"One seldom finds an author who is so pleasant to have to do with as Lessing. And how comes it to be so? Because, I think, he is so sure of himself. All this trivial and comfortable intercourse between a distinguished man and one less distinguished: that the one is a genius and master, the other pupil, messenger, slave and so forth, is here excluded. Even if I strove with might and main to become Lessing’s disciple, I could not, for Lessing has prevented it. Just as he himself is free, so I imagine that he desires to make everyone else free in relation to himself. He begs to be excused the exhalations and gaucheries of the disciple, fearing to be made ridiculous through repetitioners who reproduce what is said like a prattling echo."