And yet the fate of all extremes is such, Men may be read, as well as books, too much. 10 To observations which ourselves we make, We grow more partial for the observer's sake; To written wisdom, as another's, less: Maxims are drawn from notions, those from guess. There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain, Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein: Shall only man be taken in the gross? Grant but as many sorts of mind as moss. That each from other differs, first confess; Next that he varies from himself no less: 20 Add nature's, custom's, reason's, passion's strife, And all opinion's colours cast on life. Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds, Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds? On human actions reason though you can, It may be reason, but it is not man: His principle of action once explore, That instant 'tis his principle no more. Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect. 30 Yet more; the difference is as great between The optics seeing, as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolour'd, through our passions shown; Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. Nor will life's stream for observation stay, It hurries all too fast to mark their way: In vain sedate reflections we would make, When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. 40 Oft, in the passions' wild rotation toss'd, Our spring of action to ourselves is lost: Tired, not determined, to the last we yield, And what comes then is master of the field. As the last image of that troubled heap, When sense subsides, and fancy sports in sleep, (Though past the recollection of the thought), Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought: Something as dim to our internal view, Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do. 50 True, some are open, and to all men known; Others so very close, they're hid from none; (So darkness strikes the sense no less than light) Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight; And every child hates Shylock, though his soul Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole. At half mankind when generous Manly raves, All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves: When universal homage Umbra pays, All see 'tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise. 60 When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen, While one there is who charms us with his spleen. But these plain characters we rarely find; Though strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind: Or puzzling contraries confound the whole; Or affectations quite reverse the soul. The dull, flat falsehood serves for policy; And, in the cunning, truth itself's a lie: Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise; The fool lies hid in inconsistencies. 70