Between the Pages of Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke VI

But when you notice that it is vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along, the most unworthy. . . But perhaps these are the very hours during which solitude grows; for its growing is painful as the growing of boys and sad as the beginning of spring. But that must not confuse you. What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours––that is what you must be able to attain. (Rainer Maria Rilke. Letters to a Young Poet . Trans. Stephen Mitchell. NY: Modern Library, 2001, p. 53-54). In the sixth chapter of Letters to a Young Poet , Rilke writes the above words to Kappus from Rome, on December