For in matters of art, at any rate,
thought is inevitably coloured by emotion, and so is fluid rather than
fixed, and, recognizing its dependence upon the moods and upon the
passion of fine moments, will not accept the rigidity of a scientific
formula or a theological dogma. The critical pleasure, too, that we
receive from tracing, through what may seem the intricacies of a
sentence, the working of the constructive intelligence, must not be
overlooked. As soon as we have realized the design, everything appears
clear and simple. After a time, these long sentences of Mr. Pater's come
to have the charm of an elaborate piece of music, and the unity of such
music also.

I have suggested that the essay on Wordsworth is probably the most recent
bit of work contained in this volume. If one might choose between so
much that is good, I should be inclined to say it is the finest also.
The essay on Lamb is curiously suggestive; suggestive, indeed, of a
somewhat more tragic, more sombre figure, than men have been wont to
think of in connection with the author of the _Essays of Elia_. It is an
interesting aspect under which to regard Lamb, but perhaps he himself
would have had some difficulty in recognizing the portrait given of him.
He had, undoubtedly, great sorrows, or motives for sorrow, but he could
console himself at a moment's notice for the real tragedies of life by
reading any one of the Elizabethan tragedies, provided it was in a folio
edition. The essay on Sir Thomas Browne is delightful, and has the
strange, personal, fanciful charm of the author of the _Religio Medici_,
Mr. Pater often catching the colour and accent and tone of whatever
artist, or work of art, he deals with. That on Coleridge, with its
insistence on the necessity of the cultivation of the relative, as
opposed to the absolute spirit in philosophy and in ethics, and its high
appreciation of the poet's true position in our literature, is in style
and substance a very blameless work. Grace of expression and delicate
subtlety of thought and phrase, characterize the essays on Shakespeare.
But the essay on Wordsworth has a spiritual beauty of its own. It
appeals, not to the ordinary Wordsworthian with his uncritical temper,
and his gross confusion of ethical and aesthetical problems, but rather
to those who desire to separate the gold from the dross, and to reach at
the true Wordsworth through the mass of tedious and prosaic work that
bears his name,