Date: August 18, 1716; 1735

"If Momus’s project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements: that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, e’en take it out, and trust to their handling."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"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)

Date: 1737

""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"I have been lying in wait for my own imagination this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"That man makes a mean figure in the eye of reason, who is measuring syllables and coupling rhimes, when he should be mending his own soul and securing his own immortality."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"I thank you heartily for the new idea of life you there gave me; it will remain long with me, for it is very strongly impressed upon my imagination."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"A President of the council, or a star and garter will make no more impression upon my mind, at such a time, than the hearing of a bagpipe, or the sight of a poppet-show."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"It is not so much the being exempt from Faults, as the having overcome them, that is an Advantage to us; it being with the Follies of the Mind as with the Weeds of a Field, which, if destroyed and consumed upon the place of their Birth, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung the...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)