Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/155

★ 145 ★ and so it happens that the processed substance is always returning to fresh receptacles, the substance finally an essential element, a member of the active spirit.

Through the impartial re-reading of his books, an author can refine himself. With strangers, it ordinarily happens that the peculiar character is lost, because it is a rare gift to be fully immersed in an idea belonging to another. Often even with the author. It is not a mark of greater education or greater ability, that one passes righteous criticism upon a book. With new impressions, a greater piquancy of its meaning is entirely natural.