us in history and
literature, on the other hand, are perpetually giving the lie to the
formulae we invent, and are bound to invent, for them. They give us
pleasure not by confirming us, but by surprising us. It seems to me
absurd, then, to regard Walpole's air of indifference as the only real
thing about him and to question his raptures. From his first travels among
the Alps with Gray down to his senile letters to Hannah More about the
French Revolution, we see him as a man almost hysterical in the intensity
of his sensations, whether of joy or of horror. He lived for his
sensations like an aesthete. He wrote of himself as "I, who am as constant
at a fire as George Selwyn at an execution." If he cared for the crownings
of kings and such occasions, it was because he took a childish delight in
the fireworks and illuminations.

He had the keen spirit of a masquerader. Masquerades, he declared, were
"one of my ancient passions," and we find him as an elderly man dressing
out "a thousand young Conways and Cholmondeleys" for an entertainment of
the kind, and going "with more pleasure to see them pleased than when I
formerly delighted in that diversion myself." He was equally an enthusiast
in his hobbies and his tastes. He rejoiced to get back in May to
Strawberry Hill, "where my two passions, lilacs and nightingales, are in
bloom." He could not have made his collections or built his battlements in
a mood of indifference. In his love of mediaeval ruins he showed himself a
Goth-intoxicated man. As for Strawberry Hill itself, the result may have
been a ridiculous mouse, but it took a mountain of enthusiasm to produce
it. Walpole's own description of his house and its surroundings has an
exquisite charm that almost makes one love the place as he did. "It is a
little plaything house," he told Conway, "that I got out of Mrs.
Chenevix's shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw. It is set in
enamelled meadows, with filigree hedges:

"A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little finches wave their wings in gold."

He goes on to decorate the theme with comic and fanciful properties:

Two delightful roads that you would call dusty supply me continually
with coaches and chaises; barges as solemn as barons of the exchequer
move under my window; Richmond Hill and Ham-walks bound my prospect;
but, thank God, the Thames is between me and the Duchess of
Queensberry. Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit