I am unhappy if it
must be by writing." And again in May, 1771: "Among all the wretched, I
think him the most wretched who must work with his head, even if he is
not conscious of having one. But what is the good of complaining?"
Lessing's life, if it is a noble example, so far as it concerned himself
alone, is also a warning when another is to be asked to share it. He too
would have profited had he earlier learned and more constantly borne in
mind the profound wisdom of that old saying, _Si sit prudentia_. Let the
young poet, however he may believe of his art that "all other pleasures
are not worth its pains," consider well what it is to call down fire from
heaven to keep the pot boiling, before he commit himself to a life of
authorship as something fine and easy. That fire will not condescend to
such office, though it come without asking on ceremonial days to the free
service of the altar.
Lessing, however, never would, even if he could, have so desecrated his
better powers. For a bare livelihood, he always went sturdily to the
market of hack-work, where his learning would fetch him a price. But it
was only in extremest need that he would claim that benefit of clergy. "I
am worried," he writes to his brother Karl, 8th April, 1773, "and work
because working is the only means to cease being so.
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