The next day we went to see Vrchlicky. We were conducted by a maid into a little drawing-room, where we were kept waiting some time for the master of the house. When the door opened and he entered, I was rather disappointed. I have been so accustomed to find generally in the creators of beautiful works handsome people that I was literally horrified at Vrchlicky’s ugliness—for he is ugly, his best friend must admit it. A flat, potato-like nose, tangled hair,—only from the eyes shines forth his clear intellect, and in the metallic tones of his voice vibrates his fiery soul.
“I am very much delighted,” he said, as he shook hands with us, “that you have both come to Prague. You will find here a thoroughly intelligent public.”
“Well, the public, because of national antipathies, is surely not altogether receptive of our cause, as we discovered only last evening.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the poet, “there are no national passions in music.”
We did not understand the significance of this remark, and after a while the conversation took all sorts of turns, during which sometimes we and sometimes Vrchlicky showed the greatest astonishment in our faces, until it finally transpired that we were taken for Mr. and Mrs. Ree, the well-known piano virtuosos, who were going to give a concert that evening in Prague and had promised to call on Vrchlicky. When the misunderstanding was cleared away we warmed up to each other, and I saw that he was as enthusiastic an adherent of my cause as I was an enthusiastic admirer of his genius.
Our next little journey took us to Budapest—of course also in the interest of peace. “You have become genuine peace-drummers” (die reinen Friedens-Commis-Voyageurs), said my father-in-law banteringly.
Just as in the year 1891 it seemed a necessity to found a society in Austria, that the country might be represented at the Congress in Rome, so now, since the Interparliamentary Union had invited us to the Millennial Festival at Budapest, it seemed likewise necessary for a private society to come into existence there and invite the other societies to take part in a Peace Congress. Our Vienna Society took up the agitation of this matter in the Hungarian capital. Leopold Katscher, the well-known publicist, who had wide-branching affiliations in Hungary, where he had lived for many years, and who was now a member of our Union, made a trip to Budapest, and called on Maurus Jókai, and on the statesmen with whom [I], for my part, was assiduously corresponding. And the result? Instead of giving a detailed account of this I will quote the text of the following dispatch which was sent to the Vienna press:
Budapest, December 15. Peace Union established yesterday. Meeting conducted by B. von Berzeviczy, vice president of the Reichstag. Addresses in Hungarian by Jókai, and in German by Baroness von Suttner; a whirlwind of applause. Several hundred prospective members come forward. Voted to accept the invitation to the Seventh World’s Peace Congress. Influential personages chosen to serve on the directorate, among them two members of the former cabinet. Jókai, president. Unexampled enthusiasm shown by the press; all the Hungarian and German papers devote from four to ten columns to the reports. Prime Minister Banffy declared to Baroness von Suttner that both the Interparliamentary Conference and the World’s Peace Congress would be welcomed in Budapest, and that the government would not only assist but would take the lead in the arrangements, though they were not instituted by the government.
But simultaneously my diaries bring back the echo of very gloomy events and voices from that time. Under various dates of December I find the following entries:
“War in sight.” So it is reported in all the papers since this dispatch was received: “The President of the United States has spoken insultingly and imperatively now that England has rejected arbitration in the Venezuela affair.” Now England has no alternative—so run the leading articles—but to pick up the gauntlet. Fresh dispatches: All America aroused over Cleveland’s message; all England in a rage; demands for many millions for warships, torpedoes, fortifications; a hundred thousand Irishmen have offered their services to the United States. The war-prophesying tone of the leading articles is accentuated; the familiar “inevitableness” of the conflict is demonstrated. Every journalist on the Continent is able to point out with certainty what England cannot put up with except at a loss of her honor, what all Europe cannot permit without imperiling its interests.... What is going to be the result?...