Preux and Julie, and you are
stifled with the heavy perfume of a demirep's boudoir,--to those of
Herder to his Caroline, and you sniff no doubtful odor of professional
unction from the sermon-case. Manly old Dr. Johnson, who could be tender
and true to a plain woman, knew very well what he meant when he wrote
that single poetic sentence of his,--"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last
acquainted with Love, and found him to be a native of the rocks."
In January, 1778, Lessing's wife died from the effects of a difficult
childbirth. The child, a boy, hardly survived its birth. The few words
wrung out of Lessing by this double sorrow are to me as deeply moving as
anything in tragedy. "I wished for once to be as happy (_es so gut
haben_) as other men. But it has gone ill with me!" "And I was so loath
to lose him, this son!" "My wife is dead; and I have had this experience
also. I rejoice that I have not many more such experiences left to make,
and am quite cheerful." "If you had known her! But they say that to
praise one's wife is self-praise. Well, then, I say no more of her! But
if you had known her!" _Quite cheerful!_ On the 10th of August he writes
to Elise Reimarus,--he is writing to a woman now, an old friend of his
and his wife, and will be less restrained: "I am left here all alone.
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