RAINER MARIA RILKE

for the drama which is always impending between parents and
children ; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes
away the love of their elders, which is operative and warm even
when it does not comprehend. Demand no advice from them
and reckon with no understanding ; but believe in a love that is
preserved for you like a heritage, and trust that in this love there
is a strength and a blessing which you are not bound to leave
behind you though you may travel far!

It is good that you are entering first of all upon a profession
which makes you independent and places you on your own in
every sense. Wait patiently to see whether your innermost life
feels constrained by the form of this profession. I consider it a
very difficult one and a hard taskmaster, as it is burdened with
much convention and gives hardly any scope to a personal inter-
pretation of its tasks. But your solitude will be your home and
haven even in the midst of very strange conditions, and from
there you will discover all your paths. All my wishes are ready
to accompany you, and my trust is with you.

Yours:
RAINER MARIA RILKE.

Vv

RoMmE,*3 October 29th 1903.

DEAR AND HONOURED SIR,

I received your letter of August 29th in Florence, and now—
a whole two months later—I am telling you of it. Do forgive
this dilatoriness,—but I do not like writing letters while I am
on the move, because I need more for letter writing than the
absolutely necessary implements: some quict and solitude and
an hour that is not too strange.

We arrived in Rome about six weeks ago, at a time when it

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