But there was something in him stronger and more
sacred than even filial piety; and the good old pastor is remembered now
only as the father of a son who would have shared the benign oblivion of
his own theological works, if he could only have had his wise way with
him. Even after never so many biographies and review articles, genius
continues to be a marvellous and inspiring thing. At the same time,
considering the then condition of what was pleasantly called literature
in Germany, there was not a little to be said on the paternal side of the
question, though it may not seem now a very heavy mulct to give up one
son out of ten to immortality,--at least the Fates seldom decimate in
_this_ way. Lessing had now, if we accept the common standard in such
matters, "completed his education," and the result may be summed up in
his own words to Michaelis, 16th October, 1754: "I have studied at the
Fuerstenschule at Meissen, and after that at Leipzig and Wittenberg. But I
should be greatly embarrassed if I were asked to tell _what_." As early
as his twentieth year he had arrived at some singular notions as to the
uses of learning. On the 20th of January, 1749, he writes to his mother:
"I found out that books, indeed, would make me learned, _but never make
me a man_.
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