{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/mr-finks-debating-donkey",
 "title": "Mr. Fink’s Debating Donkey",
 "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": 62,
 "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": 83,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
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  "longest_line_chars": 67,
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  [
   {
    "text": "Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your leave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An unusual adventure into narrative to weave⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A public educator and an orator as well.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mr. Peters had a weakness which, ’tis painful to relate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He would foster disputation wheresoever he might be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In polygonal contention none so happy was as he.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas observable, however, that the exercises ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into monologue by Peters, that rhetorical young man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the Muscatelian rustics who assisted at the show,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By involuntary silence testified their overthrow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mr. Peters, all unheedful of their silence and their grief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still effacing every vestige of erroneous belief.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, he was a sore affliction to all heretics so bold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to entertain opinions that he didn’t care to hold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One day⁠—’twas in pursuance of a pedagogic plan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the mental elevation of Uncultivated Man⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mr. Peters, to his pupils, in dismissing them, explained",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the Friday evening following (unless, indeed, it rained)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would be signalized by holding in the schoolhouse a debate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Free to all who their opinions might desire to ventilate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the question, “Which is better, as a serviceable gift,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speech or hearing, from barbarity the human mind to lift?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pupils told their fathers, who, forehanded always, met",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the barroom to discuss it every evening, dry or wet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They argued it and argued it and spat upon the stove,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the non-committal barman on their differences throve.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I state it as a maxim in a loosish kind of way:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ll have the more to back your word the less you have to say.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Public interest was lively, but one Ebenezer Fink",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the Rancho del Jackrabbit, only seemed to sit and think.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On the memorable evening all the men of Muscatel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came to listen to the logic and the eloquence as well⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All but William Perry Peters, whose attendance there, I fear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was to wreak his ready rhetoric upon the public ear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And prove (whichever side he took) that hearing wouldn’t lift",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The human mind as ably as the other, greater gift.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The judges being chosen and the disputants enrolled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The question he proceeded in extenso to unfold:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Resolved⁠—The sense of hearing lifts the mind up out of reach",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the fogs of error better than the faculty of speech.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This simple proposition he expounded, word by word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until they best understood it who least perfectly had heard.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even the judges comprehended as he ventured to explain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The impact of a spit-ball admonishing in vain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beginning at a period before Creation’s morn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He had reached the bounds of tolerance and Adam yet unborn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As down the early centuries of pre-historic time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He tracked important principles and quoted striking rhyme,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Whisky Bill, prosaic soul! proclaiming him a jay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had risen and like an earthquake, “reeled unheededly away,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a late lamented cat, when opportunity should serve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was preparing to embark upon her parabolic curve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A noise arose outside⁠—the door was opened with a bang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And old Ebenezer Fink was heard ejaculating “G’lang!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight into that assembly gravely marched without a wink",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An ancient ass⁠—the property it was of Mr. Fink.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its ears depressed and beating time to its infestive tread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent through silence moved amain that stately quadruped!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It stopped before the orator, and in the lamplight thrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon its tail they saw that member weighted with a stone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then spake old Ebenezer: “Gents, I heern o’ this debate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On w’ether v’ice or y’ears is best the mind to elevate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now ’yer’s a bird ken throw some light uponto that tough theme:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He has ’em both, I’m free to say, oncommonly extreme.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He wa’n’t invited for to speak, but he will not refuse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(If t’other gentleman ken wait) to exposay his views.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ere merriment or anger o’er amazement could prevail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He cut the string that held the stone on that canary’s tail.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freed from the weight, that member made a gesture of delight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then rose until its rigid length was horizontal quite.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With lifted head and level ears along his withers laid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jack sighed, refilled his lungs and then⁠—to put it mildly⁠—brayed!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He brayed until the stones were stirred in circumjacent hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sleeping women rose and fled, in divers kinds of frills.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis said that awful bugle-blast⁠—to make the story brief⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wafted William Perry Peters through the window, like a leaf!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Such is the tale. If anything additional occurred",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis not set down, though, truly, I remember to have heard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That a gentleman named Peters, now residing at Soquel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A considerable distance from the town of Muscatel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is opposed to education, and to rhetoric, as well.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}