{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/by-false-pretenses",
 "title": "By False Pretenses",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 27,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "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": {
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  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "John S. Hittell, whose sovereign genius wields",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The quill his tributary body yields;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The author of an opera⁠—that is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All but the music and libretto’s his:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A work renowned, whose formidable name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Linked with his own, repels the assault of fame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the high vantage of a dusty shelf,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Secure from all the world except himself;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who told the tale of “Culture” in a screed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all might understand if all would read;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Master of poesy and lord of prose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dowered, like a setter, with a double nose;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That one for Erato, for Clio this;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He flushes both⁠—not his fault if we miss;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Judge of the painter’s art, who’ll straight proclaim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hue of any color you can name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And knows a painting with a canvas back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Distinguished from a duck by the duck’s quack;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This thinker and philosopher, whose work",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is famous from Commercial street to Turk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has now a fortune, of his pen the meed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A woman left it him who could not read,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so went down to death’s eternal night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweetly unconscious that the wretch could write.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}