Sandt.—­What! should I have asked you such a question as the last, after long knowing you?

Kotzebue, (aside.)—­This resembles insanity.

Sandt.—­The insane have quick ears, sir, and sometimes quick apprehensions.

Kotzebue.—­I really beg your pardon.

Sandt.—­I ought not then to have heard you, and beg yours.  My madness could release many from a worse; from a madness which hurts them grievously; a madness which has been and will be hereditary:  mine, again and again I repeat it, would burst asunder the strong swathes that fasten them to pillar and post.  Sir! sir! if I entertained not the remains of respect for you, in your domestic state, I should never have held with you this conversation.  Germany is Germany:  she ought to have nothing political in common with what is not Germany.  Her freedom and security now demand that she celebrate the communion of the faithful.  Our country is the only one in all the explored regions on earth that never has been conquered.  Arabia and Russia boast it falsely; France falsely; Rome falsely.  A fragment off the empire of Darius fell and crushed her:  Valentinian was the footstool of Sapor, and Rome was buried in Byzantium.  Boys must not learn this, and men will not.  Britain, the wealthiest and most powerful of nations, and, after our own, the most literate and humane, received from us colonies and laws.  Alas! those laws, which she retains as her fairest heritage, we value not:  we surrender them to gangs of robbers, who fortify themselves within walled cities, and enter into leagues against us.  When they quarrel, they push us upon one another’s sword, and command us to thank God for the victories that enslave us.  These are the glories we celebrate; these are the festivals we hold, on the burial-mounds of our ancestors.  Blessed are those who lie under them! blessed are also those who remember what they were, and call upon their names in the holiness of love.

Kotzebue.—­Moderate the transport that inflames and consumes you.  There is no dishonour in a nation being conquered by a stronger.

Sandt.—­There may be great dishonour in letting it be stronger; great, for instance, in our disunion.

Kotzebue.—­We have only been conquered by the French in our turn.

Sandt.—­No, sir, no:  we have not been, in turn or out.  Our puny princes were disarmed by promises and lies:  they accepted paper crowns from the very thief who was sweeping into his hat their forks and spoons.  A cunning traitor snared incautious ones, plucked them, devoured them, and slept upon their feathers.

Kotzebue.—­I would rather turn back with you to the ancient glories of our country than fix my attention on the sorrowful scenes more near to us.  We may be justly proud of our literary men, who unite the suffrages of every capital, to the exclusion of almost all their own.