhagen alone would be sufficiently influential. If Levysohn is also of the number, then the _Berliner Tageblatt_ will do much for its reception among publicists, and Mosse, we may hope, for the pecuniary side. Wrede’s dispatch went off without my having anything to do with it, else I should not have permitted my name to be put in the foreground. Well, of course the main thing will be the greetings for the first great public meeting; and I will be trying to induce Krafft-Ebing, Starhemberg, Oldenburg, etc., to be on hand. Then will the Germans and Austrians be working “shoulder to shoulder,” but not in the old teeth-showing style.

You must now endeavor to have our review the “official organ” of the German society. The secretary would then have to send a short report each month. If in the other cities of Germany still other societies should arise, so much the better for the movement.

November 7, 1892

Through a blunder my letter to Roggenbach only went off to-day, so that it will not be in his hands before Wednesday. Passy wrote me to-day a delighted card about the _bonne nouvelle_ from Berlin,—as if I were not aware of it! Your letter came too late, because it was addressed to the Chamber of Deputies. His address is Frédéric Passy, de l’Institut, Neuilly, near Paris.

It is too bad that Schlief stays out; but the Union could not be political. If on the outside there is formed a political party devoted wholly to the interests of peace, that would be fine, of course. It is good that the A.-L.[45] question is passed over in silence; but it must be real silence, not saying in the appeal that we say nothing of it because we do not recognize it; that would render the international relations of the new society more difficult. The solution must be, “We do not say where the right lies in the pending conflicts; we only desire that a system of law and a tribunal should be created in which those who are competent and _in authority_ (as we are not) should settle the conflicts without violence.”

November 9, 1892

Grelling’s words in the first meeting give me great pleasure. Let Schlief just form his political party outside; all the better.

November 13, 1892

Virchow’s sympathy is valuable. I would propose to make use of this sympathy in this way,—to add to the appeal something like the following:

“Prevented by professional obligations in other departments from taking an active part in the management of our society, but penetrated with perfect sympathy for our aims, the following persons have permitted us to use their names in this appeal and so to make known their agreement with what is here said:

“Virchow. Schönaich-Carolath. Etc.”

The page proofs of this appeal must be sent to such of the persons concerned as we wish to draw in further. To-morrow I will let you have a sketch; to-day no time.

If so be that the appeal is already made, I hope it is as brief as possible. That avoids contradiction. It does not need to make converts before it can do its work. Only sympathizers come in, anyhow; and they are—God be praised—numerous.

November 14, 1892

Here is that sketch. Perhaps the gentlemen will find in it something to start from. I think perhaps what is good in it may be the fact that it contains a programme which marks out the line for further activity and eliminates that which a peace union cannot do; that is to say, _itself_ founding peace, removing the political causes of war.

Here is also a second sketch for notices in the papers—will be easier to find room for than the big appeal. Oh, this overloading with work! One is caught in the wheels of so many machines that one scarcely knows where one is. _You_ are in it too now. It is lucky, anyhow, that Südekum can help. The unpleasantnesses and difficulties in the birth and infancy of the Union—oh, I know them too; the only thing that helps one over them is a look toward the loftiness of the goal. With hearty hand-clasp to the brave comrade in arms, etc.

November 16, 1892

From Roggenbach I received the inclosed letter, which I beg that I may have back after a few days. I send it because it contains so much that is important, and what it contains is so useful for the formation and the programme of the new society, that it is well for you and the comrades to read it. The point is—this grows clearer and clearer—neither to deny nor to affirm the _status quo_; simply to leave it unmentioned. Only in this way can Frenchmen and Germans work in common for our end.

November 21, 1892

In your letter received to-day I am startled by “Förster is not willing.” Had he not already given his adhesion? Have we not published the news a little too soon? To-day I have written twelve pages again to Roggenbach.

November 29, 1892

I am very much delighted at the organization of the Committee. If a session took place, please get this intelligence into No. 12.... Unfortunately, Oldenburg will not come forward. He declares he has never wanted to go before the public politically, and as a colonel still less can he do so in the peace movement. But perhaps I may accomplish something yet. On the seventh of December he is coming to the General Assembly; on the eighth we dine with him and his wife at Castle Erlaa; perhaps at dessert he can be brought to something.

December 3, 1892

The remissness of Förster and G[isitzky] I can very easily explain to myself; they are with their whole soul “Ethics,”[46] and in that case one cannot take charge of any second undertaking. The position of president might well remain temporarily vacant. The main thing is the secretary. Besides him, all the great names as “Honorary Presidents.”

December 5, 1892

Here is the letter desired. Write address and name on it. Perhaps in the meantime K. [Professor Kohler] has already declined or you have another in mind.

December 5, 1892

That was right unfriendly of Spielhagen. In the very lines in which he declined [the presidency] he might have included a manifesto. The _heart_ must be in it. Well,—and thank God,—ours is!

December 16, 1892

As to the election of a president, I think once more that if worst comes to worst the position can remain vacant and two vice presidents can be chosen. The main thing would be an energetic secretary. To _drop_ the matter is no longer admissible. They are rejoicing over it too warmly in Bern; besides, it has already been announced everywhere by the autograph correspondence of the Bureau. Hodgson Pratt is in raptures. So stick tight and hold out. If they do not at once get a clear idea of what they are about, no matter; the important thing is, to be; the rest takes care of itself.

December 21, 1892

How my heart throbs at it! [That is, at the meeting of the German Peace Society set for the twenty-first of December.] How I rejoiced over your _Habemus Papam_! Yes, that _is_ a Christmas deed!

Thus the long-desired formation of the Society had become an accomplished fact!

Footnote 1:

_Sitten_, like French _mœurs_ and Latin _mores_, has the double meaning of “morals” and of “customs,” “manners.”—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 2:

_La Dame blanche_, opera by Adrien François Boïeldieu, composed in 1825. Theodor Formes died in 1874, at the age of forty-eight.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 3:

From the word “Past!” on, these inscriptions are in English. Of course the fifteen-year-old German girl’s English is literally reproduced here; it is much better than most of our schoolgirls could do in German.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 4:

Pseudonym of Anton Alexander Graf von Auersperg, a distinguished liberal Austrian epic and lyric poet, born 1806, died 1876.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 5:

Born 1791, died 1872; published his last drama 1840; began to be very famous as a dramatist about 1850.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 6:

Pseudonym of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau, born 1802, became insane 1844, died (in an asylum at Oberdöbling near Vienna) 1850.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 7:

Count Friedrich Heinrich Ernst von Wrangel, Prussian general, was born 1784, was made Field Marshal 1856, died 1877; commanded the troops of the Germanic Confederation against Denmark in 1848, and the allied troops of Prussia and Austria against Denmark in 1864, but withdrew from the command in May of the latter year. But Lieutenant Field Marshall Felix Ludwig Johann Friedrich von Schwarzenberg, Austrian statesman and general, died in 1852, before Wrangel received the title of Field Marshal. I infer from this, and from the following sentence, that these signatures did not constitute a single inscription.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 8:

The joke is the same as in the story of the Englishman who mistook the American ambassador in his plain evening dress for a waiter, and gave him the order, “Call me a cab,” to which Ambassador Choate replied, “You’re a cab,” and afterwards defended himself by saying, “He asked me to call him a cab, and I did; and I would have called him a han’som’ cab if he hadn’t been so ugly.” But in English the troublesome words are a mere ambiguity; in German it is a case of erroneously using for the one sense the forms that properly convey the other sense, so that the interpretation which the father-in-law puts upon the suitor’s words, strained as it looks in the translation, is really the only interpretation which the words as spoken will bear.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 9:

Observe that previous to 1870 it was patriotic, not unpatriotic, for a Bavarian to speak of an Austrian as a fellow-countryman. It is quite likely, however, that the land of Parnassus is here meant.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 10:

The centennial anniversary of Schiller’s birth.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 11:

Schiller’s birthday.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 12:

If the illegible word is a proper name, it should be a masculine name of four syllables with accent on the third. If not a proper name, it should be preceded by “the” in the translation.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 13:

Too great a reward for my poor labors is the sympathy of so courteous and lofty a soul as is manifested in the letter which you have done me the honor to write to me. In such a soul it is a matter of course that indulgence also must find a place; and if in this case it is excessive, this is one reason the more why it should arouse in me a lively sense of gratitude. For the rest, excess in kindly feelings is one of the least dangerous disorders in this world. May God preserve and reward the noble inclinations which he has bestowed upon you.

Pray accept the respectful expression of my gratitude, and the assurance of the high esteem with which I have the honor of signing myself

Your most humble and devoted servant Alessandro Manzoni

Footnote 14:

Compare the dates of the autographs in the preceding chapter.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 15:

Both titles are “countess” in English; but in German _Gräfin_ is the count’s wife or widow, _Komtesse_ his unmarried daughter.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 16:

Manoel Garcia del Popolo Vicente, a native of Seville, born 1775, died 1832, was successful as singer and composer, and supreme as music teacher. The reputation of his book _Metodo di canto_ is high and permanent. He had two daughters, Maria born in 1808 and Pauline born in 1821. The elder, named Malibran by marriage, was one of the most renowned singers of the nineteenth century; she died in 1836. Pauline made her first appearance on the stage in 1837; married Louis Viardot, at that time director of the grand opera at Paris, in 1840; remained on the stage, with much success, till 1863; and settled in Paris as a teacher of singing in 1871.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 17:

To wit, Heine’s verses:

Du hast Diamanten und Perlen, Hast alles, was Menschenbegehr, Und hast die schönsten Augen— Mein Liebchen, was willst du mehr? —TRANSLATOR

Footnote 18:

Later, and as a result of this visit, married to Prince Louis Murat, Prince Achille’s youngest brother.

Footnote 19:

The stream mentioned above, the Tzkhenitz-Atzkhali—the Hippus of the classic writers—forms the dividing line between Mingrelia and Imeretia.

Footnote 20:

Or “Throw Down your Arms.” One translation bears the title “Ground Arms,” but that does not convey the idea.

Footnote 21:

Chère Baronne et amie!

Je viens d’achever la lecture de votre admirable chef-d’œuvre. On dit qu’il y a deux mille langues—ce serait 1999 de trop—mais certes il n’y en a pas une dans laquelle votre délicieux ouvrage ne devrait être traduit, lu et médité.

Combien de temps vous a-t-il pris de composer cette merveille? Vous me le direz lorsque j’aurai l’honneur et le bonheur de vous serrer la main—cette main d’amazone qui fait si vaillamment la guerre à la guerre.

Vous avez tort pourtant de crier “à bas les armes” puisque vous-même vous en faites usage, et puisque les vôtres—le charme de votre style, et la grandeur de vos idées—portent et porteront bien autrement loin que les Lébel, les Nordenfelt, les de Bange et tous les autres outils de l’enfer.

Yours for ever and more than ever A. Nobel

Paris, le 1 / 4 1890

Footnote 22:

All hail to weapons! They are man’s by right! Let woman hold her tongue when men must fight. And yet, ’tis true, in these days men are found Who rather should in petticoats be gowned.

Footnote 23:

Corresponding (see top of page 353) nearly to our “Puss in the Corner.”

Footnote 24:

“We must make him speak, however we do it.”

“But he notified me himself, yesterday, that he has not prepared a speech.”

“Call on him all the same; then he will have to say something!”

Footnote 25:

“Monsieur Friedrich Bodenstedt of Berlin has the floor!”

Footnote 26:

—“but even if I had prepared a speech I would not deliver it here to-day—”

“Why not? Why not?”

“I will tell you why frankly. I have been running my eyes over this immense hall where all the civilized nations of the globe are seen represented by their flags; but the flag of the most civilized nation, the German flag, is not there!”

Footnote 27:

“Sir, you are the living flag of Germany here!”

Footnote 28:

“M. de Girardin begins to flutter in the wind.”

Footnote 29:

“Thanks for the compliment, though I cannot accept it with all its implications, since I do not flutter in the wind!”

Footnote 30:

Bodenstedt gives the Russian’s word in German, the Frenchman’s in French, and the line “Jesus Christ” etc. in English, implying that this was said by the Archbishop of Canterbury or some other Englishman, though the speaker is not named.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 31:

Here my correspondent was in error; Professor Suess does not think otherwise than his utterances indicate. Eduard Suess is one of our profoundest intellects and noblest characters.—B. S.

Footnote 32:

“_On n’humanise pas la guerre, on la condamne parce qu’on s’humanise_,” says Frédéric Passy.—B. S.

Footnote 33:

Tolstoi’s letter is in French.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 34:

_Zusammengehörigkeit_, “together-belongingness.”

Footnote 35:

The original of Nobel’s letters is in French, except that of September 14, 1891, which is in English.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 36:

The title of A. G. v. Suttner’s first novel with scene laid in the Caucasus.

Footnote 37:

The new lexical formations which this quotation professes to exemplify will be best seen in the original: _Keine Empfindelei, kein klingendes Wortgetöse. Sich-entschließen-wollen. Jeder in seiner Weise auch tun. Wir wollen praktische, wollen Verwirklichungs-, wollen Tatidealisten sein._ The translator finds himself unable to reproduce these compounds in English without losing their quality as “stylistic beauties”; for he does not recognize the language of recent newspaper headlines as English until he shall hear the same sort of language in conversation, or read it in letters, or at least see it in the newspapers themselves elsewhere than in headlines.

Footnote 38:

The longing for higher development, and the faith in it, _is_ religiousness.—B. S.

Footnote 39:

The letter of the Bishop of Durham is given by the Baroness in German, without any such note as she appends to the next letter. Presumably, then, the Bishop himself translated his English thoughts into German when he wrote. But even on this assumption the present version has substantially the character of a retranslation, and retranslations must be largely conjectural.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 40:

That is, Brooke Foss Westcott.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 41:

An article by Björnson, in which he relates this anecdote: “A German lady betrothed to a German officer was making a journey through Norway. Certain persons were talking with her about the war that might soon break out over Alsace-Lorraine, and some one said it would be best if Alsace-Lorraine could dispose of itself in accordance with its own will. At this the German lady replied, ‘Rather than that, two million soldiers, my fiancé among them, should lie dead on the battlefield!’”

Footnote 42:

The Baroness inserts “_sic!_” probably with reference to the wording of her own letter rather than of Hirsch’s.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 43:

Upper and Lower Dannewitz are in Moravia, fifty miles or so north of Vienna. Grimm says that to speak of the Lord God of one or another town is a popular German form of asseveration, probably originating from the former presence of a miracle-working image of Christ in the place named.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 44:

Minister von Roggenbach.

Footnote 45:

In the German “E.-L.,” of course.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 46:

The main thing in Professor Wilhelm Förster’s life in 1892 was the founding of the German Society for Ethical Culture.—TRANSLATOR.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 4. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.