Lay down your Arms by Bertha von Suttner — Read

The Indefinite Approximation of Two Loving Hearts -- A Serious Illness -- Progress of Conrad's Suit to My Sister -- Aunt Mary's Letter -- First Rumours of War with Prussia -- Sequel of the Schleswig-Holstein War -- The Pourparlers and Negotiations Leading to the Austro-Prussian War -- Arguments with My Father and Aunt About War -- New-Year's Day, 1866 -- Conrad and Lilly Engaged -- My Father's Toast -- War Visibly Approaching -- Hopes and Fears -- Recriminations and Reciprocal Provocations -- Prussia Occupies Holstein -- The Army of the Bund Mobilised -- War Declared -- Manifestoes of the Sovereigns and Generals.

"Brought nearer -- ever nearer! I have found out that this capacity of approximation of loving hearts belongs to the class of things of which divisibility is an example -- things which have no limits. One might have believed that a particle might have become so small already that nothing smaller could be conceived, and yet it is susceptible of division into two halves; and so one might think that two hearts might be already so fused together that a more intimate union could not be possible, and yet some external influence acts, and the atoms -- the two hearts -- embrace and interpenetrate each other still more firmly, and closer -- ever closer."