ORANGE: Egmont, our interests have for years weighed upon my heart; I ever stand as over a chess-board, and regard no move of my adversary as insignificant; and as men of science carefully investigate the secrets of nature, so I hold it to be the duty, ay, the very vocation of a prince, to acquaint himself with the dispositions and intentions of all parties. I have reason to fear an outbreak.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Egmont (1788; translated by Anna Swanwick, 1909-14)

First in an occasional series.