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: