"Sand was in age twenty-three and a half years; stood five feet six inches high; had strong black hair and eyebrows; a high forehead, gray eyes, longish nose, mouth of middle size, dark-brown very weak beard, ordinary chin, broad countenance, tolerably healthy colour, with some pock-marks in the face." His look was open, and for the most part friendly, but not eminently intellectual; his physiognomy good-natured, but not especially interesting; his visage might be termed an involuntary mirror of his mind. So painted themselves wrath and scorn upon it, when the speech turned upon Kotzebue and his connexion with Germany; so might be read in it a painful, or an hostile feeling, when the principles of his system must be attacked; so that, in the end, very little attention became necessary to discern by it, when his answers did not contain the truth. The play of the muscles of his forehead was particularly strikingly acted upon by an internal feeling of resistance, which generally rose in him when he desired by some means to conceal the truth.
Kotzebue's writings had been long disliked by Sand. Many of his early assertions betray it. Such was his observation to his father:--"Of what use is the man's literary talent, when the German heart is wanting?" On the burning of his History of Germany, on the Wartburg, he became immediately watchful of him; but still more, when shortly afterwards his literary _Wochenblatt_, or weekly paper, appeared. In this publication, Kotzebue promulgated his opinions often and variously on the then state of German affairs, and many of his views must have given great displeasure. Thus, he contended especially against the promotion of a combined and constitutional government in Germany, and asserted that the loud demand for this was by no means the voice of the people, of whom he very much doubted, whether they wanted any constitution at all. For this bold assertion, Kotzebue was instantly attacked and ridiculed on all sides. A specimen of the missiles launched against him on the occasion, may be given from an article in the "Zeitung für die elegante Welt,"--News for the Elegant World, in the year 1818:--
This serious doubt (that of Kotzebue) has fallen heavily on the heart. We have, therefore, with eagerness undertaken the following proposal for its solution. In Kotzebue's right hand lies, in fact, the means to bring the matter to a tolerable certainty. If that gentleman will in future take the field against the clamour for a constitution in all his Plays with the same sober earnestness, and jibe and joke, with which he has powerfully and perseveringly attacked other follies, then will the success or the failure of his piece throw great light on the sentiments of the people; and the multitude who, Herr von Kotzebue so justly says, remain silent on the matter in debate--that means, _they print nothing on it_--will certainly, by applauding or censuring, clapping or hissing, speak out. Should the multitude, by hissing out anti-constitutional pieces, declare for a constitution, so might the theatre immediately furnish the government with a proof whether the declaration was worthy of notice. They might now, as was done in Paris, after the acting of Germanica, march soldiers--actual soldiers--upon the stage, and let them present arms to the pit. If the multitude now applauded or ran away, it would be the height of the ridiculous to give them a constitution, since it would be manifest that they had not courage to maintain themselves against the hand of power. But hissed and clamoured they still, it would be time "to _prepare_ the demanded _preparations_ for the _preparation_ of a constitution."[6]