Finally
the uncle, who has always held Tellheim in high esteem, appears
upon the scene; the mystery is cleared up, and the lovers are made
happy.
the uncle, who has always held Tellheim in high esteem, appears
upon the scene; the mystery is cleared up, and the lovers are made
happy.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
There
is no trusting to one's self in such a case: pride and conceit were
the original sin of man. The probe of criticism must be intrusted
to an impartial stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity.
Both those requisites centre in you: you are my choice, and I
give myself up to your direction. ”_"Heaven be praised, my
lord,” said I, “there is no need to trouble yourself with any such
thoughts yet. Besides, an understanding of your Grace's mold and
calibre will last out double the time of a common genius; or to
speak with more certainty and truth, it will never be the worse
for wear, if you live to the age of Methusalem.
I consider you
as a second Cardinal Ximenes, whose powers, superior to decay,
instead of flagging with years seemed to derive new vigor from
their approximation with the heavenly regions. ” “No flattery,
my friend! ” interrupted he. “I know myself to be in danger
of failing all at once. At my age one begins to be sensible of
infirmities, and those of the body communicate with the mind.
I repeat it to you, Gil Blas, as soon as you shall be of opinion
that my head is not so clear as usual, give me warning of it
instantly. Do not be afraid of offending by frankness and sincer-
ity: to put me in mind of my own frailty will be the strongest
proof of your affection for me. Besides, your very interest is
concerned in it; for if it should, by any spite of chance towards
you, come to my ears that the people say in town, His Grace's
sermons produce no longer their accustomed impression; it is
time for him to abandon his pulpit to younger candidates,' -
I do assure you, most seriously and solemnly, you will lose not
only my friendship, but the provision for life that I have prom-
ised you. Such will be the result of your silly tampering with
truth. ”
»
## p. 8999 (#635) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
8999
no
Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an
echo of his speech, and a promise of obeying him in all things.
From that moment there were no secrets from me; I became the
prime favorite. All the household, except Melchior de la Ronda,
looked at me with an eye of envy. It was curious to observe
the manner in which the whole establishment, from the highest
to the lowest, thought it necessary to demean themselves towards
his Grace's confidential secretary; there was meanness to
which they would not stoop to curry favor with me: I could
scarcely believe they were Spaniards. I left no stone unturned
to be of service to them, without being taken in by their inter-
ested assiduities.
Two months after this worthy gentleman had left us, in the
luxuriant harvest of my highest favor, a lowering storm came
suddenly over the episcopal palace: the archbishop had a stroke
of apoplexy. By dint of immediate applications and good nurs-
ing, in a few days there was no bodily appearance of disease
remaining. But his reverend intellects did not so easily recover
from their lethargy. I could not help observing it to myself in
the very first discourse that he composed. Yet there was not
such a wide gap between the merits of the present and the
former ones as to warrant the inference that the sun of oratory
was many degrees advanced in its post-meridian course. A
second homily was worth waiting for, because that would clearly
determine the line of my conduct. Alas, and well-a-day! when
that second homily came, it was a knock-down argument. Some-
times the good prelate moved forward, and sometimes he moved
backward; sometimes he mounted up into the garret, and some-
times dipped down into the cellar. It was a composition of more
.
sound than meaning; something like a superannuated schoolmas-
ter's theme when he attempts to give his boys more sense than
he possesses of his own, or like a capuchin's sermon which only
scatters a few artificial flowers of paltry rhetoric over a barren
desert of doctrine.
I was not the only person whom the alteration struck. The
audience at large, when he delivered it, as if they too had been
pledged to watch the advances of dotage, said to one another in a
whisper all around the church, “Here is a sermon with symp-
toms of apoplexy in every paragraph. ” Come, my good Cory-
phæus of the public taste in homilies,” said I then to myself,
prepare to do your office. You see that my lord archbishop is
going very fast, - you ought to warn him of it, not only as his
(
## p. 9000 (#636) ###########################################
9000
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
bosom friend on whose sincerity he relies, but lest some blunt
fellow should anticipate you and bolt out the truth in an offens-
ive manner; in that case you know the consequence: you would
be struck out of his will, where, no doubt, you have a more
convertible bequest than the licentiate Sedillo's library. ”
But as reason, like Janus, looks at things with two faces, I
began to consider the other side of the question: the hint seemed
difficult to wrap up so as to make it palatable. Authors in gen-
eral are stark mad on the subject of their own works, and such
an author might be more testy than the common herd of the
irritable race; but that suspicion seemed illiberal on my part,
for it was impossible that my freedom should be taken amiss
when it had been forced upon me by so positive an injunction.
Add to this, that I reckoned upon handling the subject skillfully,
and cramming discretion down his throat like a high-seasoned
epicurean dish. After all my pro and con, finding that I risked
more by keeping silence than by breaking it, I determined to
venture on the delicate duty of speaking my mind.
Now there was but one difficulty, - a difficulty indeed! -
how to open the business. Luckily the orator himself extricated
me from that embarrassment, by asking what they said of him
in the world at large, and whether people were tolerably well
pleased with his last discourse. I answered that there could be
but one opinion about his homilies; but that it should seem as if
the last had not quite struck home to the hearts of the audience,
like those which had gone before. 'Do you really mean what
you say, my friend ? ” replied he, with a sort of wriggling sur-
prise. «Then my congregation are more in the temper of Aris-
tarchus than of Longinus! ” “No, may it please your Grace,”
rejoined I: “quite the contrary. Performances of that order
are above the reach of vulgar criticism: there is not a soul but
expects to be saved by their influence. Nevertheless, since you
have made it my duty to be sincere and unreserved, I shall take
the liberty of just stating that your last discourse is not written
with quite the overpowering eloquence and conclusive argument
of your former ones. Does not your Grace feel just as I do on
the subject ? ”
This ignorant and stupid frankness of mine completely
blanched my master's cheek; but he forced a fretful smile, and
said, “Then, good Master Gil Blas, that piece does not exactly 'hit
your fancy? "I did not mean to say that, your Grace,” inter-
rupted I, looking very foolish. It is very far superior to what
(
## p. 9001 (#637) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
9001
»
-
»
any one else could produce, though a little below par with re-
spect to your own works in general. ” “I know what you mean,”
replied he. “You think I am going down-hill, do you not? Out
with it at once. It is your opinion that it is time for me to
think of retiring ? ” I should never have had the presumption,”
«
said I, «to deliver myself with so little reserve, if it had not
been your Grace's express command. I act in entire obedience to
your Grace's orders; and I most obsequiously implore your Grace
not to take offense at my boldness. ” “I were unfit to live in a
Christian land,” interrupted he, with stammering impatience,-"I
were unfit to live in a Christian land if I liked you the less for
such a Christian virtue as sincerity. A man who does not love
sincerity sets his face against the distinguishing mark between a
friend and a flatterer. I should have given you infinite credit for
speaking what you thought, if you had thought anything that
deserved to be spoken. I have been finely taken in by your out-
side show of cleverness, without any solid foundation of sober
judgment! ”
Though completely unhorsed, and at the enemy's mercy, I
wanted to make terms of decent capitulation, and to go unmo-
lested into winter quarters; but let those who think to appease
an exasperated author, and especially an author whose ear has
been long attuned to the music of his own praises, take warning
by my fate.
« Let us talk no more on the subject, my very
young friend,” said he.
“You are as yet scarcely in the rudi.
ments of good taste, and utterly incompetent to distinguish be-
tween gold and tinsel. You are yet to learn that I never in all
my life composed a finer homily than that unfortunate one which
had not the honor of your approbation. The immortal part of
me, by the blessing of heaven on me and my congregation, is
less weighed down by human infirmity than when the flesh was
stronger. We all grow wiser as we grow older, and I shall in
future select the people about me with more caution; nor submit
the castigation of my works but to a much abler critic than your-
self. Get about your business! ” pursued he, giving me an angry
shove by the shoulders out of his closet; "go and tell my treas-
urer to pay you a hundred ducats, and take my priestly blessing
in addition to that sum. God speed you, good Master Gil Blas!
I heartily pray that you may do well in the world! There is
nothing to stand in your way but the want of a little better
taste.
1
»
## p. 9002 (#638) ###########################################
9002
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
THE VINTNER'S STORY
From (The Devil upon Two Sticks)
“USP
NDER the closet there is a dungeon that serves for a lodging
to a young vintner. ” — “What, my host again ? » cried
Leandro; sure these people have a mind to poison all
the world. ) “This man's case is not the same,” replied Asmodeus:
he was seized yesterday, and is likewise claimed by the Inquisi-
tion. I will in few words relate to you the subject of his com-
mitment.
"An old soldier, by his courage, or rather patience, having
«
mounted to the post of a sergeant in his company, came to raise
recruits in this city. He inquired for a lodging at an inn, where
.
he was answered that they had indeed empty rooms, but that
they could not recommend any of them to him, because the house
was haunted every night by a spirit, which treated all strangers
very ill that were rash enough to lodge there. This did not at
all balk the sergeant.
(Put me in what chamber you please,'
said he, “but give me a candle, wine, pipes, and tobacco; and as
for the spirit, never trouble yourself about it,-ghosts have a
respect for men of war who are grown old in the service. '
"As he seemed so resolute, he was shown into a chamber,
where all that he desired was brought to him. He fell to drink-
ing and sinoking till midnight, and no spirit had yet disturbed
the profound silence that reigned in the house. One would have
imagined he feared this new guest; but betwixt one and two, the
sergeant all of a sudden heard a terrible noise like the rattling
of old iron, and immediately saw entering his chamber an appari-
tion clothed in black and laden all round with iron chains. Our
smoker, not in the least affrighted at this sight, drew his sword,
advanced towards the spirit, and with the flat side of it gave him
a very severe blow on the head.
“The apparition, not much used to meet with such bold guests,
cried out; and perceiving the soldier going to begin with him
again, he most humbly prostrated himself at his feet. (Mr.
Sergeant,' said he, for God's sake do not give me any more;
but have mercy on a poor devil that casts himself at your feet.
I conjure you by St. James, who, as you are, was a great soldier. '
If you are willing to save your life,' answered the soldier, you
must tell me who you are, and speak without the least prevarica-
tion; or else this moment I cut you down the middle, as your
## p. 9003 (#639) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
9003
(
knights of old were used to serve the giants they encountered. '
At these words, the ghost, finding what sort of man he had to do
with, resolved to own all.
«I am the principal servant of this inn,' replied the spirit;
(my name is Gụillermo; I am in love with my master's only
daughter, and she does not dislike me: but the father and mother
having a better match in view, the girl and I have agreed, in
order to compel them to make me their son-in-law, that I shall
every night act the part which I now do. I wrap myself up in a
long black cloak and hang the jack-chain about my neck. Thus
equipped, I run up and down the house from the cellar to the
garret, and make all the noise which you have heard. When I
am at my master's and mistress's chamber-door, I stop and cry
out: “Do not hope that I will ever let you rest till you marry
Juanna to Guillermo, your upper drawer. ” "After having pro-
nounced these words with a hoarse, broken voice, I continue my
noise, and at a window enter the closet where Juanna lies alone,
to give her an account of what I have done. — Mr. Sergeant,' con-
tinued Guillermo, you see I have told you the whole truth. I
know that after this confession you may ruin me by discovering
it to my master; but if you please to serve instead of undoing
me, I swear that my acknowledgments —
« Alas, what service can I do thee? ' interrupted the soldier.
You need do no more,' returned Guillermo, than to say to-
morrow that you have seen the spirit, that it so terribly affrighted
you How ? terribly affrighted! ' interrupted the soldier;
would you have Sergeant Annibal Antonio Quebrantador own
such a thing as fear? I had rather ten thousand devils should —
“That's not absolutely necessary,' interrupted Guillermo; (and
after all it is not much matter what you say, provided you
second my design. And when I have married Juanna and am
settled, I promise to treat you and all your friends nobly for
nothing every day. —You are a very tempting person, Mr.
Guillermo,' said the soldier. You propose to me to support a
tribe: it is a serious affair, which requires mature deliberation;
but the consequences hurry me on. So continue your noise; give
your account to Juanna, and I will take care of the rest. '
"Accordingly, next morning he said to his landlord and land-
lady: I have seen the spirit and have talked with it.
It is a
very honest fellow. “I am,” said he, “the great-grandfather of
the master of this house. I had a daughter whom I promised to
(
>
(
1
(
## p. 9004 (#640) ###########################################
9004
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
the father of the grandfather of this drawer. However, neglecting
the word I had given him, I married her to another, and died
soon after, and ever since am tormented as the punishment of
my perjury, and shall never be at rest till one of my family
shall marry one of Guillermo's; and it is for this reason I walk
here every night. Yet it is to no purpose that I bid them marry
Juanna to their head drawer. The son of my grandson and his
wife turn the deaf ear to all I can say. But tell them, if you
please, Mr. Sergeant, that if they do not immediately comply
with my desires, I shall proceed to action and will torment them
both in an extraordinary manner. ”)
“ The host, being silly enough, was terrified at this discourse;
but the hostess, yet more silly than her husband, fancying that
the spirit was always at her heels, consented to the match, and
Guillermo married Juanna the next day, and set up in another
part of the town. Sergeant Quebrantador did not fail to visit
him often; and he, in acknowledgment of the service he had done
him, gave him as much wine as he cared for. This so pleased
the soldier that he brought thither not only all his friends, but
listed his men there, and made all his recruits drunk.
“But at last Guillermo, grown weary of satiating such a crew
of drunkards, told his mind to the soldier; who, without ever
thinking that he had exceeded his agreement, was so unjust as to
call Guillermo a little ungrateful rascal. The host answered; the
sergeant replied; and the dialogue ended with several strokes
with the flat side of the sword, which Guillermo received. Sev-
eral persons passing by took the vintner's part; the sergeant
wounded three or four, but was suddenly fallen on by a crowd
of alguazils, who seized him as a disturber of the public peace
and carried him to prison. He there declared what I have told
you: and upon his deposition, the officers have also seized Guil-
lermo; the father-in-law requires the annulling of the marriage;
and the Holy Office being informed that Guillermo is rich, have
thought fit to take cognizance of it. ”
“As I hope to be saved,” said Don Cleofas, “this same Holy
Inquisition is very alert. The moment they see the least glimpse
of profit->
“Softly,” interrupted the cripple; “have a care what freedom
you take with this tribunal, for it has its spies everywhere,
even of things that were never spoken. I myself dare not speak
of it without trembling. ”
## p. 9004 (#641) ###########################################
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## p. 9004 (#644) ###########################################
LESSING
## p. 9005 (#645) ###########################################
9005
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
(1729-1781)
BY E. P. EVANS
ESSING was born January 22d, 1729, at Camenz in the Saxon
province of Upper Lusatia, and died at Brunswick, February
15th, 1781. His father was a clergyman and his mother the
daughter of a clergyman; and his earliest known ancestor, Clarence
Lessigk, a curate in the Saxon Erzgebirge, was one of the signers of
the formula concordia published in 1580, and designed to allay certain
doctrinal dissensions which had arisen soon after the death of the
reformer. From this ecclesiastical progenitor his line of descent ran
unbroken through six generations of theologians, jurists, burgomas-
ters, and other men of culture; and in illustration of the “survival of
the fittest,” the family name and characteristics were in our own day
the heritage of one of the most eminent historical painters of Ger-
many. Lessing belonged therefore to what Oliver Wendell Holmes
used to call the “Academic Races,” in whom scholarly tastes and
aptitudes are inbred and transmitted from father to son, and who take
to learning almost as instinctively as a cat takes to mousing. It
is the scions of such a stock that constitute the largest contingent of
those who pursue university studies, and fill the ranks of the learned
professions; producing a horde of pedants like Lessing's younger
brother Theophilus, and at rare intervals a man of genius like him-
self.
In June 1741, when he was scarcely thirteen, he was sent to the
then celebrated grammar school at Meissen (Fürstenschule zu St.
Afra), where he completed the prescribed six-years' course of study
in five years. In answer to the father's inquiry concerning his son's
proficiency, the rector replied: “He is a horse that needs double
fodder. The lessons, which are hard for others, are nothing for him.
We cannot use him much longer. ” On September 20th, 1746, he was
matriculated as a student of theology in the University of Leipsic.
Two years later he went to Wittenberg, thence to Berlin, and again
to Wittenberg, where he took the degree of master of arts on April
29th, 1752.
During these half a dozen years of quite varied and rather vagrant
academical life, he devoted himself with energy and enthusiasm to
## p. 9006 (#646) ###########################################
9006
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
>>
literary pursuits, and developed a marked talent for dramatic com-
position. He wrote a comedy entitled “The Young Scholar. ' The
juvenile pedant, as he afterwards states, “was the only kind of ninny
which at that time it was impossible for me not to be intimately
acquainted with”; his play was therefore a study from life, rendered
more realistic and vivid by a dawning consciousness of the danger to
which he was himself exposed. The piece was given with great
applause by the troupe of the celebrated Madame Neuber at Leipsic,
whose citizens were only too familiar with the original of Damis. The
best of his earlier plays is unquestionably Miss Sara Sampson,' a
tragedy in five acts, first represented at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, July
10th, 1755, when, as we are told, the spectators “sat four hours like
statues, and wept and wept. Nowadays its high-flown sentimentalism
would excite laughter rather than tears; and although it was a theat-
rical success, and even had the distinction of being translated into
French, it has long since fallen into oblivion. Its present importance
is purely historical, as the first specimen of the tragedy of middle-
class life on the German stage. Of Lessing's later and riper contri-
butions to dramatic literature, three may be said to have an intrinsic
and permanent value, Minna von Barnhelm,' (Emilia Galotti,' and
(Nathan the Wise': a comedy, a tragedy, and what might be called
a didactic drama, although each of these productions is pervaded by
an earnest and quite obvious moral purpose.
The salient feature of Minna von Barnhelm,' published in 1767,
is its national character,- so far as the term “national” can be
applied to anything German at that time. Chiefly for this reason it
appeared as “a shining meteor” to the eyes of Goethe, who was
then a student in Leipsic, and who, in his talks with Eckermann in
the last years of his life, recalled with reminiscent enthusiasm the
immense influence it exerted upon the young people of his day. The
hero, Major Tellheim, an officer in the service of Frederick the Great,
has during the Seven Years' War advanced the money for the pay-
ment of a heavy contribution levied on a poor Saxon province. This
noble and generous act so deeply impresses Minna von Barnhelm, a
wealthy young lady of the neighborhood, that she seeks his acquaint-
ance and becomes his betrothed. On the conclusion of peace, the
draft given by the Saxon authorities to Tellheim is construed by
the Prussian government into evidence of his having been bribed by
the enemy; and he is therefore cashiered. His fine sense of honor
makes him unwilling to involve the young lady in his disgrace, and
he accordingly releases her from her engagement. As all her pro-
tests against such a proceeding prove unavailing, she resolves to
accomplish her purpose by artifice, and pretends that she has been
disinherited by her uncle on account of her betrothal. The cunning
## p. 9007 (#647) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9007
device succeeds. Believing her to be poor and deserted, Tellheim is
eager to wed her and take her under his protection; especially as
meanwhile he has received a letter from the King, recognizing the
true state of the case as regards the draft, ordering it to be paid,
and offering to restore him to his former rank in the army. It is
now Minna's turn to scruple at such an unequal marriage, and to
urge against it all the arguments which he had used, but of which
he would not admit the force in their present application.
Finally
the uncle, who has always held Tellheim in high esteem, appears
upon the scene; the mystery is cleared up, and the lovers are made
happy. The subordinate characters — Just, Werner, Franziska, and
the sordid innkeeper are admirably drawn; and the introduction of
le Chevalier Riccaut de la Marlinière is a happy hit at the petty
German rulers, whose courts swarmed with titled adventurers of this
sort, and even at Frederic the Great, who admitted them to his
army. Underlying the love story is a deeper political meaning; and
the nuptial union of Tellheim and Minna is made to symbolize the
natural ties of race which should bind together the different members
of the German family, then alienated and antagonized by dynastic
jealousies and interests.
In (Emilia Galotti' the scene is laid in Italy, and the catastrophe
recalls the days of the old Roman Republic; but the play is wholly
German in spirit, and holds the mirror up to the frivolous and
tyrannical princelings of Lessing's own time and nation. The hero-
ine, the daughter of a colonel and the betrothed of Count Appiani,
has excited the admiration and passion of the reigning sovereign, an
effeminate and sentimental young man, whose few generous impulses
have been checked and stunted by the consciousness of irresponsible
power and the servile flattery of courtiers, and who has grown up
into a pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous egotist. On learning that
Emilia is about to marry Appiani, he gives his chamberlain, the
sycophantic and utterly unprincipled Marinelli, carte blanche to use
every means to prevent it; the result of which is the assassination of
the groom on his wedding-day and the abduction of the bride, who,
under the pretext of protecting her from the bandits, is carried off
to the prince's castle. Her father hastens thither, and learns the
real cause of Appiani's taking-off in an accidental interview with the
prince's discarded mistress, Countess Orsina, who gives him a dag-
ger and bids him do his duty. The father, disarmed by a gracious
word of his Serene Highness, lets the favorable opportunity pass, and
finally thrusts the dagger into the heart of his daughter, who, fearing
lest she might yield to the seductions of the court and to the suit of
her princely lover, entreats him to do the deed. This dénouement
is the weak point in the play. Times have changed since the age of
## p. 9008 (#648) ###########################################
9008
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Virginius; and the heroic act of a father to whom the law gave the
power of life and death over his children does not fit into the plot
of a modern tragedy. The sentimental metaphor of “a rose broken
from its stem before the storm strips it of its leaves,” first used by
the daughter and repeated by the father, hardly suits the case. The
characters Appiani and Odoardo Galotti, in contrast to Marinelli, the
type of contemporary court vermin,” are admirably portrayed; the
dialogue is simple and compact, and the dramatic movement remark-
ably direct and rapid. The piece was first represented at Brunswick,
March 13th, 1772, and has kept its place on the German stage ever
since.
Still more remote from Lessing's age and country is the action of
Nathan the Wise'; the scene of which is laid in Jerusalem during
the Third Crusade, in the latter half of the twelfth century, but
which nevertheless bore the closest relation to his own intellectual
life and to that of his time. The germ of the drama is the tale of
Saladin and the Jew Melchizedek in Boccaccio's (Decameron,' which
Lessing used as a parable to illustrate and enforce his views of reli-
gious toleration. Indeed, the whole play is little more than a dia-
logue in iambics on this subject, which came to his hand as a new and
effective weapon in the warfare which he had been waging against
theological bigotry, in his controversy with the Hamburg pastor Götze.
It was published in 1779, and represented in Berlin four years later.
Lessing's last word in this polemical discussion was his essay of
a hundred paragraphs entitled “The Education of the Human Race,'
and containing a complete philosophy of religion in a nutshell. These
acute and suggestive theses will still be read with interest, although
the recent comparative study of religions has rendered some of them
untenable.
An additional evidence of the vigor and versatility of his genius
is seen in the acute and comprehensive spirit with which he handled
æsthetical topics. His Laocoön' (published in May 1766), although
a fragment, still remains an unrivaled masterpiece of art criticism;
and the line of demarcation which he drew between the speaking
and the imaging arts has never been disturbed. He fixed the limits
of poetry and painting as different modes of representation, and set
aside once for all the famous dictum of Simonides, Ut pictura poesis,
which had received the indorsement of Winckelmann and which he
himself had formerly accepted. The fruitfulness of this “splendid
thought,” as Goethe calls it, is perceptible in the subsequent devel-
opment of the principles of criticism as applied to literature and the
fine arts in Germany.
Even more fugitive and fragmentary than "Laocoon' is Lessing's
"Dramaturgy,' written during his brief connection with the Hamburg
((
## p. 9009 (#649) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9009
theatre as critic in 1767, and concluded in the following year after
the financial failure of that ill-starred enterprise. But here too the
good seed, which seemed then to have been sown among thorns or
on stony places, has sprung up and borne fruit a hundredfold. This
is the result which Lessing wished to attain. Number 95 of this
series of papers ends as follows: "Just here I remind my readers
that these pages are by no means intended to contain a dramatic
system. I am therefore not bound to solve all the difficulties which
I raise. I am quite willing that my thoughts should seem to want
connection, and even to contradict each other, if they are only
thoughts in which the readers may find material for thinking them-
selves. I aim at nothing more than to scatter fermenta cognitionis. ”
In the performance of this useful function he has seldom been sur-
passed.
Lessing possessed a clearness of insight and a vigor of mind bor-
dering on genius; he was a master of creative criticism, an original
thinker, and what is more, a man of sterling character and strictest
intellectual integrity: but he was not of imagination all compact,”
not a great poet, and never claimed to be. The manly stride of his
prose easily turns to mincing steps in his verse. His epigrams and
odes and lyrics are rhythmically correct, but purely mechanical and
often exceedingly stiff; and his plays, although dramatically well con-
structed, lack the qualities which he as a critic appreciated in Shake-
speare, but which the keenest critical faculty can never supply. But
with all these deficiencies on the poetic side of ķis nature, of which
no one was more fully conscious than himself, he still remains one of
the noblest figures and most permanent influences for good in Ger-
man literature.
EN Enan
NAMES
I
ASKED my maiden fair one day :-
« What shall I call thee in my lay?
Wilt thou be as Daphne famed ?
Wilt thou Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris
By posterity be named ? >
"Ah! ” replied my maiden fair,
“Names are naught but empty air.
XV-564
## p. 9010 (#650) ###########################################
9010
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Choose the one that suits the line:
Call me Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris, -
Call me anything, in fine,
If thou only call'st me Thine. ”
EPIGRAM
HO will not mighty Klopstock praise ?
Will everybody read him ? Nay!
A little less extol our lays,
And read a little more, we pray.
W"
[This epigram evidently suggested to James Russell Lowell his pithy char-
acterization of Klopstock as “an immortality of unreadableness. ” Lessing also,
in a letter to Gleim (October 20, 1757), asks: «What do you say to Klop-
stock's sacred songs ? If you condemn them, I shall suspect your Christianity;
if you approve of them, I shall question your taste. ”]
THUNDER
Hº
.
O, FRIENDS! it thunders! Let us drink!
Fill up the bowl! For what care we?
Let hypocrites and villains shrink,
And minions bend the servile knee!
It thunders! drain the glasses dry!
Nor start like women with affright:
Just Jove may lash the sea-surge high,
His nectar he will never smite.
BENEFITS
'En if a vicious man were like a leaky vat,
That wastes what it receives, pour in, for all of that!
If vat and man are not in too decrepit plight,
Keep pouring in thy gifts! How soon a crack soaks tight!
E
ON MR. R
*
THA
WHAT you're a poet, sir, I'm very glad;
But are you nothing more? Ah! that's too bad.
* Probably Karl Wilhelm Ramler,
## p. 9011 (#651) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9011
FROM (NATHAN THE WISE)
SALAD
ALADIN
Draw nearer, Jew! Still nearer! Close to me,
And have no fear!
Nathan
Let that be for thy foe!
Saladin Thy name is Nathan.
Nathan
Yes.
Saladin
Nathan the Wise ?
Nathan No.
Saladin
Well! if not by thee thyself so called,
The people call thee so.
Nathan
Maybe, the people.
Saladin Thou dost not think, forsooth, that I
The people's voice do scornfully disdain ?
Indeed, I have long wished to know the man
The people call the Wise.
Nathan -
What if they mean
By wise that he is only shrewd, and knows
His own advantage craftily to gain ?
Saladin His true advantage meanest thou thereby ?
Nathan Then the most selfish were the shrewdest too;
Then were indeed “crafty” and “wise” the same.
Saladin - I hear thee prove what thou wouldst contradict.
Man's truest gain, which people do not know,
Thou knowest or at least hast sought to know;
This thou hast pondered, and 'tis this alone
That makes man wise.
Nathan
And which each deems himself
To be.
Saladin
And now of modesty enough!
To hear it evermore, where one expects
Dry reason, sickens.
[He springs up.
To the matter now!
But be honest, yes, be honest!
Nathan –
Sultan,
It surely is my wish to serve thee so,
That worthy of thy further custom I
May still remain.
Saladin
To serve me ? how?
Nathan
The best
Of all shalt thou receive, and have it at
The fairest price.
## p. 9012 (#652) ###########################################
9012
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Saladin
What dost thou speak of, Jew?
Not of thy wares! The chafferer with thee
Shall be my sister. [Aside: That for the eavesdropper. ]
With thee as merchant have I naught to do.
Nathan Then doubtless thou thyself would'st know what I
Have on my journey, of the foe, who seems
To stir again, observed or happened on?
If plainly I-
Saladin
That too is not my drift
With thee. Of that I know already what
I require. - In short-
Nathan -
Command me, Sultan.
Saladin — In something else that's wholly different
I now desire thy teaching. –Since thou art
So wise, pray tell me once what faith, what law
Has seemed to thee most genuine.
Nathan -
Sultan,
I am a Jew.
Saladin
And I a Mussulman.
Between us is the Christian. Of these three
Religions, one alone can be the true.
A man like thee remains not standing there,
Where merely chance of birth has cast his lot;
Or if he there remain, then he remains
Through insight, reason, or through better choice.
Come now, impart to me thy insight, let
Me hear the reasons which I've lacked the time
Minutely to examine. Let me know-
Of course in strictest confidence – the grounds
That have availed to fix thy final choice,
That I may make it mine. How? Thou dost start?
Dost weigh me with thy eye? It may well be
That I'm the first of Sultans who e'er had
A whim like this, which yet methinks is not
Unworthy of a Sultan. — Is't not so ?
Give answer! Speak! Or wishest thou to have
A moment to reflect? I give it thee.
Reflect, quickly reflect. I shall return
Without delay.
[Retires to an adjoining room. ]
Nathan -
Hm! hm! How very strange!
How dazed I am! What does the Sultan want?
What? I thought 'twas money, and he wishes — Truth.
## p. 9013 (#653) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9013
And wishes it cash down and unalloyed,
As though 'twere coin — yes, ancient coin that's weighed.
And that perhaps might do; but coin so new,
Which by the stamp alone is made to pass,
And may be counted out upon the board, -
That it is surely not. Can truth be put
Into the head like coin into a bag ?
Who then is here the Jew? Is't I or he?
How then ? If he in truth demand the truth?
For the distrust that he employs the truth
But as a trap, would be too mean! Too mean?
And what then for a magnate is too mean?
He rushed into the house and burst the door,
'Tis true — people should knock and listen first,
If they approach as friends. I must proceed
With care. But how? To be a downright Jew
Will never do. And not to be at all
A Jew, will do still less. If I'm no Jew,
Might he then ask why not a Mussulman?
That's it! That can save me! Not children only
Are fed with tales. - He comes. Well, let him come.
Saladin returns
Saladin
[Aside — Here then the field is clear. ] I've not returned
Too soon for thee? Are thy reflections ended ?
If so, speak out. There's none that hears us here.
Nathan -- Would the whole world might hear us.
Saladin
Is Nathan
So certain of his cause? Ha! that I call
A wise man! never to conceal the truth!
For it to hazard all — body and life,
Estate and blood!
Nathan
If it be needful, yes!
Or be of use.
Saladin -
Henceforth then I may hope
That I rightly bear one of my titles:
“Reformer of the world and of the law. ”
Nathan - Faith, 'tis a splendid title; yet before,
O Sultan, I may quite confide in thee,
Permit me to relate a tale.
Saladin -
Why not?
I'm always fond of tales if they're well told.
Nathan - To tell them well is not my strongest point.
Saladin — Again so proudly modest ? Make haste! the tale!
- - - -
## p. 9014 (#654) ###########################################
9014
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
-
Nathan In olden times a man lived in the East,
Who from a loving hand possessed a ring
Of priceless worth. An opal was the stone,
In which a hundred brilliant colors played,
And which the hidden virtue also had
Of making him who wore it, in this trust,
Pleasing to God and well beloved by man.
What wonder then that this man in the East
The ring upon his finger always kept,
And so disposed that it should be for aye
An heirloom in his house ? He left the ring
Bequeathed unto the dearest of his sons,
Ordaining that he too the ring should leave
To that one of his sons whom he most loved,
And that this dearest one, without regard
To birth, by virtue of the ring alone
Should ever be the house's head and prince.
Thou understandest, Sultan ?
Saladin
Yes; go on!
Nathan — Thus the ring came, from son to son, at last
To one who was the father of three sons,
Who all alike were dutiful to him,
And all of whom he therefore could not help
But love alike. Only from time to time
Now this one, now the other, now the third -
As each might chance to be alone with him,
And his effusive heart the other two
Did not divide — seemed worthier of the ring,
Which through fond weakness he'd to each of them
Promised in turn. Thus it went on as long
As it would do. But when he neared his death,
The kindly father was most sore perplexed.
It gave him pain to grieve two of his sons,
Who on his word relied. What should he do?
In secret to a jeweler he sends,
And orders him to make two other rings
According to the pattern of the first.
And bids him spare nor cost nor toil, that they
May prove to be alike and just like it.
The jeweler in this succeeds so well,
That when he brings the rings, the model ring
Not e'en the father longer can discern.
With joy he calls his sons, each one apart,
And gives to each his blessing and his ring -
And dies. Thou hear'st me, Sultan?
## p. 9015 (#655) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9015
Saladin (who has turned away astonished] -
Yes, I hear!
Make haste and bring thy story to an end.
Will it be
Nathan
Already I have ended;
For what is still to follow, comes of course.
Scarce was the father dead, when each son comes
And brings his ring, and each would of the house
Be lord.
is no trusting to one's self in such a case: pride and conceit were
the original sin of man. The probe of criticism must be intrusted
to an impartial stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity.
Both those requisites centre in you: you are my choice, and I
give myself up to your direction. ”_"Heaven be praised, my
lord,” said I, “there is no need to trouble yourself with any such
thoughts yet. Besides, an understanding of your Grace's mold and
calibre will last out double the time of a common genius; or to
speak with more certainty and truth, it will never be the worse
for wear, if you live to the age of Methusalem.
I consider you
as a second Cardinal Ximenes, whose powers, superior to decay,
instead of flagging with years seemed to derive new vigor from
their approximation with the heavenly regions. ” “No flattery,
my friend! ” interrupted he. “I know myself to be in danger
of failing all at once. At my age one begins to be sensible of
infirmities, and those of the body communicate with the mind.
I repeat it to you, Gil Blas, as soon as you shall be of opinion
that my head is not so clear as usual, give me warning of it
instantly. Do not be afraid of offending by frankness and sincer-
ity: to put me in mind of my own frailty will be the strongest
proof of your affection for me. Besides, your very interest is
concerned in it; for if it should, by any spite of chance towards
you, come to my ears that the people say in town, His Grace's
sermons produce no longer their accustomed impression; it is
time for him to abandon his pulpit to younger candidates,' -
I do assure you, most seriously and solemnly, you will lose not
only my friendship, but the provision for life that I have prom-
ised you. Such will be the result of your silly tampering with
truth. ”
»
## p. 8999 (#635) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
8999
no
Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an
echo of his speech, and a promise of obeying him in all things.
From that moment there were no secrets from me; I became the
prime favorite. All the household, except Melchior de la Ronda,
looked at me with an eye of envy. It was curious to observe
the manner in which the whole establishment, from the highest
to the lowest, thought it necessary to demean themselves towards
his Grace's confidential secretary; there was meanness to
which they would not stoop to curry favor with me: I could
scarcely believe they were Spaniards. I left no stone unturned
to be of service to them, without being taken in by their inter-
ested assiduities.
Two months after this worthy gentleman had left us, in the
luxuriant harvest of my highest favor, a lowering storm came
suddenly over the episcopal palace: the archbishop had a stroke
of apoplexy. By dint of immediate applications and good nurs-
ing, in a few days there was no bodily appearance of disease
remaining. But his reverend intellects did not so easily recover
from their lethargy. I could not help observing it to myself in
the very first discourse that he composed. Yet there was not
such a wide gap between the merits of the present and the
former ones as to warrant the inference that the sun of oratory
was many degrees advanced in its post-meridian course. A
second homily was worth waiting for, because that would clearly
determine the line of my conduct. Alas, and well-a-day! when
that second homily came, it was a knock-down argument. Some-
times the good prelate moved forward, and sometimes he moved
backward; sometimes he mounted up into the garret, and some-
times dipped down into the cellar. It was a composition of more
.
sound than meaning; something like a superannuated schoolmas-
ter's theme when he attempts to give his boys more sense than
he possesses of his own, or like a capuchin's sermon which only
scatters a few artificial flowers of paltry rhetoric over a barren
desert of doctrine.
I was not the only person whom the alteration struck. The
audience at large, when he delivered it, as if they too had been
pledged to watch the advances of dotage, said to one another in a
whisper all around the church, “Here is a sermon with symp-
toms of apoplexy in every paragraph. ” Come, my good Cory-
phæus of the public taste in homilies,” said I then to myself,
prepare to do your office. You see that my lord archbishop is
going very fast, - you ought to warn him of it, not only as his
(
## p. 9000 (#636) ###########################################
9000
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
bosom friend on whose sincerity he relies, but lest some blunt
fellow should anticipate you and bolt out the truth in an offens-
ive manner; in that case you know the consequence: you would
be struck out of his will, where, no doubt, you have a more
convertible bequest than the licentiate Sedillo's library. ”
But as reason, like Janus, looks at things with two faces, I
began to consider the other side of the question: the hint seemed
difficult to wrap up so as to make it palatable. Authors in gen-
eral are stark mad on the subject of their own works, and such
an author might be more testy than the common herd of the
irritable race; but that suspicion seemed illiberal on my part,
for it was impossible that my freedom should be taken amiss
when it had been forced upon me by so positive an injunction.
Add to this, that I reckoned upon handling the subject skillfully,
and cramming discretion down his throat like a high-seasoned
epicurean dish. After all my pro and con, finding that I risked
more by keeping silence than by breaking it, I determined to
venture on the delicate duty of speaking my mind.
Now there was but one difficulty, - a difficulty indeed! -
how to open the business. Luckily the orator himself extricated
me from that embarrassment, by asking what they said of him
in the world at large, and whether people were tolerably well
pleased with his last discourse. I answered that there could be
but one opinion about his homilies; but that it should seem as if
the last had not quite struck home to the hearts of the audience,
like those which had gone before. 'Do you really mean what
you say, my friend ? ” replied he, with a sort of wriggling sur-
prise. «Then my congregation are more in the temper of Aris-
tarchus than of Longinus! ” “No, may it please your Grace,”
rejoined I: “quite the contrary. Performances of that order
are above the reach of vulgar criticism: there is not a soul but
expects to be saved by their influence. Nevertheless, since you
have made it my duty to be sincere and unreserved, I shall take
the liberty of just stating that your last discourse is not written
with quite the overpowering eloquence and conclusive argument
of your former ones. Does not your Grace feel just as I do on
the subject ? ”
This ignorant and stupid frankness of mine completely
blanched my master's cheek; but he forced a fretful smile, and
said, “Then, good Master Gil Blas, that piece does not exactly 'hit
your fancy? "I did not mean to say that, your Grace,” inter-
rupted I, looking very foolish. It is very far superior to what
(
## p. 9001 (#637) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
9001
»
-
»
any one else could produce, though a little below par with re-
spect to your own works in general. ” “I know what you mean,”
replied he. “You think I am going down-hill, do you not? Out
with it at once. It is your opinion that it is time for me to
think of retiring ? ” I should never have had the presumption,”
«
said I, «to deliver myself with so little reserve, if it had not
been your Grace's express command. I act in entire obedience to
your Grace's orders; and I most obsequiously implore your Grace
not to take offense at my boldness. ” “I were unfit to live in a
Christian land,” interrupted he, with stammering impatience,-"I
were unfit to live in a Christian land if I liked you the less for
such a Christian virtue as sincerity. A man who does not love
sincerity sets his face against the distinguishing mark between a
friend and a flatterer. I should have given you infinite credit for
speaking what you thought, if you had thought anything that
deserved to be spoken. I have been finely taken in by your out-
side show of cleverness, without any solid foundation of sober
judgment! ”
Though completely unhorsed, and at the enemy's mercy, I
wanted to make terms of decent capitulation, and to go unmo-
lested into winter quarters; but let those who think to appease
an exasperated author, and especially an author whose ear has
been long attuned to the music of his own praises, take warning
by my fate.
« Let us talk no more on the subject, my very
young friend,” said he.
“You are as yet scarcely in the rudi.
ments of good taste, and utterly incompetent to distinguish be-
tween gold and tinsel. You are yet to learn that I never in all
my life composed a finer homily than that unfortunate one which
had not the honor of your approbation. The immortal part of
me, by the blessing of heaven on me and my congregation, is
less weighed down by human infirmity than when the flesh was
stronger. We all grow wiser as we grow older, and I shall in
future select the people about me with more caution; nor submit
the castigation of my works but to a much abler critic than your-
self. Get about your business! ” pursued he, giving me an angry
shove by the shoulders out of his closet; "go and tell my treas-
urer to pay you a hundred ducats, and take my priestly blessing
in addition to that sum. God speed you, good Master Gil Blas!
I heartily pray that you may do well in the world! There is
nothing to stand in your way but the want of a little better
taste.
1
»
## p. 9002 (#638) ###########################################
9002
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
THE VINTNER'S STORY
From (The Devil upon Two Sticks)
“USP
NDER the closet there is a dungeon that serves for a lodging
to a young vintner. ” — “What, my host again ? » cried
Leandro; sure these people have a mind to poison all
the world. ) “This man's case is not the same,” replied Asmodeus:
he was seized yesterday, and is likewise claimed by the Inquisi-
tion. I will in few words relate to you the subject of his com-
mitment.
"An old soldier, by his courage, or rather patience, having
«
mounted to the post of a sergeant in his company, came to raise
recruits in this city. He inquired for a lodging at an inn, where
.
he was answered that they had indeed empty rooms, but that
they could not recommend any of them to him, because the house
was haunted every night by a spirit, which treated all strangers
very ill that were rash enough to lodge there. This did not at
all balk the sergeant.
(Put me in what chamber you please,'
said he, “but give me a candle, wine, pipes, and tobacco; and as
for the spirit, never trouble yourself about it,-ghosts have a
respect for men of war who are grown old in the service. '
"As he seemed so resolute, he was shown into a chamber,
where all that he desired was brought to him. He fell to drink-
ing and sinoking till midnight, and no spirit had yet disturbed
the profound silence that reigned in the house. One would have
imagined he feared this new guest; but betwixt one and two, the
sergeant all of a sudden heard a terrible noise like the rattling
of old iron, and immediately saw entering his chamber an appari-
tion clothed in black and laden all round with iron chains. Our
smoker, not in the least affrighted at this sight, drew his sword,
advanced towards the spirit, and with the flat side of it gave him
a very severe blow on the head.
“The apparition, not much used to meet with such bold guests,
cried out; and perceiving the soldier going to begin with him
again, he most humbly prostrated himself at his feet. (Mr.
Sergeant,' said he, for God's sake do not give me any more;
but have mercy on a poor devil that casts himself at your feet.
I conjure you by St. James, who, as you are, was a great soldier. '
If you are willing to save your life,' answered the soldier, you
must tell me who you are, and speak without the least prevarica-
tion; or else this moment I cut you down the middle, as your
## p. 9003 (#639) ###########################################
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
9003
(
knights of old were used to serve the giants they encountered. '
At these words, the ghost, finding what sort of man he had to do
with, resolved to own all.
«I am the principal servant of this inn,' replied the spirit;
(my name is Gụillermo; I am in love with my master's only
daughter, and she does not dislike me: but the father and mother
having a better match in view, the girl and I have agreed, in
order to compel them to make me their son-in-law, that I shall
every night act the part which I now do. I wrap myself up in a
long black cloak and hang the jack-chain about my neck. Thus
equipped, I run up and down the house from the cellar to the
garret, and make all the noise which you have heard. When I
am at my master's and mistress's chamber-door, I stop and cry
out: “Do not hope that I will ever let you rest till you marry
Juanna to Guillermo, your upper drawer. ” "After having pro-
nounced these words with a hoarse, broken voice, I continue my
noise, and at a window enter the closet where Juanna lies alone,
to give her an account of what I have done. — Mr. Sergeant,' con-
tinued Guillermo, you see I have told you the whole truth. I
know that after this confession you may ruin me by discovering
it to my master; but if you please to serve instead of undoing
me, I swear that my acknowledgments —
« Alas, what service can I do thee? ' interrupted the soldier.
You need do no more,' returned Guillermo, than to say to-
morrow that you have seen the spirit, that it so terribly affrighted
you How ? terribly affrighted! ' interrupted the soldier;
would you have Sergeant Annibal Antonio Quebrantador own
such a thing as fear? I had rather ten thousand devils should —
“That's not absolutely necessary,' interrupted Guillermo; (and
after all it is not much matter what you say, provided you
second my design. And when I have married Juanna and am
settled, I promise to treat you and all your friends nobly for
nothing every day. —You are a very tempting person, Mr.
Guillermo,' said the soldier. You propose to me to support a
tribe: it is a serious affair, which requires mature deliberation;
but the consequences hurry me on. So continue your noise; give
your account to Juanna, and I will take care of the rest. '
"Accordingly, next morning he said to his landlord and land-
lady: I have seen the spirit and have talked with it.
It is a
very honest fellow. “I am,” said he, “the great-grandfather of
the master of this house. I had a daughter whom I promised to
(
>
(
1
(
## p. 9004 (#640) ###########################################
9004
ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE
the father of the grandfather of this drawer. However, neglecting
the word I had given him, I married her to another, and died
soon after, and ever since am tormented as the punishment of
my perjury, and shall never be at rest till one of my family
shall marry one of Guillermo's; and it is for this reason I walk
here every night. Yet it is to no purpose that I bid them marry
Juanna to their head drawer. The son of my grandson and his
wife turn the deaf ear to all I can say. But tell them, if you
please, Mr. Sergeant, that if they do not immediately comply
with my desires, I shall proceed to action and will torment them
both in an extraordinary manner. ”)
“ The host, being silly enough, was terrified at this discourse;
but the hostess, yet more silly than her husband, fancying that
the spirit was always at her heels, consented to the match, and
Guillermo married Juanna the next day, and set up in another
part of the town. Sergeant Quebrantador did not fail to visit
him often; and he, in acknowledgment of the service he had done
him, gave him as much wine as he cared for. This so pleased
the soldier that he brought thither not only all his friends, but
listed his men there, and made all his recruits drunk.
“But at last Guillermo, grown weary of satiating such a crew
of drunkards, told his mind to the soldier; who, without ever
thinking that he had exceeded his agreement, was so unjust as to
call Guillermo a little ungrateful rascal. The host answered; the
sergeant replied; and the dialogue ended with several strokes
with the flat side of the sword, which Guillermo received. Sev-
eral persons passing by took the vintner's part; the sergeant
wounded three or four, but was suddenly fallen on by a crowd
of alguazils, who seized him as a disturber of the public peace
and carried him to prison. He there declared what I have told
you: and upon his deposition, the officers have also seized Guil-
lermo; the father-in-law requires the annulling of the marriage;
and the Holy Office being informed that Guillermo is rich, have
thought fit to take cognizance of it. ”
“As I hope to be saved,” said Don Cleofas, “this same Holy
Inquisition is very alert. The moment they see the least glimpse
of profit->
“Softly,” interrupted the cripple; “have a care what freedom
you take with this tribunal, for it has its spies everywhere,
even of things that were never spoken. I myself dare not speak
of it without trembling. ”
## p. 9004 (#641) ###########################################
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## p. 9004 (#643) ###########################################
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## p. 9004 (#644) ###########################################
LESSING
## p. 9005 (#645) ###########################################
9005
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
(1729-1781)
BY E. P. EVANS
ESSING was born January 22d, 1729, at Camenz in the Saxon
province of Upper Lusatia, and died at Brunswick, February
15th, 1781. His father was a clergyman and his mother the
daughter of a clergyman; and his earliest known ancestor, Clarence
Lessigk, a curate in the Saxon Erzgebirge, was one of the signers of
the formula concordia published in 1580, and designed to allay certain
doctrinal dissensions which had arisen soon after the death of the
reformer. From this ecclesiastical progenitor his line of descent ran
unbroken through six generations of theologians, jurists, burgomas-
ters, and other men of culture; and in illustration of the “survival of
the fittest,” the family name and characteristics were in our own day
the heritage of one of the most eminent historical painters of Ger-
many. Lessing belonged therefore to what Oliver Wendell Holmes
used to call the “Academic Races,” in whom scholarly tastes and
aptitudes are inbred and transmitted from father to son, and who take
to learning almost as instinctively as a cat takes to mousing. It
is the scions of such a stock that constitute the largest contingent of
those who pursue university studies, and fill the ranks of the learned
professions; producing a horde of pedants like Lessing's younger
brother Theophilus, and at rare intervals a man of genius like him-
self.
In June 1741, when he was scarcely thirteen, he was sent to the
then celebrated grammar school at Meissen (Fürstenschule zu St.
Afra), where he completed the prescribed six-years' course of study
in five years. In answer to the father's inquiry concerning his son's
proficiency, the rector replied: “He is a horse that needs double
fodder. The lessons, which are hard for others, are nothing for him.
We cannot use him much longer. ” On September 20th, 1746, he was
matriculated as a student of theology in the University of Leipsic.
Two years later he went to Wittenberg, thence to Berlin, and again
to Wittenberg, where he took the degree of master of arts on April
29th, 1752.
During these half a dozen years of quite varied and rather vagrant
academical life, he devoted himself with energy and enthusiasm to
## p. 9006 (#646) ###########################################
9006
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
>>
literary pursuits, and developed a marked talent for dramatic com-
position. He wrote a comedy entitled “The Young Scholar. ' The
juvenile pedant, as he afterwards states, “was the only kind of ninny
which at that time it was impossible for me not to be intimately
acquainted with”; his play was therefore a study from life, rendered
more realistic and vivid by a dawning consciousness of the danger to
which he was himself exposed. The piece was given with great
applause by the troupe of the celebrated Madame Neuber at Leipsic,
whose citizens were only too familiar with the original of Damis. The
best of his earlier plays is unquestionably Miss Sara Sampson,' a
tragedy in five acts, first represented at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, July
10th, 1755, when, as we are told, the spectators “sat four hours like
statues, and wept and wept. Nowadays its high-flown sentimentalism
would excite laughter rather than tears; and although it was a theat-
rical success, and even had the distinction of being translated into
French, it has long since fallen into oblivion. Its present importance
is purely historical, as the first specimen of the tragedy of middle-
class life on the German stage. Of Lessing's later and riper contri-
butions to dramatic literature, three may be said to have an intrinsic
and permanent value, Minna von Barnhelm,' (Emilia Galotti,' and
(Nathan the Wise': a comedy, a tragedy, and what might be called
a didactic drama, although each of these productions is pervaded by
an earnest and quite obvious moral purpose.
The salient feature of Minna von Barnhelm,' published in 1767,
is its national character,- so far as the term “national” can be
applied to anything German at that time. Chiefly for this reason it
appeared as “a shining meteor” to the eyes of Goethe, who was
then a student in Leipsic, and who, in his talks with Eckermann in
the last years of his life, recalled with reminiscent enthusiasm the
immense influence it exerted upon the young people of his day. The
hero, Major Tellheim, an officer in the service of Frederick the Great,
has during the Seven Years' War advanced the money for the pay-
ment of a heavy contribution levied on a poor Saxon province. This
noble and generous act so deeply impresses Minna von Barnhelm, a
wealthy young lady of the neighborhood, that she seeks his acquaint-
ance and becomes his betrothed. On the conclusion of peace, the
draft given by the Saxon authorities to Tellheim is construed by
the Prussian government into evidence of his having been bribed by
the enemy; and he is therefore cashiered. His fine sense of honor
makes him unwilling to involve the young lady in his disgrace, and
he accordingly releases her from her engagement. As all her pro-
tests against such a proceeding prove unavailing, she resolves to
accomplish her purpose by artifice, and pretends that she has been
disinherited by her uncle on account of her betrothal. The cunning
## p. 9007 (#647) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9007
device succeeds. Believing her to be poor and deserted, Tellheim is
eager to wed her and take her under his protection; especially as
meanwhile he has received a letter from the King, recognizing the
true state of the case as regards the draft, ordering it to be paid,
and offering to restore him to his former rank in the army. It is
now Minna's turn to scruple at such an unequal marriage, and to
urge against it all the arguments which he had used, but of which
he would not admit the force in their present application.
Finally
the uncle, who has always held Tellheim in high esteem, appears
upon the scene; the mystery is cleared up, and the lovers are made
happy. The subordinate characters — Just, Werner, Franziska, and
the sordid innkeeper are admirably drawn; and the introduction of
le Chevalier Riccaut de la Marlinière is a happy hit at the petty
German rulers, whose courts swarmed with titled adventurers of this
sort, and even at Frederic the Great, who admitted them to his
army. Underlying the love story is a deeper political meaning; and
the nuptial union of Tellheim and Minna is made to symbolize the
natural ties of race which should bind together the different members
of the German family, then alienated and antagonized by dynastic
jealousies and interests.
In (Emilia Galotti' the scene is laid in Italy, and the catastrophe
recalls the days of the old Roman Republic; but the play is wholly
German in spirit, and holds the mirror up to the frivolous and
tyrannical princelings of Lessing's own time and nation. The hero-
ine, the daughter of a colonel and the betrothed of Count Appiani,
has excited the admiration and passion of the reigning sovereign, an
effeminate and sentimental young man, whose few generous impulses
have been checked and stunted by the consciousness of irresponsible
power and the servile flattery of courtiers, and who has grown up
into a pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous egotist. On learning that
Emilia is about to marry Appiani, he gives his chamberlain, the
sycophantic and utterly unprincipled Marinelli, carte blanche to use
every means to prevent it; the result of which is the assassination of
the groom on his wedding-day and the abduction of the bride, who,
under the pretext of protecting her from the bandits, is carried off
to the prince's castle. Her father hastens thither, and learns the
real cause of Appiani's taking-off in an accidental interview with the
prince's discarded mistress, Countess Orsina, who gives him a dag-
ger and bids him do his duty. The father, disarmed by a gracious
word of his Serene Highness, lets the favorable opportunity pass, and
finally thrusts the dagger into the heart of his daughter, who, fearing
lest she might yield to the seductions of the court and to the suit of
her princely lover, entreats him to do the deed. This dénouement
is the weak point in the play. Times have changed since the age of
## p. 9008 (#648) ###########################################
9008
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Virginius; and the heroic act of a father to whom the law gave the
power of life and death over his children does not fit into the plot
of a modern tragedy. The sentimental metaphor of “a rose broken
from its stem before the storm strips it of its leaves,” first used by
the daughter and repeated by the father, hardly suits the case. The
characters Appiani and Odoardo Galotti, in contrast to Marinelli, the
type of contemporary court vermin,” are admirably portrayed; the
dialogue is simple and compact, and the dramatic movement remark-
ably direct and rapid. The piece was first represented at Brunswick,
March 13th, 1772, and has kept its place on the German stage ever
since.
Still more remote from Lessing's age and country is the action of
Nathan the Wise'; the scene of which is laid in Jerusalem during
the Third Crusade, in the latter half of the twelfth century, but
which nevertheless bore the closest relation to his own intellectual
life and to that of his time. The germ of the drama is the tale of
Saladin and the Jew Melchizedek in Boccaccio's (Decameron,' which
Lessing used as a parable to illustrate and enforce his views of reli-
gious toleration. Indeed, the whole play is little more than a dia-
logue in iambics on this subject, which came to his hand as a new and
effective weapon in the warfare which he had been waging against
theological bigotry, in his controversy with the Hamburg pastor Götze.
It was published in 1779, and represented in Berlin four years later.
Lessing's last word in this polemical discussion was his essay of
a hundred paragraphs entitled “The Education of the Human Race,'
and containing a complete philosophy of religion in a nutshell. These
acute and suggestive theses will still be read with interest, although
the recent comparative study of religions has rendered some of them
untenable.
An additional evidence of the vigor and versatility of his genius
is seen in the acute and comprehensive spirit with which he handled
æsthetical topics. His Laocoön' (published in May 1766), although
a fragment, still remains an unrivaled masterpiece of art criticism;
and the line of demarcation which he drew between the speaking
and the imaging arts has never been disturbed. He fixed the limits
of poetry and painting as different modes of representation, and set
aside once for all the famous dictum of Simonides, Ut pictura poesis,
which had received the indorsement of Winckelmann and which he
himself had formerly accepted. The fruitfulness of this “splendid
thought,” as Goethe calls it, is perceptible in the subsequent devel-
opment of the principles of criticism as applied to literature and the
fine arts in Germany.
Even more fugitive and fragmentary than "Laocoon' is Lessing's
"Dramaturgy,' written during his brief connection with the Hamburg
((
## p. 9009 (#649) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9009
theatre as critic in 1767, and concluded in the following year after
the financial failure of that ill-starred enterprise. But here too the
good seed, which seemed then to have been sown among thorns or
on stony places, has sprung up and borne fruit a hundredfold. This
is the result which Lessing wished to attain. Number 95 of this
series of papers ends as follows: "Just here I remind my readers
that these pages are by no means intended to contain a dramatic
system. I am therefore not bound to solve all the difficulties which
I raise. I am quite willing that my thoughts should seem to want
connection, and even to contradict each other, if they are only
thoughts in which the readers may find material for thinking them-
selves. I aim at nothing more than to scatter fermenta cognitionis. ”
In the performance of this useful function he has seldom been sur-
passed.
Lessing possessed a clearness of insight and a vigor of mind bor-
dering on genius; he was a master of creative criticism, an original
thinker, and what is more, a man of sterling character and strictest
intellectual integrity: but he was not of imagination all compact,”
not a great poet, and never claimed to be. The manly stride of his
prose easily turns to mincing steps in his verse. His epigrams and
odes and lyrics are rhythmically correct, but purely mechanical and
often exceedingly stiff; and his plays, although dramatically well con-
structed, lack the qualities which he as a critic appreciated in Shake-
speare, but which the keenest critical faculty can never supply. But
with all these deficiencies on the poetic side of ķis nature, of which
no one was more fully conscious than himself, he still remains one of
the noblest figures and most permanent influences for good in Ger-
man literature.
EN Enan
NAMES
I
ASKED my maiden fair one day :-
« What shall I call thee in my lay?
Wilt thou be as Daphne famed ?
Wilt thou Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris
By posterity be named ? >
"Ah! ” replied my maiden fair,
“Names are naught but empty air.
XV-564
## p. 9010 (#650) ###########################################
9010
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Choose the one that suits the line:
Call me Galatea, Chloris,
Phyllis, Lesbia, or Doris, -
Call me anything, in fine,
If thou only call'st me Thine. ”
EPIGRAM
HO will not mighty Klopstock praise ?
Will everybody read him ? Nay!
A little less extol our lays,
And read a little more, we pray.
W"
[This epigram evidently suggested to James Russell Lowell his pithy char-
acterization of Klopstock as “an immortality of unreadableness. ” Lessing also,
in a letter to Gleim (October 20, 1757), asks: «What do you say to Klop-
stock's sacred songs ? If you condemn them, I shall suspect your Christianity;
if you approve of them, I shall question your taste. ”]
THUNDER
Hº
.
O, FRIENDS! it thunders! Let us drink!
Fill up the bowl! For what care we?
Let hypocrites and villains shrink,
And minions bend the servile knee!
It thunders! drain the glasses dry!
Nor start like women with affright:
Just Jove may lash the sea-surge high,
His nectar he will never smite.
BENEFITS
'En if a vicious man were like a leaky vat,
That wastes what it receives, pour in, for all of that!
If vat and man are not in too decrepit plight,
Keep pouring in thy gifts! How soon a crack soaks tight!
E
ON MR. R
*
THA
WHAT you're a poet, sir, I'm very glad;
But are you nothing more? Ah! that's too bad.
* Probably Karl Wilhelm Ramler,
## p. 9011 (#651) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9011
FROM (NATHAN THE WISE)
SALAD
ALADIN
Draw nearer, Jew! Still nearer! Close to me,
And have no fear!
Nathan
Let that be for thy foe!
Saladin Thy name is Nathan.
Nathan
Yes.
Saladin
Nathan the Wise ?
Nathan No.
Saladin
Well! if not by thee thyself so called,
The people call thee so.
Nathan
Maybe, the people.
Saladin Thou dost not think, forsooth, that I
The people's voice do scornfully disdain ?
Indeed, I have long wished to know the man
The people call the Wise.
Nathan -
What if they mean
By wise that he is only shrewd, and knows
His own advantage craftily to gain ?
Saladin His true advantage meanest thou thereby ?
Nathan Then the most selfish were the shrewdest too;
Then were indeed “crafty” and “wise” the same.
Saladin - I hear thee prove what thou wouldst contradict.
Man's truest gain, which people do not know,
Thou knowest or at least hast sought to know;
This thou hast pondered, and 'tis this alone
That makes man wise.
Nathan
And which each deems himself
To be.
Saladin
And now of modesty enough!
To hear it evermore, where one expects
Dry reason, sickens.
[He springs up.
To the matter now!
But be honest, yes, be honest!
Nathan –
Sultan,
It surely is my wish to serve thee so,
That worthy of thy further custom I
May still remain.
Saladin
To serve me ? how?
Nathan
The best
Of all shalt thou receive, and have it at
The fairest price.
## p. 9012 (#652) ###########################################
9012
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Saladin
What dost thou speak of, Jew?
Not of thy wares! The chafferer with thee
Shall be my sister. [Aside: That for the eavesdropper. ]
With thee as merchant have I naught to do.
Nathan Then doubtless thou thyself would'st know what I
Have on my journey, of the foe, who seems
To stir again, observed or happened on?
If plainly I-
Saladin
That too is not my drift
With thee. Of that I know already what
I require. - In short-
Nathan -
Command me, Sultan.
Saladin — In something else that's wholly different
I now desire thy teaching. –Since thou art
So wise, pray tell me once what faith, what law
Has seemed to thee most genuine.
Nathan -
Sultan,
I am a Jew.
Saladin
And I a Mussulman.
Between us is the Christian. Of these three
Religions, one alone can be the true.
A man like thee remains not standing there,
Where merely chance of birth has cast his lot;
Or if he there remain, then he remains
Through insight, reason, or through better choice.
Come now, impart to me thy insight, let
Me hear the reasons which I've lacked the time
Minutely to examine. Let me know-
Of course in strictest confidence – the grounds
That have availed to fix thy final choice,
That I may make it mine. How? Thou dost start?
Dost weigh me with thy eye? It may well be
That I'm the first of Sultans who e'er had
A whim like this, which yet methinks is not
Unworthy of a Sultan. — Is't not so ?
Give answer! Speak! Or wishest thou to have
A moment to reflect? I give it thee.
Reflect, quickly reflect. I shall return
Without delay.
[Retires to an adjoining room. ]
Nathan -
Hm! hm! How very strange!
How dazed I am! What does the Sultan want?
What? I thought 'twas money, and he wishes — Truth.
## p. 9013 (#653) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9013
And wishes it cash down and unalloyed,
As though 'twere coin — yes, ancient coin that's weighed.
And that perhaps might do; but coin so new,
Which by the stamp alone is made to pass,
And may be counted out upon the board, -
That it is surely not. Can truth be put
Into the head like coin into a bag ?
Who then is here the Jew? Is't I or he?
How then ? If he in truth demand the truth?
For the distrust that he employs the truth
But as a trap, would be too mean! Too mean?
And what then for a magnate is too mean?
He rushed into the house and burst the door,
'Tis true — people should knock and listen first,
If they approach as friends. I must proceed
With care. But how? To be a downright Jew
Will never do. And not to be at all
A Jew, will do still less. If I'm no Jew,
Might he then ask why not a Mussulman?
That's it! That can save me! Not children only
Are fed with tales. - He comes. Well, let him come.
Saladin returns
Saladin
[Aside — Here then the field is clear. ] I've not returned
Too soon for thee? Are thy reflections ended ?
If so, speak out. There's none that hears us here.
Nathan -- Would the whole world might hear us.
Saladin
Is Nathan
So certain of his cause? Ha! that I call
A wise man! never to conceal the truth!
For it to hazard all — body and life,
Estate and blood!
Nathan
If it be needful, yes!
Or be of use.
Saladin -
Henceforth then I may hope
That I rightly bear one of my titles:
“Reformer of the world and of the law. ”
Nathan - Faith, 'tis a splendid title; yet before,
O Sultan, I may quite confide in thee,
Permit me to relate a tale.
Saladin -
Why not?
I'm always fond of tales if they're well told.
Nathan - To tell them well is not my strongest point.
Saladin — Again so proudly modest ? Make haste! the tale!
- - - -
## p. 9014 (#654) ###########################################
9014
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
-
Nathan In olden times a man lived in the East,
Who from a loving hand possessed a ring
Of priceless worth. An opal was the stone,
In which a hundred brilliant colors played,
And which the hidden virtue also had
Of making him who wore it, in this trust,
Pleasing to God and well beloved by man.
What wonder then that this man in the East
The ring upon his finger always kept,
And so disposed that it should be for aye
An heirloom in his house ? He left the ring
Bequeathed unto the dearest of his sons,
Ordaining that he too the ring should leave
To that one of his sons whom he most loved,
And that this dearest one, without regard
To birth, by virtue of the ring alone
Should ever be the house's head and prince.
Thou understandest, Sultan ?
Saladin
Yes; go on!
Nathan — Thus the ring came, from son to son, at last
To one who was the father of three sons,
Who all alike were dutiful to him,
And all of whom he therefore could not help
But love alike. Only from time to time
Now this one, now the other, now the third -
As each might chance to be alone with him,
And his effusive heart the other two
Did not divide — seemed worthier of the ring,
Which through fond weakness he'd to each of them
Promised in turn. Thus it went on as long
As it would do. But when he neared his death,
The kindly father was most sore perplexed.
It gave him pain to grieve two of his sons,
Who on his word relied. What should he do?
In secret to a jeweler he sends,
And orders him to make two other rings
According to the pattern of the first.
And bids him spare nor cost nor toil, that they
May prove to be alike and just like it.
The jeweler in this succeeds so well,
That when he brings the rings, the model ring
Not e'en the father longer can discern.
With joy he calls his sons, each one apart,
And gives to each his blessing and his ring -
And dies. Thou hear'st me, Sultan?
## p. 9015 (#655) ###########################################
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
9015
Saladin (who has turned away astonished] -
Yes, I hear!
Make haste and bring thy story to an end.
Will it be
Nathan
Already I have ended;
For what is still to follow, comes of course.
Scarce was the father dead, when each son comes
And brings his ring, and each would of the house
Be lord.
