After a few weeks she went on a lecture tournée to all the principal cities of Germany. She was accompanied only by Frau von Rockhaus and a maid. A business manager preceded her, whose duty it was to engage for her lecture-halls and suitable quarters in the hotels. Everywhere she went, she was received not only in her public capacity as a speaker, but also with special honors by society as a lady. In the course of time her journeys extended beyond Germany, first to the Scandinavian countries, then to London and Paris. And after a few years her fame was world-wide.
CHAPTER X
AT LUCERNE
The clock of Eternity has moved forward a few seconds; we are writing 191—. The twentieth century is still “in its teens,” but 1920 is not far away. The impatient, the impetuous, those who a few years ago were shouting, full of anxiety or full of hope, “Now, now, everything is going to change—a new era has dawned—mighty revolutions are before us,”—all these have to confess that the face of the world, on the whole, has not been very much altered, and that the actual transformations, by reason of their gradual development, have been almost unnoticeable. Terrible catastrophes like the sudden destruction of cities by earthquakes, thrones overturned by revolutions, rulers assassinated by the throwing of bombs, colonial and other wars—such things may have devastated for a brief period the little strips of land affected and aroused a general sensation, but soon everything became calm again. This applies not only to the great disasters, but also to great and unexpected good fortune such as the announcement of marvelous discoveries or world-redeeming ideas:—such things startle men for a moment out of their apathy, and awaken the wildest hopes; but then they quickly flatten out and become commonplace, disappear from the surface, and must pass through the stages of gradual development, until they succeed in changing the face of the world. So many a fountain springs foaming from the rocks, but only when it has, after a long course, united with a thousand other trickling rivulets, does it become a river.
The hotels at Lucerne were filled to overflowing. It was once more time for the “Toker Rose-Week” to begin. From year to year the “Rose Pilgrims,” as they called themselves, had been streaming thither in greater and greater numbers. It had become the fashion to spend seven days in Lucerne. Many came not for the purpose of absorbing the lofty intellectual enjoyments there offered, but in order to be seen. As the hotels and private boarding-houses of the city were no longer sufficient to harbor all the strangers, some automobile-owners had conceived the idea of spending the nights in their machines,—for very abundant were the cars that were provided with conveniences for sleeping and toilet,—and a vast automobile-park covered the fields around the city.
During the first years Mr. Toker had been satisfied to lodge his guests in a hotel engaged for the purpose, and all the exercises took place in its public rooms. But now, the edifices and gardens which he had planned were ready, and in their fairyland beauty they had won the reputation of being one of the sights of Europe. The list of invitations which Mr. Toker sent out in 191— was very differently constituted from that which he had written down in his first prospectus. For many of those who then bore brilliant names in the firmament of fame had been extinguished, and new stars had flamed into sight. The aged die—room for the young!
It was the first day of the first week. Mr. Toker was as yet alone, and was awaiting the arrival of his illustrious guests. His friendly old face was radiant. He was satisfied with his work. Success had attended it. The way the concentrated forces had acted was astonishing and their effect was constantly increasing. As if unified in a central sun, the flames of genius scattered over the earth were now blazing in his Rose-Temple, and spread from there, as by a mighty reflector, all over the earth, penetrating all corners where their light had never before shone.
From many indications, Toker was aware that the level of Public Spirit had been elevated by the influence that emanated from the Rose-Temple. Watchwords, winged phrases which had flown forth from there, were circulated in newspapers and were quoted in parliaments; the year-books, containing extracts from the discourses delivered, were to be found in the libraries of universities, and were widely used as manuals for the instruction of the young; the wide international public listened to the addresses of these great ones of the earth and accepted many of their lofty thoughts and involuntarily introduced them into social conversations; so that when Mr. Toker jestingly said, “This is my world-ennobling factory,” he did not claim too much.
Certainly, not all the dreams that John A. Toker had conceived when he made his plan had been fulfilled. What had given him the impulse to take up the work had been his indignation that the splendid invention of a dirigible airship had been greeted as a useful weapon for future wars. No! against such a notion, against such possibilities,—a rain of annihilation from the sky,—must a mighty storm of protest be raised; he had called these great minds together for this purpose.
On the very first week of the Rose-Festival, this theme was printed on the programmes and flaming anathemas against the barbarization of the air went forth into the world, combined with the demand to put an end to war itself. But no palpable result followed—the war ministries continued to install their fleets of airships, and the construction of fortifications and dreadnoughts went on without interruption, in spite of the fact that these instruments of war would be superfluous and useless if once they were exposed to the rain of explosives.
But John A. Toker had faith. Not in one year, and not in two or three, could such a mighty work be accomplished—certainly, dirigible flights to spiritual and moral altitudes were not easier of attainment than those in the physical atmosphere.