Pope's real cleverness lies in his refusal to separate forgiveness from the human condition—he doesn't say we *should* forgive, but rather that the ability to truly forgive elevates us beyond our nature. The quiet radicalism here is that he grants us permission to fail while insisting we're capable of something harder than perfection: the grace to release another's failure. When a friend betrays your trust and you find yourself torn between justified anger and the exhausting weight of holding a grudge, you're experiencing exactly what Pope means—forgiveness isn't the easy default, but the costly, almost supernatural choice that marks us as something more than our worst moments.