How
tiresome 'tis to find out all one's self-delusion! I thought
myself so very independent, because I could conceal some
feelings at will, and did not need the same excitement as
other young characters did. And I am not independent, nor
never shall be, while I can get anybody to minister to me. But
I shall go where there is never a spirit to come, if I call
ever so loudly.
'Perhaps I shall talk to you about Koerner, but need not write.
He charms me, and has become a fixed star in the heaven of
my thought; but I understand all that he excites perfectly.
I felt very '_new_ about Novalis,--"the good Novalis," as
you call him after Mr. Carlyle. He is, indeed, _good_, most
enlightened, yet most pure; every link of his experience
framed--no, _beaten_--from the tried gold.
'I have read, thoroughly, only two of his pieces, "Die
Lehrlinge zu Sais," and "Heinrich von Ofterdingen." From the
former I have only brought away piecemeal impressions, but the
plan and treatment of the latter, I believe, I understand. It
describes the development of poetry in a mind; and with this
several other developments are connected.
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