through dark and lonely windings; he emerged into the free air and the sun, though he bore upon him the marks of the conflict; and his place is with the sons of art who have used faithfully and joyfully the gift committed to their keeping. That the inner and deeper current of Pater’s thought was profoundly serious is only too plain from his books; such humour as is here not infrequently introduced is of a delicate kind, often almost mournfully disguised; the same kind of humour that one may sometimes discern in the glance of a sympathetic friend when some mirth-provoking incident occurs at a solemn ceremony at which it is essential to preserve a dignity of deportment. At such moments a look of silent and rapturous appreciation may pass between two kindred spirits; such, in its fineness and secrecy, is the humour of Pater’s writings, and presupposes a sympathetic understanding between writer and reader. Dr. Bussell, writing of the apparent contrast between the solemnity of his writings and his demeanour to his closest friends, writes:— “To a certain extent, but to a certain extent only, these (writings) may be taken as an index to his character, as unveiling the true man. But to those who knew him as he lived among us here, they seemed a sort of disguise. There was the same tenderness, the same tranquillising repose, about his conversation that we find in his writings; the same carefulness in trifles, and exactness of expression. But his written works betray little trace of that childlike simplicity, that naïve joyousness, that never-wearying pleasure in animals and their ways,—that grave yet half-amused seriousness, also childlike, in which he met the events of the daily routine.”