Sandt. Generally men of letters in our days, contrary to the practice of antiquity, are little fond of admitting the young and unlearned into their studies or their society.

Kotzebue. They should rather those than others. The young must cease to be young, and the unlearned may cease to be unlearned. According to the letters you bring with you, sir, there is only youth against you. In the seclusion of a college life, you appear to have studied with much assiduity and advantage, and to have pursued no other courses than the paths of wisdom. Sandt. Do you approve of the pursuit ? Kotzebue. Who does not?

Sandt. None, if you will consent that they direct the chase, bag the game, inebriate some of the sportsmen, and leave the rest behind in the slough. May I ask you another question? Kotzebue. Certainly.

Sandt. Where lie the paths of wisdom? I did not expect, my dear sir, to throw you back upon your chair. I hope it was no rudeness to seek information from you?

Kotzebue. The paths of wisdom, young man, are those which lead us to truth and happiness. Sandt. If they lead us away from fortune, from employments, from civil and political utility; if they cast us where the powerful persecute, where the rich trample us down, and where the poorer (at seeing it) despise us, rejecting our counsel and spurning our consolation; what valuable truth do they enable us to discover, or what rational happiness to expect? To say that wisdom leads to truth, is only to say that wisdom leads to wisdom; for such is truth. Nonsense is better than falsehood; and we come to that.

Kotzebue, How?

we are, and show me from hence, Von Kotzebue, a discoverer who has not suffered for his discovery, whether it be of a world or of a truth, whether a Columbus or a Galileo. Let us come down lower. Show me a man who has detected the injustice of a law, the absurdity of a tenet, the malversation of a minister or the impiety of a priest, and who has not been stoned, or hanged, or burnt, or imprisoned, or exiled, or reduced to poverty. The chain of Prometheus is hanging yet upon his rock, and weaker limbs writhe daily in its rusty links. Who then, unless for others, would be a darer of wisdom? And yet, how full of it is even the inanimate world? We may gather it out of stones and straws. Much lies within the reach of all: little has been collected by the wisest of the wise. O slaves to passion! O minions to power! ye carry our own scourges about you; ye endure their tortures daily; yet ye crouch for more. Ye believe that God beholds you; ye know that he will punish you, even worse than ye punish yourselves; and still ye lick the dust where the Old Serpent went before you.

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 uttermost of our power,

B