Furuborg, Jonsered, in Sweden

November 4, 1904

My dear Mr. Kappus,

During this time that has passed without a letter, I have been partly traveling, partly so busy that I couldn't write. And even today writing is difficult for me, because I have already had to write so many letters that my hand is tired. If I could dictate, I would have much more to say to you, but as it is, please accept these few words as an answer to your long letter.

I think of you often, dear Mr. Kappus, and with such concentrated good wishes that somehow they ought to help you. Whether my letters really are a help, I often doubt. Don't say, "Yes, they are." Just accept them calmly and without many thanks, and let us wait for what wants to come.

There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner lives into harmony or about all the other things that oppress you-: is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith; that you may gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people. And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.

And about feelings: All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it isn't intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the bottom. Do you understand what I mean?

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don't give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers - perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.

That is all, dear Mr. Kappus, that I am able to tell you today. But I am sending you, along with this letter, the reprint of a small poem that has just appeared in the Prague German Labor. In it I speak to you further of life and death and of how both are great and glorious.

Yours,

Rainer Maria Rilke

亲爱的开普斯先生：

这段时间没有给您写一封信，原因是我一半的时间都在旅游，一半是因为太忙，以至于无法提笔写信。即使今天提笔，也很艰难，因为我已经写了太多的信，手都累了。如果我能够口授的话，我将有更多的东西要和您说，但是请接受这短短的几句话作为对您的长信的回答吧。

我常常想到您，亲爱的开普斯先生，带着最美好的希望，它们应该有时会对您有所帮助的。我的信是否真的给过您帮助，我常常怀疑。别说，"是的，它们确实给过我帮助。"只要接受它们，无须任何感谢，让我们看看迎接我们的是什么。或许当我在谈论您的问题时没有要点；因为我能说的--您的怀疑倾向，您的无法使内在生命与外在环境变得和谐时的无能感，或所有那些压迫您的其他事情--是我已经说过的：仅仅希望您有足够的耐心去忍耐，怀着朴素的心情去希望。您或许能在那些挫折和人群里的孤独中获取越来越多的信心。另外，让生活从您身上流过去。相信我：生活是正确的，总是正确的。

有关感情：所有使您集中精力并使您升华的感情是纯洁的；只有那种仅仅抓住您的一面并歪曲您本身的感情是不纯洁的。您在思考的每一件事情如果正如面对自己的童年，那是好的。每一件使您超越以往、甚至超越您最好的时光的事情是正确的。每一个强烈的对比都是好的，如果它在您的全部血液里，如果它没有陶醉或者浑浊不清，而是清澈见底。您明白我的意思吗？

如果您训练自己的疑惑，它将成为一种好的品质。它必须成为了解，必须成为批评。问它，什么时候它想为您破坏一些东西，为什么有些事情是丑恶的，需要它来证明，考验它，然后或许您将发现您迷惑或者尴尬了，或许还在抗议。但是不要屈服，坚持争论，用这种方式，专心地，持之以恒地，在任何时刻，那一天就将来临了。不是作为一个破坏者，而是您最好的品质之一--或许是您赖以建设生活的最优秀的品质。

亲爱的开普斯先生，今天我能同你说的也就是这些了。但是我将随函送给您一首发表在布拉格《德国劳动者》上的小诗。在诗里我将继续向您阐述生命和死亡以及两者的伟大和辉煌。

您的，

瑞那.玛里亚.李尔克

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