Unfortunately I could not write you sooner because I had an unusual task to finish. Unfortunately, also, I am still so very busy that I can only send a sketch in place of the desired programme. In my opinion it would be best for an agitation to be made, to the end that the Conference _in pleno_, or that single states, should inaugurate an investigation as to the possibility of carrying through a great war. At this moment the governments are not humble enough, public opinion is not as yet ripe enough, to be able to obtain results from the Conference. It would be much more practical if the sessions could be postponed until autumn, so as to let the separate states have time for arranging investigations and preparing public opinion. I will at all events endeavor to meet you so as to talk the matter over more in detail. I shall be in London about the fourteenth, at Hotel Cecil, and shall be at the Grand Hôtel in Paris toward the eighteenth, and there I expect to remain about a fortnight. I will do my best to promote matters in the direction indicated. It is impossible for me to predict to-day whether I shall be able to get to Scheveningen. At any rate I shall take the liberty of writing you in regard to this, and one of the principal motives of my desire to be there would be to have the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with you. With genuine loyalty and respect J. Bloch I also asked Prince Scipione Borghese to come to The Hague, as I had just been informed that he had come out in favor of the peace cause. He wrote back: Felice Scovolo, Lago di Garda, April 20, 1899 My dear Madam: Your pleasant letter, which I am very late in answering, has excited our desires more than you would believe possible. To spend some time with you and _un groupe du high-life pacifique_, closely following the work of this Conference, which is without contradiction one of the culminating facts of the history of our century, seems to us a delicious dream. Unhappily your interesting invitation will preserve all the beauty of a dream, which is always somewhat melancholy because of its unreality. The marriage of my youngest sister to Count Hoyos, which is to be celebrated toward the end of May in the depths of Hungary, calls us in that direction, and up to that time I am kept here by the carrying out of a social and agrarian transformation in which I am enormously interested and which keeps me at its beck and call. As for the Conference, the idea of which is in itself so beautiful and its convocation such a great victory, I hope that the good will of certain governments may compensate for the ill will of so many others, and that the whole thing will not remain in the realm of ideas but will give us some practical fruits....