Praise & Slander

Praise and slander are both fruits of magnification;
The one focuses on virtue; the other, on vice.
The one supplants the other or versa vice.
Thus, bias judges by exaggeration
What feelings are aroused by sympathy,
And striking a note once, then twice,
Then times a many, grows voluminous ever,
Until revoked, stilled, transformed, removed.
Then does feeling spur reason to find more reasons
To back what it feels, and gets stronger thereby:
This all to prove that man knows a little
But speaks much more,
And one only sees as much as one feels.

14 July 2007