In the evening a party at the house of the Queen’s head chamberlain. Again make the acquaintance of many great people, among them distinguished “foreigners.” The German delegation is the only one from which no one does me the honor of greeting me. Count Münster treats me as if I were a rattlebrain. When Professor Stengel spoke in his pamphlet of the “comical persons” of the peace movement, from whose grotesque behavior and ideas he could not sufficiently warn people, he evidently included me in the number.
May 26. Bloch has conceived the idea of having a series of lectures to which the public shall be invited. No other place, no other opportunity, is so well suited for representing the “Utopia of War.” The documentary and statistic-bolstered facts and conclusions which these lectures will contain must be of especial interest, he says, to the military delegates. My Own and I are assisting him in his arrangements, going round with him in search of halls, giving orders, and the like.
A visit from the correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung. He has just come from Herr von Stengel, who assured the reporter that he had protested only against the excrescences of the peace movement (well, yes, the comical persons),—that, nevertheless, as a delegate he should do his best to help the cause along. Very good!
The correspondents of Figaro and of the Écho de Paris interview me. Mr. Leveson-Gower, Secretary of the British Embassy, in behalf of the North American Review asks me to furnish an article on the movement for the July number.
At three o’clock, in Hotel Vieux Doelen, on business. Meet Stead there.
“At last I see you,” I cried. “I always expect news from you, as you are on such intimate terms with the delegates....”
“And you shall have it. More important and better news to-day than you could have hoped. Here is a copy of the report which I have just sent to the English newspapers. Read it and rejoice with me. The Conference has done a wonderfully fine stroke of work.”
Here is an extract from the report:
Plenary Meeting of May 25
On the Order of the Day the subject of the third committee is “Peaceable Adjustment of International Controversies.”