But still it must be borne in mind that all this was rather perceived, noted, and accumulated in the boyish mind than expressed or even consciously felt. The scenes, the surroundings, of boyhood just inscribe themselves upon the mind, which seldom pauses to reflect or to criticise; it is long after, in maturity, with the wistful and tender sense of the past, that the recollection, tranquilly recalled, is tinged with poetry and sweetness. There was little consciousness in Pater’s boyish days of how deep these things were settling into his mind, and still less foreshadowing of the magic power that would enable him to recall and express them in melodious words. The only definite artistic influence under which he is known to have fallen in his school-days is the influence of Ruskin, whom he read as a boy of nineteen. It is possible to trace this influence in Pater’s mature style; there is something of the same glowing use of words, something of the same charming _naïveté_ and transparency in the best passages of both; but whereas Ruskin is remarkable for prodigality, Pater is remarkable for restraint; Ruskin drew his vocabulary from a hundred sources, and sent it pouring down in a bright cascade, whereas Pater chose more and more to refine his use of words, to indicate rather than to describe. Ruskin’s, in fact, is a natural style and Pater’s is an artificial one; but he undoubtedly received a strong impulse from Ruskin in the direction of ornamental expression; and a still stronger impulse in the direction of turning a creative force into the criticism of beautiful things—a vein of subjective criticism, in fact. In June 1858 Pater entered Queen’s College, Oxford. He was a commoner, but held an exhibition awarded him from Canterbury. Queen’s College was founded in 1340 by Robert Eglesfield, a chaplain to Queen Philippa, who largely supplemented her priest’s endowment. The medieval buildings have entirely disappeared, and the college consists of a great Italian court, designed by Hawksmoor, Wren’s pupil, with a fine pillared screen dividing it from the High Street, and a smaller court behind. The Chapel is a stately classical building, designed by Wren himself, and considered by him one of his most successful works. It is rich with seventeenth-century glass by Van Linge, and dignified woodwork. The Library is a magnificent room, with much carving by Grinling Gibbons, certain panels of which are almost perfect examples of freedom of form with an underlying serenity of design. The lofty Hall might have come straight out of an Italian picture, and the mysterious gallery at the west end, opening by curtained porches on balconies of delicate ironwork, seems designed to be crowded by fantastic smiling persons in rich garments.