The Victorian Age, Part Two. Columbia Encyclopedia World Factbook American Heritage Coll. The Victorian Age, Part Two. Critical and Miscellaneous Prose . Ruskin, bowed with sorrows though he was, remained unconquerably optimistic, and, so long as he was capable of work, he laboured with even excessive hopefulness at schemes of social regeneration.
Pater retires from the dust of conflict into an artistic seclusion.
The conclusion of his Studies in the History of the Renaissance is, in the highest degree, significant. Its teaching is that, to beings like men, beings under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve, the love of art for art's sake is the highest form of wisdom. For art comes to you, proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake. 35 Pater was one of the most fastidious of literary artists. By his artistic theory he was driven to seek perfection of style.