英語(yǔ)美文欣賞 （給一位青年詩(shī)人的信）
英語(yǔ)美文欣賞 （給一位青年詩(shī)人的信）
英語(yǔ)作為學(xué)習(xí)生涯中必不可少的課程，想學(xué)好真的不容易。小編在此獻(xiàn)上英語(yǔ)美文，希望大家喜歡。
英文美文欣賞
給一位青年詩(shī)人的信(1)Letters to a Young Poet(1)
It's a book you'll read countless times and each time will seem like the first time.
Letters To A Young Poet are ten letters written to a young man about to enter the German military. His name was Franz Kappus, he was 19 years old, and he wrote Rilke looking for guidance and a critique of some of his poems. Rilke was himself only 27 when the first letter was written. The resulting five year correspondence is a virtual owner's manual on what it is (and what is required) to be an artist and a person.
Letter One
Paris
February 17, 1903
Dear Sir,
Your letter arrived just a few days ago. I want to thank you for the great confidence you have placed in me. That is all I can do. I cannot discuss your verses; for any attempt at criticism would be foreign to me. Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsay able than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.
With this note as a preface, may I just tell you that your verses have no style of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings of something personal. I feel this most clearly in the last poem, "My Soul." There, some thing of your own is trying to become word and melody. And in the lovely poem "To Leopardi" a kind of kinship with that great, solitary figure does perhaps appear. Nevertheless, the poems are not yet anything in themselves, not yet any thing independent, even the last one and the one to Leopardi. Your kind letter, which accompanied them managed to make clear to me various faults that I felt in reading your verses, though I am not able to name them specifically.
You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life,even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes a great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sound - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. And if out of , this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to, the question of whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.
But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn't write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this self searching that I ask of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say.
What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn't disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.
It was a pleasure for me to find in your letter the name of Professor Horacek; I have great reverence for that kind, learned man, and a gratitude that has lasted through the years. Will you please tell him how I feel; it is very good of him to still think of me, and I appreciate it.
The poem that you entrusted me with, I am sending back to you. And I thank you once more for your questions and sincere trust, of which, by answering as honestly as I can, I have tried to make myself a little worthier than I, as a stranger, really am.
Yours very truly,
Rainer Maria Rilke
親愛的先生：
您的信在幾天前就到了這里。我想說(shuō)謝謝您對(duì)我的極大信任。我所能說(shuō)的就是這些了。我不能討論您的詩(shī);任何評(píng)論對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)都是陌生的。那些評(píng)論根本不了解藝術(shù)作品：它們總是導(dǎo)致或多或少的誤解。事情并不象人們?cè)噲D讓我們相信的那樣總是可以觸摸和說(shuō)出來(lái)的;大多數(shù)經(jīng)驗(yàn)只能意會(huì)，不能言傳。而且最難以說(shuō)得清的就是藝術(shù)作品，那些神秘的存在，那些在我們渺小而短暫的生活旁邊悄悄地滑過(guò)的生命。
以此做前言，或許我可以告訴您，您的詩(shī)歌沒(méi)有自身的風(fēng)格，雖然有些沉默和隱晦的開頭的確有些意思。在最后一首詩(shī)里我的感覺得到了證實(shí)："我的靈魂"。在您的詩(shī)里，您試圖用文字和韻律來(lái)表達(dá)自己。在一首做"致里奧帕迪"的可愛的詩(shī)里，一種和那偉大而寂寞的人物相連的關(guān)系的確產(chǎn)生了。但是，詩(shī)本身卻什么都不是，也不是獨(dú)立的任何東西，包括最后一首和那首"致里奧帕迪"。您的信設(shè)法讓我澄清了自己在讀您的詩(shī)時(shí)產(chǎn)生的各種誤解，盡管我無(wú)法說(shuō)出那是什么。 您在問(wèn)您的詩(shī)如何?您問(wèn)我。您已經(jīng)問(wèn)過(guò)別人了。您送它們到雜志社。您把它們和別人的詩(shī)相比較。當(dāng)某些編輯拒絕了您的作品時(shí)您感到沮喪。現(xiàn)在(因?yàn)槟f(shuō)過(guò)您想要我的意見)我請(qǐng)求您停止做所有這類事情。您在往外部世界看，而這正是您應(yīng)該馬上停止做的事情。沒(méi)有人能夠給您建議或幫助您--沒(méi)有人。只有一件事情您可以做，深入自己的內(nèi)在世界，找找促使您寫作的動(dòng)因，看看它是否深植在您的心靈里;問(wèn)自己，如果您被禁止寫作您是否會(huì)死去。就是這些。在靜默的時(shí)候問(wèn)您自己：我必須寫嗎?讓您的靈魂給您深刻的回答吧。如果答案是肯定的，如果您給這個(gè)神圣的問(wèn)題的答案是，"是的，我必須"，那么就把您的生活建立在這種必要上吧;您整個(gè)的生活，即使最自卑和淡漠的時(shí)光，都必須成為這一本能的記號(hào)和見證，然后您就接近了本性。然后，就象前無(wú)古人那樣，試著去說(shuō)您見到的、感覺到的、您愛的和您失去的。不要寫愛情詩(shī);避免那些太輕而易舉和普通的格式;它們是最難寫的，需要一種偉大的足夠成熟的力量才能創(chuàng)造出那些個(gè)性化的東西，然而在我們之前已經(jīng)有太多好的甚至是絕妙的作品在那里了。所以，把自己從這些通常的主題中救贖出來(lái)，寫日常生活賦予您的;描寫您的悲哀和希望，那些流過(guò)您頭腦的思想和您對(duì)某種美的信念--描寫所有這些心靈能夠觸摸到的、沉默的、謙卑的、忠誠(chéng)的東西，還有當(dāng)您在表達(dá)自己時(shí)，使用身旁的東西，用您夢(mèng)里的意象和您記得的事物。如果您的日常生活很貧乏，不要埋怨生活，怨您自己吧;承認(rèn)自己不夠做一個(gè)詩(shī)人來(lái)喚醒生活的貧乏;因?yàn)閷?duì)創(chuàng)作者來(lái)說(shuō)沒(méi)有貧窮，沒(méi)有貧窮和冷漠的環(huán)境。甚至當(dāng)您發(fā)現(xiàn)自己是在監(jiān)獄里，墻壁擋住了外部世界的聲音--您不是還有自己的童年時(shí)代嗎?那是無(wú)價(jià)之寶，那是記憶之門。把您的注意力轉(zhuǎn)向它。試著將沉睡的往日之感覺拉起來(lái)，您的個(gè)性將不斷成長(zhǎng)，您的孤獨(dú)將擴(kuò)張成為一個(gè)您可以在午夜停留的地方，那時(shí)，所有的噪噪音都消失、遠(yuǎn)去了。--如果您掉轉(zhuǎn)身--在您的內(nèi)在世界，在您自己的世界的洗禮中，詩(shī)就出現(xiàn)了。但您將不會(huì)想到去問(wèn)它們是好還是不好，也將不會(huì)想到用它們?nèi)ノs志：因?yàn)槟豢吹剿鼈兪悄谋拘缘囊徊糠?，您的生活片段和生活之聲。如果藝術(shù)作品是發(fā)自必要，那就是好的。這是我們判斷它的唯一方法。所以，親愛的先生，除此之外我不能給您任何建議：走進(jìn)自己的心里，看一看您的生活之流流過(guò)的地方有多深;在它的源泉處您定將找到是否需要?jiǎng)?chuàng)作這個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案。接受這個(gè)答案，當(dāng)它是白給您的，不要試圖打斷它?；蛟S，您將發(fā)現(xiàn)，您的答案要您做個(gè)藝術(shù)家。那么接受這個(gè)使命，忍受它，它的負(fù)擔(dān)和偉大，不要問(wèn)隨之而來(lái)的外部獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。因?yàn)閯?chuàng)作者必須是自己的世界，必須找到自己的全部和本性，對(duì)他來(lái)說(shuō)整個(gè)的生命就是奉獻(xiàn)。 之后您要讓自己沉靜下來(lái)，深入自己的孤獨(dú)，或許您將不得不再次聲明要成為一個(gè)詩(shī)人(如果，如我所說(shuō)的，一個(gè)人感覺自己沒(méi)有寫作也可以照樣生活，那么不要再寫了吧)。而且，即便如此，這種我跟您說(shuō)的自我探察也并不是說(shuō)再無(wú)意義了。您的生活將仍舊循著自己的道路往前走，它們或許會(huì)是美好的、豐富的、廣闊的，就如我對(duì)您的希望一樣。
我還能對(duì)您說(shuō)些什么呢?對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)似乎每件事情都有自己的側(cè)重點(diǎn);最后我想要加上一條建議：保持成長(zhǎng)、沉默和渴望的狀態(tài)，經(jīng)其一生;您不能用通過(guò)往外看和等待外部的答案等任何粗暴的形式打斷它，只有在您的內(nèi)心深處，在您沉默的時(shí)光里答案或能出現(xiàn)。
在您的信里看到侯拉塞克教授的名字真讓我感到高興;我從這位慈祥的飽學(xué)之士身上獲益非淺，多年以來(lái)我一直保持著對(duì)他的尊敬。請(qǐng)您轉(zhuǎn)告他，謝謝他還記得我，我很感激。
您托于我的詩(shī)我將寄回給您。再次感謝您提出的問(wèn)題和您對(duì)我的信任，對(duì)此，我也盡可能誠(chéng)實(shí)地做了回答，我試著使自己比本來(lái)的我，那個(gè)陌生人，更有價(jià)值一點(diǎn)，真是這樣。
您誠(chéng)摯的，
瑞那.瑪里亞.李爾克于巴黎
1903年2月17日
經(jīng)典英語(yǔ)美文
給一位青年詩(shī)人的信 (2)Letters to a Young Poet(2)
Letter Two
Viareggio, near Pisa (Italy)
April 5, 1903
You must pardon me, dear Sir, for waiting until today to gratefully remember your letter of February 24. I have been unwell all this time, not really sick, but oppressed by an influenza-like debility, which has made me incapable of doing anything. And finally, since it just didn't want to improve I came to this southern sea, whose beneficence helped me once before. But I am still not well, writing is difficult, and so you must accept these few lines instead of the letter I would have liked to send.
Of course, you must know that every letter of yours will always give me pleasure, and you must be indulgent with the answer, which will perhaps often leave you empty-handed; for ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are unspeakably alone; and many things must happen, many things must go right, a whole constellation of events must be fulfilled, for one human being to successfully advise or help another.
Today I would like to tell you just two more things:
Irony: Don't let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments. When you are fully creative, try to use it, as one more way to take hold of fife. Used purely, it too is pure, and one needn't be ashamed of it; but if you feel yourself becoming too familiar with it, if you are afraid of this growing familiarity, then turn to great and serious objects, in front of which it becomes small and helpless. Search into the depths of Things: there, irony never descends and when you arrive at the edge of greatness, find out whether this way of perceiving the world arises from a necessity of your being. For under the influence of serious Things it will either fall away from you (if it is something accidental), or else (if it is really innate and belongs to you) it will grow strong, and become a serious tool and take its place among the instruments which you can form your art with.
And the second thing I want to tell you today is this:Of all my books, I find only a few indispensable, and two of them are always with me, wherever I am. They are here, by my side: the Bible, and the books of the great Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen. Do you know his works? It is easy to find them, since some have been published in Recalm's Universal Library, in a very good translation. Get the little volume of Six Stories by J.P. Jacobsen and his novel Niels Lyhne, and begin with the first story in the for mer, which is cared "Mogens." A whole world will envelop you, the happiness, the abundance, .the inconceivable vastness of a world. Live for a while in these books, learn from them what you feel is worth learning, but most of &U love them. This love will be returned to you thousands upon thousands of times, whatever your life may become - it will, I am sure, go through the whole fabric of your being, as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys.
If I were to say who has given me the greatest experience of the essence of creativity, its depths and eternity, there are just two names would mention: Jacobsen, that great, great poet, and Auguste Rodin, the sculptor, who is without peer among all artists who are alive today.
And all success upon your path!
Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke
第二封
您必須原諒我，親愛的先生，原諒我到了今天才想起回復(fù)您2月24日的來(lái)信：我的身體在這段時(shí)間里一直不好，并不是真的病了，而是被一種象流行感冒一樣的虛弱壓迫著，使我無(wú)法做任何事情。最后，因?yàn)椴灰姾棉D(zhuǎn)，我就到了南部的這個(gè)海邊，我的身體曾在這兒得以康復(fù)，但這次仍不見好，寫作變得艱難，所以您本應(yīng)見到的長(zhǎng)信就成了現(xiàn)在的幾行字。
當(dāng)然，您一定知道您的每一封信都給我?guī)?lái)了快樂(lè);對(duì)我的答復(fù)，請(qǐng)您給以寬容，它們經(jīng)常令您兩手空空;其實(shí)按照絕對(duì)的說(shuō)法，在那些最深刻和重大的事情上，不用說(shuō)，我們都是獨(dú)自一個(gè)人完成的;一定有許多事情發(fā)生，一定有許多事情必須做得對(duì)，對(duì)那些希望成功地給別人建議或幫助的人來(lái)說(shuō)，得做完一連串光彩的情。
今天我想和您說(shuō)兩件事：
諷刺：不要讓自己受控于它，特別是在沒(méi)有創(chuàng)作力的時(shí)候。當(dāng)您充滿了創(chuàng)作力，就試著使用它，作為一種抓取生活的方式。使用時(shí)要純粹。它本是很純粹的，沒(méi)有必要為它感到害羞;但是如果您感到自己用得太濫了，如果您擔(dān)心它將到處泛濫，就轉(zhuǎn)向偉大而嚴(yán)肅的主題，在它們面前它會(huì)變得渺小而無(wú)能為力。深入這些東西，諷刺在那兒將不再卑躬屈膝--而且當(dāng)您到了偉大的臨界的時(shí)候，您將發(fā)現(xiàn)這是您必須使用的一種透視世界的方式。在嚴(yán)肅題材的影響下，諷刺或許將遠(yuǎn)離您(如果是偶然的話)，或許在另外的情況下(如果它是您內(nèi)在的反映)，它將變得強(qiáng)壯起來(lái)，并且成為一個(gè)嚴(yán)肅的工具，成為您的一部分藝術(shù)手段。
想要和您說(shuō)的第二件事是：
我發(fā)現(xiàn)在我所有的書里只有一小部分是不可缺少的，其中兩本永遠(yuǎn)伴隨我，無(wú)論我在哪里。現(xiàn)在它們也在我的身邊：《圣經(jīng)》和偉大的丹麥詩(shī)人杰克布森的書。您知道他的作品嗎?很容易找到，里卡爾姆的大學(xué)圖書館里就有，翻譯得很好。買一本J.P.杰克布森寫的含有六個(gè)小說(shuō)的書和他的小說(shuō)《尼爾斯.林妮》去讀吧，從前邊提到的第一個(gè)故事開始讀，那故事的名字叫"摩根一家"(MOGENS)。一個(gè)完整的世界將包裹著您，快樂(lè)、充實(shí)、難以置信的博大的世界。在這些書中呆一段時(shí)間，學(xué)習(xí)那些您認(rèn)為是值得學(xué)習(xí)的。大多數(shù)人都熱愛它們。這種愛將無(wú)數(shù)次地在您的生活中回蕩--它將，我確信，穿透您的每根纖維，成為那些構(gòu)成您的經(jīng)驗(yàn)--失望和快樂(lè)--的重要纖維中之最緊要的那根。 如果要我說(shuō)是誰(shuí)給了我對(duì)創(chuàng)作力的精髓、深度和永恒的體驗(yàn)，我就只想提兩個(gè)名字;杰克布森，那個(gè)真正偉大的詩(shī)人，和奧古斯丁.羅丹，那個(gè)當(dāng)今世上無(wú)人能和他匹敵雕刻家。
再就是，讓我祝愿您滿載而歸吧!
您的，
瑞那.瑪里亞.李爾克
意大利的比薩附近
1903年4月5日
英語(yǔ)美文欣賞
致一位青年詩(shī)人的信Letters to a Young Poet(3)
Viareggio, near Pisa (Italy)
April 23, 1903
You gave me much pleasure, dear Sir, with your Easter letter; for it brought much good news of you, and the way you spoke about Jacobsen's great and beloved art showed me that I was not wrong to guide your fife and its many questions to this abundance.
Now Niels Lyhne will open to you, a book of splendors and depths; the more often one reads it, the more everything seems to be contained within it, from life's most imperceptible fragrances to the full, enormous taste of its heaviest fruits. In it there is nothing that does not seem to have been understood, held, lived, and known in memory's wavering echo; no experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and laid alongside another thread and is held and supported by a hundred others. You will experience the great happiness of reading this book for the first time, and will move through its numberless surprises as if you were in a new dream.But I can tell you that even later on one moves through these books, again and again, with the same astonishment and that they lose none of their wonderful power and relinquish none of the overwhelming enchantment that they had the first time one read them.
One just comes to enjoy them more and more, becomes more and more grateful, and somehow better and simpler in one's vision, deeper in one's faith in life, happier and greater in the way one lives.
And later on, you will have to read the wonderful book of the fate and yearning of Marie Grubbe, and Jacobsen's letters and journals and fragments, and finally his verses which (even if they are just moderately well translated) live in infinite sound. (For this reason I would advise you to buy, when you can, the lovely Complete Edition of Jacobsen's works, which contains all of these. It is in three volumes, well translated, published by Eugen Diederichs in Leipzig, and costs, I think, only five or six marks per volume.)
In your opinion of "Roses should have been here . . ." (that work of such incomparable delicacy and form) you are of course quite, quite incontestably right, as against the man who wrote the introduction. But let me make this request right away: Read as little as possible of literary criticism. Such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are clever word-games, in which one view wins , and tomorrow the opposite view. Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentation, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.
In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!
Richard Dehmel: My experience with his books (and also, incidentally, with the man, whom I know slightly) is that whenever I have discovered one of his beautiful pages, I am. always afraid that the next one will destroy the whole effect and change what is admirable into something unworthy. You have characterized him quite well with the phrase: "living and writing in heat." And in fact the artist's experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same longing and bliss. And if instead of "heat" one could say "sex";- sex in the great, pure sense of the word, free of any sin attached to it by the Church, - then his art would be very great and infinitely important. His poetic power is great and as strong as a primal instinct; it has its own relentless rhythms in itself and explodes from him like a volcano.
But this power does not always seem completely straightforward and without pose. (But that is one of the most difficult tests for the creator: he must always remain unconscious, unaware of his best virtues, if he doesn't want to rob them of their candor and innocence!) And then, when, thundering through his being, it arrives at the sexual, it finds someone who is not so pure as it needs him to be. Instead of a completely ripe and pure world of sexuality, it finds a. world that is not human enough, that is only male, is heat, thunder, and restlessness, and burdened with the old prejudice and arrogance with which the male has always disfigured and burdened love. Because he loves only as a male, and not as a human being, there is something narrow in his sexual feeling, something that seems wild, malicious, time-bound, uneternal, which diminishes his art and makes it ambiguous and doubtful. It is not immaculate, it is marked by time and by passion, and little of it will endure. (But most art is like that!) Even so, one can deeply enjoy what is great in it, only one must not get lost in it and become a hanger-on of Dehmel's world, which is so infinitely afraid, filled with adultery and confusion, and is far from the real fates, which make one suffer more than these time-bound afflictions do, but also give one more opportunity for greatness and more courage for eternity.
Finally, as to my own books, I wish I could send you any of them that might give you pleasure. But I am very poor, and my books, as soon as they are published, no longer belong to me. I can’t even afford them myself and, as I would so often like to, give them to those who would be kind to them.
So I am writing for you, on another slip of paper, the titles (and publishers) of my most recent books (the newest ones - all together I published perhaps 12 or 13), and must leave to you, dear Sir, to order one or two of them when you can.
I am glad that my books will be in your hands.
With best wishes,
Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke
親愛的先生：
您復(fù)活節(jié)的來(lái)信給我?guī)?lái)了許多快樂(lè)，它帶來(lái)了您的不少好消息，還有您談?wù)摻芸瞬忌膫ゴ蠛褪苋藧鄞鞯乃囆g(shù)時(shí)的方式。您讓我覺得自己在指導(dǎo)您的生活和幫助您解決生活里的許多問(wèn)題時(shí)沒(méi)有出錯(cuò)。
現(xiàn)在，《尼爾斯.林妮》將展開在您面前，一本杰出的、內(nèi)涵豐富的書;讀的次數(shù)越多，您越會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)它包容萬(wàn)象，從體味最無(wú)法理解的生活的芬芳到品嘗其豐碩飽滿的果實(shí)。在它里面沒(méi)有什么是不可以在回蕩的記憶濤聲中得到理解、把握、存活和感知的;沒(méi)有什么經(jīng)驗(yàn)不是重要的，最微小的事件就象命運(yùn)本身一樣，將漸漸展露開來(lái)，而命運(yùn)自己就象一個(gè)奇妙的寬闊的纖維，組成它的每根絲都被一只無(wú)限的、溫柔的手牽引著，這絲和其它的絲一起并排著，并由幾百根其它的絲把握和支撐著。剛讀這書的時(shí)候，您就能感到巨大的喜悅，書中無(wú)數(shù)令您驚異的地方使您感覺置身于一個(gè)新的夢(mèng)里。但是我告訴您真正奇妙的事吧：即使以后您再翻開這些書，一遍又一遍地，您仍會(huì)帶著和初次讀它時(shí)一樣的驚奇，它不會(huì)喪失那神奇的力量，也不會(huì)散失一點(diǎn)讓人無(wú)法抵抗的魅力。
您會(huì)越來(lái)越快樂(lè)，越來(lái)越感激，在意念里會(huì)莫名其妙地變得更好、更簡(jiǎn)單，而生活的信念會(huì)更深刻，生活的方式會(huì)更快樂(lè)和更親密。
之后，您將不得不讀這本描寫瑪利亞.閣魯彼的命運(yùn)和期望的奇書，還有杰克布森的信和日記及未完成的作品，當(dāng)然最后是他的詩(shī)(即使譯文一般)，那詩(shī)讀后余音裊裊。(為此，我建議您在手頭不緊張的時(shí)候去買來(lái)，一套很棒的杰克布森作品全集包括上述所有的內(nèi)容，共三本，譯得很好，由利浦茲的尤根-埃得瑞契出版社出版，還有價(jià)格，我想，每本只有5到6馬克吧。) 您對(duì)"玫瑰早就該在這兒……"(作品具有如此獨(dú)一無(wú)二的優(yōu)美和形式)的建議當(dāng)然是對(duì)極了，無(wú)可爭(zhēng)議，您的見解幾乎和寫了詩(shī)文介紹的那人一樣。但是請(qǐng)?jiān)试S我在此提個(gè)要求：盡可能地少讀文學(xué)評(píng)論--這種東西不是一些混亂的沒(méi)有意義的偏見，就是一些聰明的文字游戲，今天捧場(chǎng)，明天棒殺。藝術(shù)作品是一種無(wú)止境的孤獨(dú)，對(duì)它來(lái)說(shuō)，任何評(píng)論都無(wú)足輕重。只有愛才能觸及和把握他們，才對(duì)它們公平。信任您自己和您自己的感覺吧，如同您反對(duì)爭(zhēng)論、探討或這類的介紹一樣;如果您的感覺錯(cuò)了，那么您內(nèi)在的自然成長(zhǎng)會(huì)繼續(xù)指引您找到真知卓見。允許您的判斷沉默地、不受打擾地成長(zhǎng)吧。這個(gè)過(guò)程，就象所有的過(guò)程一樣，必須發(fā)自內(nèi)心，是不能強(qiáng)迫和匆忙的。每一樣?xùn)|西都必須在妊娠之后才能誕生。讓每一個(gè)感想每一種感覺的胚胎自然生長(zhǎng)，在黑暗之中，在無(wú)法言喻、無(wú)意識(shí)的、難以理解的地方，帶著淳樸的人性和耐心等候那一時(shí)刻的來(lái)臨。一個(gè)新的明確的概念將產(chǎn)生。而這種孤獨(dú)就是一個(gè)藝術(shù)家的生活，總在理解和創(chuàng)造中。
對(duì)此，沒(méi)有時(shí)間可以用來(lái)衡量。一年不算什么，十年也不算什么。做一名藝術(shù)家就意味著不要計(jì)數(shù)和計(jì)算，只象一棵樹一樣等待成熟。樹不會(huì)強(qiáng)迫自己流出汁液，它自信地站在春天的暴風(fēng)雨里，不擔(dān)心隨后的夏天是否會(huì)來(lái)臨，而夏天終究會(huì)來(lái)臨的。但它只向那些耐心的人走來(lái)，向那些似乎永恒地在前邊等待的人，它既冷冷地又熾烈地。在我的生活中，我每一天都能感受到它，帶著痛感受著它，我為此感到喜悅：耐心就是一切!
里查德.德梅爾：我讀過(guò)他的書(也是偶然的。對(duì)這個(gè)人，我所知甚少)，每次讀到他書里的優(yōu)美篇章時(shí)，我忍不住就擔(dān)心下一頁(yè)文字會(huì)破壞已有的氣氛，或讓那些令人仰慕的東西變得一錢不值。您對(duì)他的個(gè)性總結(jié)得非常好："在激情里活著和寫作。"--事實(shí)上這個(gè)藝術(shù)家的經(jīng)驗(yàn)幾乎是基于性、性的痛苦和歡樂(lè)這兩種經(jīng)驗(yàn)之上，這兩種經(jīng)驗(yàn)形式不同，實(shí)際上是一種東西，都有著熱望和極樂(lè)。
如果人們可以用"性"來(lái)替換"熱情"--性是偉大純潔的感知，同教堂相連的時(shí)候沒(méi)有一點(diǎn)罪惡--他的藝術(shù)將是極其偉大和無(wú)比重要的。他的詩(shī)的力量是偉大的，象本能一樣強(qiáng)烈;它有自己不屈不撓的韻律，爆發(fā)時(shí)如同火山。
但這種力量并不是總能得以痛快淋漓地渲泄。(當(dāng)然那也是對(duì)創(chuàng)作者的最艱難的考驗(yàn)：他必須總是保持無(wú)意識(shí)，不能參透自己最優(yōu)秀的品質(zhì)，如果他不想掠奪它們的坦白和純真的話!)然后，當(dāng)雷電穿過(guò)他的身體，產(chǎn)生性欲，它發(fā)現(xiàn)有些人并不如希望的那樣純潔。它沒(méi)有找到一個(gè)完整的、成熟而純潔的性的世界，反而發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)不夠人性的，僅是男性的世界，是熱情、驚雷和焦慮，負(fù)擔(dān)著古老的偏見和傲慢，這時(shí)愛變得丑惡，變成負(fù)擔(dān)。因?yàn)轸魇哪行运鶒鄣闹皇且粋€(gè)"男性"，而不是一個(gè)人，在他的性感覺里有一些狹隘的東西，有一些野蠻的、不軌的、受制于時(shí)間的和非永恒的東西，那些東西貶抑了他的藝術(shù)，使其顯得曖昧可疑。它不是潔凈的，它印著時(shí)間和激情的標(biāo)記，不會(huì)永恒(但大多數(shù)藝術(shù)是這樣!)。即便如此，一個(gè)人能夠深深地愉悅其中，只是不要迷失了并在德梅爾的世界里徘徊，那個(gè)世界是深淵，充滿奸情和困惑，同真正的命運(yùn)相差十萬(wàn)八千里，真正的命運(yùn)要比這受時(shí)間約束的激情遭受得多得多，而且在人們追求永恒時(shí)給以更多的感恩機(jī)會(huì)和勇氣。
最后是我自己的書，我希望能夠送您一些，或許這將給您帶來(lái)快樂(lè)。但是我真的很窮，而且我的書，一旦出版，就不再屬于我了。甚至我自己也買不起--，盡管我經(jīng)常想要把這些作品送給喜歡它們的人。
所以我在另一張紙上給您寫下我的大多數(shù)最近出版的書名(最新的--共有12或13本吧和出版商的名稱)，親愛的先生，當(dāng)您能夠買得起的時(shí)候就去買一或兩本看看吧。
我很高興自己的書將在您的手中。
最真摯的希望，
您的，
瑞那.瑪里亞.李爾克
意大利，比薩
1903年4月23日