Explore "Substance Versus Shadow" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt, / Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt! -- / Spare the offender and condemn Offense, / And make life miserable to Pretense! / "Whip Vice and Folly -- that is satire's use -- / But be not personal, for "that's" abuse; / Nor e'er forget what, 'like a razor keen, / Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen." / Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe, / To think that razor but an old, old saw, / A trifle rusty; and a wound, I'm sure, / That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure.
Go to! go to! -- you're as unfitted quite / To give advice to writers as to write.