The meaning lies in the appropriation. Hence the book's joyous giving of itself. Here there are no worldly mine and thine that separate and prohibit appropriating what is the neighbor's. Admiration is in part really envy and thus a misunderstanding; and criticism, for all its justification, is in part really opposition and thus a misunderstanding; and recognition in a mirror is only a fleeting acquaintance and thus a misunderstanding-but to see correctly and not want to forget what the mirror is incapable of effecting, that is the appropriation, and the appropriation is the reader's even greater, is his triumphant giving of himself.

p. 6 : Preface - Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845)