Catharine monologue (Act 5) — The Merchant Prince of Cornville: A Comedy

And may you at nightfall bear them as lightly! Fine weather makes quick friends. Come, then, gentlemen, will you buy? Each one in his own humor. If there be a true merchant among you, I will tempt him with the fish’s weight; if there be a moralist, with the fish’s moral; if there be a scientist, with the fish’s complicated structure; if there be a poet, with the fish’s most poetical history; if there be a gourmand, with the fish’s flavor. Each one shall see in the fish he buys, his own humor. He shall have both weight and moral; for a good moral without weight is immoral, and a good weight without a good moral is a dull measure. You shall pay me for the weight, for that the fish had in the sea; but for the moral, that is in my humor, and gain has taken a vacation. Every one has his pastime, and no one is so poor but he has his humor. Mine is to see men buy a fish, each in his own humor; for by the fish’s scales will I weigh him.