XXIV
THERE IS A PEACE MOVEMENT
Return from Paris · International Peace Association · Das Maschinenzeitalter by “Jemand” · Anonymity attains its end · Bartholomäus von Carneri · At the Carneri table · In the Hotel Meissl
In the spring of 1887 we returned home from Paris enriched with many experiences and impressions. One thing especially I had learned there, which had a decisive influence on my after life and work. In a conversation about war and peace—a theme which was already mightily filling my soul—our friend Dr. Wilhelm Löwenthal informed us that there existed in London an “International Peace and Arbitration Association,” the aim of which was to bring about, by creating and organizing public opinion, the establishment of an international court of appeal which should take the place of armed force in settling disputes between nations.
“What! Madrid had such a girl, and I learn it for the first time to-day!” cries Don Carlos, when, in the scene with the Princess Eboli, she discloses her soul to him. Just so I felt. What? such a league existed,—the idea of justice between nations, the struggle to do away with war, had assumed form and life? The news electrified me. Dr. Löwenthal had to give me on the spot all the details about the formation of the Association, its aim, its methods, and the persons who were associated with it. What I learned was as follows:
The name of the founder and president of the Association was Hodgson Pratt. The Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Ripon, the Bishop of Durham, and others were among its directors. Its headquarters were in London.
Hodgson Pratt, a man of lofty ethical and philanthropical principles, had, within a few years, journeyed over the Continent for the purpose of calling into existence branches of his society. Since then there were in Stuttgart a “Württembergischer Verein,” Fr. von Hellwald, president; in Berlin a provisional committee, Professor Virchow, president; in Milan a “Unione lombarda per la pace,” Professor Vigano, president (after him, Teodoro Moneta); in Rome an “Associazione per l’arbitrio e la pace,” Ruggero Bonghi, Minister of Instruction, president. Others in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
The appeal which the London society had adopted as the basis of its propaganda, a copy of which Dr. Löwenthal handed me, contained the following introduction:
Lately a member of the English ministry declared that England’s greatest interest is peace. Could not the same thing be said of every civilized country?
The international political conditions in the civilized world when contemplated arouse no less astonishment than reflection.
On the one hand men of every rank and of all shades of opinion desire progress, the common advantage and happiness of mankind; and the object of all the endeavors of the men of science, the enlightened writers and thinkers, culminates in the accomplishment of this progress and well-being.
On the other hand, in opposition to these endeavors, the fruits of industry and diligence are constantly sacrificed in behalf of military objects, and this sacrifice serves to delay and hinder all progress.
Has the time not arrived, at the close of the Nineteenth Century, for all men to consult together and get into agreement to put an end to this folly, this terrible plague which can be avoided only through a common understanding and endeavor?
But how arrive at this result? Through the irresistible power of widely directed and energetically organized public opinion.
The means for attaining this propaganda and this organization is to be found in the formation of a great league, with branches in all European cities.
The appeal goes on to explain what the league was to aim at and what were to be its methods.
On my return I found awaiting me the proof sheets of my book Das Maschinenzeitalter (“The Age of Machinery”). I added in the chapter entitled “Zukunftsausblicke” (“Glimpses into the Future”) an account of the London League. Just as I had previously known nothing about it, I took it for granted that my readers also were unacquainted with this phenomenon of the times. For in that thing called “Publicity,” the endeavors of a few hundred men—even of a few thousand—disappear like so many drops of carmine in an arm of the sea.
When the book came out, shortly afterward, I had the satisfaction that not a single one of the very numerous critics who devoted whole columns to their reviews of it ever suspected that “Jemand”—Some One—could possibly belong to “the weak-minded sex.” Doctor Moritz Necker, the well-known literary editor of the Vienna Tagblatt, in writing to me about another matter, mentioned that he had recently been reading an anonymous book called Das Maschinenzeitalter; in his mind there was no doubt that the author was Max Nordau. Cherbuliez was of the same opinion, and in a sixteen-page article in the Revue des deux mondes designated Max Nordau as the author of the work he was reviewing. Max Nordau met this with a published declaration that he did not know the book, and that he was in the habit of signing what he wrote.
For some time I had been in correspondence with the philosopher Bartholomäus von Carneri, to whom, after reading his Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus (“Morality and Darwinism”), I had written a letter expressing my admiration; he had replied that he knew and prized my Inventarium, and a regular correspondence had ensued. I had not revealed to him anything about my anonymous book; I was all the more pleasingly surprised when in the newspaper report of the parliamentary proceedings I found a speech of Carneri’s, delivered in the Austrian Reichsrat the day before, in which he mentioned Das Maschinenzeitalter. Thereupon I asked him what kind of a book it was, and who was the author. To this he replied that the author was not named, but he had guessed who it was—Karl Vogt; he had instantly recognized him by his style. Many, however, believed that he himself, Carneri, had written the book. Then I confessed to him that I was the guilty one, but begged him to keep the secret, and this he agreed to do.
At the beginning of the next autumn we had gone to Vienna for a fortnight, as we often did. At the hotel at which we put up we learned that the member of the Reichsrat from Styria, B. von Carneri, was in the same house. The prospect of becoming personally acquainted with my famous correspondent was extremely tempting to me, and we sent in our names to him. The savant received us with alacrity. An old man, a sick man,—almost a cripple,—and yet what gayety and freshness! Carneri had never been well in his life. His head was all the time bent over to his right shoulder, he could walk only with difficulty, and since his early youth he had not spent a day without agonizing pain. And he called himself a happy man; he not only called himself so, he was. His intellectual labors, his political activities, the possession of a beloved daughter and a beloved son-in-law, the high regard which he had won in the learned world and among his parliamentary associates, may well have been the basis of his enjoyment of life; but the real secret was doubtless that he not only dealt in philosophy but actually was a philosopher, that is to say, a man who can pass beyond the miseries of life and thankfully enjoy its beauty.
We spent some exhilarating hours in Carneri’s company; all the themes which we had broached in our correspondence were discussed, and the friendship which had begun through our letters was only confirmed by this personal association. That same evening we met again. When the member from Marburg-an-der-Drau stayed in Vienna during the sessions of the parliament, he was accustomed to take his supper at a certain long table in the hotel dining-room, and at that table a number of his colleagues and other prominent personages from the political, literary, and learned circles of Vienna used to gather. The “Carneri table” at the Hotel Meissl was a sort of salon of wit and talent. That evening we also took our places at this table, and listened with interest to the lively conversation, the center of which was our friend Carneri, at whose right hand I sat. I can remember one episode. My neighbor on the right suddenly spoke past me to my neighbor on the left, and said to him:
“Say, I have bought the book you quoted in your speech lately. Do you still not know who ‘Jemand’ is?”
“No, I have not a suspicion,” replied Carneri, and exchanged a smiling glance with me. “And what do you say to it?”
My right-hand neighbor began a long dissertation on Das Maschinenzeitalter, and another man who had also read it joined in the conversation. What was said I no longer recall; I only know that it was not disagreeable to me, but amused me immensely, especially when I threw in the remark, “I shall have to get that myself,” and some one cried, “Oh, that is not a book for ladies!”