Note 1252 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
The infant's pleasure in trifles may be the kindly work of nature providing for the enjoyments of an age incapable of better things; but the maturer delight in the "scarfs, garters, gold," is not the work of nature, but of folly. The first is a harmless instinct; the other a culpable vanity.—Croly.