Chapter XXI: Part SEVEN (3)

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!

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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.

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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}.