In London, as at Oxford, there was never the least personal luxury in Pater’s _ménage_, though there was quiet and solid comfort. His official income and the receipts from his books were practically all that he had to depend upon. He was fond of travelling, to the very end of his life, both in France and Italy. He generally went abroad for five or six weeks, and always with his sisters. He liked the movement, the gaiety, the greater _épanouissement_ of France. He threw himself with a deep appreciation into all that he saw, and entered, as may be seen from his writings, with a sympathetic intensity into the spirit of the buildings, the sculpture, the pictures, the landscapes that he saw. He used also to tire himself, on these occasions, with excess of walking, his only form of exercise. But still, his enjoyment of travel maybe best tested by the fact that his favourite tonic for the slight weariness, resulting perhaps from the emotional reaction, which he experienced for a day or two after his return from a tour, was to plan a scheme of travel for the following year. The years that followed were the most fruitful years of Pater’s life. The reception of _Marius_ had been both respectful and enthusiastic; it had lifted its author into a position in the very front rank of English prose-writers. And then, too, the strain of the continuous work was lifted off his shoulders, and he was able with renewed zest to take up some of the many subjects which in the course of those laborious years had appealed to him as congenial. He had faithfully and religiously eschewed the temptation to pursue them, subordinating all vagrant fancies to his central theme; he could now expatiate freely; moreover he had found, in the course of his work, if not fluency, at all events a pleasurable flow of appropriate if characteristic language. He began to contribute reviews to the _Guardian_, the _Athenaeum_, the _Pall Mall Gazette_. Some twenty of these reviews have been identified, and nine reviews which appeared in the _Guardian_ have been since reprinted, privately in 1896, and latterly published 1901. These reviews are not of very great intrinsic value; but evidently considerable time has been spent upon them; the book with which they deal has been carefully read, and a delicate appreciation composed. What strikes one most in reading them is, in the first place, a marked tenderness for the feelings of the author whom he is reviewing, and a great and princely generosity of praise. There seems to be no severity about Pater; and he enters into the intentions of the writer with a great catholicity of sympathy. There is also visible a certain irresponsible enjoyment about the tone of the reviews, as if with anonymity he had put on a certain gaiety to which in his public appearances he felt bound to be a stranger.