other in that each of them wrought a certain optimism, or, at all
events, a courageous and even blithe working theory of life and conduct,
out of the unrelenting facts of existence unflinchingly faced, rather
than ecclesiastically smoothed over--the facts of death and pain and
struggle, and even the cruel mystery that surrounds with darkness and
terror our mortal lot. Each one of them deliberately faced the worst,
and with each, after his own nature, the worst returned to laughter. The
force of all these men was in their artistic or poetic embodiment of
philosophical conceptions, but, had they not been artists and poets,
their philosophical conceptions would have made but little way. And it
is time to recall, what critics preoccupied with his "message" leave
unduly in the background, that Pater was an artist of remarkable power
and fascination, a maker of beautiful things, which, whatever their
philosophical content, have for our spirits the refreshment and
edification which all beauty mysteriously brings us, merely because it
is beauty. _Marius the Epicurean_ is a great and wonderful book, not
merely on account of its teaching, but because it is simply one of the
most _beautiful_ books, perhaps the most beautiful book, written in
English. It is beautiful in many ways. It is beautiful, first of all, in
the uniquely personal quality of its prose, prose which is at once
austere and sensuous, simple at once and elaborate, scientifically exact
and yet mystically suggestive, cool and hushed as sanctuary marble,
sweet-smelling as sanctuary incense; prose that has at once the
qualities of painting and of music, rich in firmly visualized pictures,
yet moving to subtle, half-submerged rhythms, and expressive with every
delicate accent and cadence; prose highly wrought, and yet singularly
surprising one at times with, so to say, sudden innocencies, artless and
instinctive beneath all its sedulous art. It is no longer necessary, as
I hinted above, to fight the battle of this prose. Whether it appeal to
one not, no critic worth attention any longer disparages it as mere