essayist, critic
of art
and literature
, and writer of fiction.
Born in Stepney
in London
's East End
, Walter Pater was the second son of Richard Glode Pater, a physician who had moved to London in the early 19th century to practise medicine among the poor. Dr Pater died while Walter was an infant and the family moved to Enfield
, London
. Walter attended Enfield Grammar School
and was individually tutored by the headmaster.
In 1853 he was sent to The King's School, Canterbury
, where the beauty of the cathedral made an impression that would remain with him all his life.
Every intellectual product must be judged from the point of view of the age and the people in which it was produced.
Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy. To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.
Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass.
A book, like a person, has its fortunes with one; is lucky or unlucky in the precise moment of its falling in our way, and often by some happy accident counts with us for something more than its independent value.
To know when one's self is interested, is the first condition of interesting other people.
We need some imaginative stimulus, some not impossible ideal such as may shape vague hope, and transform it into effective desire, to carry us year after year, without disgust, through the routine-work which is so large a part of life.