Page:Ethel Churchill 1.pdf/255

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Life's best gifts are bought dearly. Wealth is won By years of toil, and often comes too late: With pleasure comes satiety; and pomp Ts compassed round with vexing vanities: And genius, earth's most glorious gift, that lasts When all beside is perished in the dust- How bitter is the suffering it endures! How dark the penalty that it exacts!

,—I return at once to the dinner at Lady Oxford's. Mr. Pope was within two of me at table. At first our meeting was a little awkward: he could not forget that I had witnessed his mortification. Pope is more pettish than the Dean of St. Patrick's. He could not, I am persuaded, even comprehend the other's deep misanthropy. He takes pleasure in what Swift would disdain. I cannot