RAINER MARIA RILKE

her modes of expression a little embarrassing, she should not be
despised—that generation owes a good deal to her pioneering.
Under her vertiginous influence Rilke became a supporter of
much that she stood for, both in education and in social reform ;
but his enthusiasm never degenerated into the easy emotional
chiliasm which is characteristic of our time, and after he met her
in 1904 he grew steadily cooler, until he found this Elizabeth
Hitchener of his, once his ““dear, dear Ellen”, if not a brown
demon, at least extremely tiresome. Exhausted by her niaiseries,
he once described her as “nothing but the tatters of an old-
fashioned ideal . . . a universal aunt who has all her pockets filled
for those who find pleasure in jujubes and cheap sweets, but
cannot allay a single creature’s hunger with her poverty-
stricken, already somewhat outmoded dietary” (Letters 1906-1907,
pp- 32-3).
NoOTE 21, PAGE 35

After nearly seven months in Rome, Rilke came north at
Ellen Key’s suggestion and was the guest of different literary
families in Sweden for an equal period. He was full of plans for
work : he was anxious to write a monograph on Jacobsen, and
had already begun to learn Danish so that he might be able to
read Jacobsen and “much of Kierkegaard” in the original.
While he was at Fladie he began to translate Kierkegaard’s letters
to Regina Olsen.

Evidently Kappus had sent a letter to him at Rome, which
was forwarded by Clara, since a fortnight before he answered it
he wrote to her: “Thanks for Kappus’ letter. He is having a
difficult time. And that is only the beginning. And he is right
about it : we have expended too much energy in childhood, too
much energy of adults,—that holds good perhaps for a whole
generation. Or holds good again and again for individuals. How
is one to answer that: That life has infinite possibilities of
renewal. Yes, but this too : that expense of energy is really in a
certain sense always access of energy; for fundamentally it is
only a question of a wide circle: all energy that we give out,
comes over us again experienced and transformed. So it is in
prayer. And what is there, truly done, that might not be called
prayer:” (Letters 1902-1906, p. 205).

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