...I rejoiced in the flaws that made her more real to me

I could speculate, but it would be just speculation and the kind of thing that you would get in with a science fiction story. And if I was doing a science fiction story then I would come up with what can go wrong with this system.

I was trapped in admiration for what I had once admired, as a fly in amber remains the captive of some long-vanished pine.

Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be.

Before you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to know the answers.

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.

You're a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make materialism true. Don't you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream, thought and love and act that matter.