{"id":"01KG6YH01NMNY0CXBJ5P0Z0001","cid":"bafkreig47meoh7u55jicnwck4dxrw22fvkvb7apemnlpzatqnguc32vmsu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1791,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 14","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":1722,"text":"as I somehow cling to the strange fancy, that, in all men, hiddenly\r\nreside certain wondrous, occult properties--as in some plants and\r\nminerals--which by some happy but very rare accident (as bronze was\r\ndiscovered by the melting of the iron and brass at the burning of\r\nCorinth) may chance to be called forth here on earth; not entirely\r\nwaiting for their better discovery in the more congenial, blessed\r\natmosphere of heaven.\r\n\r\nOnce more--for it is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and\r\nall subjects are infinite. By some people this entire scrawl of mine\r\nmay be esteemed altogether unnecessary, inasmuch \"as years ago\" (they\r\nmay say) \"we found out the rich and rare stuff in this Hawthorne, who\r\nyou now parade forth, as if only you _yourself_ were the discoverer\r\nof this Portuguese diamond in your literature.\" But even granting all\r\nthis--and adding to it, the assumption that the books of Hawthorne have\r\nsold by the five thousand,--what does that signify? They should be sold\r\nby the hundred thousand; and read by the million; and admired by every\r\none who is capable of admiration.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nJIMMY ROSE\r\n\r\n\r\nA time ago, no matter how long precisely, I, an old man, removed from\r\nthe country to the city, having become unexpected heir to a great old\r\nhouse in a narrow street of one of the lower wards, once the haunt of\r\nstyle and fashion, full of gay parlors and bridal chambers, but now,\r\nfor the most part, transformed into counting-rooms and warehouses.\r\nThere bales and boxes usurp the place of sofas; daybooks and ledgers\r\nare spread where once the delicious breakfast toast was buttered. In\r\nthose old wards the glorious old soft-warfle days are over.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, in this old house of mine, so strangely spared, some\r\nmonument of departed days survived. Nor was this the only one. Amidst\r\nthe warehouse ranges some few other dwellings likewise stood. The\r\nstreet's transmutation was not yet complete. Like those old English\r\nfriars and nuns, long haunting the ruins of their retreats after\r\nthey had been despoiled, so some few strange old gentlemen and ladies\r\nstill lingered in the neighborhood, and would not, could not, might\r\nnot quit it. And I thought that when, one spring, emerging from my\r\nwhite-blossoming orchard, my own white hairs and white ivory-headed\r\ncane were added to their loitering census, that those poor old souls\r\ninsanely fancied the ward was looking up--the tide of fashion setting\r\nback again.\r\n\r\nFor many years the old house had been occupied by an owner; those\r\ninto whose hands it from time to time had passed having let it out to\r\nvarious shifting tenants; decayed old townspeople, mysterious recluses,\r\nor transient, ambiguous-looking foreigners.\r\n\r\nWhile from certain cheap furbishings to which the exterior had been\r\nsubjected, such as removing a fine old pulpit-like porch crowning\r\nthe summit of six lofty steps, and set off with a broad-brimmed\r\nsounding-board overshadowing the whole, as well as replacing the\r\noriginal heavy window shutters (each pierced with a crescent in the\r\nupper panel to admit an Oriental and moony light into the otherwise\r\nshut-up rooms of a sultry morning in July) with frippery Venetian\r\nblinds; while, I repeat, the front of the house hereby presented an\r\nincongruous aspect, as if the graft of modernness had not taken in its\r\nancient stock; still, however it might fare without, within little or\r\nnothing had been altered. The cellars were full of great grim, arched\r\nbins of blackened brick, looking like the ancient tombs of Templars,\r\nwhile overhead were shown the first-floor timbers, huge, square, and\r\nmassive, all red oak, and through long eld, of a rich and Indian color.\r\nSo large were those timbers, and so thickly ranked, that to walk in\r\nthose capacious cellars was much like walking along a line-of-battle\r\nship's gun-deck.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 14"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGJFFWM00TFQS297SSV","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH01NT8VWCPHNCFRPJ8RA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH01NYRCYMK5C8ST016ZT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:46.933Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:53.149Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}