And, indeed, with all his delinquencies, and with all
his affectations, there are moments in which we forget to preserve the
correct tone of moral indignation. Every now and then genuine feeling
seems to come to the surface. For a time the superincumbent masses of
hypocrisy vanish. In speaking of his mother or his pursuits he forgets
to wear his mask. He feels a genuine enthusiasm about his friends; he
believes with almost pathetic earnestness in the amazing talents of
Bolingbroke, and the patriotic devotion of the younger men who are
rising up to overthrow the corruptions of Walpole; he takes the
affectation of his friends as seriously as a simple-minded man who has
never fairly realized the possibility of deliberate hypocrisy; and he
utters sentiments about human life and its objects which, if a little
tainted with commonplace, have yet a certain ring of sincerity and, as
we may believe, were really sincere for the time. At such moments we
seem to see the man behind the veil--the really loveable nature which
could know as well as simulate feeling. And, indeed, it is this quality
which makes Pope endurable. He was--if we must speak bluntly--a liar and
a hypocrite; but the foundation of his character was not selfish or
grovelling. On the contrary, no man could be more warmly affectionate or
more exquisitely sensitive to many noble emotions. The misfortune was
that his constitutional infirmities, acted upon by unfavourable
conditions, developed his craving for applause and his fear of censure,
till certain morbid tendencies in him assumed proportions which,
compared to the same weaknesses in ordinary mankind, are as the growth
of plants in a tropical forest to their stunted representatives in the
North.
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