The sun., 1908-08-23


A. p. Stanley. Heine, voltaire. Goethe; he
had aped not only In argument but also In
tone Of voice the men who had for the mo-
ment fascinated him. OF all creaturee he
had been the most artificial. the most af-
fected. He now grasped the fact that to
produce our best We must be ourselves.
An author who h indistin guishable from
other people can mover succeed either In
stamping his own innaginations on the minds
OF his contemporaries or In fulfilling his
mission. Tho ono way TO be entirely differ
snt from al other people h to be yourself
or, touse Patsr's words: "5implicity In pur-
poes and act 10 kind of determinate ex-
presslon In dextrous outline Of ones person
atty Henoeforth Walter Pater was to be
Walter Pater, and as Q result he stands
quite apart from his contemporaries. A
Mr.. Wright puts II. che II Isolated. and. to
use favorite word Of his own, 'oolumna' =;
the placid. white. marmoreans monastio.
subtle. equable. nebulous soul stands seh-
revealed. He h the nearest he could get
to tho crystal man.
In o chapter near the close Of his first
volume Mr.. Wright approaches the period
when Pater began to write his work on the
Renaissance, the kernel Of which n the
presentation Of the theory that art should
be pursued for its own sake. II In absurd
Of oourss TO suppose that the phrase art
for arts sake was originated by Pater;
years and years before his time artists
and writer's had formed themselves into
two oamps-the classic. who held that
every work Of art should have q moral. and
the romantic. whose blaxon was ~L'art
~ - A. Itv, k<.r IL,
one ofits chief defenders. the formula ssig-
miles for the artist method Of working
disengagod from all preoocupations save
from that which In itself In beautiful. In
the Hight Of this doctrine. whom rightly un-
derstood. all subjects are Indifferent and
acquire value only In proportion to the
sentiment. style and power Of ideal present
ment brought to bear on them by the In
dividual artist Among those Englishmen
who assinilsted this theory was Swinburne.
and Pater. although his acquaintance with
the poet was very slight. soon became a
member Of brilliant circle OF poets and
artists-ohiefy young mentor whom art
for arts sake was the watohword. A dis
tinguished member Of this circle. Mr.. John
Payne. speaking Of the favorite contention
Of the classic school that an art work
should be Judged by its usefulness. or. to
use moro comprehensive word. its truth,
says: Those who seek for truth in art as
tho end follow a delusive aim that can
but result in the embedding OF their own
powers and landing them in the sandy
deserts OF didacticism." He adds: .They
forget that beauty is necessarily truth:
indeed 1t Is. in the words Of the divine
pupil Of Socrates. the splendor Of truth
that Il to say, something higher and moro
noble than truth itself. Truth. on the con-
trary, Ia not necessarily beautiful. and as
art without beauty cannot exist truth per
ss can never be its object
Pater In generally held to have been OF
q sluggish. cold nature. and his present
biographer admits that there was a passtv-
ity. an unbroken calm about bis latter days.
In the early period Of his adult life. how
ever. when be wrote the essay on Winckel-
mann. he was when provoked by art and
literature all fire, and II was certainly, to
use bis own words, the enthusiasm burn
ing. like lava and the 'feverish nursing OF
the one motive Of his life that attracted
him DO much IN Winokelmann's character
Pster himself burned ardently to do notable
work In the world and to win plsudits Of
the finest minds. He was struggling on
ward. upward. often disheartened. in the
discouraging. depressing Oxford Of the
later 'a0s and early '7os-in which to exhibit
Q spark Of enthuSasm for any mortal thing
was to stamp yourself a. freak Of nature
and to attract g'ances Of astonishment not
unmingled with pity. ......
III. t.
Mr.. Wright does not hesitate to say that
to Oxford Pater considered as q man OF
genius, owed absolutely nothing. All his
inspiration oame from elsewhere. As q
tutor Pater was scarcely success. being,
as We have previously said no scholar in
the sense given TO the word at Oxford. His
weakness In Latin and Greek. for example.
was perfectly known not only among the
dons OF Brasenose and other colleges but
also to his own pupils. The Rev. Anthony
Bathe writee to the author Of this biography:
'In my first term 1t was the business Of
Pater a. tutor to give US freshmen lectures
In the 'Georgics'; and he was much at sea in
them. On one occasion he insisted in
translating fraoli stringeret hordea eui,no
t'Georgios' l.. SID. fills the barns with
grain instead Of binds the sheaves with
the brittle straw He persisted in his
TRANSLATION and OF course We gave way. but
suppose Re saw that something was wrong.
for after this We had to write out the con-
strue and our exercises were not returned
to u.s. 1t seems that at this time one OF
the duties OF the tutors Of Brasenose was
TO give divinity lectures to their pupils.
Very often Pater shirked them, but his
pupils. having discovered that he disliked
the task and would gladly have had no
GLASS in divinity, took particular pains to
be present and punctual Finally he seized
the bull by the horns and boldly discontinued
the lectures. Another Brasenose man re-
calls that he attended Pater's lectures on
Aristotle and says that -his manner in
lecturing was to bend his head over the
table at which he sat and to cover his eyes
with his hands. not often looking up to ask
a question
The essay on Winckelmann was followed
by articles on Leonardo. Botticelli, Pioo
and Michael Angelo. and in 1878 Pater re-
vised them thoroughly and republished
them with some other studies in book form
under the title .The Renaissance Almost
all ~ tho vvrftar's adrnirara r,oncrIr With