Walter Pater's Seven Pages

Walter Pater wrote a fair bit, but it seems that the only thing most people remember is a seven page essay, his famous "Conclusion" to The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (Macmillan 1873): Hard Gem-Like Flame


It begins on page 207.

I would love to be able to (or have the discipline to) memorize this essay word for word and be ready to deliver it on cue.
I can't think of too many other texts that I have even a fleeting interest in memorizing. But these paragraphs!

More on Pater in class later today.