{"id":"01KG6G8ADMA537J19EKQ5EY0YB","cid":"bafkreibg47aon2mlakzjivdzyd4zlmnvqznzgrp6gtwq2c5zrp7glkls6m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11444,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":11381,"text":"its records. Neither are they Alexanders and Napoleons that the fame\r\nwhich is all but independent of literature should trumpet them.\r\nNevertheless, in local tradition, and comparatively recent, I do find a\r\ncitable instance which, though below the grade, say, of a de Grandvin,\r\nand but in a minor way to the purpose, may perhaps for these reasons\r\nserve the better to actualise the general truth, in a measure bring it\r\nhome.\r\n\r\nRufus Choate, the Boston advocate, when inspired to his best before an\r\naudience, how he exhilarated and elevated and transported his hearers.\r\nBut he is gone; and all those fireworks of elfish passion and wit, where\r\nare they? Vainly in the Ceramicus of the libraries will you seek any\r\nenduring monument of that oratorical pyrotechnist. As well ransack the\r\nmuseums of Natural History for the bottled-up tail of Encke’s comet.\r\nWhat shall we say, then? Are there natures strong to draw and enthrall,\r\nyet whose influence is like that of the magnet, only operative as a\r\nbodily presence? Yes, withdraw the magnet and all is over. And holds\r\nthis true as to the Marquis de Grandvin? Yea, and shall he also at last\r\nvanish, sailing into the boundless Nil, leaving no phosphorescent wake\r\nor magic moon-glade behind? Shall naught remain of his cherub sparkle\r\nand spirit?--nothing of all those ineffable qualities that make him what\r\nRaphael, Milton’s affable archangel, would be seen to be were he\r\ncommissioned hither to dissuade mankind from ever perpetrating an\r\ninhumanity or a pun? And, oh, thou Admirable Crichton, nay, a\r\nthousandfold more admirable than he, for art thou not kindly as\r\nwise?--of all thy more sustained sallies of bright fantasy and humour,\r\nlet alone thy erratic coruscations, shall nothing be crystallised into\r\npermanence? Nothing at last remain of our Lord Bountiful but the empty\r\nlarder and void dusty bin? When we laud thee departed, shall the infidel\r\ntwit us with--What were his assets? If the very plenitude and variety of\r\nthy shining gifts, and the preoccupation of thy social charm, if these\r\nindispose thee to drudge it as an ‘author,’ or operate as\r\ndisqualifications; will no painstaking aspirant for the literary fame\r\nessay the task of methodising thee, or some little segment of thee, into\r\nthe literary form? But even thy foremost disciple, Jack Gentian, though\r\nout of humble emulation he strive to follow thy devious footing, yet thy\r\nbrow is among the stars; he ventures not to lift his head to thy height.\r\n\r\nBut I--ah, brimmed with thy genial flood--I, here, in the small hour,\r\nnot long returned from a richer than Plato’s ‘Banquet,’ where thou didst\r\npour from thy cornucopia, with a hand redundant as that of Millet’s\r\nseed-sower, the profusion of thy good things; I, audacious as I am,\r\nresolved upon an emprise.\r\n\r\nThe Marquis, methought, though glorious, is not of the gods, the more\r\nreproach to their synod; but I will make them yield a place for him on\r\ntheir golden benches; I will make him an Immortal! How? Monumentalise\r\nhim to the remotest posterity in a book fragrant as violets, yet lasting\r\nas the Pyramids!\r\n\r\nYes, and as the prophets of old, announcing the mind of their deity, in\r\nsome instances dramatically put on his personality, even so will I\r\nassume that of de Grandvin. How otherwise, indeed? since he it is that\r\nkindles me, inspires me, usurps me. I will snatch at those themes--New\r\nItaly and the Old Masters--wherein this very night we heard him so\r\nsportively romance. I will render the fine festivity of his tone, as\r\nwell as the loftier touch; catch the rhythm of the waves of his seas of\r\ninvention; swim out there; in short, I did by implication say to myself\r\nan insane thing--I will imitate the inimitable!\r\n\r\nThe issue of the temerarious resolve, how humiliating! And no wonder.\r\nThe inordinate aim, and the inadequate achievement! The soaring ambition\r\nof the balloon, and its abrupt drop at a fatal puncture!\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6RFZ78NXTBC0B5M5HQR0","peer_type":"article","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G8ADC8K0FFS9CSNXH5TKF","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G8ADFVJB3QBCKR1RYG1EP","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:22.580Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:32.300Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}