_Kotzebue_.--I am afraid, sir, you have formed to yourself a romantic and strange idea, both of happiness and of wisdom.
_Sandt_.--I too am afraid it may be so. My idea of happiness is, the power of communicating peace, good-will, gentle affections, ease, comfort, independence, freedom, to all men capable of them.
_Kotzebue_.--The idea is, truly, no humble one.
_Sandt_.--A higher may descend more securely on a stronger mind. The power of communicating those blessings to the capable, is enough for my aspirations. A stronger mind may exercise its faculties in the divine work of creating the capacity.
_Kotzebue_.--Childish! childish!--Men have cravings enow already; give them fresh capacities, and they will have fresh appetites. Let us be contented in the sphere wherein it is the will of Providence to place us; and let us render ourselves useful in it to the utmost of our power, without idle aspirations after impracticable good.
_Sandt_.--O sir! you lead me where I tremble to step; to the haunts of your intellect, to the recesses of your spirit. Alas! alas! how small and how vacant is the central chamber of the lofty pyramid?
_Sandt_.--To you, and many mightier. Reverting to your own words; could not you yourself have remained in the sphere you were placed in?
_Kotzebue_.--What sphere? I have written dramas, and novels, and travels. I have been called to the Imperial Court of Russia.
_Sandt_.--You sought celebrity.--I blame not that. The thick air of multitudes may be good for some constitutions of mind, as the thinner of solitudes is for others. Some horses will not run without the clapping of hands; others fly out of the course rather than hear it. But let us come to the point. Imperial courts! What do they know of letters? What letters do they countenance--do they tolerate?
_Sandt_.--On their business. O ye paviours of the dreary road along which their cannon rolls for conquest! my blood throbs at every stroke of your rammers. When will ye lay them by?
_Sandt_.--Germans! Germans! Must ye never have a rood on earth ye can call your own, in the vast inheritance of your fathers?
_Kotzebue_.--Those who strive and labour, gain it; and many have rich possessions.
_Kotzebue_.--Perhaps you may think them insecure; but they are not lost yet, although the rapacity of France does indeed threaten to swallow them up. But her fraudulence is more to be apprehended than her force. The promise of liberty is more formidable than the threat of servitude. The wise know that she never will bring us freedom; the brave know that she never can bring us thraldom. She herself is alike impatient of both; in the dazzle of arms she mistakes the one for the other, and is never more agitated than in the midst of peace.