{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-dilemma",
 "title": "A Dilemma",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 144,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For years I criticised their prose and verses:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pointed out all their blunders of the pen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their shallowness of thought and feeling; then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They said: “That’s all that he can do⁠—just sneer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pull to pieces and be analytic.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why doesn’t he himself, eschewing fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Publish a book or two, and so appear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As one who has the right to be a critic?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Let him who knows it all forbear to tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How little others know, but show his learning.”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And then they added: “Who has written well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May censure freely”⁠—quoting Pope. I fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the trap and books began out-turning⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Books by the score⁠—fine prose and poems fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not a book of them but was a terror,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They were so great and perfect; though I swear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I tried right hard to work in, here and there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(My nature still forbade) a fault or error.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis true, some wretches, whom I’d scratched, no doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Professed to find⁠—but that’s a trifling matter.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now, when the flood of noble books was out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I raised o’er all that land a joyous shout,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till I was thought as mad as any hatter!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "(Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twere wrong in their affliction to revile ’em,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But truly, you’ll confess ’tis very sad",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We wear the ugly things they make. Begad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’d be less mischievous in an asylum!)",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Consistency, thou art a”⁠—well, you’re paste!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When next I felt my demon in possession,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And made the field of authorship a waste,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All said of me: “What execrable taste,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To rail at others of his own profession!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Good Lord! where do the critic’s rights begin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who has of literature some clear-cut notion,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And hears a voice from Heaven say: “Pitch in”?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He finds himself⁠—alas, poor son of sin⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between the devil and the deep blue ocean!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}