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RAINER MARIA RILKE

to find understanding, if anywhere at all, in the writer of the poems
To Celebrate Myself. And without my actually having wished it, my
verses came to be accompanied by a covering letter in which I revealed
myself without reserve as I have never done before or since to another
human being.

Many weeks went by before an answer came. The blue-sealed com-
munication bore the post mark of Paris, weighed heavy in the hand and
shewed on the envelope the same clear, beautiful and firm characters*
in which the text was set down from the first line to the last. With that
began my regular correspondence with Rainer Maria Rilke, which
lasted until 1908 and then gradually trickled into nothing, since life
drove me off into regions against which the poet’s warm, delicate and
touching solicitude had really tried to guard me.

But that is not important. The only thing of importance is the ten
letters which here follow, important for the appreciation of the world
in which Rainer Maria Rilke lived and worked, and important too for
many who are now growing up and developing, today and tomorrow.
And where a great and unique man speaks, small men must keep

silence.
Franz XAVER KArpus.

BERLIN, June 1929.