Some Thoughts on Letter Writing

"Writing a letter today, I was struck by the fact that I had been here only three weeks. Three weeks elsewhere, in the country for example, would be like a day; here they seem like years. And I mean to write no more letters. What’s the use of telling anyone that I am changing? If I am changing then surely I am no longer the person I was, and if I am something else than heretofore, then it is clear that I have no acquaintances. And to strange people, to people who do not know me, I cannot possibly write." Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. M. D. Herter Norton, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1949. Page 15.

"I see him there on a night like this but cool, the moon blowing through black streets. He sups and walks back to his room. The radio is on the floor. Its luminous green dial blares softly. He sits down at the table; people in exile write so many letters. Now Ovid is weeping. Each night about this time he puts on sadness like a garment and goes on writing. In his spare time he is teaching himself the local language (Getic) in order to compose in it an epic poem no one will ever read." Anne Carson, On Ovid, from "Short Talks" in Plainwater, NY: Vintage 1995. Page 32.
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