Walter Pater. By Ferris Greenslet. (W. Heinemann. ls. 6d. net.)
—Mr. Greenslet, possibly helped by the "spatial distance" which, he thinks, "may afford something of the perspective usually given only by remoteness in time," has supplied us here with a very good little book about Walter Pater. His appreciation of this remarkable man, of his mental attitudes, and of the change which time and experience brought about—for change of a notable kind there was—is a valuable piece of work. It gives us a clear, consistent picture of the man, helping us to realise him to a degree which is often not attained by lengthy biographies. It has, we think, faults. A suspicion assails us that Mr. Greenslet wants the sense of humour. Is his gravity real or simulated when he quotes Mr. Gosse's remark that Pater wore a tie of brilliant apple-green to
show that "henceforth he was no longer a provincial philosopher, but a critic linked to London and the fine arts " t Never else- where is he betrayed into a joke ; he is even apparently serious when he writes that not Michelangelo nor Walt Whitman realised more fully in the imaginative world the value of the undraped male figure ! Something, too, might well have been said about the history of Pater's style. At one time he was dominated by it; he seemed to write with a view, not to what he was saying, but to how he said it. But he recovered himself, a victory which few writers achieve.
Previous page
