Note 1555 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
MS.:
More pleasing, then, humanity's soft tears Than all the mirth unfeeling folly wears.
There are numerous grades of character between "unfeeling folly" and christian excellence, and many gratifications of the earthly-minded are assuredly more pleasant for the time than the sharp and ennobling pangs of suffering virtue.