An unparalleled revival had begun; and in Germany, in which it made itself felt as an effect of the French Revolution, it is coupled first and foremost with the name of Moses Mendelssohn.
Society as conceived in these modern days is based upon men's relations to their families, their disciples, and their friends. They are the three elements that determine a man's usefulness as a social factor. Our first interest, then, is to know Mendelssohn in his family.[78] Many years were destined to elapse, after his coming to Berlin, before he was to win a position of dignity. When, a single ducat in his pocket, he first reached Berlin, the reader remembers, he was a pale-faced, fragile boy. A contemporary of his relates: "In 1746 I came to Berlin, a penniless little chap of fourteen, and in the Jewish school I met Moses Mendelssohn. He grew fond of me, taught me reading and writing, and often shared his scanty meals with me. I tried to show my gratitude by doing him any small service in my power. Once he told me to fetch him a German book from some place or other. Returning with the book in hand, I was met by one of the trustees of the Jewish poor fund. He accosted me, not very gently, with, 'What have you there? I venture to say a German book!' Snatching it from me, and dragging me to the magistrate's, he gave orders to expel me from the city. Mendelssohn, learning my fate, did everything possible to bring about my return; but his efforts were of no avail." It is interesting to know that it was the grandfather of Herr von Bleichröder who had to submit to so relentless a fate.
German language and German writing Mendelssohn acquired by his unaided efforts. With the desultory assistance of a Dr. Kisch, a Jewish physician, he learnt Latin from a book picked up at a second-hand book stall. General culture was at that time an unknown quantity in the possibilities of Berlin Jewish life. The schoolmasters, who were not permitted to stay in the city more than three years, were for the most part Poles. One Pole, Israel Moses, a fine thinker and mathematician, banished from his native town, Samosz, on account of his devotion to secular studies, lived with Aaron Gumpertz, the only one of the famous family of court-Jews who had elected a better lot. From the latter, Mendelssohn imbibed a taste for the sciences, and to him he owed some direction in his studies; while in mathematics he was instructed by Israel Samosz, at the time when the latter, busily engaged with his great commentary on Yehuda Halevi's Al-Chazari, was living at the house of the Itzig family, on the Burgstrasse, on the very spot where the talented architect Hitzig, the grandson of Mendelssohn's contemporary, built the magnificent Exchange. To enable himself to buy books, Mendelssohn had to deny himself food. As soon as he had hoarded a few groschen, he stealthily slunk to a dealer in second-hand books. In this way he managed to possess himself of a Latin grammar and a wretched lexicon. Difficulties did not exist for him; they vanished before his industry and perseverance. In a short time he knew far more than Gumpertz himself, who has become famous through his entreaty to Magister Gottsched at Leipsic, whilom absolute monarch in German literature: "I would most respectfully supplicate that it may please your worshipful Highness to permit me to repair to Leipsic to pasture on the meadows of learning under your Excellency's protecting wing."
After seven years of struggle and privation, Moses Mendelssohn became tutor at the house of Isaac Bernhard, a silk manufacturer, and now began better times. In spite of faithful performance of duties, he found leisure to acquire a considerable stock of learning. He began to frequent social gatherings, his friend Dr. Gumpertz introducing him to people of culture, among others to some philosophers, members of the Berlin Academy. What smoothed the way for him more than his sterling character and his fine intellect was his good chess-playing. The Jews have always been celebrated as chess-players, and since the twelfth century a literature in Hebrew prose and verse has grown up about the game. Mendelssohn in this respect, too, was the heir of the peculiar gifts of his race.
In a little room two flights up in a house next to the Nicolai churchyard lived one of the acquaintances made by Mendelssohn through Dr. Gumpertz, a young newspaper writer—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing was at once strongly attracted by the young man's keen, untrammelled mind. He foresaw that Mendelssohn would "become an honor to his nation, provided his fellow-believers permit him to reach his intellectual maturity. His honesty and his philosophic bent make me see in him a second Spinoza, equal to the first in all but his errors."[79] Through Lessing, Mendelssohn formed the acquaintance of Nicolai, and as they were close neighbors, their friendship developed into intimacy. Nicolai induced him to take up the study of Greek, and old Rector Damm taught him.
At this time (1755), the first coffee-house for the use of an association of about one hundred members, chiefly philosophers, mathematicians, physicians, and booksellers, was opened in Berlin. Mendelssohn, too, was admitted, making his true entrance into society, and forming many attachments. One evening it was proposed at the club that each of the members describe his own defects in verse; whereupon Mendelssohn, who stuttered and was slightly hunchbacked, wrote:
"Great you call Demosthenes,
Stutt'ring orator of Greece;
Hunchbacked Æsop you deem wise;—
In your circle, I surmise,
I am doubly wise and great.
What in each was separate
You in me united find,—
Hump and heavy tongue combined."
Meanwhile his worldly affairs prospered; he had become bookkeeper in Bernhard's business. His biographer Kayserling tells us that at this period he was in a fair way to develop into "a true bel esprit"; he took lessons on the piano, went to the theatre and to concerts, and wrote poems. During the winter he was at his desk at the office from eight in the morning until nine in the evening. In the summer of 1756, his work was lightened; after two in the afternoon he was his own master. The following year finds him comfortably established in a house of his own with a garden, in which he could be found every evening at six o'clock, Lessing and Nicolai often joining him. Besides, he had laid by a little sum, which enabled him to help his friends, especially Lessing, out of financial embarrassments. Business cares did, indeed, bear heavily upon him, and his complaints are truly touching: "Like a beast of burden laden down, I crawl through life, self-love unfortunately whispering into my ear that nature had perhaps mapped out a poet's career for me. But what can we do, my friends? Let us pity one another, and be content. So long as love for science is not stifled within us, we may hope on." Surely, his love for learning never diminished. On the contrary, his zeal for philosophic studies grew, and with it his reputation in the learned world of Berlin. The Jewish thinker finally attracted the notice of Frederick the Great, whose poems he had had the temerity to criticise adversely in the "Letters on Literature" (Litteraturbriefe). He says in that famous criticism:[80] "What a loss it has been for our mother-tongue that this prince has given more time and effort to the French language. We should otherwise possess a treasure which would arouse the envy of our neighbors." A certain Herr von Justi, who had also incurred the unfavorable notice of the Litteraturbriefe, used this review to revenge himself on Mendelssohn. He wrote to the Prussian state-councillor: "A miserable publication appears in Berlin, letters on recent literature, in which a Jew, criticising court-preacher Cramer, uses irreverent language in reference to Christianity, and in a bold review of Poésies diverses, fails to pay the proper respect to his Majesty's sacred person." Soon an interdict was issued against the Litteraturbriefe, and Mendelssohn was summoned to appear before the attorney general Von Uhden. Nicolai has given us an account of the interview between the high and mighty officer of the state and the poor Jewish philosopher:
Attorney General: "Look here! How can you venture to write against Christians?"
Mendelssohn: "When I bowl with Christians, I throw down all the pins whenever I can."