Before we speak of _Marius the Epicurean_, which began to absorb Pater’s energies from 1878 onwards, it will be as well to trace the slender thread of events. How uneventful his academical progress was may be augured from the fact that the year 1880 was in some ways almost the most momentous year of his life, because it was in the course of it that Pater determined to resign the tutorship of the college. This step meant a serious loss of income; but he was now embarked upon the task of constructing _Marius_, and could no longer disguise from himself the fact that writing was indubitably the most serious preoccupation of his life. He saw that it was becoming impossible for him to discharge the duties of the post adequately, and at the same time carry on his literary work effectively. The governing body of the college fully concurred in his decision; and though the incident at first caused Pater some pain, realising, as he did, that the feeling of the society did not endorse his own theory of the functions of the tutorial office, yet he soon grew to perceive that his resignation had been a blessing in disguise: it freed him from work which was not particularly congenial, work which needed qualities, such as a brisk directness of address, a good-humoured strictness, a businesslike determination, which Pater had never even professed to possess. He continued to lecture; but he was set free from the constant petty inroads on his time, to which a college tutor is always liable, and from perpetual small engagements and interruptions. It is a matter of regret that Pater did not realise this earlier. He would both have saved himself some chagrin, and he would have been able to give some of his best and most vigorous years to what was after all the real work of his life. There are, and always will be, abundance of effective college tutors who could not write _Marius the Epicurean_; and, on the other hand, it is not an agreeable or dignified thing for a great man of letters, and a man, too, of a peculiarly sensitive temperament, to discover that he has been holding a post which has not been regarded as by any means appropriate to his disposition, and that his discharge of its duties, though at the cost of much patient effort and constant strain to himself, has not wholly satisfied his colleagues. On the other hand, lecturing was always a congenial task to Pater. He spent much time and thought upon his lectures, and prepared them with such thoroughness and care, that he tended to over-elaborate them, thus impairing their value as orally delivered discourses, intended for immediate comprehension. Mr. Humphry Ward writes:—