Not Goldsmith himself painted a sveeter picture of resignation and piety; and, whatever else may have been true of Pope, these lines a so speak the truth of him. It may seem that the beauty of these contrasted notes in Pope's greatest poem is lost to the world to-day, because one of them at least, the warfare of the wits, was a temporary thing, now long forgotten and of interest only to the special student. To a certain degree and in the matter of form, this is no doubt the case. Yet the warfare substantially is not ended, and shall not end while the differences of human nature remain unreconciled. Men in this living age, always a few, are still fighting for the rights of the mind against a dull and delusive materialism, for the freedom of the imagination against a prosaic tyranny, for a pure and patient ambition against the quick successes of vanity and pliant cleverness, for the reality of human nature against a fatuous self-complacency. To these the triumphant satire of Pope is a perpetual encouragement, while his pathetic apology expresses for them the relief needed when success appears far away, or, even if near, not worth the cost in the humiliating wager of soul against soul. Nor is the theme of the Epistle without its more universal aspect. For after all life itself, not for the wit only, but for each man in his place, is a contest, and poetry, from the time when Homer portrayed his heroes battling with sword and fire on the banks of the Simois, and longing for the peace of hearth and kindred and friends across the seas, has been the expression, varying in form and instruments, of that inevitable fate. The presentation of this truth may in Pope be narrowed to a particular manner and time, it may assume ignoble images and speak too often in reprehensible language, nevertheless he who does not respond to the deep emotion and humanity underlying the Satires has travelled but a short way into the realm of letters; he has even, I dare assert, felt but a little of the great realities of man's life. |