Poverty cannot pinch, passion
swerve, or trial shake it. But the man Lessing, harassed and striving
life-long, always poor and always hopeful, with no patron but his own
right-hand, the very shuttlecock of fortune, who saw ruin's ploughshare
drive through the hearth on which his first home-fire was hardly kindled,
and who, through all, was faithful to himself, to his friend, to his
duty, and to his ideal, is something more inspiring for us than the most
glorious utterance of merely intellectual power. The figure of Goethe is
grand, it is rightfully pre-eminent, it has something of the calm, and
something of the coldness, of the immortals; but the Valhalla of German
letters can show one form, in its simple manhood, statelier even than
his.
Manliness and simplicity, if they are not necessary coefficients in
producing character of the purest tone, were certainly leading elements
in the Lessing who is still so noteworthy and lovable to us when
eighty-six years have passed since his bodily presence vanished from
among men. He loved clearness, he hated exaggeration in all its forms. He
was the first German who had any conception of style, and who could be
full without spilling over on all sides. Herr Stahr, we think, is not
just the biographer he would have chosen for himself.
Pages:
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426