When Thoughts Will Soar: A romance of the immediate future

by Bertha von Suttner

I do not believe that the generation of our day has the time to run the cars of tradition over the rails of convention to the very end. There are ominous signs flashing along the horizon. New and unheard-of events are coming to pass—and soon! And they do not need come by a revolution. That also is an ancient and probably antiquated form of transformation. Quite new forms may make their appearance. It may be that the flashing yonder does not portend a tempest; perhaps it is only the twilight of a rising sun—a sun which none of us has seen as yet, for we are still only children of Barbarism’s polar night which has lasted hundreds,—nay, not merely hundreds but thousands of years. I want to see you, Franka, among the heralds of the coming light, among those who are storming the cloudy walls behind which it is still concealed.

Do not believe that, because you are a woman and young and beautiful, such a part is not cast for you. The new day offers women also the right of fighting in the ranks,—or rather they are winning it for themselves,—and assuredly the old sagas gave them spears and shields—the Valkyrie also are young and beautiful—Hojo-to-ho! Heia-ha! Franka, become great, or at least will something great!

Mankind to-day—but so few realize it—stands at a turning-point more decisive than any in its previous history. This has often been said before—all the instigators of any political or scientific revolution have been accustomed to close their manifestoes with the ringing words: “A new era is beginning”; and yet things remained exactly as they were before. But now:—the mystery of the air—the uplift to the heights—that is going to change everything, everything that now goes under the name of civilization. This will make the distinction between the coming epoch and the present, one sharper than between any of the so-called epochs of history. Aye, everything, everything is to be changed, and in a tempo which will be related to the changes of earlier times somewhat as an electric locomotive compares with a pedestrian’s gait, or as a hurricane whirling up waterspouts compares with a summer breeze crinkling the surface of a pond. We shall not be able to stand against such a tempest. We shall be either borne upon its wings, or swept away by it.

A friend has just been scolding me as a “Poet,” because I have the fault of using figures of speech and have the—to him—much worse fault of being an optimist. Do not be deceived by this, Franka. I am not unreasonable. It requires a far keener sense to perceive the aroma of beauty and goodness which penetrates the atmosphere of our lives than it does to behold only the harsh and hateful, or else to see it, even where it is not present....

I cannot bring this letter to a close, so I will simply stop....

That morning Franka received a very abundant mail, consisting of congratulations and letters of fealty from the various persons employed on the other estates that had become hers, begging letters of the most extraordinary pretensions from unknown persons, offers of commodities from all kinds of business houses; and among all the weeds one fresh bouquet—Chlodwig Helmer’s second message to her.

She read the letter and read it again, and it gave her pleasure. What had hovered dimly before her inward vision—to dedicate her wealth to some great and noble purpose—was now put before her as a command: “Be, or at least will, something great.” So then, there was one person who felt that she was capable of forming such a purpose and of carrying it out; and it was the same person whose ideas so completely coincided with her dear father’s. She determined to take the advice of Chlodwig Helmer,—for she had no doubt that he was the writer of the unsigned letter,—and to ask him what he considered the great work which she should go forth, armed with spear and shield, to accomplish.... Aye, it was true, he was rather inclined to speak metaphorically, but behind his metaphors there must be something actual and comprehensible:—he must tell her and answer her questions.

In the mean time, the letter served to confirm her in her as yet unformulated aspirations. First of all, she must escape from the nets and bonds which her great-aunt was anxious to throw around her. Up to the present time she had postponed making any explanation; now Chlodwig’s letter gave her the impulse to declare her independence that very day. She was certain of Dr. Fixstern’s practical coöperation.

When at luncheon-time she entered the small dining-room where the household were all assembled, she asked her aunt to grant her an interview as soon as they had finished the meal.

“That will be perfectly convenient,” replied Aunt Adele. “I also have a number of things that I want to say to you, and we must have a perfectly clear understanding regarding those things which we recently talked about.”