During all this time Mr. John A. Toker had been elaborating his plan. In his brain, that which he proposed to do was already formulated. Certainly he knew that everything destined to come into existence will, as soon as it has sufficient vitality, begin to live, develop itself, branch out, and be changed in a hundred different ways which its creator is unable to foresee; yet the initial stage was clearly outlined before Mr. Toker’s inner eye. The motives and ends, which at first had risen before him mistily and indefinitely, he had long since supplanted with clear and precise formulas. The whole was drafted into two pieces of manuscript: one of them a letter, the other a circular. A copy of each was now to be sent to the addresses of those famous contemporaries whose names he had inscribed on the day when the project was conceived. Now a few names had disappeared from the list and a few others were added to it.

THE LETTER

Dear Sir (or Madam):

I am doing myself the honor of inviting you most cordially to spend the first half of next June as my guest: not in my American home, but in the center of Europe, at Lucerne, where I am making suitable preparations for entertaining you and my other guests. You will find the names of other persons invited indicated in the inclosed list. Any one in your family or your household whom you would like to have as a companion will be most welcome. The traveling expenses and, if agreeable, a considerable honorarium will be supplied by me. The inclosed circular will sufficiently show that this invitation is not for a mere summer visit for personal ends, but includes coÖperation in a civilizing work of the greatest moment.

Counting upon your favorable answer, I am,

THE PROSPECTUS

We are on the threshold of the aeronautic age. What mankind, up to the present time, and especially in the last two or three decades, has accomplished in the realm of technic is simply fabulous—is the triumphant annihilation of the antiquated concept “Impossible.”

And this is to go on in constantly accelerating progress. How feeble in their first beginnings, how widely separated from one another in time and space have been the great inventions and discoveries. And now! Scarcely a day passes without some technical improvement being simultaneously achieved in different places. The rapidity of progress results in one marvel making another possible. Thus, to take only one example, the dirigibility of the air-balloon was attained only because automobilism had created the light motor.

The intellectual and moral uplift of humanity has not kept up with the technical. This is plainly seen in a single paragraph the reading of which gave me the impulse to make the proposed experiment. The paragraph read: “The dirigible balloon is destined to become the chief weapon in wars to come.”

This is equivalent to saying: “We will use the latest triumph of victorious civilization for the confirmation of the most antiquated barbarism.”—This must not be!

What the physicists, the chemists, the engineers have given us, one depending on another, each building a little higher on the discoveries of his predecessors, what they have done through comprehending and controlling the forces of nature and making them our servants, is on the point of changing one half—the material half—of our world into a realm of magic.

But how does it stand with the spiritual half, the immaterial half? The unhappiness of men, the wickedness of men, the mutual hatreds of men,—these ghastly things give the answer to the above question: the spiritual half is still far, far behind. The everlasting forces which rule in this other half, and which, when they come to be known, controlled, and made useful, would be able to change this half also into a realm of magic: at the present time they are as yet concealed and inactive.

The engineers, mechanicians, and technicians of the moral forces are the poets and prophets, the philosophers and artists; they are the dynamic agents of thought, the leaders of intellect, the pathfinders in the jungles of social institutions, the aviators in the eternal sphere of ideas! Yet they are scattered through the centuries, scattered in space. One lives in New York; another in Paris; the third at Yasnaya Polyana; their names go from the Élite in one land to the Élite in other lands, but do not reach the masses. How much more powerful their work would be if it were coÖrdinated, if the knowledge of their doctrines, the glory of their names, the magic of their art, proceeding from one central point, should radiate in all directions. Motors and propellers have taught us that power must be concentrated and compressed, in order—by explosions—to drive the vehicle.

THE ROSE-WEEK IN LUCERNE

This festival-time, which in my opinion will surpass in outward glory all the previous “aviation meets,” all the Wagner festivals in Bayreuth, all the carnivals in Rome or Cologne, all the regattas at Kiel or at Cowes, all the races at Baden-Baden, will last with its public functions from the eighth until the fifteenth of June. The period from the first till the eighth belongs to my guests for uninterrupted social intercourse. I believe that my great contemporaries will thus find unique opportunity for high social enjoyment, for the most fruitful inspiration. How rarely is it vouchsafed for those who stand on the eminences of Humanity to consort with their fellows!

The second week will belong to the public, which will have the unique enjoyment of seeing and hearing the laurel-crowned of all countries assembled in the same place and of absorbing the lofty thoughts which will flow from their words.

The attendance at the lectures and art performances will in all probability be immense.

But what my guests will have to say is not to be limited to those present. The echo of it will ring through the whole world. The great journals will certainly send their representatives who will telegraph long extracts from the various addresses. And involuntarily the Press will in this way fulfill what ought to be its most important function: to further the great universal interests of mankind instead of stirring up international strife and cultivating local gossip. But we will not depend on them: we ourselves will institute a large and complete staff of secretaries and translators; we will employ a printing-office and have the principal addresses set forth in extenso, and send them out as pamphlets to all parts of the world. And still more: gramophones will catch the very intonations of the speakers, kinematographs will reproduce the gestures of the orators, and the records and films will be sent out to thousands of schools and settlements all over the world. In all regions and in all classes shall be scattered the messages of the Rose-Week!

What the men and women whom I have in mind will say, is not for any particular race or class: its sole aim and object will be, “to elevate all humanity.”

And why roses?

That I have chosen out of the twelve months of the year the month of roses, that I am going to conduct the whole arrangement under the emblem of roses—all the programmes, all the invitations, and so forth, will be adorned with these flowers; on the buildings and festal arches roses will be garlanded as escutcheons—a sardanapalian abundance of living, blooming roses will be entwined around all the pillars, will adorn the tables and walls; bushes blooming with roses and rose-beds will be planted in the grounds—intoxicating perfume of roses will fill all the air—a rose-bacchanal: all this is not, perhaps, a whimsical fancy, an ostentatious piece of extravagance such as the multimillionaires of Fifth Avenue are accustomed to vulgarize their festivities with;—a deeper symbolism is involved in it: the whole undertaking is to stand under the protection and the shelter of Beauty!