"So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding."
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by J. Wright
Date
1737
Metaphor
"So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding."
Metaphor in Context
You have at length comply'd with the request I have often made you, for you have shown me, I must confess, several of my faults in the sight of those letters. Upon a review of them, I find many things that would give me shame, if I were not more desirous to be thought honest than prudent: so many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding. You have prov'd your self more tender of another's embryo's than the fondest mothers are of their own, for you have preserv'd every thing that I miscarry'd of. Since I know this, I shall in one respect be more afraid of writing to you than ever, at this careless rate, because I see my evil works may again rise in judgment against me: yet in another respect I shall be less afraid, since this has given me such a proof of the extreme indulgence you afford to my slightest thoughts. The revisal of these letters has been a kind of examination of conscience to me; so fairly and faithfully have I set down in 'em from time to time the true and undisguised state of my mind. But I find, that these which were intended as sketches of my friendship, give as imperfect images of it, as the little landscapes we commonly see in black and white do of a beautiful country; they can represent but a very small part of it, and that depriv'd of the life and lustre of nature. I perceive that the more I endeavour'd to render manifest the real affection and value I ever had for you, I did but injure it by representing less and less of it: as glasses which are design'd to make an object very clear, generally contract it. Yet as when people have a full Idea of a thing first upon their own knowledge, the least traces of it serve to refresh the remembrance, and are not displeasing on that score; so I hope the foreknowledge you had of my esteem for you, is the reason that you do not dislike my letters.
(To the Hon. J. C. Esq., Dec. 5, 1712, pp. 95-6)
(To the Hon. J. C. Esq., Dec. 5, 1712, pp. 95-6)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in Google Books
Citation
Text from Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends (London: Printed by J. Wright, 1737). <Link to Google Books>
See also earlier printings of Pope's letters. Pope famously tricked Curll into pirating his correspondence in 1735 under the title Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734, before he issued an authorized edition of his own in 1737 as Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends. See also Curll's Miscellanea of 1727 which also includes letters written by Pope to Henry Cromwell. On Pope's stratagem and the 1737 text, see Raymond Stephanson's "Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope and the Curious Case of Modern Scholarship and the Vanishing Text" Eighteenth-Century Life 31:1 (2007): 1-21. <Link to ECL>
See also earlier printings of Pope's letters. Pope famously tricked Curll into pirating his correspondence in 1735 under the title Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734, before he issued an authorized edition of his own in 1737 as Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends. See also Curll's Miscellanea of 1727 which also includes letters written by Pope to Henry Cromwell. On Pope's stratagem and the 1737 text, see Raymond Stephanson's "Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope and the Curious Case of Modern Scholarship and the Vanishing Text" Eighteenth-Century Life 31:1 (2007): 1-21. <Link to ECL>
Date of Entry
07/08/2013
