His
father seems to have heard with anxiety that this arrangement had ceased,
and Lessing writes to him: "I never wished to have anything to do with
this old man longer than _until I had made myself thoroughly acquainted
with his great library_. This is now accomplished, and we have
accordingly parted." This was in his twenty-first year, and we have no
doubt, from the _range_ of scholarship which Lessing had at command so
young, that it was perfectly true. All through his life he was thoroughly
German in this respect also, that he never _quite_ smelted his knowledge
clear from some slag of learning.
In the early part of the first Berlin residence, Pastor Primarius
Lessing, hearing that his son meditated a movement on Vienna, was much
exercised with fears of the temptation to Popery he would be exposed to
in that capital. We suspect that the attraction thitherward had its
source in a perhaps equally catholic, but less theological magnet,--the
Mademoiselle Lorenz above mentioned. Let us remember the perfectly
innocent passion of Mozart for an actress, and be comforted. There is not
the slightest evidence that Lessing's life at this time, or any other,
though careless, was in any way debauched. No scandal was ever coupled
with his name, nor is any biographic chemistry needed to bleach spots out
of his reputation.
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