There is no particular merit in loving a mother, but few biographies give a more striking proof that the loving discharge of a common duty may give a charm to a whole character.

It is melancholy to add that we often have to appeal to this part of his story, to assure ourselves that Pope was really deserving of some affection.
The part of Pope's history which naturally follows brings us again to the region of unsolved mysteries.

The one prescription which a spiritual physician would have suggested in Pope's case would have been the love of a good and sensible woman.

A nature so capable of tender feeling and so essentially dependent upon others, might have been at once soothed and supported by a happy domestic life; though it must be admitted that it would have required no common qualifications in a wife to calm so irritable and jealous a spirit.

Pope was unfortunate in his surroundings.