Apocryphal stories are related of him, such as his excuse for the rowdiness of undergraduates after Hall, that they reminded him of playful young tigers that had just been fed; or his supposed remark about bonfires in Brasenose quad, that he did not object to them because they lighted up the spire of St. Mary’s so beautifully. These were, of course, intended to represent the imperturbable search for beautiful impressions in the most incongruous circumstances; but they represent, too, a half-truth, namely, a real and vital charity of nature, inclined to condone, and even to sympathise with, the manifestations of natural feeling, however personally inconvenient. Perhaps the playful irony, the light-handed humour, which was to Pater a deliberate shield against the roughness of the world, tended to obscure his deep seriousness of nature, his devotedly religious spirit. He sympathised, it is true, with all humanity with a largeness which is surprising in a man of such sensitive and secluded constitution. He had a determination, remarkable in a man of delicate organisation, to see the world as it really was, to admire what was vigorous and natural and vital in it. He had no wish to create for himself an unreal paradise, to suppose the world to be other than it appeared, or to drown the insistent cries that reached him in a web of blurred impression or uncertain sound. He admired what was joyful and brave and strong. Had he been of a more alert physical constitution he would have thrown himself, we may safely assert, into the pursuit of athletics ardently and eagerly. As he could not, he contented himself with admiring the youthful exuberance of activity, and, true to his nature, with disentangling as far as he could the fibre of beauty which ran for him through the universe. But in all this he was akin and not alien to the insouciant and pleasure-loving spirit of youth. He was by nature an extremely reticent man; he never seemed to think that his ideas were likely to command attention or his personality to cause interest. He wrote very few letters and never kept a diary. His whole attitude to the world and its concerns was the attitude of a spectator, and even his closest and nearest relationships with others could not win him from his isolation; he could be kind, courteous, considerate, and sincere; but he could not be intimate; he always guarded his innermost heart. He was very loath to express his own personal view of a matter, especially if it involved taking any credit to himself. But a friend remembers that he was once talking of the artistic perceptions of Ruskin, and said suddenly with a show of impatience, “I cannot believe that Ruskin saw more in the church of St. Mark than I do.”