Besides we shall always be at your service to help and advise you, and we shall be very glad to be kept informed what you are doing, and we shall publish your work in our trimonthly Bulletin.
I could not see again Mr. Moynier, but I know he has nothing important to add to what I say and to what he has already written to you. I believe, therefore, you have from us all the indications and information which we can give you. There remains nothing else for me, Miss Barton, than to repeat my good wishes for your useful enterprise. May you feel your physical strength to keep up and increase, as much as your moral, for the good of others and for your own satisfaction.
I have nothing more to add, and I will not put off any longer this last letter.
Accept, Miss Barton, and worthy friend, the expression of my respectful devotion,
Louis Appia, Dr.
[Rough draft of letter without date, but evidently written about July 1st, 1877]
Monsieur S. Moynier
Président du Comité International de la Croix rouge
My Esteemed Friend:
Permit me to thank you, as I do most sincerely, for your kind and excellent letter of June 20th, and say how happy I am to find you so fully concurring with the ideas I had advanced in relation to the action to be taken in the attempted establishment of your beautiful Order of the Red Cross in America. It is unnecessary for me to assure you that I will do all that lies in my power to accomplish this end, believing as I do most implicitly that every step taken toward softening and humanizing the conditions of war is a double step toward its extirpation from a place among the codes of nations. This proves itself by the unfailing fact that the more barbarous a nation and the more inhuman its modes of warfare, the more frequent and unmitigated its wars. This conviction, added to the strong desire which has grown within me to lessen the sufferings of those who must compose armies while they do exist among the nations of the earth, will prove a sufficient stimulus to all the powers of my nature, and I will bring to the object the fullest strength I possess, and then, if with your best aid I fail in my purpose, I must be content to submit to the inevitable.
My intelligent friend and your compatriot, Mademoiselle Küpfer, has begged to add a letter to you, which I am most thankful for, as she can speak to you in your own tongue, and with a clearness of expression which I could not. I shall be very busy for the few coming hot weeks of August translating the many valuable pamphlets so kindly sent me, from which I hope to gather a knowledge of the action of the Society and familiarity with its spirit, which may enable me to convince my Government of the right and propriety of what we ask it to do, the wrong and absurdity of withholding it, and secure from it at least an official reply to your invitation to join the Convention.
I will not make this communication longer, excepting to repeat my thanks for your kind letter, and the generous spirit in which it was written, and assure you of the great pleasure it will afford me to be of never so small a service in a cause so noble and holy. With assurances of the highest esteem I remain,