In politics he was what may be called an old-fashioned Liberal. His view of the scheme of Government, the movement of political forces and economical problems, was dim. He took no real interest in such matters, as lying outside of his circle. He rarely committed himself to any statements on political matters; but he had a dislike to Napoleon III., and once said with some animus, “I hope we shall soon arrive at a time when no one will be so vulgar as to want to go and live at the Tuileries.” His interest was all in detail and external values. “I am quite tired,” he said once, “of hearing people for ever talking of the causes which led to the French Revolution; I don’t want to know. I am all for details. I want to know how people lived, what they wore, what they looked like.” He had no personal ambition, no desire for recognition. He never paid visits, and took no trouble to make the acquaintance of literary men, even at a time when his reputation would have secured him warm welcome and distinguished respect. He stayed at Oxford because he thought that the life there gave him the best opportunity of doing the quiet, thorough work which he felt himself most capable of performing. He had a deep sense of responsibility, though he did not willingly assume it, and felt bound to exercise his special faculties to the uttermost, and to give liberally of his sympathy. It is clear that Pater changed very much as the years went on; after his silent and reserved boyhood and youth, he had a period of _épanouissement_, when the ideas that began to crowd thickly into his mind produced a certain want of balance, a paradoxical daring of speech, a certain recklessness of statement; this was no doubt enhanced by the discovery that he could hold his own in a brilliant society, that he had quick perceptions and conversational gifts; and at this period he tasted the pleasures of effective talk, the intellectual delight of the process which is best described by the old homely proverb of saying Bo! to geese. In these days he desired to be impressive rather than to be sympathetic; but as his character deepened and widened, through perception and insight, through friendship and misunderstanding alike, he reverted more to what was really the basis of his character, the desire for simple and affectionate companionship. He was condemned by temperament to a certain isolation; he was outside the world and not of it. A happy marriage might have brought him more into line with humanity; but his genius was for friendship rather than for love, and his circumstances and environment were favourable to celibacy; and thus he passed through life in a certain mystery, though the secret is told for those who can read it in his writings. Art demands certain sacrifices, and the price that an artist pays for the sorrowful great gift is apt to be a heavy one. Pater paid it to the full, and paid it ungrudgingly; he found, he followed his true life,