But to give a
satisfactory idea of the interior surpasses our powers.' And in
conclusion he adds, 'These poems cost two thalers and four groschen. The
two thalers pay for the ridiculous, and the four groschen pretty much for
the useful.'" Again, he tells us that Lessing concludes his notice of
Klopstock's Ode to God "with these inimitably roguish words: 'What
presumption to beg thus earnestly for a woman!' Does not a whole book of
criticism lie in these nine words?" For a young man of twenty-two,
Lessing's criticisms show a great deal of independence and maturity of
thought; but humor he never had, and his wit was always of the
bluntest,--crushing rather than cutting. The mace, and not the scymitar,
was his weapon. Let Herr Stahr put all Lessing's "inimitably roguish
words" together, and compare them with these few intranslatable lines
from Voltaire's letter to Rousseau, thanking him for his _Discours sur
l'Inegalite_: "On n'a jamais employe tant d'esprit a vouloir nous rendre
betes; il prend enviede marcher a quatre pattes quand on lit votre
ouvrage." Lessing from the first was something far better than a wit.
Force was always much more characteristic of him than cleverness.
Sometimes Herr Stahr's hero-worship leads him into positive misstatement.
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