Rodin the man is unassuming, and his manners are almost naïve. In his _accueil_ he is courteous and charming, extending a gracious reception to the world he generously permits to freely seek him. Below medium height, strongly, powerfully built, his head lionesque, his eyes keen, deep-set, and very brilliant, we see him when at work in the white long blouse he wears in his _atelier_, Rue de l’Université. The vast room is filled with groups completed and others in different stages of advancement, chiefly innumerable casts for the “Porte de l’Enfer.” Around Rodin are his stone-cutters, achieving from blocks of marble the contours of the models in clay before their eyes. A fine, clinking sound, a “tin-tin,” fills the place to echo as the penetrating instruments tap the hard surface. Rodin’s hands are covered with wet and drying clay; the metallic sound is an accompaniment to his thoughts. “My _métier_ is to express my ideas in plastic form; and, curiously, it is of form I think the least.” (His enemies will find here a _point d’appui_ and fresh impetus to mirth!) “To me all expression should be subordinate to the [Illustration: BUSTE DE MONS. RODIN, PAR FALGUIÈRE] idea; and for the elusive, fleeting ideals I am on an eternal search. I may imagine that under my hands, as I mould a faun possibly, or a satyr, I have caught the ineffable conception fast at last; when, under my very touch, I see the being change. My inspiration becomes another, and lo! the clay is a faun no longer, but a Sappho--head thrown back, lips parted, plunging into a sea!”