The San Francisco call., 1896-11-15
A Word-Artist Whose Works All Book-hovers
appreciate More as Jime
Goes On
THE "PATER cRAzE WILL REICH US BEFORE LONG
Genius Slow to Maweognay Intended for the Church. ater
Drfted AWAY From Christian to Pagan Ideals and
Became ardent Patonist

inary portrait into which he put so nucn OF
his own childhood he says became more and
m ore to be unable TO care for or tnlnk OF soul
but as in an actual body. or OF any world but
that wherein there are water and trees and
where men and women look so and so and
press actual hands, In this he was very like
Rossetti. In fact much of what Pater says OF
Rossetti in his essay on the poet and painter
might be applied with equal truth to Pater
himself.
His other volumes are: Renaissance
Studies.n "Appreciations, With an Essay on
STYLE" Imaginary Portraits" "Plato and
Platonism" and "Greek Studies" In the
first volume is that marvellous description of
Leonardo's Lisa" the beauty OF which keen
art cri tic confesses impressed him more pow
erfully than the beauty OF the picture ITSELF
The description, every word of which is like
bit OF mosaic fitted into its exact place, is too
long for quotation in full, and yet 1t loses by
the omission of single part.
II begins: "We all know the face and hands
OF that figure. Set in its marble chair in that
cirque of fantastic rocks, as in some faint
light under sea-" And then the word artist
goes on to speak of the 'unfathomable smile,
always with a touch of something sinister in
it, which chara cteriZes all Leonard's work"
And again, "The presence that there so
strangely rose beside the waters is expressive
of what, in the ways of a thousand years. man
wrought out from within upon the flesh the
deposit, little cell by cell, OF strange thoughts
and fantastic reverie ana exquisite passions
set it for ore moment beside one of those
white Greek goddesses and how would they be
troubled by this beauty, into which the soul
with all its nialadies has passed. All the
thoughts and experiences of the world have
etched and nodded there, in that which they
have of power 10 refine and make ex-
@l,1
Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the
middle age with its spiritual ambitions and
imaginative loves, the return of the pagan
world, the sins of the Borgias."
This is but part and the whole must be
read and more than once, to gain its full
beauty and significance. Then and not till
then the splendor and cadence of the words
set the blood dancing in the veins as certain
poems are won't to do. Who. then, can forget
that beauty ain to which the soul with all its
maladies has passed.? Who can forget that
"reverie of the middle age, with lis spiritual
ambitions and imaginative loves? Was ever
q time SO completely characterized by single
phrase?
"Appreciations" contains nine essays, most
of them on English writer's. -Four Imaginary
Portraits are usually published in one vol
ume, though in The latest edition 1.-THE Child
in the House." which was published after
Prince of Court Pain ters," "Denys L'Auxer-
rois," Sebastian Won Storck'' and 'Duke Carl
OF Rosenmould." The first is u picture OF
Anthony Vatican. Whether real as TO facts or
fanciful, it is true in the sense George Eliot
meant when she said that fiction is truer than
history. If any can read it ana not feel that
they have been made to understand the spirit
of that dainty and exquisite brush, the fault
lies in themselves but not in Pater.
The man and his time are Illuminated. One
can never see q Watteau fan or shepherdess
again without a peculiar feeling of intimacy
and tenderness for the painter We under
standthis motives. We see what he really
meant when he painted his artificial little
men and women. We see that the airy grace
and charm did not just happen, but came
from deeper sense back of the convention.
And the beautiful, unselfsh, high bred girl OF
nearly two centuries ago, who loved him snd
wrote of him in her journal-did she really
live and did her life pass quietly sad. and gray
and unfulfilled? She lives to US who read of
her at least. We know that he too loved her.
but turned away to other modes of thought and
feeling, as men can, while she was left behind,
between the old dead walls of familiar habit
with no outlook but the sky above.
Sebastian Won storck" is one of the subtlest
psychological studies in all the world OF
printed words. 1t is q picture as fine as
cameo.
The portrayal of the young mans character
and the effect upon it of purely abstract specu-
lations shows Pater's conception OF what must
result from the loss of the tangible. Richard
LIE Gallienne says that Sebastian was hypno-
tiZed by the universe"
Those who are interested in the beginnings
OF German culture will read Duke Carl" with
special pleasure.
The chief value of these "portraits" is the
quality they possess of imparting the very es-
sence of the flavor of the time and place in
which they are set For those who seek the
broader culture, which carries from compre-
hending many modes OF thought and from
living the life of many times and peoples
Pater has done a lasting service. And for those
whose ears are attuned to perceive the music
in words, which is as much gift or faculty
as the ability to perceive the music in tones,
Walter Pater will ever have rare and mex
pressible charm. GRACE S. MUssER.