From 1752 to 1760, with an interval of something over two years spent in
Leipzig to be near a good theatre, Lessing was settled in Berlin, and
gave himself wholly and earnestly to the life of a man of letters. A
thoroughly healthy, cheerful nature he most surely had, with something at
first of the careless light-heartedness of youth. Healthy he was not
always to be, not always cheerful, often very far from light-hearted, but
manly from first to last he eminently was. Downcast he could never be,
for his strongest instinct, invaluable to him also as a critic, was to
see things as they really are. And this not in the sense of a cynic, but
of one who measures himself as well as his circumstances,--who loves
truth as the most beautiful of all things and the only permanent
possession, as being of one substance with the soul. In a man like
Lessing, whose character is even more interesting than his works, the
tone and turn of thought are what we like to get glimpses of. And for
this his letters are more helpful than those of most authors, as might be
expected of one who said of himself, that, in his more serious work, "he
must profit by his first heat to accomplish anything." He began, we say,
light-heartedly. He did not believe that "one should thank God only for
good things.
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