Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
(Without date)
I do not believe there can be a thinking and feeling man who does not inwardly belong to the League of Peace; and if our states were “Christian” not merely on paper but in the deep meaning of the word, there would be no need of a League of Peace.
Friedrich Spielhagen
Jena, October 31, 1891
Gracious and honored Lady:
I hope that these lines, with the assurance that I thoroughly approve the aims of the International Peace and Arbitration Association and am ready and willing to become a member, will reach you while you are still in Vienna.
Although I believe with Heraclitus that battle is the father of all things, yet I hope and wish with all my heart that the better stock of competition for the higher blessings of civilization may displace the savage and cruel conflict of races and the bloody warfare between nations, which at present still, as in the Middle Ages, brings the greatest wretchedness to the “highly civilized” nations of the present day.
May the Peace Congress in Rome on the ninth of November be attended by the best results!
With especially high respect, your devoted