Prague, the city in which rilke was born in 1875, with its sinister palaces and crumbling towers that rose in the early Middle Ages and have reached out into our time like the threatening fingers of mighty hands which have wielded swords for generations and which are stained with the blood of many wounds of many races; the city where amid grey old ruins blonde maidens are at play or are lost in reverie in the green cool parks and shady gardens with which the Bohemian capital abounds, this Prague of mingled grotesqueness and beauty gave to the young boy his first impressions.
"Poems"
Rainer Maria Rilke
Mention should be made of some prose writings which rilke published in the year 1898 and shortly afterward.
"Poems"
Rainer Maria Rilke
Of Russia and its influence upon him, rilke writes: "Russia became for me the reality and the deep daily realization that reality is something that comes infinitely slowly to those who have patience.
"Poems"
Rainer Maria Rilke