Joel Hill wrote:

>I ran across a quote in the liner notes for Victory at Sea attributed
>to Walter Pater (should I know of him?) the quote is:
>
>"all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music."
>
>Nice thought, but I don't know if I agree with this any more than I think
>that Architecture is "frozen music".
>
>Are any of you Listers familiar with Mr. Pater or his quote?  Comments?

I'm not familiar w/ that quotation, or, for that matter w/ Walter Pater,
other than that I recognized his name, and upon looking him up in Chambers'
Biographical Dictionary, discovered that he lived from 1829 to 1894, was
an English critic and essayist, and published a few books.  I'd known
him for the expression "to burn with a gem like flame".  The poet Ogden
Nash maintained that anyone who claimed that the book *The Power of
Positive Thinking* "burned with a gem like flame" was simply pawing
Pater to pay Peale.

Like you, I'm not particularly convinced by Pater's statement.  I prefer:

   "The science of Pure Mathematics, in its modern developments,
   may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.
   Another claimant for this position is music."

     Alfred N. Whitehead, *Science and the Modern World*

Walter Meyer