"
Besides whatever other reasons Leasing may have had for leaving Berlin,
we fancy that his having exhausted whatever means it had of helping his
spiritual growth was the chief. Nine years later, he gave as a reason for
not wishing to stay long in Brunswick, "Not that I do not like Brunswick,
but because nothing comes of being long in a place which one likes."[154]
Whatever the reason, Leasing, in 1760, left Berlin for Breslau, where the
post of secretary had been offered him under Frederick's tough old
General Tauentzien. "I will spin myself in for a while like an ugly worm,
that I may be able to come to light again as a brilliant winged
creature," says his diary. Shortly after his leaving Berlin, he was
chosen a member of the Academy of Sciences there. Herr Stahr, who has no
little fondness for the foot-light style of phrase, says, "It may easily
be imagined that he himself regarded his appointment as an insult rather
than as an honor." Lessing himself merely says that it was a matter of
indifference to him, which is much more in keeping with his character and
with the value of the intended honor.
The Seven Years' War began four years before Lessing took up his abode in
Breslau, and it may be asked how he, as a Saxon, was affected by it.
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