“In other men we faults can spy,
And blame the mote that dims their eye;
Each little speck and error find;
To our own stronger errors blind.”
One of the most classical masters of modern English, whether in verse or prose, was employing the same metre—of fatal facility, as it is called—when he closed his address to a brother bard in a strain that must also close this chapter of instances:
“We, who surround a common table,
And imitate the fashionable,
Wear each two eye-glasses: this lens
Shows us our faults, that other men’s.
We do not care how dim may be