From my collections of letters · Signing of the Anglo-American arbitration treaty · The ratification fails by three votes · Insurrection in Crete · The concert of the powers · Outbreak of the Turko-Grecian War · Extracts from diary · The letter “to all good men” from Fortress Montjuich · Letter from Prince Scipione Borghese · Our literary labors · My audience with Emperor Franz Joseph I · Text of the petition submitted Here let a few specimens from my collections of letters be reproduced. Some weeks before the annual meeting of my Union, which took place early in January, 1897, I applied to various personages, asking for communications to be read; and I received numerous replies, among them the following: Political Department of the Swiss Confederation, Bern December 10, 1896 My dear Madam: Your letter of the fifth instant was duly received, and I thank you most sincerely for the congratulations therein conveyed from the Austrian Society of the Friends of Peace to the Swiss government. The Parliament indeed follows with genuine interest the philanthropic endeavors to spare the civilized world the horrors of war, and it joins with great sympathy in the demonstrations that aim to make nations comprehend the priceless advantage of peace. In expressing to you the best wishes for the complete success of your general assembly, permit me, my dear Madam, once more to thank you heartily and to assure you of my distinguished consideration. The President of the Swiss Confederation Lachenal International Peace Bureau Secretary’s Office Bern, December 9, 1896 Honored Colleague: Every isolated effort of the friends of peace resembles those tiny globules of mist, the condensation of which will afterwards form the rain for which the caravan is yearning. These particles are not noticeable; no one heeds them, and when the cooling rain is falling the atoms that so patiently worked to constitute it are no longer remembered. “Who cares for that,” say our faithful prophets, “if only it rains?” For more than five years the Austrian Society of the Friends of Peace has been resolutely pushing forward, and its efficacy has been gaining in breadth without losing anything in depth. It will have a significant share in the final success of our united effort, and it desires, just as we all do, nothing else than that the law of international peace may some day appear as much a matter of course and as self-originated as the law of gravity and the light of the sun.