This disposition is not to be overcome."[152]
Fortunately not, for Lessing's opinion always meant something, and was
worth having. Gleim no doubt sympathized deeply with the sufferer by this
treason, for he too had been shocked at some disrespect for La Fontaine,
as a disciple of whom he had announced himself.
Berlin was hardly the place for Lessing, if he could not take a step in
any direction without risk of treading on somebody's gouty foot. This was
not the last time that he was to have experience of the fact that the
critic's pen, the more it has of truth's celestial temper, the more it is
apt to reverse the miracle of the archangel's spear, and to bring out
whatever is toadlike in the nature of him it touches. We can well
understand the sadness with which he said,
"Der Blick des Forscher's fand
Nicht selten mehr als er zu finden wuenschte."
Here, better than anywhere, we may cite something which he wrote of
himself to a friend of Klotz. Lessing, it will be remembered, had
literally "suppressed" Klotz. "What do you apprehend, then, from me? The
more faults and errors you point out to me, so much the more I shall
learn of you; the more I learn of you, the more thankful shall I be....I
wish you knew me more thoroughly.
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