Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/36

★ 26 ★ the beautiful blossoms of his youth, faith and love fall away,

giving way to the rough fruits, knowledge and having. One thinks of spring in late autumn like a childish dream and hopes with childish simplicity that the full storerooms will last forever. A certain solitude seems to be necessary for the prosperity of the higher senses, and therefore too widespread intercourse between people must nip many sacred germs and scare away the gods who flee the restless tumult of dispersing societies and the negotiations of petty affairs. Moreover, we have to do with times and periods, and if these are an oscillation, an alternation of opposing movements is not essential? and is not a limited duration peculiar to them, and is not growth and decrease their nature? but also a resurrection, a rejuvenation, in a new, more efficient form, not to be expected with certainty from them too? progressive, ever increasing evolutions are the stuff of history. - What does not reach perfection now, it will reach it in a future attempt, or in another; Nothing that has taken hold in history is transitory; from innumerable transformations it emerges anew in ever richer forms.