Chapter 7

sisters to a poor little paralytic cat, whose life they tried to save-- in vain! When, later, I came across in _Marius_ the account of Marcus Aurelius carrying away the dead child Annius Verus--"pressed closely to his bosom, as if yearning just then for one thing only, to be united, to be absolutely one with it, in its obscure distress"--I remembered the absorption of the writer of those lines, and of his sisters, in the suffering of that poor little creature, long years before. I feel tolerably certain that in writing the words Walter Pater had that past experience in mind.

After Walter Pater's death, Clara, with her elder sister, became the vigilant and joint guardians of their brother's books and fame, till, four years ago, a terrible illness cut short her life, and set free, in her brother's words, the "unclouded and receptive soul."