He described Rodin to Lou Andreas-Salomé as a lonely old man, "sunk in himself, standing full of sap like an old tree in autumn." Rodin had given his heart "a depth, and its beat comes from afar as though from a mountain center." For Rilke, Rodin's real discovery was the liberation of surfaces, as well as the seemingly unintentional fashioning of the sculpture from the thus liberated forms. He described how Rodin did not follow a principal concept, but masterfully designed the smallest elements, in accordance with their own development.