Letters to Frau Gudi Notice. By Rainer Maria Rilke. Edited
by Paul Obermilller. Translated by Violet M. Macdonald. (Hogarth Press, 12s. 6d.)
RILKE'S letters to Frau Mike were written between 1919 and 1924, during his sojourn in Switzerland. They are rightly characterised by Paul Obermilller as being of the 'upright' kind as distinct from the 'outpouring' ones. This is accounted I■tiks by their sensitive attunement to the nature and needs of their recipient. Rilke, endlessly searching for a place in which to work and virtually a refugee like his correspon- dent, seems to find in her naturalness a point of repose : 'Your letter exhaled so much domesticity, safe and busy . . . without asking 1 took the breath of it for myself.' Again, Rilke sees them as linked by common neces- sity: 'My own instinct (for work's sake) to remain whole throughout, describes your task very clearly.' Though many of these letters are slight in comparison with the great ones, they are among the least self-regarding Rilke ever wrote and otter a salutary contrast with the excesses, say, of the letters to `Merline.' Although they cover the great period of the Duino Elegies and of Sonnets to Orpheus (the first completed and the latter composed in February, 1922) a gap in the correspondence between January and October of that year leaves us without any addition to our know- ledge of this phase.
The most interesting details are the scattered remarks on individual psychology, a sentence on Valery, a paragraph on the acting of the Theatre Pitoeff, Rilke's mode of public lectur- ing, a sensitive note on the painting of Marie Laurencin, the poet's appreciation of the return of Titian's Assumption from the Accademia to the altar of Santa Maria dei Frari, Venice, Rilke's visit to that city and also a trip to Paris. Both the translation and the editorial notes are
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