In one
relation of life Pope's conduct was not only blameless, but thoroughly
loveable. He was, it is plain, the best of sons. Even here, it is true,
he is a little too consciously virtuous. Yet when he speaks of his
father and mother there are tears in his voice, and it is impossible not
to recognize genuine warmth of heart.
Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and soothe the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky![8]
Such verses are a spring in the desert, a gush of the true feeling,
which contrasts with the strained and factitious sentiment in his
earlier rhetoric, and almost forces us to love the writer. Could Pope
have preserved that higher mood, he would have held our affections as he
often delights our intellect.
Unluckily we can catch but few glimpses of Pope's family life; of the
old mother and father and the affectionate nurse, who lived with him
till 1721, and died during a dangerous illness of his mother's. The
father, of whom we hear little after his early criticism of the son's
bad "rhymes," died in 1717, and a brief note to Martha Blount gives
Pope's feeling as fully as many pages: "My poor father died last night.
Believe, since I don't forget you this moment, I never shall." The
mother survived till 1733, tenderly watched by Pope, who would never be
long absent from her, and whose references to her are uniformly tender
and beautiful.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126