On the sixth of May the famous Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen came to Vienna, and gave a lecture that same evening in the hall of the Rathaus before two thousand people. We were prevented from going to the city, but I wrote Nansen the following letter, to reach him a few hours before the lecture:
Harmannsdorf, May 5
Dear Sir,
Highly and sincerely honored:
You have no time to read long letters; so I can only indicate, without offering reasons, what I desire to ask. You will, I know, meet with perfect sympathy what is only half said.
A new era must be dawning for the world,—after the old heroic age of war comes the heroic age of knowledge and investigation. Who would be better authorized than you to point out the way thither? This evening thousands of my fellow-countrymen will listen to you. I beg of you to weave into your lecture two lines which shall express this thought: the reign of war must yield; the future must belong to the right. The impression will be immense, just at this moment, when the sea is again desecrated with burning and exploding ships. Speak words like these and you will thus give the work of peace a powerful impulse forward.
With the most profound respect
Bertha von Suttner
The text of the lecture was published, from the manuscript, on the seventh of May, by the Neue Freie Presse. In it there was no reference to general questions of civilization. On the other hand, Das Tagblatt published a report taken stenographically, and there it said:
Nansen brought his lecture to a close as follows: “People will ask, what are the results of polar explorations? I reply, science desires to know everything. There must be no spot on the earth unseen by a human eye and untrodden by a human foot. Man’s lot is to fight the battle of light against darkness. There are still many problems to be solved. The time for great wars of conquest has passed; the time for conquests in the land of science, of the unknown, will last, and we hope that the future will bring us many more conquests, and thereby forward the interests of mankind.”