Viareggio, near Pisa (Italy)

April 23, 1903

You gave me much pleasure, dear Sir, with your Easter letter; for it brought much good news of you, and the way you spoke about Jacobsen's great and beloved art showed me that I was not wrong to guide your fife and its many questions to this abundance.

Now Niels Lyhne will open to you, a book of splendors and depths; the more often one reads it, the more everything seems to be contained within it, from life's most imperceptible fragrances to the full, enormous taste of its heaviest fruits. In it there is nothing that does not seem to have been understood, held, lived, and known in memory's wavering echo; no experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and laid alongside another thread and is held and supported by a hundred others. You will experience the great happiness of reading this book for the first time, and will move through its numberless surprises as if you were in a new dream.But I can tell you that even later on one moves through these books, again and again, with the same astonishment and that they lose none of their wonderful power and relinquish none of the overwhelming enchantment that they had the first time one read them.

One just comes to enjoy them more and more, becomes more and more grateful, and somehow better and simpler in one's vision, deeper in one's faith in life, happier and greater in the way one lives.

And later on, you will have to read the wonderful book of the fate and yearning of Marie Grubbe, and Jacobsen's letters and journals and fragments, and finally his verses which (even if they are just moderately well translated) live in infinite sound. (For this reason I would advise you to buy, when you can, the lovely Complete Edition of Jacobsen's works, which contains all of these. It is in three volumes, well translated, published by Eugen Diederichs in Leipzig, and costs, I think, only five or six marks per volume.)

In your opinion of 'Roses should have been here . . .' (that work of such incomparable delicacy and form) you are of course quite, quite incontestably right, as against the man who wrote the introduction. But let me make this request right away: Read as little as possible of literary criticism. Such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are clever word-games, in which one view wins , and tomorrow the opposite view. Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentation, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.

In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

Richard Dehmel: My experience with his books (and also, incidentally, with the man, whom I know slightly) is that whenever I have discovered one of his beautiful pages, I am. always afraid that the next one will destroy the whole effect and change what is admirable into something unworthy. You have characterized him quite well with the phrase: 'living and writing in heat.' And in fact the artist's experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same longing and bliss. And if instead of 'heat' one could say 'sex';- sex in the great, pure sense of the word, free of any sin attached to it by the Church, - then his art would be very great and infinitely important. His poetic power is great and as strong as a primal instinct; it has its own relentless rhythms in itself and explodes from him like a volcano.

But this power does not always seem completely straightforward and without pose. (But that is one of the most difficult tests for the creator: he must always remain unconscious, unaware of his best virtues, if he doesn't want to rob them of their candor and innocence!) And then, when, thundering through his being, it arrives at the sexual, it finds someone who is not so pure as it needs him to be. Instead of a completely ripe and pure world of sexuality, it finds a. world that is not human enough, that is only male, is heat, thunder, and restlessness, and burdened with the old prejudice and arrogance with which the male has always disfigured and burdened love. Because he loves only as a male, and not as a human being, there is something narrow in his sexual feeling, something that seems wild, malicious, time-bound, uneternal, which diminishes his art and makes it ambiguous and doubtful. It is not immaculate, it is marked by time and by passion, and little of it will endure. (But most art is like that!) Even so, one can deeply enjoy what is great in it, only one must not get lost in it and become a hanger-on of Dehmel's world, which is so infinitely afraid, filled with adultery and confusion, and is far from the real fates, which make one suffer more than these time-bound afflictions do, but also give one more opportunity for greatness and more courage for eternity.

Finally, as to my own books, I wish I could send you any of them that might give you pleasure. But I am very poor, and my books, as soon as they are published, no longer belong to me. I can’t even afford them myself and, as I would so often like to, give them to those who would be kind to them.

So I am writing for you, on another slip of paper, the titles (and publishers) of my most recent books (the newest ones - all together I published perhaps 12 or 13), and must leave to you, dear Sir, to order one or two of them when you can.

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

With best wishes,

Yours,

Rainer Maria Rilke

亲爱的先生：

您复活节的来信给我带来了许多快乐，它带来了您的不少好消息，还有您谈论杰克布森的伟大和受人爱戴的艺术时的方式。您让我觉得自己在指导您的生活和帮助您解决生活里的许多问题时没有出错。

现在，《尼尔斯.林妮》将展开在您面前，一本杰出的、内涵丰富的书；读的次数越多，您越会发现它包容万象，从体味最无法理解的生活的芬芳到品尝其丰硕饱满的果实。在它里面没有什么是不可以在回荡的记忆涛声中得到理解、把握、存活和感知的；没有什么经验不是重要的，最微小的事件就象命运本身一样，将渐渐展露开来，而命运自己就象一个奇妙的宽阔的纤维，组成它的每根丝都被一只无限的、温柔的手牵引着，这丝和其它的丝一起并排着，并由几百根其它的丝把握和支撑着。刚读这书的时候，您就能感到巨大的喜悦，书中无数令您惊异的地方使您感觉置身于一个新的梦里。但是我告诉您真正奇妙的事吧：即使以后您再翻开这些书，一遍又一遍地，您仍会带着和初次读它时一样的惊奇，它不会丧失那神奇的力量，也不会散失一点让人无法抵抗的魅力。

您会越来越快乐，越来越感激，在意念里会莫名其妙地变得更好、更简单，而生活的信念会更深刻，生活的方式会更快乐和更亲密。

之后，您将不得不读这本描写玛利亚.阁鲁彼的命运和期望的奇书，还有杰克布森的信和日记及未完成的作品，当然最后是他的诗（即使译文一般），那诗读后余音袅袅。（为此，我建议您在手头不紧张的时候去买来，一套很棒的杰克布森作品全集包括上述所有的内容，共三本，译得很好，由利浦兹的尤根-埃得瑞契出版社出版，还有价格，我想，每本只有5到6马克吧。） 您对'玫瑰早就该在这儿……'（作品具有如此独一无二的优美和形式）的建议当然是对极了，无可争议，您的见解几乎和写了诗文介绍的那人一样。但是请允许我在此提个要求：尽可能地少读文学评论--这种东西不是一些混乱的没有意义的偏见，就是一些聪明的文字游戏，今天捧场，明天棒杀。艺术作品是一种无止境的孤独，对它来说，任何评论都无足轻重。只有爱才能触及和把握他们，才对它们公平。信任您自己和您自己的感觉吧，如同您反对争论、探讨或这类的介绍一样；如果您的感觉错了，那么您内在的自然成长会继续指引您找到真知卓见。允许您的判断沉默地、不受打扰地成长吧。这个过程，就象所有的过程一样，必须发自内心，是不能强迫和匆忙的。每一样东西都必须在妊娠之后才能诞生。让每一个感想每一种感觉的胚胎自然生长，在黑暗之中，在无法言喻、无意识的、难以理解的地方，带着淳朴的人性和耐心等候那一时刻的来临。一个新的明确的概念将产生。而这种孤独就是一个艺术家的生活，总在理解和创造中。

对此，没有时间可以用来衡量。一年不算什么，十年也不算什么。做一名艺术家就意味着不要计数和计算，只象一棵树一样等待成熟。树不会强迫自己流出汁液，它自信地站在春天的暴风雨里，不担心随后的夏天是否会来临，而夏天终究会来临的。但它只向那些耐心的人走来，向那些似乎永恒地在前边等待的人，它既冷冷地又炽烈地。在我的生活中，我每一天都能感受到它，带着痛感受着它，我为此感到喜悦：耐心就是一切！

里查德.德梅尔：我读过他的书（也是偶然的。对这个人，我所知甚少），每次读到他书里的优美篇章时，我忍不住就担心下一页文字会破坏已有的气氛，或让那些令人仰慕的东西变得一钱不值。您对他的个性总结得非常好：'在激情里活着和写作。'--事实上这个艺术家的经验几乎是基于性、性的痛苦和欢乐这两种经验之上，这两种经验形式不同，实际上是一种东西，都有着热望和极乐。

如果人们可以用'性'来替换'热情'--性是伟大纯洁的感知，同教堂相连的时候没有一点罪恶--他的艺术将是极其伟大和无比重要的。他的诗的力量是伟大的，象本能一样强烈；它有自己不屈不挠的韵律，爆发时如同火山。

但这种力量并不是总能得以痛快淋漓地渲泄。（当然那也是对创作者的最艰难的考验：他必须总是保持无意识，不能参透自己最优秀的品质，如果他不想掠夺它们的坦白和纯真的话！）然后，当雷电穿过他的身体，产生性欲，它发现有些人并不如希望的那样纯洁。它没有找到一个完整的、成熟而纯洁的性的世界，反而发现一个不够人性的，仅是男性的世界，是热情、惊雷和焦虑，负担着古老的偏见和傲慢，这时爱变得丑恶，变成负担。因为赭石的男性所爱的只是一个'男性'，而不是一个人，在他的性感觉里有一些狭隘的东西，有一些野蛮的、不轨的、受制于时间的和非永恒的东西，那些东西贬抑了他的艺术，使其显得暧昧可疑。它不是洁净的，它印着时间和激情的标记，不会永恒（但大多数艺术是这样！）。即便如此，一个人能够深深地愉悦其中，只是不要迷失了并在德梅尔的世界里徘徊，那个世界是深渊，充满奸情和困惑，同真正的命运相差十万八千里，真正的命运要比这受时间约束的激情遭受得多得多，而且在人们追求永恒时给以更多的感恩机会和勇气。

最后是我自己的书，我希望能够送您一些，或许这将给您带来快乐。但是我真的很穷，而且我的书，一旦出版，就不再属于我了。甚至我自己也买不起--，尽管我经常想要把这些作品送给喜欢它们的人。

所以我在另一张纸上给您写下我的大多数最近出版的书名（最新的--共有12或13本吧和出版商的名称），亲爱的先生，当您能够买得起的时候就去买一或两本看看吧。

我很高兴自己的书将在您的手中。

最真挚的希望，

您的，

瑞那.玛里亚.李尔克

意大利，比萨

1903年4月23日