s are not beyond all conjecture, as Sir Thomas Browne said. I
think he would have been exactly the same.

On the occasion of Pater's lecture on Prosper Merimee, his friends
gathered round the platform to congratulate him; he expressed a hope that
the audience was able to hear what he said. 'We overheard you,' said
Oscar Wilde. 'Ah, you have a phrase for everything,' replied the
lecturer, the only contemporary who ever influenced himself, Wilde
declared. How admirable both of the criticisms! Pater is an aside in
literature, and that is why he was sometimes overlooked, and may be so
again in ages to come. Though he is the greatest master of style the
century produced, he can never be regarded as part of the structure of
English prose. He is, rather, one of the ornaments, which often last,
long after a structure has perished. His place will be shifted, as
fashions change. Like some exquisite piece of eighteenth-century
furniture perchance he may be forgotten in the attics of literature
awhile, only to be rediscovered. And as Fuseli said of Blake, 'he is
damned good to steal from.' If he uses words as though they were
pigments, and sentences like vestments at the Mass, it is not merely the
ritualistic cadence of his harmonies which makes his works imperishable,
but the ideas which they symbolise and evoke. Pater thinks beautifully
always, about things which some people do not think altogether beautiful,
perhaps; and sometimes he thinks aloud. We overhear him, and feel almost
the shame of the eavesdropper.

Mr. Benson has approached Walter Pater, the man, with almost sacerdotal
deference. He suggests ingeniously where you can find the
self-revelation in _Gaston_ and _The Child in the House_. This is far
more illuminating than the recollections of personal friends whose
reminiscences are modelled on those of Captain Sumph. Mr. Humphry Ward
remembers Pater only once being angry--it was in the Common Room--it was
with X, an elderly man! The subject of the difference was 'modern
lectures.' 'Relations between them were afterwards strained.' Mr.
Arthur Symons remembers that he intended to bring out a new volume of
_Imaginary Portraits_. Fancy that! Really, when friends begin to tell
stories of that kind, I begin to suspect they are trying to conceal
something. Perhaps we have no right to know everything or anything about
the amazing personalities of literature; but Henleys and Purcells lurk
and leak out even