Essay "Litters to a Young Poet"

Letters to a Young Poet 1

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria 1

Rilke (Translated by M.D. Herter Norton) 2

This e-text is available at various sites, including 3

http://articles.poetryx.com/series/3/4

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INTRODUCTION 3

June 1929 4

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It was late autumn of 1902—I was sitting under some ancient chestnuts in the 6

park of the Military Academy in Wiener-Neustadt, reading. So deeply was I 7

absorbed in my book, I scarcely noticed when the only civilian among our 8

professors, the Academy’s lerned and kindly Parson Horacek, came to join 9

me. He took the volume from my hand, contemplated the cover, and shook his 10

head. “Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke?” he asked reflectively. He then turned 11

the pages here and there, skimmed a couple of verses, gazed thoughtfully into 12

the distance, and finally nodded. “So our pupil René Rilke has become a 13

poet.” 14

And I learned of the thin, pale boy, whom his parents had sent more than 15

fifteen years ago to the Lower Military School at Sankt-Polten so that he 16

might later become an officer. Horacek had been chaplain to that institution at 17

the time, and he still remembered his former student perfectly. He described 18

him as a quiet, serious, highly endowed boy, who liked to keep to himself, 19

patiently endured the compulsions of boarding-school life and after his fourth 20

year moved on with the others into the Military College, which was situated at 21

Mahrisch-Weisskirchen. Here indeed it became apparent that his constitution 22

Letters to a Young Poet 2

could not stand the strain, for which reason his parents removed him from the 23

school and let him continue his studies at home in Prague. How the course of 24

his life had since shaped itself Horacek could not say. 25

After all this it is not hard to understand how I was determined in that very 26

hour to send my poetic attempts to Rainer Maria Rilke and to ask him for his 27

opinion. Not yet twenty, and close on the threshold of a profession which I felt 28

to be entirely contrary to my inclinations, I hoped to find understanding, if in 29

any one, in the poet who had written Mir zur Feier. And without having 30

intended to do so at all, I found myself writing a covering letter in which I 31

unreservedly laid bare my heart as never before and never since to any second 32

human being. 33

Many weeks passed before a reply came. The blue-sealed letter bore the 34

postmark of Paris, weighed heavy in the hand, and showed on the envelope 35

the same beautiful, clear, sure characters in which the text was set down from 36

the first line to the last. With it began my regular corrspondence with Rainer 37

Maria Rilke which lasted until 1908 and then gradually petered out because 38

life drove me off into those very regions from which the poet’s warm, tender 39

and touching concern had sought to keep me. 40

But that is not important. Only the ten letters are important that follow here, 41

important for an understanding of the world in which Rainer Maria Rilke lived 42

and worked, and important too for many growing and evolving spirits of today 43

and tomorrow. And where a great and unique man speaks, small men should 44

keep silence. 45

FRANZ XAVER KAPPUS 46

Berlin, June 1929 47

Translated by M.D. Herter Norton 48

Letters to a Young Poet 2

LETTER ONE 1

Paris 2

February 17, 1903 3

Dear Sir, 4

Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great 5

confidence you have placed in me. That is all I can do. I cannot discuss your 6

verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a 7

work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less 8

fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as 9

people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they 10

happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all 11

other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures 12

beside our own small, transitory life. 13

With this note as a preface, may I just tell you that your verses have no style 14

of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings of something 15

personal. I feel this most clearly in the last poem, “My Soul.” There, 16

something of your own is trying to become word and melody. And in the 17

lovely poem “To Leopardi” a kind of kinship with that great, solitary figure 18

does perhaps appear. Nevertheless, the poems are not yet anything in 19

themselves, not yet anything independent, even the last one and the one to 20

Leopardi. Your kind letter, which accompanied them, managed to make clear 21

to me various faults that I felt in reading your verses, though I am not able to 22

name them specifically. 23

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked 24

others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other 25

poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since 26

Letters to a Young Poet 3

you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. 27

You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. 28

No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should 29

do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see 30

whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to 31

yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This 32

most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? 33

Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if 34

you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your 35

life in accordance with this necessity; your while life, even into its humblest 36

and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. 37

Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say 38

what you see and feel and love and lose. Don’t write love poems; avoid those 39

forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it 40

takes great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, 41

even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these 42

general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe 43

your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your 44

belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble 45

sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the 46

images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your 47

everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself 48

that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the 49

creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you 50

found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds - 51

wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that 52

treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the 53

sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, 54

your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the 55

twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And 56

if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems 57

Letters to a Young Poet 4

come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. 58

Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as 59

your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of 60

art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge 61

it. So, dear Sir, I can’t give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see 62

how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find 63

the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept that answer, just 64

as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover 65

that you are called to be an artist. Then take the destiny upon yourself, and 66

bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might 67

come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find 68

everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted. 69

But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will 70

have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live 71

without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this 72

self-searching that I as of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will 73

still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide 74

is what I wish for you, more than I can say. 75

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper 76

emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep 77

growing, silently and earnestly, through your while development; you 78

couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for 79

outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest 80

hour, can perhaps answer. 81

It was a pleasure for me to find in your letter the name of Professor Horacek; I 82

have great reverence for that kind, learned man, and a gratitude that has lasted 83

through the years. Will you please tell him how I feel; it is very good of him 84

to still think of me, and I appreciate it. 85

Letters to a Young Poet 5

The poems that you entrusted me with I am sending back to you. And I thank 86

you once more for your questions and sincere trust, of which, by answering as 87

honestly as I can, I have tried to make myself a little worthier than I, as a 88

stranger, really am. 89

Yours very truly, 90

Rainer Maria Rilke 91

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 92

Letters to a Young Poet 6

LETTER TWO 1

Viareggio, near Pisa (Italy) 2

April 5, 1903 3

You must pardon me, dear Sir, for waiting until today to gratefully remember 4

your letter of February 24: I have been unwell all this time, not really sick, but 5

oppressed by an influenza-like debility, which has made me incapable of 6

doing anything. And finally, since it just didn’t want to improve, I came to 7

this southern sea, whose beneficence helped me once before. But I am still not 8

well, writing is difficult, and so you must accept these few lines instead of 9

your letter I would have liked to send. 10

Of course, you must know that every letter of yours will always give me 11

pleasure, and you must be indulgent with the answer, which will perhaps often 12

leave you empty-handed; for ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most 13

important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, 14

many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, 15

for one human being to successfully advise or help another. 16

Today I would like to tell you just two more things: 17

Irony: Don’t let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative 18

moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take 19

hold of life. Used purely, it too is pure, and one needn’t be ashamed of it; but 20

if you feel yourself becoming too familiar with it, if you are afraid of this 21

growing familiarity, then turn to great and serious objects, in front of which it 22

becomes small and helpless. Search into the depths of Things: there, irony 23

never descends - and when you arrive at the edge of greatness, find out 24

whether this way of perceiving the world arises from a necessity of your 25

being. For under the influence of serious Things it will either fall away from 26

you (if it is something accidental), or else (if it is really innate and belongs to 27

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you) it will grow strong, and become a serious tool and take its place among 28

the instruments which you can form your art with. 29

And the second thing I want to tell you today is this: 30

Of all my books, I find only a few indispensable, and two of them are always 31

with me, wherever I am. They are here, by my side: the Bible, and the books 32

of the great Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen. Do you know his works? It is 33

easy to find them, since some have been published in Reclam’s Universal 34

Library, in a very good translation. Get the little volume of Six Stories by J. P. 35

Jacobsen and his novel Niels Lyhne, and begin with the first story in the 36

former, which is called “Mogens.” A whole world will envelop you, the 37

happiness, the abundance, the inconceivable vastness of a world. Live for a 38

while in these books, learn from them what you feel is worth learning, but 39

most of all love them. This love will be returned to you thousands upon 40

thousands of times, whatever your life may become—it will, I am sure go 41

through the while fabric of your becoming, as one of the most important 42

threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys. 43

If I were to say who has given me the greatest experience of the essence of 44

creativity, its depths and eternity, there are just two names I would mention: 45

Jacobsen, that great, great poet, and Auguste Rodin, the sculptor, who is 46

without peer among all artists who are alive today. 47

And all success upon your path! 48

Yours, 49

Rainer Marie Rilke 50

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 51

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Letters to a Young Poet 8

LETTER THREE 1

Viareggio, near Pisa (Italy) 2

April 23, 1903 3

You gave me much pleasure, dear Sir, with your Easter letter; for it brought 4

much good news of you, and the way you spoke about Jacobsen’s great and 5

beloved art showed me that I was not wrong to guide your life and its many 6

question to this abundance. 7

Now Niels Lyhne will open to you, a book of splendors and depths; the more 8

often one reads it, the more everything seems to be contained within it, from 9

life’s most imperceptible fragrances to the full, enormous taste of its heaviest 10

fruits. In it there is nothing that does not seem to have been understood, held 11

lived, and known in memory’s wavering echo; no experience has been too 12

unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a 13

wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender 14

hand and laid alongside another thread and is held and supported by a hundred 15

others. You will experience the great happiness of reading this book for the 16

first time, and will move through its numberless surprises as if you were in a 17

new dream. But I can tell you that even later on one moves through these 18

books, again and again, with the same astonishment and that they lose none of 19

their wonderful power and relinquish none of the overwhelming enchantment 20

that they had the first time one read them. 21

One just comes to enjoy them more and more, becomes more and more 22

grateful, and somehow better and simpler in one’s vision, deeper in one’s faith 23

in life, happier and greater in the way one lives.— 24

And later on , you will have to read the wonderful book of the fate and 25

yearning of Marie Grubbe, and Jacobsen’s letters and journals and fragments, 26

and finally his verses which (even if they are just moderately well translated) 27

live in infinite sound. (For this reason I would advise you to buy, when you 28

Letters to a Young Poet 9

can, the lovely Complete Edition of Jacobsen’s works, which contains all of 29

these. It is in there volumes, well translated, published by Eugen Diederichs in 30

Leipzig, and costs, I think, only five or six marks per volume.) 31

In your opinion of “Roses should have been here . . . ” (that work of such 32

incomparable delicacy and form) you are of course quite, quite incontestably 33

right, as against the man who wrote the introduction. But let me make this 34

request right away: Read as little as possible of literary criticism - such things 35

are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, 36

hardened and empty of life, or else they are just clever word-games, in which 37

one view wins today, and tomorrow the opposite view. Works of art are of an 38

infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only 39

love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. - Always trust yourself and 40

your own feeling, as opposed to argumentations, discussions, or introductions 41

of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your 42

inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments 43

their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must 44

come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is 45

gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a 46

feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the 47

unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep 48

humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this 49

alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating. 50

In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years 51

are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening 52

like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of 53

spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it 54

comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before 55

them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it 56

with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! 57

Letters to a Young Poet 10

Richard Dehmel: My experience with his books (and also, incidentally, with 58

the man, whom I know slightly) is that whenever I have discovered one of his 59

beautiful pages, I am always afraid that the next one will destroy the whole 60

effect and change what is admirable into something unworthy. You have 61

characterized him quite well with the phrase: “living and writing in heat.” - 62

And in fact the artist’s experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to 63

its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms 64

of one and the same longing and bliss. And if instead of “heat” one could say 65

“sex” - sex in the great, pure sense of the word, free of any sin attached to it 66

by the Church - then his art would be very great and infinitely important. His 67

poetic power is great and as strong as a primal instinct; it has its own 68

relentless rhythms in itself explodes from him like a volcano. 69

But this power does not always seem completely straightforward and without 70

pose. (But that is one of the most difficult tests for the creator: he must always 71

remain unconscious, unaware of his best virtues, if he doesn’t want to rob 72

them of their candor and innocence!) And then, when, thundering through his 73

being, it arrives at the sexual, it finds someone who is not quite so pure as it 74

needs him to be. Instead of a completely ripe and pure world of sexuality, it 75

finds a world that is not human enough, that is only male, is heat, thunder, and 76

restlessness, and burdened with the old prejudice and arrogance with which 77

the male has always disfigured and burdened love. Because he loves only as a 78

male, and not as a human being, there is something narrow in his sexual 79

feeling, something that seems wild, malicious, time-bound, uneternal, which 80

diminishes his art and makes it ambiguous and doubtful. It is not immaculate, 81

it is marked by time and by passion, and little of it will endure. (But most art 82

is like that!) Even so, one can deeply enjoy what is great in it, only one must 83

not get lost in it and become a hanger-on of Dehmel’s world, which is so 84

infinitely afraid, filled with adultery and confusion, and is far from the real 85

fates, which make one suffer more than these time-bound afflictions do, but 86

also give one more opportunity for greatness and more courage for eternity. 87

Letters to a Young Poet 11

Finally, as to my own books, I wish I could send you any of them that might 88

give you pleasure. But I am very poor, and my books, as soon as they are 89

published, no longer belong to me. I can’t even afford them myself - and, as I 90

would so often like to, give them to those who would be kind to them. 91

So I am writing for you, on another slip of paper, the titles (and publishers) of 92

my most recent books (the newest ones - all together I have published perhaps 93

12 or 13), and must leave it to you, dear Sir, to order one or two of them when 94

you can. 95

I am glad that my books will be in your good hands. 96

With best wishes, 97

Yours, 98

Rainer Maria Rilke 99

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 100

Letters to a Young Poet

LETTER FOUR

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LETTER FOUR 1 July 16, 1903 2

3

Worpswede, near Bremen 4

About ten days ago I left Paris, tired and quite sick, and traveled to this great 5

northern plain, whose vastness and silence and sky ought to make me well 6

again. But I arrived during a long period of rain; this is the first day it has 7

begun to let up over the restlessly blowing landscape, and I am taking 8

advantage of this moment of brightness to greet you , dear Sir. 9

My dear Mr. Kappus: I have left a letter from you unanswered for a long time; 10

not because I had forgotten it - on the contrary: it is the kind that one reads 11

again when one finds it among other letters, and I recognize you in it as if you 12

were very near. It is your letter of May second, and I am sure you remember 13

it. As I read it now, in the great silence of these distances, I am touched by 14

your beautiful anxiety about life, even more than I was in Paris, where 15

everything echoes and fades away differently because of the excessive noise 16

that makes Things tremble. Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous 17

landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I 18

feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and 19

feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most 20

articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very 21

delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to 22

remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes 23

are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly 24

anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you 25

have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, 26

to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier 27

for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious 28

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LETTER FOUR

13

mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost 29

awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. You are so young, so much before all 30

beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have 31

patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the 32

questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very 33

foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to 34

you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live 35

everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, 36

you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. 37

Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an 38

especially blessed and pure way of living; train your for that - but take 39

whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out 40

of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself, and don’t hate 41

anything. Sex is difficult; yes. But those tasks that have been entrusted to us 42

are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. 43

If you just recognize this and manage, out of yourself, out of your own talent 44

and nature, out of your own experience and childhood and strength, to achieve 45

a wholly individual relation to sex (one that is not influenced by convention 46

and custom), then you will no longer have to be afraid of losing yourself and 47

becoming unworthy of your dearest possession. 48

Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or 49

the feeling with which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite 50

learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fullness and the 51

splendor of all knowledge. And it is not our acceptance of it that is bad; what 52

is bad is that most people misuse this learning and squander it and apply it as a 53

stimulant on the tired places of their lives and as a distraction rather than as a 54

way of gathering themselves for their highest moments. People have even 55

made eating into something else: necessity on the one hand, excess on the 56

other; have muddied the clarity of this need, and all the deep, simple needs in 57

which life renews itself have become just as muddy. But the individual can 58

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14

make them clear for himself and live them clearly (not the individual who is 59

dependent, but the solitary man). He can remember that all beauty in animals 60

and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see the 61

animal, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and multiplying and 62

growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to 63

necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than 64

will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this 65

mystery - which the world is filled with, even in its smallest Things -, could 66

bear it, endure it, more solemnly, feel how terribly heavy it is, instead of 67

taking it lightly. If only they could be more reverent toward their own 68

fruitfulness, which is essentially one, whether it is manifested as mental or 69

physical; for mental creation too arises from the physical, is of one nature with 70

it and only like a softer, more enraptured and more eternal repetition of bodily 71

delight. “The thought of being a creator, of engendering, of shaping” is 72

nothing without the continuous great confirmation and embodiment in the 73

world, nothing without the thousandfold assent from Things and animals - and 74

our enjoyment of it is so indescribably beautiful and rich only because it is full 75

of inherited memories of the engendering and birthing of millions. In one 76

creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love come to life again and fill 77

it with majesty and exaltation. And those who come together in the nights and 78

are entwined in rocking delight perform a solemn task and gather sweetness, 79

depth, and strength for the song of some future poets, who will appear in order 80

to say ecstasies that are unsayable. And they call forth the future; and even if 81

they have made a mistake and embrace blindly, the future comes anyway, a 82

new human being arises, and on the foundation of the accident that seems to 83

be accomplished here, there awakens the law by which a strong, determined 84

seed forces its way through to the egg cell that openly advances to meet it. 85

Don’t be confused by surfaces; in the depths everything becomes law. And 86

those who live the mystery falsely and badly (and they are very many) lose it 87

only for themselves and nevertheless pass it on like a sealed letter, without 88

knowing it. And don’t be puzzled by how many names there are and how 89

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15

complex each life seems. Perhaps above them all there is a great motherhood, 90

in the form of a communal yearning. The beauty of the girl, a being who (as 91

you so beautifully say) “has not yet achieved anything,” is motherhood that 92

has a presentiment of itself and begins to prepare, becomes anxious, yearns. 93

And the mother’s beauty is motherhood that serves, and in the old woman 94

there is a great remembering. And in the man too there is motherhood, it 95

seems to me, physical and mental; his engendering is also a kind of birthing, 96

and it is birthing when he creates out of his innermost fullness. And perhaps 97

the sexes are more akin than people think, and the great renewal of the world 98

will perhaps consist in one phenomenon: that man and woman, freed from all 99

mistaken feelings and aversions, will seek each other not as opposites but as 100

brother and sister, as neighbors, and will unite as human beings, in order to 101

bear in common, simply, earnestly, and patiently, the heavy sex that has been 102

laid upon them. 103

But everything that may someday be possible for many people, the solitary 104

man can now, already, prepare and build with his own hands, which make 105

fewer mistakes. Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with 106

the pain it causes you. for those who are near you are far away, you write, and 107

this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is 108

near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very 109

great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone 110

with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in 111

front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten 112

them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek 113

out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, 114

which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and 115

again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be 116

indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness 117

that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched 118

tight between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength 119

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and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t 120

comprehend. Don’t ask for any advice from them and don’t expect any 121

understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an 122

inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so 123

large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it. 124

It is good that you will soon be entering a profession that will make you 125

independent and will put you completely on your own, in every sense. Wait 126

patiently to see whether your innermost life feels hemmed in by the form this 127

profession imposes. I myself consider it a very difficult and very exacting one, 128

since it is burdened with enormous conventions and leaves very little room for 129

a personal interpretation of its duties. but your solitude will be a support and a 130

home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it 131

you will find all your paths. All my good wishes are ready to accompany you, 132

and my faith is with you. 133

Yours, 134

Rainer Maria Rilke 135

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 136

Letters to a Young Poet 17

LETTER FIVE 1

October 29, 1903 2

3

Rome 4

October 29, 1903 5

Dear Sir, 6

I received your letter of August 29 in Florence, and it has taken me this long - 7

two months - to answer. Please forgive this tardiness - but I don’t like to write 8

letters while I am traveling, because for letter writing I need more than the 9

most necessary tools: some silence and solitude and a not too familiar hour. 10

We arrived in Rome about six weeks ago, at a time when it was still empty, 11

the hot, the notoriously feverish Rome, and this circumstance, along with 12

other practical difficulties in finding a place to live, helped make the 13

restlessness around us seem as if it would never end, and the unfamiliarity lay 14

upon us with the weight of homelessness. In addition, Rome (if one has not 15

yet become acquainted with it) makes one feel stifled with sadness for the first 16

few days: through the gloomy and lifeless museum-atmosphere that it exhales, 17

through the abundance of its pasts, which are brought forth and laboriously 18

held up (pasts on which a tiny present subsists), through the terrible 19

overvaluing, sustained by scholars and philologists and imitated by the 20

ordinary tourist in Italy, of all the disfigured and decaying Things, which, 21

after all, are essentially nothing more than accidental remains from another 22

time and from a life that is not and should not be ours. Finally, after weeks of 23

daily resistance, one finds oneself somewhat composed again, even though 24

still a bit confused, and one says to oneself: No, there is not more beauty here 25

than in other places, and all these objects, which have been marveled at by 26

generation after generation, mended and restored by the hands of workmen, 27

mean nothing, are nothing, and have no heart and no value; - but there is much 28

Letters to a Young Poet 18

beauty here, because everywhere there is much beauty. Waters infinitely full 29

of life move along the ancient aqueducts into the great city and dance in the 30

many city squares over white basins of stone and spread out in large, spacious 31

pools and murmur by day and lift up their murmuring to the night, which is 32

vast here and starry and soft with winds. And there are gardens here, 33

unforgettable boulevards, and staircases designed by Michelangelo, staircases 34

constructed on the pattern of downward-gliding waters and, as they descend, 35

widely giving birth to step out of wave. Through such impressions one gathers 36

oneself, wins oneself back from the exacting multiplicity, which speaks and 37

chatters there (and how talkative it is!), and one slowly learns to recognize the 38

very few Things in which something eternal endures that one can love and 39

something solitary that one can gently take part in. 40

I am still living in the city, on the Capitol, not far from the most beautiful 41

equestrian statue that has come down to us from Roman art - the statue of 42

Marcus Aurelius; but in a few weeks I will move into a quiet, simple room, an 43

old summerhouse, which lies lost deep in a large park, hidden from the city, 44

from its noises and incidents. There I will live all winter and enjoy the great 45

silence, from which I expect the gift of happy, work-filled hours. . . . 46

From there, where I will be more at home, I will write you a longer letter, in 47

which I will say something more about what you wrote me. Today I just need 48

to tell you (and perhaps I am wrong not to have done this sooner) that the 49

book you sent me (you said in your letter that it contained some works of 50

yours) hasn’t arrived. Was it sent back to you, perhaps from Worspwede? 51

(They will not forward packages to foreign countries.) This is the most 52

hopeful possibility, and I would be glad to have it confirmed. I do hope that 53

the package hasn’t been lost - unfortunately, the Italian mail service being 54

what it is, that would not be anything unusual. 55

I would have been glad to have this book (as I am to have anything that comes 56

from you); and any poems that have arisen in the meantime. I will always (if 57

Letters to a Young Poet 19

you entrust them to me) read and read again and experience as well and 58

sincerely as I can. With greetings and good wishes, 59

Yours, 60

Rainer Maria Rilke 61

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 62

63

Letters to a Young Poet 20

LETTER SIX 1

2

December 23, 1903 3

4

Rome 5

December 23, 1903 6

My dear Mr. Kappus, 7

I don’t want you to be without a greeting from me when Christmas comes and 8

when you, in the midst of the holiday, are bearing your solitude more heavily 9

than usual. But when you notice that it is vast, you should be happy; for what 10

(you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only 11

one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has 12

hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however 13

trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who 14

comes along, the most unworthy. . . . But perhaps these are the very hours 15

during which solitude grows; for its growing is painful as the growing of boys 16

and sad as the beginning of spring. But that must not confuse you. What is 17

necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside 18

yourself and meet no one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain. 19

To be solitary as you were when you were a child, when the grown-ups 20

walked around involved with matters that seemed large and important because 21

they looked so busy and because you didn’t understand a thing about what 22

they were doing. 23

And when you realize that their activities are shabby, that their vocations are 24

petrified and no longer connected with life, why not then continue to look 25

upon it all as a child would, as if you were looking at something unfamiliar, 26

out of the depths of your own solitude, which is itself work and status and 27

vocation? Why should you want to give up a child’s wise not-understanding in 28

Letters to a Young Poet 21

exchange for defensiveness and scorn, since not-understanding is, after all, a 29

way of being alone, whereas defensiveness and scorn are participation in 30

precisely what, by these means, you want to separate yourself from. 31

Think, dear Sir, of the world that you carry inside you, and call this thinking 32

whatever you want to: a remembering of your own childhood or a yearning 33

toward a future of your own - only be attentive to what is arising within you, 34

and place that above everything you perceive around you. What is happening 35

on your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find 36

a way to work at it, and not lose too much time or too much courage in 37

clarifying your attitude toward people. Who says that you have any attitude at 38

all? - I know, your profession is hard and full of things that contradict you, 39

and I foresaw your lament and knew that it would come. Now that it has 40

come, there is nothing I can say to reassure you, I can only suggest that 41

perhaps all professions are like that, filled with demands, filled with hostility 42

toward the individual, saturated as it were with the hatred of those who find 43

themselves mute and sullen in an insipid duty. The situation you must live in 44

now is not more heavily burdened with conventions, prejudices, and false 45

ideas than all the other situations, and if there are some that pretend to offer a 46

greater freedom, there is nevertheless note that is, in itself, vast and spacious 47

and connected to the important Things that the truest kind of life consists of. 48

Only the individual who is solitary is placed under the deepest laws like a 49

Thing, and when he walks out into the rising dawn or looks out into the event-50

filled evening and when he feels what is happening there, all situations drop 51

from him as if from a dead man, though he stands in the midst of pure life. 52

What you, dear Mr. Kappus, now have to experience as an officer, you would 53

have felt in just the same way in any of the established professions; yes, even 54

if, outside any position, you had simply tried to find some easy and 55

independent contact with society, this feeling of being hemmed in would not 56

have been spared you. - It is like this everywhere; but that is no cause for 57

anxiety or sadness; if there is nothing you can share with other people, try to 58

Letters to a Young Poet 22

be close to Things; they will not abandon you; and the nights are still there, 59

and the winds that move through the trees and across many lands; everything 60

in the world of Things and animals is still filled with happening, which you 61

can take part in; and children are still the way you were as a child, sad and 62

happy in just the same way - and if you think of your childhood, you once 63

again live among them, and the grown-ups are nothing, and their dignity has 64

no value. 65

And if it frightens and torments you to think of childhood and of the 66

simplicity and silence that accompanies it, because you can no longer believe 67

in God, who appears in it everywhere, when ask yourself, dear Mr. Kappus, 68

whether you have really lost God. Isn’t it much truer to say that you have 69

never yet possessed him? For when could that have been? Do you think that a 70

child can hold him, him whom grown men bear only with great effort and 71

whose weight crushes the old? Do you suppose that someone who really has 72

him could lose him like a little stone? Or don’t you think that someone who 73

once had him could only be lost by him? - But if you realize that he did not 74

exist in your childhood, and did not exist previously, if you suspect that Christ 75

was deluded by his yearning and Muhammad deceived by his pride - and if 76

you are terrified to feel that even now he does not exist, even at this moment 77

when we are talking about him - what justifies you then, if he never existed, in 78

missing him like someone who has passed away and in searching for him as 79

though he were lost? 80

Why don’t you think of him as the one who is coming, who has been 81

approaching from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate 82

fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting his birth 83

into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful 84

and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy? Don’t you see how 85

everything that happens is again and again a beginning, and couldn’t it be His 86

beginning, since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful? If he is the most 87

perfect one, must not what is less perfect precede him, so that he can choose 88

Letters to a Young Poet 23

himself out of fullness and superabundance? - Must not he be the last one, so 89

that he can include everything in himself, and what meaning would we have if 90

he whom we are longing for has already existed? 91

As bees gather honey, so we collect what is sweetest out of all things and 92

build Him. Even with the trivial, with the insignificant (as long as it is done 93

out of love) we begin, with work and with the repose that comes afterward, 94

with a silence or with a small solitary joy, with everything that we do alone, 95

without anyone to join or help us, we start Him whom we will not live to see, 96

just as our ancestors could not live to see us. And yet they, who passed away 97

long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as 98

murmuring blood, and as gesture that rises up from the depths of time. 99

Is there anything that can deprive you of the hope that in this way you will 100

someday exist in Him, who is the farthest, the outermost limit? 101

Dear Mr. Kappus, celebrate Christmas in this devout feeling, that perhaps He 102

needs this very anguish of yours in order to being; these very days of your 103

transition are perhaps the time when everything in you is working at Him, as 104

you once worked at Him in your childhood, breathlessly. Be patient and 105

without bitterness, and realize that the least we can do is to make coming into 106

existence no more difficult for Him than the earth does for spring when it 107

wants to come. 108

And be glad and confident. 109

Yours, 110

Rainer Maria Rilke 111

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 112

113

Letters to a Young Poet 24

LETTER SEVEN 1

Rome 2

May 14, 1904 3

My dear Mr. Kappus, 4

Much time has passed since I received your last letter. Please don’t hold that 5

against me; first it was work, then a number of interruptions, and finally poor 6

health that again and again kept me from answering, because I wanted my 7

answer to come to you out of peaceful and happy days. Now I feel somewhat 8

better again (the beginning of spring with its moody, bad-tempered transitions 9

was hard to bear here too) and once again, dear Mr. Kappus, I can greet you 10

and talk to you (which I do with real pleasure) about this and that in response 11

to your letter, as well as I can. 12

You see: I have copied out your sonnet, * because I found that it is lovely and 13

simple born in the shape that it moves in with such quiet decorum. It is the 14

best poem of yours that you have let me read. And now I am giving you this 15

copy because I know that it is important and full of new experience to 16

rediscover a work of one’s own in someone else’s handwriting. Read the 17

poem as if you had never seen it before, and you will feel in your innermost 18

being how very much it is your own. 19

It was a pleasure for me to read this sonnet and your letter, often; I thank you 20

for both. 21

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that 22

there is something in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you 23

use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your 24

solitude over a great distance. Most people have (with the help of 25

conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest 26

side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; 27

Letters to a Young Poet 25

everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any 28

way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against 29

all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a 30

certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is 31

difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. 32

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love 33

another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been 34

entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which 35

all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are 36

beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must 37

learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their 38

solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-39

time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is - ; solitude, a 40

heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving 41

does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person 42

(for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and 43

still incoherent - ?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to 44

become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself 45

for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, 46

something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, 47

as the task of working on themselves (”to hearken and to hammer day and 48

night”), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and 49

surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for 50

a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps 51

that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough. 52

But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing 53

they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other 54

when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all 55

their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. . . . : And what can happen then? 56

What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their 57

Letters to a Young Poet 26

communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were 58

possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of 59

the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to 60

come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching 61

and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful 62

confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, 63

disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions 64

that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most 65

dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with 66

conventions as this one is: there are live-preservers of the most varied 67

invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of 68

very sort, for since it preferred to take love-life as an amusement, it also had 69

to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are. 70

It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering 71

themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course 72

always go on doing that - ), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make 73

the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal 74

way -. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than 75

everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to 76

this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one 77

human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly 78

personal answer -. But how can they, who have already flung themselves 79

together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer 80

possess anything of their won, how can they find a way out of themselves, out 81

of the depths of their already buried solitude? 82

They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, whit the best of intentions, 83

they try to escape the conventions that is approaching them (marriage, for 84

example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly 85

conventional solution. For then everything around them is - convention. 86

Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every 87

Letters to a Young Poet 27

action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own 88

convention, however unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; 89

even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental 90

decision without strength and without fruit. 91

Whoever looks seriously will find that neither for death, which is difficult, nor 92

for difficult love has any clarification, any solution, any hint of a path been 93

perceived; and for both these tasks, which we carry wrapped up and hand on 94

without opening, there is not general, agreed-upon rule that can be discovered. 95

But in the same measure in which we begin to test life as individuals, these 96

great Things will come to meet us, the individuals, with greater intimacy. The 97

claims that the difficult work of love makes upon our development are greater 98

than life, and we, as beginners, are not equal to them. But if we nevertheless 99

endure and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of 100

losing ourselves in the whole easy and frivolous game behind which people 101

have hidden from the most solemn solemnity of their being, - then a small 102

advance and a lightening will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long 103

after us. That would be much. 104

We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a 105

second individual objectively and without prejudice, and our attempts to live 106

such relationships have no model before them. And yet in the changes that 107

time has brought about there are already many things that can help our timid 108

novitiate. 109

The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in 110

passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male 111

professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious 112

that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often 113

ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature 114

and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life 115

lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, 116

Letters to a Young Poet 28

must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, 117

easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the 118

weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he 119

thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her 120

suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the 121

conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, 122

and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. 123

Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, 124

trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be 125

girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the 126

male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any 127

complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being. 128

This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will 129

transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it 130

from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be 131

between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to 132

woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite 133

consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and 134

releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great 135

struggle: the love that consists in this: the two solitudes protect and border and 136

greet each other. 137

And one more thing: Don’t think that the great love which was once granted 138

to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast 139

and generous wishes didn’t ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which 140

you are still living today? I believe that that love remains strong and intense in 141

your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work 142

that you did on your life. - All good wished to you, dear Mr. Kappus! 143

Yours, 144

Rainer Maria Rilke 145

Letters to a Young Poet 29

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 146

147

Letters to a Young Poet 30

LETTER EIGHT 1

Borgeby gard, Fladie, Sweden 2

August 12, 1904 3

I want to talk to you again for a little while, dear Mr. Kappus, although there 4

is almost nothing I can say that will help you, and I can hardly find one useful 5

word. You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say 6

that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask 7

yourself whether these large sadnesses haven’t rather gone right through you. 8

Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, 9

deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you 10

were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones 11

that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like 12

diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and 13

after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us 14

and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If 15

only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and 16

even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear 17

our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the 18

moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our 19

feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a 20

silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the 21

midst of it all and says nothing. 22

It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we 23

feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. 24

Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; 25

because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from 26

us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain 27

standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the 28

presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its 29

Letters to a Young Poet 31

innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our 30

bloodstream. And we don’t know what it was. We could easily be made to 31

believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a 32

guest has entered changes. We can’t say who has come, perhaps we will never 33

know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to 34

be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important 35

to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful 36

and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life 37

than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if 38

from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our 39

sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and 40

the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate; and later on, 41

when it “happens” (that is, steps forth out of us to other people), we will feel 42

related and close to it in our innermost being. And that is necessary. It is 43

necessary - and toward this point our development will move, little by little - 44

that nothing alien happen to us, but only what has long been our own. People 45

have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion; and they ill also 46

gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from 47

the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not 48

absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they 49

have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that 50

they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them 51

that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the 52

very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before 53

found anything like that inside them. Just as people for a long time had a 54

wrong idea about the sun’s motion, they are even now wrong about the motion 55

of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in 56

infinite space. 57

How could it not be difficult for us? 58

Letters to a Young Poet 32

And to speak of solitude again, it becomes clearer and clearer that 59

fundamentally this is nothing that one can choose or refrain from. We are 60

solitary. We can delude ourselves about this and act as if it were not true. That 61

is all. But how much better it is to recognize that we are alone; yes, even to 62

begin from this realization. It will, of course, make us dizzy; for all points that 63

our eyes used to rest on are taken away from us, there is no longer anything 64

near us, and everything far away is infinitely far. A man taken out of his room 65

and, almost without preparation or transition, placed on the heights of a great 66

mountain range, would feel something like that: an unequalled insecurity, an 67

abandonment to the nameless, would almost annihilate him. He would feel he 68

was falling or think he was being catapulted out into space or exploded into a 69

thousand pieces: what a colossal lie his brain would have to invent in order to 70

catch up with and explain the situation of his senses. That is how all distances, 71

all measures, change for the person who becomes solitary; many of these 72

changes occur suddenly and then, as with the man on the mountaintop, 73

unusual fantasies and strange feelings arise, which seem to grow out beyond 74

all that is bearable. But it is necessary for us to experience that too. We must 75

accept our reality as vastly as we possibly can; everything, even the 76

unprecedented, must be possible within it. This is in the end the only kind of 77

courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, 78

most inexplicable experiences that can meet us. The fact that people have in 79

this sense been cowardly has done infinite harm to life; the experiences that 80

are called “apparitions,” the whole so-called “spirit world,” death, all these 81

Things that are so closely related to us, have through our daily defensiveness 82

been so entirely pushed out of life that the senses with which we might have 83

been able to grasp them have atrophied. To say nothing of God. But the fear 84

of the inexplicable has not only impoverished the reality of the individual; it 85

has also narrowed the relationship between one human being and another, 86

which has as it were been lifted out of the riverbed of infinite possibilities and 87

set down in a fallow place on the bank, where nothing happens. For it is not 88

only indolence that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to 89

Letters to a Young Poet 33

case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any 90

new, inconceivable experience, which we don’t think we can deal with. but 91

only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn’t exclude any 92

experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with 93

another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his 94

own being. for if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller 95

room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their 96

room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking 97

back and forth. In this way they have a certain security. And yet how much 98

more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe’s 99

stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to 100

the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps 101

or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or 102

upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, 103

and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to 104

resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate 105

mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have 106

no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it 107

has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if 108

there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in 109

accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the 110

difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most 111

intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that 112

stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last 113

moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives 114

are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and 115

courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, 116

something helpless that wants our love. 117

So you mustn’t be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of 118

you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-119

Letters to a Young Poet 34

shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must 120

realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that 121

it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out 122

of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you 123

don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you 124

want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from 125

and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of 126

transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is 127

anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the 128

means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must 129

simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, 130

since that is the way it gets better. In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is 131

happening now; you must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident 132

like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are 133

also the doctor, who has to watch over himself. But in every sickness there are 134

many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And that is what you, 135

insofar as you are your own doctor, must now do, more than anything else. 136

Don’t observe yourself too closely. Don’t be too quick to draw conclusions 137

from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy 138

for you to look with blame (that is: morally) at your past, which naturally has 139

a share in everything that now meets you. But whatever errors, wishes, and 140

yearnings of your boyhood are operating in you now are not what you 141

remember and condemn. The extraordinary circumstances of a solitary and 142

helpless childhood are so difficult, so complicated, surrendered to so many 143

influences and at the same time so cut off from all real connection with life 144

that, where a vice enters it, one may not simply call it a vice. One must be so 145

careful with names anyway; it is so often the name of an offense that a life 146

shatters upon, not the nameless and personal action itself, which was perhaps 147

a quite definite necessity of that life and could have been absorbed by it 148

without any trouble. And the expenditure of energy seems to you so great only 149

Letters to a Young Poet 35

because you overvalue victory; it is not the “great thing” that you think you 150

have achieved, although you are right about your feeling; the great thing is 151

that there was already something there which you could replace that deception 152

with, something true and real. Without this even your victory would have been 153

just a moral reaction of no great significance; but in fact it has become a part 154

of your life. Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, which I think of with so many good 155

wishes. Do you remember how that life yearned out of childhood toward the 156

“great thing”? I see that it is now yearning forth beyond the great thing toward 157

the greater one. That is why it does not cease to be difficult, but that is also 158

why it will not cease to grow. 159

And if there is one more thing that I must say to you, it is this: Don’t think 160

that the person who is trying to comfort you now lives untroubled among the 161

simple and quiet words that sometimes give you much pleasure. His life has 162

much trouble and sadness, and remains far behind yours. If it were otherwise, 163

he would never have been able to find those words. 164

Yours, 165

Rainer Maria Rilke 166

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 167

168

Letters to a Young Poet 36

LETTER NINE 1

Furuborg, Jonsered, in Sweden 2

November 4, 1904 3

My dear Mr. Kappus, 4

During this time that has passed without a letter, I have been partly traveling, 5

partly so busy that I couldn’t write. And even today writing is difficult for me, 6

because I have already had to write so many letters that my hand is tired. If I 7

could dictate, I would have much more to say to you, but as it is, please accept 8

these few words as an answer to your long letter. 9

I think of you often, dear Mr. Kappus, and with such concentrated good 10

wishes that somehow they ought to help you. Whether my letters really are a 11

help, I often doubt. Don’t say, “Yes, they are.” Just accept them calmly and 12

without many thanks, and let us wait for what wants to come. 13

There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I 14

could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your 15

outer and inner lives into harmony or about all the other thing that oppress you 16

- : is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself 17

enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith; that you may 18

gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among 19

other people. And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in 20

the right, always. 21

And about feelings: All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; 22

only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus 23

distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. 24

Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best 25

hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it 26

Letters to a Young Poet 37

isn’t intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the 27

bottom. Do you understand what I mean? 28

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become 29

knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil 30

something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and 31

you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. 32

But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and 33

persistent, every single time, and the day will come when instead of being a 34

destroyer, it will become one of your best workers - perhaps the most 35

intelligent of all the ones that are building your life. 36

That is all, dear Mr. Kappus, that I am able to tell you today. But I am sending 37

you, along with this letter, the reprint of a small poem * that has just appeared 38

in the Prague German Labor. In it I speak to you further of life and death and 39

of how both are great and glorious. 40

Yours, 41

Rainer Maria Rilke 42

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 43

*footnote The Lay of Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke, written in 44

1899 and first published in book form in 1906. —Trans. 45

46

Letters to a Young Poet 38

LETTER TEN 1

2

December 26, 1908 3

4

Paris 5

The day after Christmas, 1908 6

You must know, dear Mr. Kappus, how glad I was to have the lovely letter 7

from you. The news that you give me, real and expressible as it now is again, 8

seems to me good news, and the longer I thought it over, the more I felt that it 9

was very good news indeed. That is really what I wanted to write you for 10

Christmas Eve; but I have been variously and uninterruptedly living in my 11

work this winter, and the ancient holiday arrived so quickly that I hardly had 12

enough time to do the most necessary errands, much less to write. 13

But I have thought of you often during this holiday and imagined how silent 14

you must be in your solitary fort amongst the empty hills, upon which those 15

large southern winds fling themselves as if they wanted to devour them in 16

large pieces. 17

It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, 18

and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also 19

resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric harmony, then one 20

can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently letting the magnificent 21

solitude work upon you, this solitude which can no longer be erased from your 22

life; which, in everything that is in store for you to experience and to do, will 23

act as an anonymous influence, continuously and gently decisive, rather as the 24

blood of our ancestors incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to 25

form the unique, unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life. 26

Letters to a Young Poet 39

Yes: I am glad you have that firm, sayable existence with you, that title, that 27

uniform, that service, all that tangible and limited world, which in such 28

surroundings, with such an isolated and not numerous body of men, takes on 29

seriousness and necessity, and implies a vigilant application, above and 30

beyond the frivolity and mere timepassing of the military profession, and not 31

only permits a self-reliant attentiveness but actually cultivates it. And to be in 32

circumstances that are working upon us, that from time to time place us in 33

front of great natural Things - that is all we need. 34

Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without 35

knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its 36

neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they 37

pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art - 38

as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three 39

quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature. I am glad, in a 40

word, that you have overcome the danger of landing in one of those 41

professions, and are solitary and courageous, somewhere in a rugged reality. 42

May the coming year support and strengthen you in that. 43

Always 44

Yours, 45

R. M. Rilke 46

Translated by Stephen Mitchell 47

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