{"id":"01KG6GMSTRF7D7DMTEVA3VWD66","cid":"bafkreiafgqctzh3au6kluim7ng2efq53nqxvpgdiatyw2w45weaedsnv5y","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11058,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":10981,"text":"‘My daughters,’ said I, mildly, ‘you should remember that this is not\r\nMadame Pazzi, the conjuress, you put your questions to, but the eminent\r\nnaturalist, Professor Johnson. And now, Professor,’ I added, ‘be pleased\r\nto explain. Enlighten our ignorance.’\r\n\r\nWithout repeating all the learned gentleman said--for, indeed, though\r\nlucid, he was a little prosy--let the following summary of his\r\nexplication suffice.\r\n\r\nThe incident was not wholly without example. The wood of the table was\r\napple-tree, a sort of tree much fancied by various insects. The bugs had\r\ncome from eggs laid inside the bark of the living tree in the orchard.\r\nBy careful examination of the position of the hole from which the last\r\nbug had emerged, in relation to the cortical layers of the slab, and\r\nthen allowing for the inch and a half along the grain, ere the bug had\r\neaten its way entirely out, and then computing the whole number of\r\ncortical layers in the slab, with a reasonable conjecture for the number\r\ncut off from the outside, it appeared that the egg must have been laid\r\nin the tree some ninety years, more or less, before the tree could have\r\nbeen felled. But between the felling of the tree and the present time,\r\nhow long might that be? It was a very old-fashioned table. Allow eighty\r\nyears for the age of the table, which would make one hundred and fifty\r\nyears that the bug had lain in the egg. Such, at least, was Professor\r\nJohnson’s computation.\r\n\r\n‘Now, Julia,’ said I, ‘after that scientific statement of the case\r\n(though, I confess, I don’t exactly understand it) where are your\r\nspirits? It is very wonderful as it is, but where are your spirits?’\r\n\r\n‘Where, indeed?’ said my wife.\r\n\r\n‘Why, now, she did not _really_ associate this purely natural phenomenon\r\nwith any crude, spiritual hypothesis, did she?’ observed the learned\r\nprofessor, with a slight sneer.\r\n\r\n‘Say what you will,’ said Julia, holding up, in the covered tumbler, the\r\nglorious, lustrous, flashing, live opal, ‘say what you will, if this\r\nbeauteous creature be not a spirit, it yet teaches a spiritual lesson.\r\nFor if, after one hundred and fifty years’ entombment, a mere insect\r\ncomes forth at last into light, itself an effulgence, shall there be no\r\nglorified resurrection for the spirit of man? Spirits! spirits!’ she\r\nexclaimed, with rapture, ‘I still believe in them with delight, when\r\nbefore I but thought of them with terror.’\r\n\r\nThe mysterious insect did not long enjoy its radiant life; it expired\r\nthe next day. But my girls have preserved it. Embalmed in a silver\r\nvinaigrette, it lies on the little apple-tree table in the pier of the\r\ncedar-parlour.\r\n\r\nAnd whatever lady doubts this story, my daughters will be happy to show\r\nher both the bug and the table, and point out to her, in the repaired\r\nslab of the latter, the two sealing-wax drops designating the exact\r\nplace of the two holes made by the two bugs, something in the same way\r\nin which are marked the spots where the cannon balls struck Brattle\r\nStreet church.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n                             UNDER THE ROSE\r\n\r\n (_Being an extract from an old MS. entitled ‘Travels in Persia (Iran)\r\n               by a servant of My Lord the Ambassador.’_)\r\n\r\n\r\n... These roses of divers hues, red, yellow, pink, and white, the black\r\nslave, a clean-limbed adolescent, and comely for all his flat nose; he,\r\nbefore offering them to My Lord to refresh him with their colour and\r\nscent, did, at the Azem’s bidding, drop them into a delicate vase of\r\namber; and so cunningly, withal, that they fell as of themselves into\r\nthe attitude of young damsels leaning over the balustrade of a dome and\r\ngazing downward; so that the vase itself was all but hidden from view,\r\nat least, much of the upper part thereof, where I noted that certain\r\n_relievos_ were, though truly I could get but a peep thereof at that\r\ntime.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GK9PNVA7517VNR0NXKXAW","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMSTRFF2Y98D3K4Y5JGJZ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMSTRJGV51KFTCQZ4PW97","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:11.576Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:21.366Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}