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: