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It is, if I can fully attain to it, the ultimate realisation of the artistic life. For the artistic life is simple self-development. Humility in the artist is his frank acceptance of all experiences, just as Love in the artist is simply that sense of Beauty that reveals to the world its body and its soul. In Marius the Epicurean[93.1] Pater seeks to reconcile the artistic life with the life of religion in the deep, sweet and austere sense of the word. But Marius is little more than a spectator: an ideal spectator indeed, and one to whom it is given “to contemplate the spectacle of life with appropriate emotions,” which Wordsworth defines as the poet’s true aim:[93.2] yet a spectator merely, and perhaps a little too much occupied with the comeliness of the vessels of the Sanctuary to notice that it is the Sanctuary of Sorrow that he is gazing at.
倘若我能完全达致这一境界，那就是艺术生命的终极感悟。 因为艺术生命是简单的自我发展。艺术家的谦卑在于他对所有经验的坦诚接受，正如艺术家的爱无非是那份对美的感受，那份向世界揭示其灵与肉的美感。佩特在他的小说《伊壁鸠鲁信徒马利乌斯》中，想求得艺术生命与宗教生命在深层、美好、严肃意义上的一致。 但马利乌斯同一个旁观者相差无几，的确是一个再好不过的旁观者了，天生“以合适的情感观照生活之奇景”，华兹华斯把这点定义为诗人的真正目的。然而他这个旁观者只不过、或者太过于注重神殿的器皿是否好看得体，因而未能注意到他所注目的乃是悲怆之神殿。
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