{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-an-insolent-attorney",
 "title": "To an Insolent Attorney",
 "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": 95,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
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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": {
  "n_lines": 68,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "So, Hall McAllister, you’ll not be warned⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My protest slighted, admonition scorned!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To save your scoundrel client from a cell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As loth to swallow him as he to swell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its sum of meals insurgent (it decries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All wars intestinal with meats that rise)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You turn your scurril tongue against the press",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And damn the agency you ought to bless.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had not the press with all its hundred eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Discerned the wolf beneath the sheep’s disguise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And raised the cry upon him, he to-day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would lack your company, and you would lack his pay.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Talk not of “hire” and consciences for sale⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You whose profession ’tis to threaten, rail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Calumniate and libel at the will",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of any villain who can pay the bill⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You whose most honest dollars all were got",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By saying for a fee “the thing that’s not!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To you ’tis one, to challenge or defend;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clients are means, their money is an end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In my profession sometimes, as in yours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Always, a payment large enough secures",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A mercenary service to defend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The guilty or the innocent to rend.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But mark the difference, nor think it slight:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We do not hold it proper, just and right;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of selfish lies a little still we shame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And give our villainies another name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hypocrisy’s an ugly vice, no doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But blushing sinners can’t get on without.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Happy the lawyer!⁠—at his favored hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor truth nor decency the world demands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Secure in his immunity from shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His cheek ne’er kindles with the tell-tale flame.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His brains for sale, morality for hire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In every land and century a licensed liar!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No doubt, McAllister, you can explain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How honorable ’tis to lie for gain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Provided only that the jury’s made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To understand that lying is your trade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A hundred thousand volumes, broad and flat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(The Bible not included) proving that,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have been put forth, though still the doubt remains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If God has read them with befitting pains.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No Morrow could get justice, you’ll declare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If none who knew him foul affirmed him fair.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ingenious man! how easy ’tis to raise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An argument to justify the course that pays!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I grant you, if you like, that men may need",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The services performed for crime by greed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grant that the perfect welfare of the State",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Requires the aid of those who in debate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As mercenaries lost in early youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fine distinction between lie and truth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who cheat in argument and set a snare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take the feet of Justice unaware⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who serve with livelier zeal when rogues assist",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With perjury, embracery (the list",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is long to quote) than when an honest soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scorning to plot, conspire, intrigue, cajole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reminds them (their astonishment how great!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He’d rather suffer wrong than perpetrate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I grant, in short, ’tis better all around",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That ambidextrous consciences abound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In courts of law to do the dirty work",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That self-respecting scavengers would shirk.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What then? Who serves however clean a plan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By doing dirty work, he is a dirty man!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}