ders; and first to those
that lie against the house! God himself did not fill the world at once
with happy creatures: he enlivened one small portion of it with them,
and began with single affections, as well as pure and unmixt. We must
have an object and an aim, or our strength, if any strength belongs to
us, will be useless.

_Kotzebue_.--There is much good sense in these remarks: but I am not at
all times at leisure and in readiness to receive instruction. I am old
enough to have laid down my own plans of life; and I trust I am by no
means deficient in the relations I bear to society.

_Sandt_.--Lovest thou thy children? Oh! my heart bleeds! But the birds
can fly; and the nest requires no warmth from the parent, no cover
against the rain and the wind.

_Kotzebue_.--This is wildness: this is agony. Your face is laden with
large drops; some of them tears, some not. Be more rational and calm, my
dear young man! and less enthusiastic.

_Sandt_.--They who will not let us be rational, make us enthusiastic by
force. Do you love your children? I ask you again. If you do, you must
love them more than another man's. Only they who are indifferent to all,
profess a parity.

_Kotzebue_.--Sir! indeed your conversation very much surprises me.

_Sandt_.--I see it does: you stare, and would look proud. Emperors and
kings, and all but maniacs, would lose that faculty with me. I could
speedily bring them to a just sense of their nothingness, unless their
ears were calked and pitched, although I am no Savonarola. He, too, died
sadly!

_Kotzebue_.--Amid so much confidence of power, and such an assumption of
authority, your voice is gentle--almost plaintive.

_Sandt_.--It should be plaintive. Oh, could it be but persuasive!

_Kotzebue_.--Why take this deep interest in me? I do not merit nor
require it. Surely any one would think we had been acquainted with each
other for many years.

_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