But there was no luxury, no sumptuousness, no seductiveness of comfort, about his surroundings. That might be left to those who misinterpreted him. To the serious student, pleasure and joy must always have a certain bracing austerity; might be sipped, perhaps, held up to the light, dwelt upon, but not plunged into nor rioted upon. Out of the little panelled sitting-room opened a door, which led into a narrow passage full of cupboards, and admitted the occupant, by a low, ancient, stone-framed Gothic doorway, into a tiny slip of a bedroom, only a few feet wide. At one end a little window looked out into the court; at the other end was an odd projection, like a couple of steps, above the floor, forming the roof of the small cramped staircase below. Considerations of space were so exacting that the head of the bed had to rest, without legs, on the projection. The rest of the room only just admitted a chest of drawers and a simple toilet apparatus. In this miniature room Pater slept through the whole of his Oxford days. He went to bed early, but in later days was an indifferent sleeper, and to beguile the time before he could close his eyes, worked slowly through the _Dictionary of National Biography_, volume by volume. He had frequent opportunities of changing these rooms for a better set; but partly from economy, and partly from the extreme simplicity which characterised him, he preferred to stay. It is indeed almost inconceivable that a man engaged on literary work requiring such delicate concentration, should have lived so contentedly in rooms of such narrow resources. The little sitting-room gave straight upon the free air of the open passage. On a small square table his meals would be spread. His outer door was always open; he was always accessible, never seemed to be interrupted by any visitor, was never impatient, always courteous and deferential; rising from a little round table near the fire, in the middle of the most complicated sentence, the most elaborate piece of word-construction.