ABSTRACT
Gentleness is slow. “I myself am slow interiorly,” Rilke writes to a mysterious “une amie” on 3 February 1923:
I have that intrinsic slowness of the tree that composes its growth and its flowering, yes, I have a little of its admirable patience (I have had to educate myself to it since understanding the secret slowness that prepares, that distills every work of art).
(Norton II 321).