of criticism very different from his own, and for this service we owe
him much. The environment of Oxford subjected his spirit to two widely
different sets of influences. On the one hand, he was in contact with
such men as Jowett, Nettleship, and Thomas Hill Green: on the other
hand, with Swinburne, Burne-Jones, and the pre-Raphaelites. Thus the
awakened spirit felt the dominion both of a high spiritual rationalism,
and of the beauty of flesh and the charm of the earth. A visit to Italy
in company with Shadwell, and his study of the Renaissance there, made
him an enthusiastic humanist. The immediate product of this second
awakening was the _Renaissance_ Essays, a very remarkable volume of his
early work. Twelve years later, _Marius the Epicurean_, his second book,
appeared in 1885. In Dr. Gosse, Pater has found an interpreter of rare
sympathy and insight, whose appreciations of his contemporaries are, in
their own right, fine contributions to modern literature.

The characteristics of his style were also those both of his thought and
of his character. Dr. Gosse has summed up the reserve and shy reticence
and the fastidious taste which always characterise his work, in saying
that he was "one of the most exquisite, most self-respecting, the most
individual prose writers of the age." Even in the matter of style he
consciously respected his own individuality, refusing to read either
Stevenson or Kipling for fear that their masterful strength might lead
him out of his path. Certainly his bitterest enemies could not accuse
him of borrowing from either of them. Mr. Kipling is apt to sacrifice
everything to force, while Pater is perhaps the gentlest writer of our
time. In Stevenson there is a delicate and yet vigorous human passion,
but also a sense of fitness, a consciousness of style that is all his
own. He is preaching, and not swearing at you, as you often feel Mr.
Kipling to be doing. To preach at one may be indeed to take a great
liberty, but of course much will depend upon whether the preaching is