Such things have not been possible in English since Swift,
and the _persifleur_ Heine cannot offer the same excuse of savage
cynicism that might be pleaded for the Irishman.
I have hinted that Herr Stahr's Life of Lessing is not precisely the kind
of biography that would have been most pleasing to the man who could not
conceive that an author should be satisfied with anything more than truth
in praise, or anything less in criticism. My respect for what Lessing
was, and for what he did, is profound. In the history of literature it
would be hard to find a man so stalwart, so kindly, so sincere,[148] so
capable of great ideas, whether in their influence on the intellect or
the life, so unswervingly true to the truth, so free from the common
weaknesses of his class. Since Luther, Germany has given birth to no such
intellectual athlete,--to no son so German to the core. Greater poets she
has had, but no greater writer; no nature more finely tempered. Nay, may
we not say that great character is as rare a thing as great genius, if it
be not even a nobler form of it? For surely it is easier to embody fine
thinking, or delicate sentiment, or lofty aspiration, in a book than in a
life. The written leaf, if it be, as some few are, a safe-keeper and
conductor of celestial fire, is secure.
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