My dear Baroness:
I allowed a Cracow newspaper to publish the letter which I sent in reply to yours, for in circumstances so important the greatest publicity cannot fail to be advantageous to the ideas which you, madam, defend with such commendable warmth.
The news that you wish to reply in an open letter causes me real joy. I believe that the more light we carry into these gloomy vaults the more we drive out of them the creatures that exist only in the darkness.
With assurances of my highest regard
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Our correspondence was accordingly published in French and Polish newspapers. The text of my reply is not within my reach; I only know that I pointed out that one should never say to any one who is undertaking something useful and helpful, “Better do this than that.” If “this” as well as “that” is directed to the same end—freedom, and suppression of injustice and suffering—then do both; but better than that which is nearer in space is the universal; for if the general principle is saved, it can be applied to other and local cases.
All this political correspondence did not prevent me from exchanging letters with my own intimate friends. Even with our friends in the Caucasus, in spite of years of separation, intercourse was not broken off.
The following letter from the Prince of Mingrelia, which I find in my letter-file for 1900, is a witness of that fact:
St. Petersburg, March 24 (April 6), 1900
My dear Baroness: