Admirably
dry as the supplies of Ramler and the rest no doubt were, they had not
substance enough to keep his mind at the high temperature it needed, and
he would soon be driven to the cutting of green stuff from his own
wood-lot, more rich in smoke than fire. Besides this, he could hardly
have been at ease among intimates most of whom could not even conceive of
that intellectual honesty, that total disregard of all personal interests
where truth was concerned, which was an innate quality of Lessing's mind.
Their theory of criticism was, Truth, or even worse if possible, for all
who do not belong to our set; for us, that delicious falsehood which is
no doubt a slow poison, but then so _very_ slow. Their nerves were
unbraced by that fierce democracy of thought, trampling on all
prescription, all tradition, in which Lessing loved to shoulder his way
and advance his insupportable foot. "What is called a heretic," he says
in his Preface to _Berengarius_, "has a very good side. It is a man who
at least _wishes_ to see with his own eyes." And again, "I know not if it
be a duty to offer up fortune and life to the truth; ... but I know it
_is_ a duty, if one undertake to teach the truth, to teach the whole of
it, or none at all.
Pages:
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457