216 Mr. Arthur C. Benson [Jan. 26, 



autobiographical in many parts ; but in its fineness, its sweetness, its 

 golden tenderness of retrospect, it seems to me one of the most 

 perfect pieces of pure art. 



In this year the idea of a great masterpiece began to shape itself 

 in Pater's mind, and he fell for some years into an apparent silence. 

 In 1885 appeared the book by which he is best known, Marius the 

 Epicurean^ produced when his imagination, his skill, and his mental 

 vigour were at their highest. 



I will not attempt to discuss the book at length here ; it is a 

 picture of a solitary and meditative nature, of strong intellectual 

 force, and of a virginal purity of soul. Marius is a young Koman 

 living in the time of the great philosophical Emperor Marcus 

 Aurelius. The time was carefully chosen, and the background is 

 studied with incredible minuteness ; but there is no parade of 

 erudition ; one merely feels that the little touches of detail are 

 selected with a singular fineness from a great treasure of accurate 

 knowledge. I have said that the time was carefully chosen. It was 

 an era of tolerance, when the courteous Stoicism of the Emperor per- 

 vaded the court, and made lofty thought fashionable, and when also 

 Christians enjoyed an entire liberty of action and opinion. 



Marius is gently led from the old ritual reUgion of Paganism, 

 through the courts of philosophy, to the very doors of Christian 

 teaching. He dies, indeed, technically a Christian, but it seems as 

 though the art of the creator had halted before the difficulty of 

 drawing a picture of the inner. Christian life, which should reconcile 

 within itself the appeal of art and the speculations of philosophy. 

 Marius's conversion to Christianity, if it can be so called, is effected 

 mainly by aesthetic processes. The celebration of the Christian 

 Eucharist, and the manifestation of Christian joy smiling through 

 the agonies of natural sorrow, in the presence of death, are what 

 affect him most deeply. But the whole book is a masterpiece of 

 Uterary skill ; it is full from end to end of the most delicate 

 vignettes, and is used by many readers as a kind of beautiful scrap- 

 book. That is a great mistake, because the structure of the book is 

 very firm and clear, and the development of the thought of Marius 

 is very careful. 



Of course, again the supreme interest of the book is that it is 

 autobiographical. Marius is none other than Pater himself, because 

 it must be remembered that Pater was a man who could not enter 

 into intimate relations with others ; he could be kind, endlessly 

 patient, sympathetic ; but he was essentially solitary ; and thus all 

 his writings are like mirrors, on which, in the midst of all the 

 carving, the intricate framework, the lavished ornament, for ever 

 falls the grave face of the craftsman himself. 



I have no doubt that Pater often regretted the size, so to speak, 

 of the canvas on which the picture of Marius was drawn. He felt 

 more at home in smaller, more limited scenes ; he said as much to a 



