Again, as to his attitude toward the military bills that were pending at the time of his candidacy, Egidy expresses himself in such fashion as no legislator in our country has yet ventured on. He binds himself neither to Yes nor to No. He reserves the right to examine each situation as it comes:
Should the duty of the representative of the people be understood as many would have it, he would not need to enter the hall, but might send in on paper the written Yes or No with which his electors have stamped him for each individual question. Just because I believe so fearlessly in the victory of good in the world as a whole, just because I believe rock-firmly in peace, I must also conscientiously hear the others. If the representative comes to-day to a decision that binds him, then he relinquishes the right to approach the champions of the measure with questions, desires, proposals, and discussions. What more intelligence does any one need who is tagged beforehand?
On the other hand, a candidate for election must carry with him serious reflections regarding this as well as every question. My reflections are as follows: I am persuaded that we are not on the immediate verge of a war; nor is a war between civilized nations any longer thinkable. We are on the verge of peace. A war of battles is a phenomenon which the consciousness of civilized nations has got beyond. “Peace” does not mean “no more struggle”; “peace” means only “no more war.” That we ourselves do not desire war and have no use for it, we affirm on every occasion; our neighbors assert the same. Either we have confidence in these assertions, and then nothing hinders us from accordingly realizing peace,—to-day we are only living in an armistice,—or we do not have confidence in these assertions, and then we must forthwith get a certainty of how we stand with our neighbors. The present status is unworthy of a dignified nation. “The quietest man cannot live in peace if it does not suit his malignant neighbor”—but the proof that the neighbor is malignant is lacking; the proof that it does not suit the neighbor is lacking; and, above all, the proof is lacking that from the moment when we should pave the way for peace it would not suit the neighbor; quite apart from the fact that we have no right to designate ourselves as quietest men. As yet nothing has been done to convince our neighbors by our actions that we love peace. Only after attempts directed toward this end have shown a negative result will it be permissible to say that our neighbor is thinking of war. But in that case the sooner we strike the better. So I shall first ask for the proof of the factors of danger which the champions of these measures may allege, and shall, as occasion may demand, suggest and support measures which shall practically demonstrate to our neighbors that love for peace which we have always professed. Si vis pacem, para pacem. One party must begin; he is free to begin who is most sensibly conscious of his strength; he is bound to begin who can say with the best conscience: “Not from fear of war do I put aside my weapons, but from love for peace.” The manliness of the nation should assuredly not be lost; but for its exercise the handiwork of war is no longer necessary, nor for its preservation the battlefield.
It was a time when in the German Empire the combating of the so-called revolutionary parties was part of the order of the day. Egidy took a stand with regard to this question also, and gave his discussion of it a particularly interesting turn; for his conception of “religion, order, propriety,”—three ideas which he assuredly held in the highest esteem,—differed fundamentally from the popular conception which demands a clinging fast to all the established. He who fights under the banner of Evolution does not want to “revolutionize” the established, but to “transform” it. I let Egidy speak for himself:
I do not see any revolution (Umsturz, “upset”) threatening, anyhow: at least I do not feel threatened so long as I still have the confidence, which hitherto remains unshaken, that we shall wake to reason at the right time. To begin with, there is no need of thinking of such a thing as an upset, but only of the breakdown, the collapse, of an antiquated view of the world. Things can come to an upset, i.e. a topsy-turvy state, a reign of terror, only if the representatives of the hitherto-existing order, in melancholy blindness or from outright selfish motives, contumaciously oppose the collapse of antiquated notions, set themselves against the breakdown of untenable social formations. That they can prevent the collapse is of course a thing not to be thought of, no more than any one may imagine that he occasioned this breakdown.
Egidy’s style acquires a distinct individuality from its conciseness and perspicuity of expression, which are the consequences of the absolute honesty and straightforwardness of his thought. Never, for the sake of a fine-sounding phrase or a rhetorical effect, will a superfluous word or a periphrasis be found in it; but the heartfelt quality of the thought does now and then create for itself new words and new compoundings which unintentionally become stylistic beauties:
The community is a living organism, in which injuries can be cured only from within outward, only by a new, pure, warm heart-blood. No sentimentality, no full-toned din of words. The will to resolve. The doing, also, by each in his own way. We want to be practical idealists, idealists in realization, idealists in act.[[37]]
We were entertaining callers when Lieutenant Colonel von Egidy was announced: our ambassador Count Szechenyi, and Ossip Schubin the famous Austrian novelist, who had moved from Bohemia to Berlin awhile previously with her sister the painter. A pretty, vivacious, elegant lady. A new novel of hers had just been published, adding yet more to her already well-established reputation as a notable delineator of Austrian high life. When Egidy came in Count Szechenyi took his departure, but Ossip Schubin remained awhile longer. Joyously we went forward to greet our caller and shake hands with him. After a long correspondence a first meeting is the meeting after an absence.
Egidy, although rather short in stature, had a very martial appearance; his bearing, his voice, his accent, were altogether those of a Prussian officer of hussars. But the rigorous face with its thick mustache was lighted up by a pair of smiling, gleaming blue eyes.
The presence of the strange lady kept the conversation in conventional channels at first; there was no talk about the things that were close to our hearts. The lieutenant colonel and the authoress had ten minutes of very lively converse. Then Ossip Schubin took leave of us. Later it came out that neither of them had ever heard of the other. Evidently Egidy was not interested in fiction and Ossip Schubin cared still less for political addresses.