But Pater was a very great man.

Dear Pater! I remember once talking to him when we were seated together on a bench under some trees in Oxford.

I had been watching the students bathing in the river: the beautiful white figures all grace and ease and virile strength.

I had been pointing out how Christianity had flowered into romance, and how the crude Hebraic materialism and all the later formalities of an established creed had fallen away from the tree of life and left us the exquisite ideals of the new paganism....
"The pale Christ had been outlived: his renunciations and his sympathies were mere weaknesses: we were moving to a synthesis of art where the enchanting perfume of romance should be wedded to the severe beauty of classic form.

I really talked as if inspired, and when I paused, Pater--the stiff, quiet, silent Pater--suddenly slipped from his seat and knelt down by me and kissed my hand.