_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? _Kotzebue_.--Plays. _Sandt_.--Playthings. _Kotzebue_.--Travels. _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? _Kotzebue_.--We are not such drudges. _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. _Sandt_.--None; not the highest. _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. _Sandt_.--The fools that went to war against her, did the only thing that could unite her; and every sword they drew was a conductor of that lightening which fell upon their heads. But we must now look at our homes. Where there is no strict union, there is no perfect love; and where no perfect love, there is no true helper. Are you satisfied, sir, at the celebrity and the distinctions you have obtained? _Kotzebue_.--My celebrity and distinctions, if I must speak of them, quite satisfy me. Neither in youth nor in advancing age--neither in difficult nor in easy circumstances, have I ventured to proclaim myself the tutor or the guardian of mankind. _Sandt_.--I understand the reproof, and receive it humbly and gratefully. You did well in writing the dramas, and the novels, and the travels; but, pardon my question, who called you to the courts of princes in strange countries? _Kotzebue_.--They themselves. _Sandt_.--They have no more right to take you away from your country, than to eradicate a forest, or to subvert a church in it. You belong to the land that bore you, and were not at liberty--(if right and liberty are one, and unless they are, they are good for nothing)--you were not at liberty, I repeat it, to enter into the service of an alien. _Kotzebue_.--No magistrate, higher or lower, forbade me. Fine notions of freedom are these!