Memoirs of Bertha von Suttner: The Records of an Eventful Life (Vol. 1 of 2)Suttner, Bertha von
History
Memoirs of Bertha von Suttner: The Records of an Eventful Life (Vol. 1 of 2)
Suttner, Bertha von
Peace; Suttner, Bertha von, 1843-1914; Women -- Austria -- Biography
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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