I received from the Berlin Press Society an invitation to give, on one of their literary nights in the following March, a public reading of some chapters from my novel Die Waffen nieder in behalf of the endowment fund of the Society. I accepted the invitation, and my husband and I started for Berlin full of anticipation. For I had learned by previous letters from A. H. Fried that a very special honor was in store for me, namely a banquet, whose committee of organization presented the following signatures: Dr. Baumbach, vice president of the Reichstag; Dr. Barth, member of the Reichstag and editor of the Nation; Wilhelm Bölsche, author; Oskar Blumenthal, dramatic writer; Gustav Dahms, editor of the Bazar; Paul Dobert, editor of Zur guten Stunde; Karl Frenzel, writer; Dr. Max Hirsch, member of the Reichstag; Hans Land, author; A. H. Fried, publisher; L’Arronge, theatrical manager; Fritz Mauthner, author; Dr. Arthur Levysohn, editor in chief of the Berliner Tageblatt; O. Neumann-Hofer, editor of the Magazin; Paul Schlenther; Prinz Schönaich-Carolath, member of the Reichstag; Zobeltitz; Albert Traeger, member of the Reichstag; Julius Wolff; Baron von Wolzogen; and Friedrich; Spielhagen.
It was A. H. Fried who had been the original promoter of this affair, and who had also succeeded in obtaining such brilliant names on the dinner committee. He was waiting for us at the railway station on our arrival, and this afforded me my first opportunity of becoming acquainted with the publisher and co-creator of my review. A young man of twenty-eight, all fire and flame for the cause of peace, full of zeal for organization. He began at once to unfold plans for using my presence toward realizing the establishment of a proposed union. There was already in existence a small Interparliamentary Group, and this must now be followed by a private peace society which might send its representatives to that year’s Peace Congress at Bern.
The hall where my reading had been announced as to be given had been long sold out, so that many demands for seats had to be refused. The Empress Frederick had engaged a row of places, but the death and funeral obsequies of her brother-in-law the Grand Duke of Hesse called her away from Berlin at that time.
The evening of the reading was successful—that is to say, I was received with applause and was applauded at the end; but I read altogether too softly, as I afterward heard. That the public and the critics gave me such a favorable reception in spite of that, I attributed to their sympathy with the cause which I represented.
Frédéric Passy sent a letter to me at Berlin, in which he pleaded for our cause with his usual eloquence. I handed the letter over to the editors of the Berliner Tageblatt, and it was published on the day after my reading with the following editorial comment:
Mr. Frédéric Passy, the president of the French Peace Society, a political economist whose high reputation is not confined to France, is a member of the Académie des Sciences and enjoys universal respect. If there were never any but such voices sounding over the Vosges from France, the cause of peace, of humanity, of the higher civilization, would soon have the victory. Let us hope that Mr. Passy’s eloquent words will waken in his own country also the universal response which they so thoroughly deserve.
A glittering picture of the dinner has remained in my memory. In the richly flower-decked banqueting-hall stood a table laid for two hundred and fifty guests. There was a preliminary gathering in side parlors, and there I made the acquaintance of a great number of literary colleagues of both sexes, and also found again many whom we had met seven years earlier at the Authors’ Convention; there were also parliamentarians, publicists, and other notabilities of Berlin. About ten o’clock Friedrich Spielhagen escorted me to the table, at which he presided. He it was, too, who pronounced the oration of the evening. After he had ended, my right-hand neighbor, Dr. Barth of the Reichstag, spoke. And now I had to express my thanks. A stenographer took down my maiden after-dinner speech, and I found it the next morning in the newspapers:
It is in joyful exhilaration that I express to you, Meister Spielhagen, and to you, Herr Dr. Barth, and to all the company who have done me the honor of gathering here, my deep-felt thanks. To be so acclaimed and by such persons—for those who entertain me are certainly among the foremost in the literary and political world here—must indeed fill any one’s heart with pride.
Indeed, if one feels, as I do, that this lavish homage so far exceeds the desert of her to whom it is offered, then must the wish be aroused to protest against it and to cry out: It is too much—take back the praise, take back the expression of such kindly sympathy! You fill me with happiness, but you fill me also with mortification.
Yet I can gather from your addresses that the reason why the honor conferred upon me so far exceeds the value of my performances and my person is that it does not really concern them, but the principles which I endeavor to serve. They are the same principles to which you, highly honored artists, representatives of the people, and publicists, devote your work and your works—the enfranchisement, ennoblement, and fraternization of civilized mankind. Those minstrels and legislators and journalists who pay homage to war and stir up national differences have assuredly remained absent from this banquet.