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: