occasional lapses from a perfectly
sound method; there is at times a
loss of simplicity, a cloying sweet-
ness in the style of this accomplished
writer. These are, however, the perils
of a very sensitive temperament, an
intense feeling for beauty, and a cer-
tain seclusion from the affairs of life.
That which characterises Mr. Pater
at all times is his power of putting
himself amid conditions that are not
only extinct, but obscure and elusive;
of winding himself back, as it were,
into the primitive Greek conscious-
ness and recovering for the moment
the world as the Greeks saw, or,
rather, felt it. It is an easy matter to
mass the facts about any given period;
it is a very different and a very diffi-
cult matter to set those facts in vital
relations to each other, to see them
in true prospective. And the difficul-

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p100 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p101w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p102

v?