Rilke's turn to the visual is evidence of a low confidence in language and is related to the language crisis of modernity, as exemplified by Hofmannsthal's Chandos letter, in which he addresses the reasons for a profound skepticism about language. Language, according to Rilke, offers "too-rough pliers" to tap into the soul; the word can not be "the outward sign" for "our actual life". As much as he admired Hofmannsthal, Rilke also distinguished between a poetic and metaphorical language of things and a language conceived abstractedly and rationally.