M. Lessing has much wit, genius, and invention; the
dissertations which follow the Fables prove moreover that he is an
excellent critic." In Berlin, Lessing made friendships, especially with
Mendelssohn, Von Kleist, Nicolai, Gleim, and Ramler. For Mendelssohn and
Von Kleist he seems to have felt a real love; for the others at most a
liking, as the best material that could be had. It certainly was not of
the juiciest. He seems to have worked hard and played hard, equally at
home in his study and Baumann's wine-cellar. He was busy, poor, and
happy.
But he was restless. We suspect that the necessity of forever picking up
crumbs, and their occasional scarcity, made the life of the sparrow on
the house-top less agreeable than he had expected. The imagined freedom
was not quite so free after all, for necessity is as short a tether as
dependence, or official duty, or what not, and the regular occupation of
grub-hunting is as tame and wearisome as another. Moreover, Lessing had
probably by this time sucked his friends dry of any intellectual stimulus
they could yield him; and when friendship reaches that pass, it is apt to
be anything but inspiring. Except Mendelssohn and Von Kleist, they were
not men capable of rating him at his true value; and Lessing was one of
those who always burn up the fuel of life at a fearful rate.
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