beings under sentence of death...with a sort of indefinite reprieve...
Today's Redeeming Felicitous Turn Of A Phrase:
"On a far higher plane of literature [than Symonds] stands Walter Pater; but he, though he was influenced by Ruskin, is singularly different from the elder writer, and the difference sheds back a light upon the master's theories. Ruskin, bowed with sorrows though he was, remained unconquerably optimistic, and, so long as he was capable of work, he laboured with even excessive hopefulness at schemes of social regeneration. Pater retires from the dust of conflict into an artistic seclusion. The conclusion of his Studies in the History of the Renaissance is, in the highest degree, significant. Its teaching is that, to beings like men, beings under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve, the love of art for art's sake is the highest form of wisdom. "For art comes to you, proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake." The Oscar Wilde development had not the good will of Pater any more than that of Ruskin; but it logically follows from Pater's principle."