‘I wish, it is true, to shame the opprobrious sentiments commonly entertained of a Jew, but it is by character and not by controversy that I would do it.’[32] So wrote the subject of this memoir more than a hundred years ago, and the sentence may well stand for the motto of his life; for much as Moses Mendelssohn achieved by his ability, much more did he by his conduct, and great as he was as a philosopher, far greater was he as a man. Starting with every possible disadvantage—prejudice, poverty, and deformity—he yet reached the goal of ‘honour, fame, and troops of friends’ by simple force of character; and thus he remains for all time an illustration of the happy optimistic theory that, even in this world, success, in the best sense of the word, does come to those who, also in the best sense of the word, deserve it.

The state of the Jews in Germany at the time of Mendelssohn’s birth was deplorable. No longer actively hunted, they had arrived, at the early part of the eighteenth century, at the comparatively desirable position of being passively shunned or contemptuously ignored, and, under these new conditions, they were narrowing fast to the narrow limits set them. The love of religion and of race was as strong as ever, but the love had grown sullen, and of that jealous, exclusive sort to which curse and anathema are akin. What then loomed largest on their narrow horizon was fear; and under that paralysing influence, progress or prominence of any kind became a distinct evil, to be repressed at almost any personal sacrifice. Safety for themselves and tolerance for their faith, lay, if anywhere, in the neglect of the outside world. And so the poor pariahs huddled in their close quarters, carrying on mean trades, or hawking petty wares, and speaking, with bated breath, a dialect of their own, half Jewish, half German, and as wholly degenerate from the grand old Hebrew as were they themselves from those to whom it had been a living tongue. Intellectual occupation was found in the study of the Law; interest and entertainment in the endless discussion of its more intricate passages; and excitement in the not infrequent excommunication of the weaker or bolder brethren who ventured to differ from the orthodox expounders. The culture of the Christian they hated, with a hate born half of fear for its possible effects, half of repulsion at its palpable evidences. The tree of knowledge seemed to them indeed, in pathetic perversion of the early legend, a veritable tree of evil, which should lose a second Eden to the wilful eaters thereof. Their Eden was degenerate too; but the ‘voice heard in the evening’ still sounded in their dulled and passionate ears, and, vibrating in the Ghetto instead of the grove, it seemed to bid them shun the forbidden fruit of Gentile growth.

In September 1729, under a very humble roof, in a very poor little street in Dessau, was born the weakly boy who was destined to work such wonderful changes in that weary state of things. Not much fit to hold the magician’s wand seemed those frail baby hands, and less and less likely altogether for the part, as the poor little body grew stunted and deformed through the stress of over-much study and of something less than enough of wholesome diet. There was no lack of affection in the mean little Jewish home, but the parents could only give their children of what they had, and of these scant possessions, mother-love and Talmudical lore were the staple. And so we read of the small five-year-old Moses being wrapped up by his mother in a large old shabby cloak, on early, bleak winter mornings, and then so carried by the father to the neighbouring ‘Talmud Torah’ school, where he was nourished with dry Hebrew roots by way of breakfast. Often, indeed, was the child fed on an even less satisfying diet, for long passages from Scripture, long lists of precepts, to be learnt by heart, on all sorts of subjects, was the approved method of instruction in these seminaries. An extensive, if somewhat parrot-like, acquaintance at an astonishingly early age with the Law and the Prophets, and the commentators on both, was the ordinary result of this form of education; and, naturally co-existent with it, was an equally astonishing and extensive ignorance of all more everyday subjects. Contentedly enough, however, the learned, illiterate peddling and hawking fathers left their little lads to this puzzling, sharpening, deadening sort of schooling. Frau Mendel and her husband may possibly have thought out the matter a little more fully, for she seems to have been a wise and prudent as well as a loving mother; and the father, we find, was quick to discern unusual talent in the sickly little son whom he carried so carefully to the daily lesson. He was himself a teacher, in a humble sort of way, and eked out his small fees by transcribing on parchment from the Pentateuch. Thus, the tone of the little household, if not refined, was at least not altogether sordid; and when, presently, the little Moses was promoted from the ordinary school to the higher class taught by the great scholar, Rabbi Frankel, the question even presented itself whether it might not be well, in this especial case, to abandon the patent, practical advantages pertaining to the favoured pursuit of peddling, and to let the boy give himself up to his beloved books, and, following in his master’s footsteps, become perhaps, in his turn, a poorly paid, much reverenced Rabbi.

It was a serious matter to decide. There was much to be said in favour of the higher path; but the market for Rabbis, as for hawkers, was somewhat overstocked, and the returns in the one instance were far quicker and surer, and needed no long unearning apprenticeship. The balance, on the whole, seemed scarcely to incline to the more dignified profession; but the boy was so terribly in earnest in his desire to learn, so desperately averse from the only other career, that his wishes, by degrees, turned the scale; and it did not take very long to convince the poor patient father that he must toil a little longer and a little later, in order that his son might be free from the hated necessity of hawking, and at liberty to pursue his unremunerative studies.

From the very first, Moses made the most of his opportunities; and at home and at school high hopes began soon to be formed of the diligent, sweet-tempered, frail little lad. Frailer than ever, though, he seemed to grow, and the body appeared literally to dwindle as the mind expanded. Long years after, when the burden of increasing deformity had come, by dint of use and wont and cheerful courage, to be to him a burden lightly borne, he would set strangers at their ease by alluding to it himself, and by playfully declaring his hump to be a legacy from Maimonides. ‘Maimonides spoilt my figure,’ he would say, ‘and ruined my digestion; but still,’ he would add more seriously, ‘I dote on him, for although those long vigils with him weakened my body, they, at the same time, strengthened my soul: they stunted my stature, but they developed my mind.’ Early at morning and late at night would the boy be found bending in happy abstraction over his shabby treasure, charmed into unconsciousness of aches or hunger. The book, which had been lent to him, was Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed; and this work, which grown men find sufficiently deep study, was patiently puzzled out, and enthusiastically read and re-read by the persevering little student who was barely in his teens. It opened up whole vistas of new glories, which his long steady climb up Talmudic stairs had prepared him to appreciate. Here and there, in the course of those long, tedious dissertations in the Talmud Torah class-room, the boy had caught glimpses of something underlying, something beyond the quibbles of the schools; but this, his first insight into the large and liberal mind of Maimonides, was a revelation to him of the powers and of the possibilities of Judaism. It revealed to him too, perchance, some latent possibilities in himself, and suggested other problems of life which asked solution. The pale cheeks glowed as he read, and the vague dreams kindled into conscious aims: he too would live to become a Guide to the Perplexed among his people!

Poor little lad! his brave resolves were soon to be put to a severe test. In the early part of 1742, Rabbi Frankel accepted the Chief Rabbinate of Berlin, and thus a summary stop was put to his pupil’s further study. There is a pathetic story told of Moses Mendelssohn standing, with streaming eyes, on a little hillock on the road by which his beloved master passed out of Dessau, and of the kind-hearted Frankel catching up the forlorn little figure, and soothing it with hopes of a ‘some day,’ when fortune should be kind, and he should follow ‘nach Berlin.’ The ‘some day’ looked sadly problematical; that hard question of bread and butter came to the fore whenever it was discussed. How was the boy to live in Berlin? Even if the mind should be nourished for naught, who was to feed the body? The hard-working father and mother had found it no easy task hitherto to provide for that extra mouth; and now, with Frankel gone, the occasion for their long self-denial seemed to them to cease. In the sad straits of the family, the business of a hawker began again to show in an attractive light to the poor parents, and the pedlar’s pack was once more suggested with many a prudent, loving, half-hearted argument on its behalf. But the boy was by this time clear as to his vocation, so after a brief while of entreaty, the tearful permission was gained, the parting blessing given, and with a very slender wallet slung on his crooked shoulders, Moses Mendelssohn set out for Berlin.

It was a long tramp of over thirty miles, and, towards the close of the fifth day, it was a very footsore, tired little lad who presented himself for admission at the Jews’ gate of the city. Rabbi Frankel was touched, and puzzled too, when this penniless little student, whom he had inspired with such difficult devotion, at last stood before him; but quickly he made up his mind that, so far as in him lay, the uphill path should be made smooth to those determined little feet. The pressing question of bed and board was solved. Frankel gave him his Sabbath and festival dinners, and another kind-hearted Jew, Bamberger by name, who heard the boy’s story, supplied two everyday meals, and let him sleep in an attic in his house. For the remaining four days? Well, he managed; a groschen or two was often earned by little jobs of copying, and a loaf so purchased, by dint of economy and imagination, was made into quite a series of satisfying meals, and, in after-days, it was told how he notched his loaves into accurate time measurements, lest appetite should outrun purse. Fortunately poverty was no new experience for him; still, poverty confronted alone, in a great city, must have seemed something grimmer to the home-bred lad than that mother-interpreted poverty, which he had hitherto known. But he met it full-face, bravely, uncomplainingly, and, best of all, with unfailing good humour. And the little alleviations which friends made in his hard lot were all received in a spirit of the sincerest, charmingest gratitude. He never took a kindness as ‘his due’; never thought, like so many embryo geniuses, that his talents gave him right of toll on his richer brethren. ‘Because I would drink at the well,’ he would say in his picturesque fashion, ‘am I to expect every one to haste and fill my cup from their pitchers? No, I must draw the water for myself, or I must go thirsty. I have no claim save my desire to learn, and what is that to others?’ Thus he preserved his self-respect and his independence.

He worked hard, and, first of all, he wisely sought to free himself from all voluntary disabilities; there were enough and to spare of legally imposed ones to keep him mindful of his Judaism. He felt strong enough in faith to need no artificial shackles. He would be Jew, and yet German—patriot, but no pariah. He would eschew vague dreams of universalism, false ideas of tribalism. If Palestine had not been, he, its product, could not be; but Palestine and its glories were of the past and of the future; the present only was his, and he must shape his life according to its conditions, which placed him, in the eighteenth century, born of Jewish parents, in a German city. He was German by birth, Jew by descent and by conviction; he would fulfil all the obligations which country, race, and religion impose. But a German Jew, who did not speak the language of his country? That, surely, was an anomaly and must be set right. So he set himself strenuously to learn German, and to make it his native language. Such secular study was by no means an altogether safe proceeding. Ignorance, as we have seen, was ‘protected’ in those days by Jewish ecclesiastical authority. Free trade in literature was sternly prohibited, and a German grammar, or a Latin or a Greek one, had, in sober truth, to run a strict blockade. One Jewish lad, it is recorded on very tolerable authority, was actually in the year 1746 expelled the city of Berlin for no other offence than that of being caught in the act of studying—one chronicle, indeed, says, carrying—some such proscribed volume. Moses, however, was more fortunate; he saved money enough to buy his books, or made friends enough to borrow them; and, we may conclude, found nooks in which to hide them, and hours in which to read them. He set himself, too, to gain some knowledge of the Classics, and here he found a willing teacher in one Kish, a medical student from Prague. Later on, another helper was gained in a certain Israel Moses, a Polish schoolmaster, afterwards known as Israel Samosc. This man was a fine mathematician, and a first-rate Hebrew scholar; but as his attainments did not include the German language, he made Euclid known to Moses through the medium of a Hebrew translation. Moses, in return, imparted to Samosc his newly acquired German, and learnt it, of course, more thoroughly through teaching it. He must have possessed the art of making friends who were able to take on themselves the office of teachers; for presently we find him, in odd half-hours, studying French and English under a Dr. Aaron Emrich.[33] He very early began to make translations of parts of the Scripture into German, and these attempts indicate that, from the first, his overpowering desire for self-culture sprang from no selfishness. He wanted to open up the closed roads to place and honour, but not to tread them alone, not to leave his burdened brethren on the bye-paths, whilst he sped on rejoicing. He knew truly enough that ‘the light was sweet,’ and that ‘a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun.’ But he heeded, too, the other part of the charge: he ‘remembered the days of darkness, which were many.’ He remembered them always, heedfully, pitifully, patiently; and to the weary eyes which would not look up or could not, he ever strove to adjust the beautiful blessed light which he knew, and they, poor souls, doubted, was good. He never thrust it, unshaded, into their gloom: he never carried it off to illumine his own path.

Thus, the translations at which Moses Mendelssohn worked were no transcripts from learned treatises which might have found a ready market among the scholars of the day; but unpaid and unpaying work from the liturgy and the Scriptures, done with the object that his people might by degrees share his knowledge of the vernacular, and become gradually and unconsciously familiar with the language of their country through the only medium in which there was any likelihood of their studying it. With that one set purpose always before him, of drawing his people with him into the light, he presently formed the idea of issuing a serial in Hebrew, which, under the title of The Moral Preacher, should introduce short essays and transcripts on other than strictly Judaic or religious subjects. One Bock was his coadjutor in this project, and two numbers of the little work were published. The contents do not seem to have been very alarming. To our modern notions of periodical literature, they would probably be a trifle dull; but their mild philosophy and yet milder science proved more than enough to arouse the orthodox fears of the poor souls, who, ‘bound in affliction and iron,’ distrusted even the gentle hand which was so eager to loose the fetters. There was a murmur of doubt, of muttered dislike of ‘strange customs’; perhaps here and there too, a threat concerning the pains and penalties which attached to the introduction of such. At any rate, but two numbers of the poor little reforming periodical appeared; and Moses, not angry at his failure, not more than momentarily discouraged by it, accepted the position and wasted no time nor temper in cavilling at it. He had learnt to labour, he could learn to wait. And thus, in hard yet happy work, passed away the seven years, from fourteen till twenty-one, which are the seed-time of a man’s life. In 1750, when Moses was nearly of age, he came into possession of what really proved an inheritance. A rich silk manufacturer, named Bernhardt, who was a prominent member of the Berlin synagogue, made a proposal to the learned young man, whose perseverance had given reputation to his scholarship, to become resident tutor to his children. The offer was gladly accepted, and it may be considered Mendelssohn’s first step on the road to success. The first step to fame had been taken when the boy had set out on his long tramp to Berlin.

Bernhardt was a kind and cultured man, and in his house Mendelssohn found both congenial occupation and welcome leisure. He was teacher by day, student by night, and author at odd half-hours. He turned to his books with the greatest ardour; and we read of him studying Locke and Plato in the original, for by this time English and Greek were both added to his store of languages. His pupils, meanwhile, were never neglected, nor in the pursuit of great ends were trifles ignored. In more than one biography special emphasis is laid on his beautifully neat handwriting, which, we are told, much excited his employer’s admiration. This humble, but very useful, talent may possibly have been inherited, with some other small-sounding virtues, from the poor father in Dessau, to whom many a nice present was now frequently sent. At the end of three or four years of tutorship, Bernhardt’s appreciation of the young man took a very practical expression. He offered Moses Mendelssohn the position of book-keeper in his factory, with some especial responsibilities and emoluments attached to the office. It was a splendid opening, although Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher, eagerly and gratefully accepting such a post somehow jars on one’s susceptibilities, and seems almost an instance of the round man pushed into the square hole. It was, however, an assured position; it gave him leisure, it gave him independence, and in due time wealth, for as years went on he grew to be a manager, and finally a partner in the house. His tastes had already drawn him into the outer literary circle of Berlin, which at this time had its headquarters in a sort of club, which met to play chess and to discuss politics and philosophy, and which numbered Dr. Gompertz, the promising young scholar Abbt, and Nicolai, the bookseller,[34] among its members. With these and other kindred spirits, Mendelssohn soon found pleasant welcome; his talents and geniality quickly overcoming any social prejudices, which, indeed, seldom flourish in the republic of letters. And, early disadvantages notwithstanding, we may conclude without much positive evidence on the subject, that Mendelssohn possessed that valuable, indefinable gift, which culture, wealth, and birth united occasionally fail to bestow—the gift of good manners. He was free alike from conceit and dogmatism, the Scylla and Charybdis to most young men of exceptional talent. He had the loyal nature and the noble mind, which we are told on high authority is the necessary root of the rare flower; and he had, too, the sympathetic, unselfish feeling which we are wont to summarise shortly as a good heart, and which is the first essential to good manners.

When Lessing came to Berlin, about 1745, his play of Die Juden was already published, and his reputation sufficiently established to make him an honoured guest at these little literary gatherings. Something of affinity in the wide, unconventional, independent natures of the two men; something, it may be, of likeness in unlikeness in their early struggles with fate, speedily attracted Lessing and Mendelssohn to each other. The casual acquaintance soon ripened into an intimate and lifelong friendship, which gave to Mendelssohn, the Jew, wider knowledge and illimitable hopes of the outer, inhospitable world—which gave to Lessing, the Christian, new belief in long-denied virtues; and which, best of all, gave to humanity those ‘divine lessons of Nathan der Weise,’ as Goethe calls them—for which character Mendelssohn sat, all unconsciously, as model, and scarcely idealised model, to his friend. It was, most certainly, a rarely happy friendship for both, and for the world. Lessing was the godfather of Mendelssohn’s first book. The subject was suggested in the course of conversation between them, and a few days after Mendelssohn brought his manuscript to Lessing. He saw no more of it till his friend handed him the proofs and a small sum for the copyright; and it was in this way that the Philosophische GesprÄche was anonymously published in 1754. Later, the friends brought out together a little book, entitled Pope as a Metaphysician, and this was followed up with some philosophical essays (‘Briefe Über die Empfindungen’) which quickly ran through three editions, and Mendelssohn became known as an author. A year or two later, he gained the prize which the Royal Academy of Berlin offered for the best essay on the problem ‘Are metaphysics susceptible of mathematical demonstration?’ for which prize Kant was one of the competitors.

Lessing’s migration to Leipzig, and his temporary absences from the capital in the capacity of tutor, made breaks, but no diminution, in the friendship with Mendelssohn; and the Literatur-Briefe, a journal cast in the form of correspondence on art, science, and literature, to which Nicolai, Abbt, and other writers were occasional contributors, continued its successful publication till the year 1765. A review in this journal of one of the literary efforts of Frederick the Second gave rise to a characteristic ebullition of what an old writer quaintly calls ‘the German endemical distemper of JudÆophobia.’ In this essay, Mendelssohn had presumed to question some of the conclusions of the royal author; and although the contents of the Literatur-Briefe were generally unsigned, the anonymity was in most cases but a superficial disguise. The paper drew down upon Mendelssohn the denunciation of a too loyal subject of Frederick’s, and he was summoned to Sans Souci to answer for it. Frederick appears to have been more sensible than his thin-skinned defender, and the interview passed off amicably enough. Indeed, a short while after, we hear of a petition being prepared to secure to Mendelssohn certain rights and privileges of dwelling unmolested in whichever quarter of the city he might choose—a right which at that time was granted to but few Jews, and at a goodly expenditure of both capital and interest. Mendelssohn, loyal to his brethren, long and stoutly refused to have any concession granted on the score of his talents which he might not claim on the score of his manhood in common with the meanest and most ignorant of his co-religionists. And there is some little doubt whether the partial exemptions which Mendelssohn subsequently obtained, were due to the petition, which suffered many delays and vicissitudes in the course of presentation, or to the subtle and silent force of public opinion.

Meanwhile Mendelssohn married, and the story of his wooing, as first told by Berthold Auerbach, makes a pretty variation on the old theme. It was, in this case, no short idyll of ‘she was beautiful and he fell in love.’ To begin with, it was all prosaic enough. A certain Abraham Gugenheim, a trader at Hamburg, caused it to be hinted to Mendelssohn that he had a virtuous and blue-eyed but portionless daughter, named Fromet, who had heard of the philosopher’s fame, and had read portions of his books; and who, mutual friends considered, would make him a careful and loving helpmate. So Mendelssohn, who was now thirty-two years old, and desirous to ‘settle,’ went to the merchant’s house and saw the prim German maiden, and talked with her; and was pleased enough with her talk, or perhaps with the silent eloquence of the blue eyes, to go next day to the father and to say he thought Fromet would suit him for a wife. But to his surprise Gugenheim hesitated, and stiffness and embarrassment seemed to have taken the place of the yesterday’s cordial greeting; still, it was no objection on his part, he managed at last to stammer out. For a minute Mendelssohn was hopelessly puzzled, but only for a minute; then it flashed upon him, ‘It is she who objects!’ he exclaimed; ‘then it must be my hump’; and the poor father of course could only uncomfortably respond with apologetic platitudes about the unaccountability of girls’ fancies. The humour as well as the pathos of the situation touched Mendelssohn, for he had no vanity to be piqued, and he instantly resolved to do his best to win this Senta-like maiden, who, less fortunate than the Dutch heroine, had had her pretty dreams of a hero dispelled, instead of accentuated by actual vision. Might he see her once again, he asked. ‘To say farewell? Certainly!’ answered the father, glad that his awkward mission was ending so amicably. So Mendelssohn went again, and found Fromet with the blue eyes bent steadily over her work; perhaps to hide a tear as much as to prevent a glance, for Fromet, as the sequel shows, was a tender-hearted maiden, and although she did not like to look at her deformed suitor, she did not want to wound him. Then Mendelssohn began to talk, beautiful glowing talk, and the spell which his writings had exercised began again to work on the girl. From philosophy to love, in its impersonal form, is an easy transition. She grew interested and self-forgetful. ‘And do you think that marriages are made in heaven?’ she eagerly questioned, as some early quaint superstition on this most attractive of themes was vividly touched upon by her visitor. ‘Surely,’ he replied; ‘and some old beliefs on this head assert that all such contracts are settled in childhood. Strange to say, a special legend attaches itself to my fortune in this matter; and as our talk has led to this subject perhaps I may venture to tell it to you. The twin spirit which fate allotted to me, I am told, was fair, blue-eyed, and richly endowed with all spiritual charms; but, alas! ill-luck had added to her physical gifts a hump. A chorus of lamentation arose from the angels who minister in these matters. The “pity of it” was so evident. The burden of such a deformity might well outweigh all the other gifts of her beautiful youth, might render her morose, self-conscious, unhappy. If the load now had been but laid on a man! And the angels pondered, wondering, waiting to see if any would volunteer to take the maiden’s burden from her. And I sprang up, and prayed that it might be laid upon my shoulders. And it was settled so.’ There was a minute’s pause, and then, so the story goes, the work was passionately thrown down, and the tender blue eyes were streaming, and the rest we may imagine. The simple, loving heart was won, and Fromet became his wife.

They had a modest little house with a pretty garden on the outskirts of Berlin, where a good deal of hospitality went on in a quiet, friendly way. The ornaments of their dwelling were, perhaps, a little disproportionate in size and quantity to the rest of the surroundings; but this was no matter of choice on the part of the newly married couple, since one of the minor vexations imposed on Jews at this date was the obligation laid on every bridegroom to treat himself to a large quantity of china for the good of the manufactory. The tastes or the wants of the purchaser were not consulted; and in this especial instance twenty life-sized china apes were allotted to the bridegroom. We may imagine poor Mendelssohn and his wife eyeing these apes often, somewhat as Cinderella looked at her pumpkin when longing for the fairy’s transforming wand. Possibilities of those big baboons changed into big books may have tantalised Mendelssohn; whilst Fromet’s more prosaic mind may have confined itself to china and yet have found an unlimited range for wishing. However, the unchanged and unchanging apes notwithstanding, Mendelssohn and his wife enjoyed very many years of quiet and contented happiness, and by and by came children, four of them, and then those old ungainly grievances were, it is likely, transformed into playfellows.

Parenthood, perhaps, is never quite easy, but it was a very difficult duty, and a terribly divided one, for a cultivated man who a century ago desired to bring up his children as good Jews and good citizens. Many a time, it stands on record, when this patient, self-respecting, unoffending scholar took his children for a walk coarse epithets and insulting cries followed them through the streets. No resentment was politic, no redress was possible. ‘Father, is it wicked to be a Jew?’ his children would ask, as time after time the crowd hooted at them. ‘Father, is it good to be a Jew?’ they grew to ask later on, when in more serious walks of life they found all gates but the Jews’ gate closed against them. Mendelssohn must have found such questions increasingly difficult to answer or to parry. Their very talents, which enlarged the boundaries, must have made his clever children rebel against the limitations which were so cruelly imposed. His eldest son Joseph early developed a strong scientific bias; how could this be utilised? The only profession which he, as a Jew, might enter, was that of medicine, and for that he had a decided distaste: perforce he was sent to commercial pursuits, and his especial talent had to run to waste, or, at best, to dilettantism. When this Joseph had sons of his own, can we wonder very much that he cut the knot and saved his children from a like experience, by bringing them up as Christians?

Mendelssohn himself, all his life through, was unswervingly loyal to his faith. He took every disability accruing from it, as he took his own especial one, as being, so far as he was concerned, inevitable, and thus to be borne as patiently as might be. To him, most certainly, it would never have occurred to slip from under a burden which had been laid upon him to bear. Concerning Fromet’s influence on her children records are silent, and we are driven to conjecture that the pretty significance of her name was somewhat meaningless.[35] The story of her wooing suggests susceptibility, perhaps, rather than strength of heart; and it may be that as years went on the ‘blue eyes’ got into a habit of weeping only over sorrows and wrongs which needed a less eloquent and a more helpful mode of treatment.

If Mendelssohn’s wife had been able to show her children the home side of Jewish life, its suggestive ceremonialism, its domestic compensations—possibly her sons, almost certainly her daughters, would have learnt the brave, sweet patience that was common to Jewish mothers. But this takes us to the region of ‘might have been.’ Gentle, tender-hearted Fromet, it is to be feared, failed in true piety, and, the mother anchor missing, the children drifted from their moorings.

The leisure of the years succeeding his marriage was fully occupied by Mendelssohn in literary pursuits. The whole of the Pentateuch was, by degrees, translated into pure German, and simultaneous editions were published in German and in Hebrew characters. This great gift to his people was followed by a metrical translation of the Psalms; a work which took him ten years, during which time he always carried about with him a Hebrew Psalter, interleaved with blank pages. In 1783 he published his Jerusalem,[36] a sort of Church and State survey of the Jewish religion. The first and larger part of it dwells on the distinction between Judaism, as a State religion, and Judaism as the ‘inheritance’ of a dispersed nationality. He essays to prove the essential differences between civil and religious government, and to demonstrate that penal enactments, which in the one case were just and defensible, were, in the changed circumstances of the other, harmful, and, in point of fact, unjudicial. The work was, in effect, a masterly effort on Mendelssohn’s part to exorcise the ‘cursing spirit’ which, engendered partly by long-suffered persecution, and partly by long association with the strict discipline of the Catholic Church, had taken a firm grip on Jewish ecclesiastical authority, and was constantly expressing itself in bitter anathema and morose excommunication. The second part of the book is mainly concerned with a vindication of the Jewish character and a plea for toleration. Scholarly and temperate as is the tone of this work throughout, it yet evoked a good deal of rough criticism from the so-called orthodox in both religious camps—from those well-meaning, purblind persons of the sort who, Lessing declares, see only one road, and strenuously deny the possible existence of any other.

In 1777, Frederic the Second desired to judge for himself whether Jewish ecclesiastical authority clashed at any point with the State or municipal law of the land. A digest of the Jewish Code on the general questions, and more especially on the subject of property and inheritance, was decreed to be prepared in German, and to Mendelssohn was intrusted the task. He had the assistance of the Chief Rabbi of Berlin, and the result of these labours was published in 1778, under the title of Ritual Laws of the Jews. Another Jewish philosophical work (published in 1785) was Morning Hours.[37] This was a volume of essays on the evidences of the existence of the Deity and of conclusions concerning His attributes deduced from the contemplation of His works. Originally these essays had been given in the form of familiar lectures on natural philosophy by Mendelssohn to his children and to one or two of their friends (including the two Humboldts) in his own house, every morning. In the same category of more distinctively Jewish books we may place a translation of Manasseh Ben Israel’s famous VindiciÆ JudÆorum, which he published, with a very eloquent preface, so early as 1781, just at the time when Dohm’s generous work on the condition of the Jews as citizens of the State had made its auspicious appearance. Although this is one of Mendelssohn’s minor efforts, the preface contains many a beautiful passage. His gratitude to Dohm is so deep and yet so dignified; his defence of his people is so wide, and his belief in humanity so sincere; and the whole is withal so short, that it makes most pleasant reading. One small quotation may perhaps be permitted, as pertinent to some recent discussions on Jewish subjects. ‘It is,’ says he, ‘objected by some that the Jews are both too indolent for agriculture and too proud for mechanical trades; that if the restrictions were removed they would uniformly select the arts and sciences, as less laborious and more profitable, and soon engross all light, genteel, and learned professions. But those who thus argue conclude from the present state of things how they will be in the future, which is not a fair mode of reasoning. What should induce a Jew to waste his time in learning to manage the plough, the trowel, the plane, etc., while he knows he can make no practical use of them? But put them in his hand and suffer him to follow the bent of his inclinations as freely as other subjects of the State, and the result will not long be doubtful. Men of genius and talent will, of course, embrace the learned professions; those of inferior capacity will turn their minds to mechanical pursuits; the rustic will cultivate the land; each will contribute, according to his station in life, his quota to the aggregate of productive labour.’

As he says in some other place of himself, nature never intended him, either physically or morally, for a wrestler; and this little essay, where there is no strain of argument or scope for deep erudition, is yet no unworthy specimen of the great philosopher’s powers. Poetic attempts too, and mostly on religious subjects, occasionally varied his counting-house duties and his more serious labours; but although he truly possessed, if ever man did, what Landor calls ‘the poetic heart,’ yet it is in his prose, rather than in his poetry, that we mostly see its evidences. The book which is justly claimed as his greatest, and which first gave him his title to be considered a wide and deep-thinking philosopher, is his PhÆdon.[38] The idea of such a work had long been germinating in him, and the death of his dear friend Abbt, with whom he had had many a fruitful discussion on the subject, turned his thoughts more fixedly on the hopes which make sorrows bearable, and the work was published in the year following Abbt’s death.

The first part is a very pure and classical German rendering of the original Greek form of Plato, and the remainder an eloquent summary of all that religion, reason, and experience urge in support of a belief in immortality. It is cast in the form of conversation between Socrates and his friends—a choice in composition which caused a Jewish critic (M. David FriedlÄnder) to liken Moses Mendelssohn to Moses the lawgiver. ‘For Moses spake, and Socrates was to him as a mouth’ (Ex. iv. 15). In less than two years PhÆdon ran through three German editions, and it was speedily translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Danish, and Hebrew. Then, at one stride, came fame; and great scholars, great potentates, and even the heads of his own community, sought his society. But fame was ever of incomparably less value to Mendelssohn than friendship, and any sort of notoriety he honestly hated. Thus, when his celebrity brought upon him a polemical discussion, the publicity which ensued, notwithstanding that the personal honour in which he was held was thereby enhanced, so thoroughly upset his nerves that the result was a severe and protracted illness. It came about in this wise: Lavater, the French pastor, in 1769, had translated Bonnet’s Evidences of Christianity into German; he published it with the following dedication to Moses Mendelssohn:—

It was a most unpleasant position for Mendelssohn. Plain speaking was not so much the fashion then as now, and defence might more easily be read as defiance. At that time the position of the Jews in all the European States was most precarious, and outspoken utterances might not only alienate the timid followers whom Mendelssohn hoped to enlighten, but probably offend the powerful outsiders whom he was beginning to influence. No man has any possible right to demand of another a public confession of faith; the conversation to which Lavater alluded as some justification for his request had been a private one, and the reference to it, moreover, was not altogether accurate. And Mendelssohn hated controversy, and held a very earnest conviction that no good cause, certainly no religious one, is ever much forwarded by it. Should he be silent, refuse to reply, and let judgment go by default? Comfort and expediency both pleaded in favour of this course, but truth was mightier and prevailed. Like unto the three who would not be ‘careful’ of their answer even under the ordeal of fire, he soon decided to testify plainly and without undue thought of consequences. Mendelssohn was not the sort to serve God with special reservations as to Rimmon. Definitely he answered his too zealous questioner in a document which is so entirely full of dignity and of reason that it is difficult to make quotations from it.[39] ‘Certain inquiries,’ he writes, ‘we finish once for all in our lives.’ ... ‘And I herewith declare in the presence of the God of truth, your and my Creator, by whom you have conjured me in your dedication, that I will adhere to my principles so long as my entire soul does not assume another nature.’ And then, emphasising the position that it is by character and not by controversy that he would have Jews shame their traducers, he goes fully and boldly into the whole question. He shows with a delicate touch of humour that Judaism, in being no proselytising faith, has a claim to be let alone. ‘I am so fortunate as to count amongst my friends many a worthy man who is not of my faith. Never yet has my heart whispered, Alas! for this good man’s soul. He who believes that no salvation is to be found out of the pale of his own church, must often feel such sighs arise in his bosom.’ ‘Suppose there were among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon, I could consistently with my religious principles love and admire the great man, but I should never hit on the idea of converting a Confucius or a Solon. What should I convert him for? As he does not belong to the congregation of Jacob, my religious laws were not made for him, and on doctrines we should soon come to an understanding. Do I think there is a chance of his being saved? I certainly believe that he who leads mankind on to virtue in this world cannot be damned in the next.’ ‘We believe ... that those who regulate their lives according to the religion of nature and of reason are called virtuous men of other nations, and are, equally with our patriarchs, the children of eternal salvation.’ ‘Whoever is not born conformable to our laws has no occasion to live according to them. We alone consider ourselves bound to acknowledge their authority, and this can give no offence to our neighbours.’ He refuses to criticise Bonnet’s work in detail on the ground that in his opinion ‘Jews should be scrupulous in abstaining from reflections on the predominant religion’; but nevertheless, whilst repeating his ‘so earnest wish to have no more to do with religious controversy,’ the honesty of the man asserts itself in boldly adding, ‘I give you at the same time to understand that I could, very easily, bring forward something in refutation of M. Bonnet’s work.’

Mendelssohn’s reply brought speedily, as it could scarcely fail to do, an ample and sincere apology from Lavater, a ‘retracting’ of the challenge, an earnest entreaty to forgive what had been ‘importunate and improper’ in the dedicator, and an expression of ‘sincerest respect’ and ‘tenderest affection’ for his correspondent. Mendelssohn’s was a nature to have more sympathy with the errors incidental to too much, than to too little zeal, and the apology was accepted as generously as it was offered. And here ended, so far as the principals were concerned, this somewhat unique specimen of a literary squabble. A crowd of lesser writers, unfortunately, hastened to make capital out of it; and a bewildering mist of nondescript and pedantic compositions soon darkened the literary firmament, obscuring and vulgarising the whole subject. They took ‘sides’ and gave ‘views’ of the controversy; but Mendelssohn answered none and read as few as possible of these publications. Still the strain and worry told on his sensitive and peace-loving nature, and he did not readily recover his old elasticity of temperament.

In 1778 Lessing’s wife died, and his friend’s trouble touched deep chords both of sympathy and of memory in Mendelssohn. Yet more cruelly were they jarred when, two years later, Lessing himself followed, and an uninterrupted friendship of over thirty years was thus dissolved. Lessing and Mendelssohn had been to each other the sober realisation of the beautiful ideal embodied in the drama of Nathan der Weise. ‘What to you makes me seem Christian makes of you the Jew to me,’ each could most truly say to the other. They helped the world to see it too, and to recognise the Divine truth that ‘to be to the best thou knowest ever true is all the creed.’

The death of his friend was a terrible blow to Mendelssohn. ‘After wrinkles come,’ says Mr. Lowell, in likening ancient friendships to slow-growing trees, ‘few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.’ In this case, the actual pain of loss was greatly aggravated by some publications which appeared shortly after Lessing’s death, impugning his sincerity and religious feeling. Germany, as Goethe once bitterly remarked, ‘needs time to be thankful.’ In the first year or two following Lessing’s death it was, perhaps, too early to expect gratitude from his country for the lustre his talents had shed on it. Some of the pamphlets would make it seem that it was too early even for decency. Mendelssohn vigorously took up the cudgels for his dead friend; too vigorously, perhaps, since Kant remarked that ‘it is Mendelssohn’s fault, if Jacobi (the most notorious of the assailants) should now consider himself a philosopher.’ To Mendelssohn’s warmhearted, generous nature it would, however, have been impossible to remain silent when one whom he knew to be tolerant, earnest, and sincere in the fullest sense of those words of highest praise, was accused of ‘covert Spinozism’; a charge which again was broadly rendered, by these wretched, ignorant interpreters of a language they failed to understand, as atheism and hypocrisy.

But this was his last literary work. It shows no sign of decaying powers; it is full of pathos, of wit, of clear close reasoning, and of brilliant satire; yet nevertheless it was his monument as well as his friend’s. He took the manuscript to his publisher in the last day of the year 1785; and in the first week of the New Year 1786, still only fifty-six years old, he quietly and painlessly died. That last work seems to make a beautiful and fitting end to his life; a life which truly adds a worthy stanza to what Herder calls ‘the greatest poem of all time—the history of the Jews.’