My dear Friend:
Delighted I am to see that your eloquent pleading against that horror of horrors—war—has found its way into the French Press. But I fear that out of French readers ninety-nine in a hundred are chauvinistically mad. The government here are almost in their senses; the people, on the contrary, are getting success- and vanity-drunken. A pleasant kind of intoxication, much less deleterious unless it leads to war, than spirits of wine or morphium.
And your pen—whither is it wandering now? After writing with the blood of martyrs of war, will it show us the prospect of a future fairy-land or the less utopian picture of the thinkers’ common-wealth? My sympathies are in that direction, but my thoughts are mostly wandering towards another common-wealth, where silenced souls are misery-proof.
With kindest regards ever yours
A. Nobel
Paris, September 14, 1891
After the Austrian Peace Society had been founded and the Roman Congress was in prospect, I informed my friend about it and asked him for a contribution to the treasury of the Union; here is his reply
53 Avenue Malakoff, October 31, 1891
Dear Baroness and Friend:
I do not see very clearly what great expenses either the Peace League or the Peace Congress can have to bear. Nevertheless I am quite ready to make a pecuniary contribution to its work, and I hasten to send you for this object a check, inclosed herewith, for £80 sterling.