{"id":"01KG6G85H6ZFB5ADSMFSM9BDZZ","cid":"bafkreielmvidjjxg5jmejvzhbkv6zk3xhg3qvlxyjt35jmg43dqr25rule","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1363,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":1303,"text":"                                   X\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat was the matter with the master-at-arms? And be the matter what it\r\nmight, how could it have direct relation to Billy Budd, with whom prior\r\nto the affair of the spilled soup he had never come into any special\r\ncontact, official or otherwise? What indeed could the trouble have to do\r\nwith one so little inclined to give offence as the merchant ship’s\r\n_peacemaker_, even him who in Claggart’s own phrase was ‘the sweet and\r\npleasant young fellow’? Yes, why should _Jemmy Legs_, to borrow the\r\nDansker’s expression, be _down_ on the Handsome Sailor?\r\n\r\nBut, at heart and not for nothing, as the late chance encounter may\r\nindicate to the discerning, down on him, secretly down on him, he\r\nassuredly was.\r\n\r\nNow to invent something touching the more private career of Claggart,\r\nsomething involving Billy Budd, of which something the latter should be\r\nwholly ignorant, some romantic incident implying that Claggart’s\r\nknowledge of the young blue-jacket began at some period anterior to\r\ncatching sight of him on board the seventy-four--all this, not so\r\ndifficult to do, might avail in a way more or less interesting to\r\naccount for whatever enigma may appear to lurk in the case. But, in\r\nfact, there was nothing of the sort. And yet the cause, necessarily to\r\nbe assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much\r\ncharged with that prime element of Radcliffian romance, _the\r\nmysterious_, as any that the ingenuity of the author of the _Mysteries\r\nof Udolpho_ could devise. For what can more partake of the mysterious\r\nthan an antipathy spontaneous and profound such as is evoked in certain\r\nexceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other mortal, however\r\nharmless he may be?--if not called forth by that very harmlessness\r\nitself.\r\n\r\nNow there can exist no irritating juxtaposition of dissimilar\r\npersonalities comparable to that which is possible aboard a great\r\nwarship fully manned and at sea. There, every day, among all ranks,\r\nalmost every man comes into more or less of contact with almost every\r\nother man. Wholly there to avoid even the sight of an aggravating object\r\none must needs give it Jonah’s toss, or jump overboard himself. Imagine\r\nhow all this might eventually operate on some peculiar human creature\r\nthe direct reverse of a saint?\r\n\r\nBut for the adequate comprehending of Claggart by a normal nature these\r\nhints are insufficient. To pass from a normal nature to him one must\r\ncross ‘the deadly space between,’ and this is best done by indirection.\r\n\r\nLong ago an honest scholar, my senior, said to me in reference to one\r\nwho like himself is now no more, a man so unimpeachably respectable that\r\nagainst him nothing was ever openly said, though among the few something\r\nwas whispered, ‘Yes, X---- is a nut not to be cracked by the tap of a\r\nlady’s fan. You are aware that I am the adherent of no organised\r\nreligion, much less of any philosophy built into a system. Well, for all\r\nthat, I think that to try and get into X----, enter his labyrinth, and\r\nget out again, without a clue derived from some source other than what\r\nis known as _knowledge of the world_, that were hardly possible, at\r\nleast for me.’\r\n\r\n‘Why,’ said I, ‘X----, however singular a study to some, is yet human,\r\nand knowledge of the world assuredly implies the knowledge of human\r\nnature, and in most of its varieties.’\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6NZQDT19J9MSHXZPHRXV","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G85H6WQNCKA5S4H2NKA41","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:17.574Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:24.480Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}