In My Belief: Essays on Life and Art, German novelist Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) describes Rilke as evolving within the confines of exploring his existential problems, that "at each stage now and again the miracle occurs, his delicate, hesitant, anxiety-prone person withdraws, and through him resounds the music of the universe; like the basin of a fountain he becomes at once instrument and ear".[1][20]