Chapter 11 11. The Ninth Letter

My dear Mr. Kappus, During this period of no correspondence, I was half on the road and half in the hurry of business, which prevented me from writing. It is also difficult for me to write letters today, because I have written many letters and my hands are tired.If I could dictate to someone else, I could tell you a lot more, but now you have to accept these few lines in return for your long letter. Dear Mr. Kappus, I have thought of you often, and thinking of you with such a devotion that it will always be helpful to you.But I often doubt whether my letter can help you.You don't say: they can help you.Just accept these letters with peace of mind, without saying thanks, let us wait and see what will come.

It is mostly useless for me now to discuss individual words in your letter; for I have to say about your inclinations to doubt, about the impossibility of harmony in your inner and outer life, about everything else that troubles you:—all I can say, It is still what I have said: still may you have enough patience to bear, and enough simplicity to believe; you will trust more and more difficult things and your loneliness among people.The other thing is to let life progress naturally.Believe me: no matter what, life is reasonable. As for the emotions: those emotions which focus you upward are pure; but those which catch only one aspect of your nature and do you harm are impure.Anything you can think of in your childhood is good.Anything that makes you richer than your best moments is right.Every kind of improvement is good, if it is in your "whole" blood, if it is not intoxication, not melancholy, but transparent joy.do you know what i mean

Even your skepticism can be a good trait if you "foster" it well.It has to become wise, it has to become critical. ——When it wants to hurt you something, you have to ask it, "why" these things are ugly, ask it for evidence, question it, you may see it panic, you may see it express dissent. But you don't give in, you argue with it, pay attention each time, stand your ground, and one day it will go from being a destroyer to being one of your best workers,--perhaps in everything that works to build you It is one of the wisest of the workers of life. Dear Mr. Kappus, that's all I can say to you today.I am enclosing you a copy of a short work of mine published in the Prague edition of Deutsche Works.There I continued to talk to you about life and death, and their greatness and beauty.

Yours: Rainer Maria Rilke 1904, Nov. 4; Sweden, Jonsered, Fruburg ① Rilke's prose poem Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke.