The years began to pass slowly and quietly. Pater performed his tale of prescribed work, and gave himself over to leisurely study and meditation. He was not averse to social pleasures in these days, and began to make congenial acquaintances, among whom he gained a reputation as a brilliant and paradoxical talker. He fed his sense of beauty by frequent visits to Italy, though he never gained more than a superficial acquaintance either with Italian art or modern Italian life. He was in this matter always an eclectic, following his own preferences and guided by his prejudices. He had little catholicity of view, and seldom studied the work of artists with whom he did not feel himself at once in sympathy. His travels were rather a diligent storing of beautiful impressions. He wrote to Mr. Edmund Gosse in 1877, of a visit to Azay-le-Rideau:— “We find always great pleasure in adding to our experiences of these French places, and return always a little tired, indeed, but with our minds pleasantly full of memories of stained glass, old tapestries and new flowers.” Pater certainly showed no undue haste to garner the harvest of the brain in these years. He was studying, enjoying, meditating. He wrote at the rate of a short essay or two a year. The essay of 1868 on “Aesthetic Poetry” was suppressed for twenty-one years. In 1869 he wrote the “Notes on Leonardo da Vinci,” one of the most elaborate and characteristic of his writings. In 1870 it was “A Fragment on Sandro Botticelli.” In 1871 it was “Pico della Mirandola,” and the “Poetry of Michelangelo.” All these appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_. And then in 1873 he produced his first book, _Studies in the History of the Renaissance_, in which he included, together with those studies which had previously been published, a Preface and a “Conclusion,” both of which are of deep significance in studying the course of Pater’s mental development, and three other essays: “Aucassin and Nicolette” (in later editions named “Two Early French Stories”), “Luca della Robbia,” and “Joachim du Bellay.” To these, in the third edition of the _Studies_ (1888), was added “The School of Giorgione,” which had appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for October, 1877; while in the second edition of the book, which came out in the same year (1877), the “Conclusion” was omitted, but re-appeared with slight modifications in the third edition. The essay on “Aesthetic Poetry” eventually appeared, as we have said, in 1889 in _Appreciations_, but it was again omitted in the second edition of that volume (1890), and does not appear in the complete issue of his works.