And lastly, Baer reminds us of the deep influence that Auguste Rodin had on his oeuvre. Though at one point they had a falling out of sorts, leading to a separation of minds, Rilke tried to carry Rodin's vision and energy into his poetry and Rodin's aesthetic shows up in the Letters. Baer describes a situation where Rilke has become a mentor to Kappus, just as the sculptor was to the famous poet:
Some of the artistic principles found in Rilke's book on Rodin""among them to commit oneself to close, patient, and disciplined observation of oneself and of the world, to resist being distracted by others, and to become an artist only if one feels nothing else would do""find their way into Letters to a Young Poet where Rilke assumes the role of a mentor that Rodin played for him during that time.
Rilke found that he could not live without writing poetry. Eventually, Kappus found that he could live without writing poetry, but settled into writing novels and screenplays. Baer includes in the volume Rilke's Rodin-inspired poem "The Archaic Torso of Apollo." Here it is:
We will never know his unimaginable head
in which his eyes ripened like apples. But
like a candelabrum his torso still burns bright,
from which his gaze, merely withheld
persists and gleams. For otherwise
his massive chest could not blind you
nor could the gentle contour of his loins
curve like a smile toward the center that held procreation.
For otherwise this stone would stand disfigured, stunted
by the shoulders' abrupt descent,
and would not shimmer like a panther's splendid pelt
and would not erupt from all the broken edges
like a star bursting in the sky: for there is no spot
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