Our movement has thus suffered a heavy blow. All the opposing elements are triumphing, yet we must not allow the results of the work that has already been done to be obscured. The forms of those—both individuals and corporate bodies—who stand for the ideals of a time free from manslaughter and oppression, remain unbowed; their voices still ring out loud and clear; their light, be it the torch swung high or a modest spark, still shines into the darkness. The present, though still so dark, must not make our faith in a brighter future grow faint. Yet even this faith does not help to deaden the pain of the days that are before us. Misfortune—though perhaps deserved, yet none the less severe—has overtaken our poor race during these spring days. On the sixth of May the famous Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen came to Vienna, and gave a lecture that same evening in the hall of the Rathaus before two thousand people. We were prevented from going to the city, but I wrote Nansen the following letter, to reach him a few hours before the lecture: Harmannsdorf, May 5 Dear Sir, Highly and sincerely honored: You have no time to read long letters; so I can only indicate, without offering reasons, what I desire to ask. You will, I know, meet with perfect sympathy what is only half said. A new era must be dawning for the world,—after the old heroic age of war comes the heroic age of knowledge and investigation. Who would be better authorized than you to point out the way thither? This evening thousands of my fellow-countrymen will listen to you. I beg of you to weave into your lecture two lines which shall express this thought: the reign of war must yield; the future must belong to the right. The impression will be immense, just at this moment, when the sea is again desecrated with burning and exploding ships. Speak words like these and you will thus give the work of peace a powerful impulse forward. With the most profound respect Bertha von Suttner The text of the lecture was published, from the manuscript, on the seventh of May, by the _Neue Freie Presse_. In it there was no reference to general questions of civilization. On the other hand, _Das Tagblatt_ published a report taken stenographically, and there it said: